Back to the Drawing Board!

Oh no! I ahve used embossing in my letters, etc...and it isn't all about bright cartoonish images! Oh well!

The point of this little book was to learn from my mistakes BEFORE I put out the murder mystery series.  And YUP, it has been a challenging uphill learning curve indeed!

The latest thing is I found out I have to TRICK the Ingram Sparks book calculator into thinking I am in another place to get it to acknowledge the postal code...so I put the VPN address for USA and it worked. It was either that, or the WIFI signal is better since I had to come into Vilacabama to do it!  Either way, FINALLY I was able to find out how much it would cost to do this project.  As it turned out, it was even more than I expected. I cannot charge $20.00 USD for a children's book especially when it is Canadian!

So what to do, what to do.  Well, I have decided to change the formatting completely which is one of the reasons I like being an INDIE writer and publisher. I can do exactly what I want in so many ways and don't have to wait for anyone else! One of the PERKS of doing all the work yourself.

Instead of a 11 X 8.5 LANDSCAPE BOOK it shall be a 5.5 x 8.5 PORTRAIT BOOK!  How am I doing this? By scrapping the ink drawing on the left page and making the drawing part of a 2 page spread.  In other words the picture will be over two pages.

So, I have decided NOTHING about this book is going to be the norm. Even though it is not a TRADITIONAL number of pages for a spread, as long as it is in multiples of 2, it is ok, so I am doing a 36 page book!  My next children's book will have a traditional layout and I will go over spreads and layouts and number of pages, etc then. (aren't you lucky, I have had to do all the research and it is all here INCLUDING my mistakes on what NOT to do!).

So, also the book cover is NOT traditional and I have done this for a number of reasons I will explain below.

Firstly, everyone including my retired graphic illustrator friend will tell you to look at other books and do what they are doing!  I had a design done for my murder mystery cover and had to take it back to the beginning and make it match what everyone else does for a book cover.  That means no fancy effects to the fonts, straight forward lay outs that are traditional, etc.

WEEEELLLLL, Nope, not doing that for this one!  Even though it is written for children, it isn't JUST written for children.  It was written with 2 groups of readers in mind (they say always think of your audience).

I am a trained TA who has worked with children all my life and I have learned a few things, including from raising my own son.

First thing I learned is I don't want to just read fairy tales and books that have nice rhymes and silly pictures in them.  With my son, it didn't even OCCURR to me to read him a story!  I read to him scientific style books about fish and dinosaurs and things of this nature from the time he was born!  He didn't know what a fairy tale was until he was about ten!  

I did this because it just seems normal to me and it turns out, it was a GOOD thing. There have been studies done that show children who are read to this sort of content from an early age, DEVELOP A GREATER ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AND INTERPRET TEXT LATER ON IN LIFE.  I suppose it makes sense, since they learn to read and learn ALL about the story and not just word for word.

Another reason I am putting on this cover, is because I have worked with many high school grade kids who have learning issues.  These kids want to fit in, but they cannot read the content of chapter books of their age group and who wants to carry around homework reading a book with a bright cartoonish type cover on it at age 16?!?! I wouldn't!  So this book is also for this group of students.

Lastly I have worked with a good many GIFTED in reading children who are sort of stuck. The content of books that are supposed to be their age level is boring and just not challenging enough.  I have found these kids have a hunger for facts and knowledge but are often over looked with mainstream books!  So this book is full of cute BUT interesting FACTS.  Things, I know a good many children, would love to have had to read when they were younger!  

I have NEVER underestimated or had low expectations my students. I didn't always listen to what a psychologist or other person who had evaluated them had to say.  I noticed quite often there was so little time or money in the system, the assessment questionnaire was something so generic it reminded me of a placemat at a Chinese restaurant!  Could be anyone when it got right down to it!  So, especially when I was subbing, I let the children show me what they could do, not a one hour evaluation done five years previously with no follow up and not concept that the child might GROW! And for the record, many times the child didn't let me down and showed great progress and surprises!  Many times I found the children who had behavioural issues were BORED and were looking for a different sort of stimulation.

These are the reasons why my cover is UNUSUAL...because it is for children that are UNUSUAL; not special needs or "different".  Just children that walk to the beat of their own drum.  The words are a mix of easy and not so easy but I think this is ok.  Children are like sponges, they will add it to their vocabulary...especially now with Youtube and other site on line that expose these coming generations to so much more than Tom and Jane or Jack and Jill!

The book will end up costing approx. $10.95 USD now and I still get a little profit.  Not huge but better than nothing!  I will write about profits for an POD writer another time.
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