How to Write and Publish a Picture Book

1. Intro : I'm Alicia Pace. Author illustrator of a handful of picture books including How to Potti tran a dinosaur. I have done lots of different publishing paths. Which publishing path is the perfect fit for you, your personality, and whether or not you like to market your books. What your story is about is also going to predict which path will be best for your successful picture book. We'll also talk about story arcs and how to create a picture book that will be intriguing for your young readers. I really hope that by the end of this class, you will have a clear vision of how you're going to go about this. Process is different depending on which publishing route you go. We are going to talk about self publishing, Amazon KVP, getting an agent, query we will go through all of that so that you can feel a little bit less overwhelmed in this giant world of publishing. It can be complicated. I have been doing it for ten years and have many, many titles out there. Some of them have succeeded and some of them have not. And I would like to clear up some mistakes that I've made so that you can have a smoother road where you want to be with your picture book. By the end of this class, I want you to have a roadmap and three action steps for you in your picture book, as well as clarity on how you are going to go about publishing your picture. Classes for authors and illustrators, or if you do not want to draw your own book, there is a section that we talk about hiring an artist or having the publisher have an illustrator for you. We will clear up all of that. You have a picture book idea, that is great, but if you do not, we will go through that. I'm excited to see you in class, and this is going to be fun. 2. Goal Clarity: So you want to write a picture book. I'm glad you're here. Oh, I want to share with you the market savvy method for creating picture books that will make it easy for you and stress free so that this can be a fun little side gig if you are a mom or if you have a full time job. You just want to do this for fun. But I will also be exploring for those of you who love marketing and want to potentially create this to be something bigger that could bring in a lot of income. So I want you to get clear on your picture book goal and what it is that you're wanting to get out of this. Then we'll be learning the market savvy method and brainstorming ideas so that you can create a picture book that sells itself. Then we want to solidify your story arc, flesh out your manuscript, create a picture book dummy, which is a storyboard, then we'll get to editing, and then I want you to make a decision on how your book will be published, but we will be talking about that in this video so that you can know how you're wanting to proceed because the path and the process is a bit different depending on how you want to publish, and that depends a bit on your personality. We'll discuss that in this video. Then we'll talk about finishing out the art or hiring an artist and sending it out to publishing so you can get marketing. If that sounds good, we'll get going. Even though I have had a lot of experience and has learned what works for me, I encourage you to do what seems best for you. To introduce myself, I am Alicia Pace. I am the author and illustrator of I don't know, 20 plus books. I don't like numbers, so I don't count it's hard to know what to count because I do some journals and workbooks. But your best teacher will not be me, it will be experience, and I'm hoping to make there to be less pitfalls and stumbling blocks through this class, but ultimately get started even before you feel ready because that's how you'll learn. First, I want to get clear on your goals because if you get in a car and you don't know where you're trying to get to, you probably won't get there. You got to get clear on where you want to go. Are you wanting a picture book that's basically just for your kids or your family or do you have a family history story that you want to create that'll just be a family heirloom sort of thing? Or did you love a certain type of picture book as a kid and you'd love to make one for a creative outlet, in which case there's not a lot of pressure, right? Are you trying to make some side money for travel or fun things? Is that what you're looking to do? Then that will also dictate how you proceed because there are certain picture books that will sell better, but that doesn't always need to be the motivator. If you're doing this for fun, then let it be fun. If it's to check it off the bucket list, then keep it light and keep it fun. Have you always wanted to create a picture? If so, what were the obstacles in the past that kept you from doing it? It's important to be self aware of those because they might come up. Are you afraid of rejection? Are you afraid it's not going to be perfect? What's keeping you? Is it time. But sometimes those things are cover ups for what we're really afraid of. And then now picture what it would be like to have that finished picture book. What are the feelings you want to feel at that moment? Are you wanting to feel proud of yourself? Are you wanting to feel important or successful or worthy of love? Like, what is it that you're looking for? Because you can identify maybe where egos getting in the way, I know, for me, I felt like I needed to prove my worth through success. Even though creating picture books was part of who I wanted to be because there's lots of different ways to create success, right? But because that was driving my stories and my actions and how I felt I did a good job was whether or not it was being received well and making money or whatever. That isn't that isn't going to make you happy if you're trying to please your ego because your ego is just trying to keep you safe and it's always going to be really loud and annoying. If you want to be happy and have peace, then find out what it is that you feel like. Here's the cheesy part. Your life's purpose is, what is it that you truly your souls desire, what is it that you want to create and make? And how can we get closer to getting there? For me, it was evoking wonder and magic and excitement, and I was steering away from that because I just wanted it to be marketable and successful. But if you're following your life's purpose, you will find success and you will find peace and happiness. So let's go for that because they've scientifically studied that your happiness, contentment, feeling fulfilled comes from how closely you feel that you're completing your life's purpose. So how can this book follow who you are and what you are meant to say in this world. That's my cheesiness. Okay. In the next video, we're going to talk about how you like to work because that is going to dictate your publishing style and how you proceed. 3. Work Style: All right. Welcome back. We're going to talk about your preferred work method because that is going to help you find out which publishing route is best suited for you and how you're going to be happiest proceeding. I have different personality types here, and we'll go through each of them and you can check at the end which one you identify the most with. Are you a hot potato style worker? I call it the rusher. Now, I am a hot potato rusher Human. I like to start projects, get them done, move on to the next one. I just want to keep moving forward. While the momentum is high, I just want to get it done and start on the next thing and check it off the list. Your kids will love it and there are picture books that are so simple and yet really resonate with a lot of children. So if you're a hot potato, you don't need to try to make it perfect. Don't try to be something that you're not and we will talk about the right publishing style for you. Are you a perfectionist, a patient perfectionist? Are you okay to edit and keep working on one project until you feel like it's just right? Are you okay doing revisions and edits and rewriting a zillion times the same story to make sure that it's just as it should be? You might create one picture book that is enough for your whole lifetime because you worked so hard on it that it is your life's work. They talk about that with Avatar, how many years and years he spent on that one project, and that is going to be the patient perfectionists because for that publishing route, you will want to be a perfectionist. Are you somewhere in between those? Do you resonate with both? If you're an in betweener, you can proceed and by the time you have your picture book dummy, if you are tired of that story, then you'll know that you are more of a hot potato and if you're like, Oh, it's not right yet, let's redo it, then you are a patient perfectionist. But there also is a certain style a certain publishing route that is good for the in betweener. Now, if you are a committed marketer, then there is one of publishing route that I only suggest for you, not for the other personality types. This is if you love the idea of selling your book. You are committed to one thing and you are okay to hustle and hustle and hustle and hustle to get it into other people's hands. You're probably a people person. You're probably, if you know the Carol TuttlesEnergy types, you are probably a type three, which means you're okay to just go for what you want. If it sounds fun to see your book get into the hands of people and you're okay to go do booths, to talk to libraries and bookstores and social media strategies all over the place, then you might be a committed marketer. You can be a committed marketer and committed marketer, and a rusher, but it's just you're not going to want to self publish if you are not a committed marketer. Which one sounds like you, the hot potato rusher, the slow potato perfectionist somewhere in between, and are you a committed marketer? So what does this mean for your publishing process going forward? If you are the hot potato, I would highly recommend self publishing on Amazon KDP. It is free, it is quick it is there are no gate keepers. You don't have to wait for someone to say that they think it's good enough or should be published. You can just get it out there. You don't have to do anything after that. They print it, they ship it. So yes, it can get lost in the swarm sea of Amazon products. But we will be talking about the market savvy method, which will help bring that up on the search bar so that it will naturally organically get into the hands of other people because I am not a committed marketer and so I do want to tell you how it's possible that you can sell if you want to make profit on it without having to go the businessy route of selling. I love this option for those who just want to get it out there and who are okay, just moving forward. The patient perfectionist, this is the route that I would suggest for those, it's best for people who want to go into traditional publishing. I encourage you to get an agent and I got an agent and I was working for several years and it did take a lot of patients, submitting to so many publishers, you deal with a lot of rejection. But if your heart is into one story and you're okay perfecting that story, then this is a great place for you. You got to be really patient, but it will probably be worth it in the end. Because the big publishers do get it seen by a lot of people. They do a great job of getting it out there. This would be for the big five publishers like Simon and Schuster, Chronicle Books, Penguin Random House, I don't know what the other ones. Disney has a Hyperion publishing company, and that is a great option if you are okay to edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, and edit and make sure that your one story is excellent, it will take years and years, but it'll be worth it in the long run. If that's your personality type, my personality type likes to go on to the next story. The in betweener. So like I said, go ahead and create your picture book, see how you're filling when you get to your picture book dummy. Sorry, don't create the whole picture book. When you get to the picture book dummy, the storyboard part, if you're sick of your story, then it's time to just finish it off and start the next project, not necessarily to go to the traditional publishing route. But you could consider a small publisher if you are in between because a small publisher, while they are going to try to make sure that it's just right, they will help you sell it and it doesn't take years and years. It's a little bit quicker. It does take years, maybe one or two. Maybe less than a year if they're quick and on it and motivated to get your story out if yours is high priority. But I have seen some small publishers that are really good at marketing and sell and some that don't do a lot and your book can get lost if it's not one of their instant best sellers. So do your research there. So for the committed marketer, yes, self publishing is an option. Self publishing can be very expensive. It's often a lot of money upfront. And my first book I self published with a publisher who claimed to be a publisher, but it was actually just as self publishing. They wanted to make money on authors instead of on people buying the books. That's the difference I would say is real publishers want to make their money from book sales. Self publishing People who try to sound like a publisher are trying to make their money from authors. But that works if you can get the price per book down really low and you are a marketer. I have seen people self publish and do really well that use the Market Savvy method and made sure it was a sellable book and not just a wonderful story. The wonderful story people, I would say, would be the traditional publishing route, the agent route because those publishers know how to sell books. Suggestions moving forward. If you are a hot potato and you're going the Amazon KDP route, keep it fun, keep it light, have a good time. Don't try to make it perfect if that's not what's fun for you. The perfectionist, I would say, start that first picture book dummy, the visual story boards. But also, after you submit to agents, if nothing's happening, don't be like, Wow, I'm a terrible author and I will never make it. No, go ahead and make another picturebook dummy and see because sometimes the agents and the publishing world are looking for very specific, marketable story lines or whatever is hot at that time. That's what happened to me when I was submitting to agents. I submitted a Brazilian agents and nobody liked it, and then I just tried a different story and I just submitted it to a couple agents and they both responded and wanted to pursue working together. But it wasn't me. I was just that that story wasn't resonating with what the marketplace was looking for, according to the agents and publishers. And then the in between, do your research on those publishers and then the committed marketer, I would say to start getting the hype around your book now, you can let social media know that you're working on a project and that you're really excited about it and show them the process, show them what you're working on. Get them excited now because it's going to be a long haul that way when you launch your you can get a lot of sales right away and that will help with your momentum. Those are the different publishing routes for the different personalities and we will continue to talk about Market Savvy method and that can also help you if you have a certain idea, certain ideas and certain stories will do better in certain types of publishing. If you have a story, and you want to go from there, we can talk about where that story is going to do best because really any publishing type is going to be fine. It's just if you don't have a story yet, then go ahead and pick which publishing route and we can help you find the story that will be right for that marketplace currently. We'll talk about the Market Savvy method next. 4. Market Savvy Method: All right, who's ready to talk about the market savvy method. I hope you are. Now, if you are here because it sounds fun, it's something that you've wanted to do for a long time. But you're not necessarily concerned about making money off of it. Go ahead and skip this section because we're going to really talk about how to make sure that your book is seen. And found and sold, it's okay if you don't care about making money off of it. That is okay. We all have a different relationship with money, and that's just fine. I but if you're wanting to sell it, let's talk. If you are doing Amazon KDP, if you are a rusher and a hot potato person, let's get it done, move on to the next thing. That's what's fun for you. You're going to want to niche down. What does that mean? It means that if you type in something into Amazon, like picture book about walruses, for example. That's not a very good one. Walruss isn't really a niche. Unless there is communities out there who are in love with walruses. But what I'm saying is there's less picture books about walruses than there might be about dogs. Walruses are more niche more specific, more narrow. Then the broad dog. There's lots of books about dogs. I'll be more searchable to find a Walrus book than a dog book because there are so many dog books. Now, for me, my specific religious affiliation has a very devoted audience looking for products, but a small pool of products specific to my religion. Those did really well on Amazon KDP because as you searched them, mine would pop up very quickly. Now, another thing that worked for me is public domain. So if you look up public domain stories, that would be things like Cinderella. Robin Hood is probably public domain, maybe. You'll see your list, Frankenstein, there's certain things that have authors created so long ago that is now not under any copyright laws. You will want to check before you create something. But as Anna Green Gables came into the public domain, I was like, I did a little picture book for it, as well as my Wizard of Oz coloring book, those do better than some of my more broad things because there are less items being found because there's less items out there for those very specific search keys, tags, whatever you want to call them. Are you into something very niche that there might not be a lot of products for? What you'll want to do is you'll want to search that thing. I'm trying to think of some maybe save the whales, that might be broad, might be niche. You would need to research that. Check on Amazon and see how many books are in that niche. Picking up toys, if your book is about picking up toys, I don't know how well it will be found. I think there's probably a lot of books that would have those terms of picking up toys if someone put book to help my child pick up toys. That word is going to have a zillion things on Amazon. So be really thinking, What is something that there might not be a lot of on Amazon that somebody might be looking for. What are some niches you're super into? Are you really into Broadway shows? Are you really into golf? Are you really into a specific town. If you did a picture book about Las Vegas or Salt Lake City or your small town growing up, people could find that. If they were looking for a picture book about blank, and there wouldn't probably be a lot of other ones. I did a picture book about Costa Rica about our adventure over there, and there's maybe just a handful of picture books about Costa Rica. So people have found that without me needing to market it. What are some niches that you're into? What groups and circles are you a part of? Maybe go look at Facebook and see what certain groups you're in. If I'm part of some rabbit groups because I have rabbits. There are some devoted rabbit owners out there, that would be a fun thing if you had an Instagram that had your rabbits on it and you were promoting this book that rabbit lovers would love, then you'll be able to build up that audience. Now that is more marketing than maybe you want to do, but it could still help with the search engine because that book would gain momentum and then would become top. There probably are a lot of picture books about rabbits because of Easter. Holiday books are a little bit niche. Maybe not Christmas, but St. Patrick's Day, it would be great. It'd be easier to find than some of the other more broad things. We often try we want to make something that everybody would like. We feel like that's going to limit our sales. But actually in today's world, in today's electronic searchable technology shopping field, it is better to be more specific. Potty training. That book has been one of my most successful books because specifically potty training, picture books, there actually wasn't as many as you would think because it's not always what authors want to write about. Okay, so think about that and then go search on Amazon and see if the niche that you're interested in is going to be highly saturated. All right, so market savvy method suggestions for picture books. Go and see what the agents are looking for. If you go into manuscript wishlist, wishlist manuscript wishlist, you will see a bunch of agents and you'll want to filter through for picture book agents, and some of them have very specific things that they want right now. It might be Mermaids and pirate books, or it might be, I Want social emotional learning books, or children with disabilities as the main character books. This is going to be huge for you if you find that. Now, it might hurt you a little bit if you create this picture book dummy and that specific agent didn't want it. But it's highly likely that another agent will want it too because I do see trends of they're all looking for XYZ. Um, I know my agent for a while. I was like, raccoon books. Give me your racoon books, your food books, picture books that have lots of food in it. So this will help you springboard to at least know that there's something someone looking for that specific thing because they often are looking through their query box, their inbox of queries for very specific subjects. It's what they want to represent at that time. So look for an agent that you think would be interesting to you and what they're looking for. I mean, don't do one like Vampire picture books if you're not into vampires, make sure it's something that sounds fun to you and you're like, that would be great. Then go ahead and do it because then at least you have a book that you like. Even if they don't like it, who cares? Look then you might start seeing trends on there, and then you can go with one that seems like a popular trend of something that people are looking for. I wanted to, I didn't really talk about the other types. We're going to stop and then we'll come back with the other 5. Market Savvy Method Part 2: All right, Part two of the Market savvy method. So the Market savvy method is just a strategy for you to be able to create a story that suits your personality and that will be found in the sea of many books published books, self published books. It's just a methodology to help you market without being a professional marketer. It's a method to create a story that will be easy to sell. We want to make this as easy as possible by creating a story that works for the market. So before we begin, though, I want to just have you to warm up to get your brain going. Think about some of your favorite books and movies, stories in general from your childhood. In your workbook, I'd like you to list them. Then I want you to think if they have anything in common. For me, it would be Willie Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. It would be Matilda. It would be there was this sweet little book with these squirrels, Miss Susie, and she lived in this little doll house. Anyway, so list a bunch of things and try to find if they have anything in common. Mine is like cutesy little new worlds to explore, as well as a hint of magic. And figure out what made your favorites your favorites so that you can pull that into your own storytelling. Okay, so with this market savvy method of creating a story that sells itself, which sounds easier than I'm not saying you're gonna become a millionaire, but I'm saying one that you don't have to work very hard to sell for those like me who don't love becoming a salesperson. Salesperson, salespeople are great. I just have social anxiety. For small publishers. The reason why I got into the small publisher that I did is that they were specifically looking for potty training books. Then I heard another small publisher that I was interested in and they were talking specifically about what they were looking for. It sounds like, well, no, I asked him. I asked I ran into the CEO at a conference and I flat out asked him what they were looking for. He was willing to share that information with me. Now I don't know if I wasn't quick enough or it sounded like my ideas were already things that they were spinning off of once I submitted to him. But this is how specific they can get is they were looking for outdoor books, books to help children be active outdoors. It was post COVID, and that's what they were looking for something to spark the interest of kids in playing outdoors, which is a beautiful concept. But if you approach some of these small publishers, send them an email and be like, Hey, what are you looking for right now? They might not answer. It might be better if you find them at a conference. There's something called SCBWI. Yeah, society, SCB WI, and you can pay $75 or whatever to be in this community, or you can just go to their conferences. They have local ones as well as big regional ones and you can meet lots of editors. I've never been, but you can get in contact with publishers. I went to a local publishers conference thing. It was very small, which was nice because I really got to chat with people. And that's where I was actually able to pitch my how to potty train a dinosaur book was at a conference. So conferences are great. If you want to take this seriously, and if you don't, that's fine too. Amazon KDP thumbs up to that. Okay. Then in your workbook, I have a list of small publishers that as I was looking through, I noticed some of the titles and they looked good and they don't need an agent. Some of them weren't open to queries, but some of them were a query is just that letter that says, Here's my idea, here's who I am, here's why I'm coming to you, then you often send your manuscript. Moving forward, I would say, yes, talk to a small publisher and see what they are currently looking for. All right. It could be similar to what the agents are asking for if you see a trend there if you want to look at manuscript wish list, even if you're doing a small publisher. All right then self publishing. I want your book if you're going to go the self publishing route. I feel like everything here is applicable to every stage. I'll talk about the difference between the self publishing here and the niche in Amazon KDP in a minute. Your book is going to need a clear sales pitch. Why do parents need this book? How to potty train a dinosaur? That was really great for a small publisher, but it also would be really good for self publishing. No, I take that back. I take that back. So let's say you go to a conference or you go to a school or whatever, unless you're going to you could go to preschools. That's true. Okay. So if you liked visiting preschools, the potty training book would be good because then you would be going somewhere where you knew that people had that age of child, right? I didn't I haven't sold very many of those at just normal fairs and conventions and whatever because not everybody needs a potty training book. But if you were going to conferences and stuff for toddlers, moms of toddlers, then maybe. But it's going to need to have a clear sales pitch. If you already have an audience with or you have an existing product, let's say your husband is a realtor and so you know lots of realtors. You could do a book about someone finding a house or moving. Oh, yeah, that would be good, like a moving book, so that for children who are about to go through a big move would know, and then you husband, the realtor, could either be gifting these books or selling these books or just promoting them. But I got a nice gift box from my realtor after we bought our house and a book like that, and there would be so sweet and that could get the word out about it, or if he has a budget for those sorts of gift baskets. You could just work with your husband on that. My sister is a dental hygienist and she was talking about cooperating, coordinating, working together with creating a picture book for some of these. Offices. Something like that would be good for self publishing. Something so specific like that. On Amazon KDP, it depends on the search titles and words. But if you were going to go door to door trying to sell it, maybe the office would just buy it from Amazon. Printing them and having them shipped to your house, you know, three, $4, and you just get a couple dollars from that book. But you could order book, but it's like soft cover and you can't really I don't know. I don't know. It's better for those who are self publishing and ordering that bulk order of books. So like golfers. Let's see. Because then you could go to golf places where lots of golfers would be, I hope that makes sense. What connections do you have to a specific group or industry or clusters of humans with the same interest? All right. The difference between Amazon KDP and the Market Savi method for self publishing. So like I was saying, how to potty train a dinosaur book, it's not really for everybody in every stage of life and so where I was going to even things that had large families, but if they didn't they weren't potty training, it just wasn't on their radar, right? Versus my friend had an emotions book about emotions and any mom with a child is going to be wanting to work through those emotions. Now, it is a picture book, so that does go to a certain age, but her sales pitch was strong enough that she was able to get a lot of business there, where if I had just been selling my how to potty train a dinosaur book, maybe five people that walked by might have been potty training at that exact moment. Um, but yes, you can come up with a sales pitch here, give this to your friends who are potty training, they'll love you forever. I don't know. So find something though that you feel very confident in people need this book and this will help people in this specific niche organization. And think about maybe a problem that they have, right? So the emotions book, you know, she was addressing the problem that we don't really address anger as an okay emotion that emotions are often labeled as bad or good, and so she had a strong pitch there. What problem topic of interest do they need to solve? Where do you have impact or reach? We talked about that. Do you have any specific credentials that help certify you for a certain specific thing if you studied biology, then when you write a book that has those facts, you can at least say, I am a biologist and it gives you I don't know. You can talk about anything in picture books and I don't know that I feel like people need those credentials to be okay to make a picture book, but it would help a therapist creating a picture book about emotions would help give them credibility. I want to brainstorm next, but we're going to do that in the next video, I will be super fun. 6. Brainstorming: I hope you are ready for some brainstorming. This is the fun part. So before we go on, I don't want to forget to talk about this. Also, keep it fun. This is just going to be fun. I wanted to say that ideas are cheap, okay? Everybody has ideas. They come and they go. They're easy. They just plop into your head sometimes. I say this not to devalue great ideas. Great ideas are awesome. But they're nothing unless you're moving forward with them. I feel like many authors are so afraid of their ideas getting stolen that they don't share them, they don't get them out there. They don't want to submit them to agents. They don't want to submit their manuscripts to publishers because they're afraid of theft. I have had my artwork stolen many times by putting it up on the Internet. But if I hadn't ever put my artwork on the Internet, I wouldn't have been able to move forward. I it's just I mean, follow your gut there, but a lot of times fear keeps us from sharing it. And with story ideas, I've noticed that talking about it, brainstorming, getting feedback from other people, nobody usually cares about your idea as much as you do. Most storytellers want to tell their own story. And also with email and stuff, if you would then have a bit of a paper trail of, look, this is when I sent the email to this agent or whatever, and then theirs came out. So whatever. But everybody, one idea can look so differently from so many people. So don't be afraid to share your ideas. All right, so we're going to keep this really fun and light and it's just practice. It's just an exercise. So don't judge your ideas and let them be silly. Remember this is for kids that were working. Think about what's your favorite animal. Wouldn't it be fun to write a book that had animals that you love in it? I also am wondering what sort of funny problems could that animal get themselves into. That's something to brainstorm as you have your workbook out. The workbook questions are just going to start your wheels turning if you want to either pause and do the ones on the screen or get out your workbook. But where's a place you've always wanted to go, something you've always wanted to do. Could your story be about an animal or a character going there? That way you can explore it in your mind and have fun there? Um, what's kept you from going to that place that you thought of? And what could the dilemma be for your character that has kept them from doing it or an obstacle that comes up as they're getting ready to go there or do that thing, skydiving. Now these aren't necessarily things that children are often thinking about. Then you could try to think, as a child, what did you want to do, be, or have? What was so important to you then and what kept you from achieving whatever that was, how could your character overcome that obstacle? Some opposites that helps with the brainstorming the what if game. Um, like a scared shy shark because sharks are known to be scary. Opposites are sometimes really interesting to children or making something that's typically scary, not scary. But as you're thinking about this also as you're brainstorming, think about the Market Savvy method, the circles that you run in and the niches and people that you want to serve and help with their problems. All right. So here we're going to play a game. You're going to list animals, and then you're going to list personalities. You're going to list some occupations. And I want you to list problems that can happen for children. And then some parenting problems that if there was a book about it, then it might make parents' lives more easy than a list of nouns and a list of adjectives. This is going to help, maybe the most obscure, random, funny, whatever things. Don't put pressure on it, but this will help you as you're brainstorming to be able to pull things from your head because it will be moved to the front. Think about things as a child that you liked, occupations that fascinated you, animals that you liked, problems that would have been terrifying as a child that might not seem terrifying to an adult. Then let's pair those together and see what could be interesting. I should here's the next one. For example, put Zebrag or after dalmatian Rabbit. I went through all of that and then I did some nouns like a teapot, a book, the problems for children, I put chores. Then when I got to listing nouns and adjectives, I typically wouldn't have thought of these because I hadn't because these were fresh in my mind, I was like, oh, I saw the word cranky under adjectives, and then I saw the word teapot and I was like, Oh, teapots steam. I love this idea of a cranky teapot. He keeps getting angry on the steam. I don't know much past that, but it's a cute concept. It's a fun place to roll off of. As far as the Market Savvy method, that would be more suitable for, I would say traditional publishing or a small publisher. I don't know that small publishers are they might be looking for emotion books, but Amazon KDP probably wouldn't be something that a lot of people would search if you weren't going to be marketing it a lot yourself. Self publishing, there could be space for that if you wanted to advertise it as this is about emotions and anger. Okay. The zebra who refuses to do chores. A zebra that's a terrible title or anything, but just that's the concept. A zebra it doesn't have to be a zebra, obviously, but it's just fun that it's an animal. And what would happen if this zebra who owned a house, let's say, never did any chores. So exploring what would happen ultimately if worst came to worst and never did the chores, right? Now, that would be a good self publishing one, I would say. Now, oh, here's an interesting thing as you're thinking about stuff. Traditional publishing, agents and stuff, they do not want it to be didactic. I only know this word because my agent kept telling me that my stories were too didactic, which means it's in your face with a message. As parents, we will buy books that are didactic because we want to help solve this problem. If it has a clear message and a clear thing that you're wanting to get across, Parents will buy that. But the traditional publishers who are looking for awards and to be very literate story based, they're not looking to necessarily solve problems. They're they're very passionate, not necessarily about making money, but about making quality stories that will keep moving forward in literature. None of that makes sense in my vocabulary. I don't know how to say it and sound really smart. So the zebra who refused to do the chores. That feels too dactic for traditional publishing and agents probably would scoff at that, but you would sell it. You'd be able to sell it as a self publisher. Amazon KDP probably, if you tried Googling or picture books, see what came up, it's possible, but there might be a lot out there. So that's a hit or hit or miss with the Market Savvy method. Okay, so then let's start brainstorming. This is just kind of like a fill in the blank. So adjective, sensitive noun snake, so a snake that's nice, that's interesting, right? Alliteration is sometimes fun for brainstorming, the happiest Tippo who always hiccupped. I don't know what happy has to do with hiccuping, but just throwing stuff out there. Then thinking about a problem that children have and I was thinking, Okay, the smart salamander who had terrible grades, an interesting idea would just be to talk about how ADHD brains sometimes don't get great grades at school. It doesn't mean that they're not smart, and it would be interesting to explore that in book form. I'd be interested in creating something like that. If you want to write it. You don't know where to find an I Strider because I think that would be a good book, good book to make. Um the T rex who couldn't tie his shoes, they have little hand. Just thinking of something a child needs to learn and a creature that would be really hard. And how are they going to do that? Continue on with that of brainstorming. Just let it be messy. And then what if this is a nice little practice to do? Why do blank have blank? Maybe, why do birds have wings? That's an easy one. Why does cheese have holes? Why do cheeses? Why does cheese? Why holy cheese? Just think about something and why, and there might be no answer for it, but the picture book might answer it in a very funny way. Why do zebras have stripes? What happens when a blank tries to blank? What happens when a TRx tries to tie his shoes? But it might spur some other things for you. What happens when a noun tries to blank verb, I guess. How on Earth could a blank do blank? How could a slug do jumping jacks? I don't know the answer for that one, so that would not be a very good picture book for me to pursue. What if there was a blank? Who could blank? What if there was a rabbit who could cook? Oh, there's the at one. There you go. Ratatoui, so not going to pursue that one. But, you know, even if you have ideas like that, it's like, Okay, well, that wasn't a bad idea because it became a great movie. It's just already been done, so just keep brainstorming. You'll find something, something fun, something that'll tickle your fancy and it doesn't have to be all that creative for it to just be fun as long as you're excited about it. Alright we're going to talk about solidifying your story arc. 7. Story Arc: I hope you had fun brainstorming and I hope you let yourself just flow with whatever ideas came to mind. No ideas need to be perfect at this stage. If you found something that you liked, and even if you didn't, we're going to talk about solidifying your story arc and there's still room and space to be exploring in this phase with some of the activities that we'll do. It's interesting to look at story arcs for picture books because for novels, there's a very concrete beginning, middle, and there's a basic structure, but for picture books, especially bedtime stories, sometimes they don't follow that exact arc. Sometimes it's more of a rhythm, a pattern. It's more lyrical, sometimes poetic in a way that doesn't necessarily follow ABCD. So I want you to not feel restricted by this section of talking about the story arc, but to be mindful of it and then also to look at popular picture books or ones that work really well for you and just look at the flow and the rhythm and the pacing of it. Because even if it's poetic or rhythmic, you don't want it to feel the same throughout the whole book. You want some either a surprise at the end that feels satisfying or pattern pattern pattern pattern break the pattern. So look through and see what that looks like, like brown bear brown bear. That doesn't have a story arc, but it's a very popular book. But at the end, it does break the pattern with you see a teacher looking at the children, and the pattern is broken and it feels finished. So figure out what you want your picture book to feel like. If you want it to be something that can turn into a movie, then you'll want to follow this basic story arc. There's the setup. You find out who the character is, there's an inciting incident. There's a rising action, a climax, then they either succeed or fail and then might try again and then it starts resolving. We'll go into that with detail. The setup, who is your character, and what is it like in their normal life? Then you create a problem. What flips the character's world on its head? What changes and starts to be hard? Then the rising action as things get worse and they realize they need to solve it. Then at the climax, things have gotten really bad. Will they be able to get through this? The stress is elevated for children that might not be so intense and then are they going to fail or succeed? Maybe they've tried something that didn't work and then there's the following action, which is the final stages that bring peace and clarity and solutions, and then there's the resolution. Your character has changed somehow or learned or grown in some way and their life is better somehow. I want you to go through on your workbook and figure out what those are for you. Like I said, your story might not follow that structure. In which case, I'd suggest practicing and coming up with one of your backup stories just to practice the ebb and flow of storytelling. Here's another way of looking at it. I sometimes like to flip things and look at them in a different way because it helps me learn and here's some other ways to look at it. Stasis would be the current situation that your characters in and then there's a trigger an inciting incident and something that happens to your main character that triggers the quest. They start a journey to achieve a goal. Then there's a surprise and this is complications. That they weren't expecting such as a sneeze. Then there's a critical choice. There's that fork in the road. They've got to make a choice. And then the climax is the critical choice results in something, the peak tension in your story, and then your characters changed in some way and then it is resolved. So I want to go through some mad libs where you just fill in the blank, get the ball rolling. You can do it for the story that you've picked out that you like, that you brainstormed, or you can practice just flowing with ideas that come. Follow through with this. I'll just start reading and fill in the blank, and it'll be silly, but in a small town called Lightning Lane lived a lizard named Leonard. Leonard was very happy in his little home, but then one day lightning struck and ruined it. His world was totally flipped upside down. What is he going to do? He didn't want to move and he didn't want to dig a hole to make a new house. And, you know, just go through there. It can be simple, it can be silly, but just an exercise to sort of see what the flow could be of your story. So, you know, something happens and then they tried this and they tried that. Nothing seemed to work and they were about to give up, then blank happened. And then, you know, everything was saved and he's better because of it. Follow through with those mad libs and plug in some different things to play around with it. Here's one other way of looking at the story timeline. You've got your opening, who's your character? Your tension increases. What's the problem? What are they going to try? They hit rock bottom, things are not going well. They might even be about to give up and then their success, tie up the loose ends and then a wink to the reader. Oftentimes, there's the the three. They try three things before they hit rock bottom. Because as I read that, it didn't feel right. It's just like, here they are. Here's the problem. Oh, no, then they succeed. The tension increasing is often problems and them trying something and then they have to really give it their best effort before they hit rock bottom and think nothing's going to work, or else your story isn't going to have that. Oh What's next feeling? You have to see them struggle a little bit, and this was really hard for me. I actually thought about this the other day, there was a wasp that was in between my window and the screen and he was trying to get out and I was watching him struggle, and then I helped make sure that there was a way for him to get out. I could have gone on about my merry way off on my merry way and I had things to do. It wasn't like I was sitting around bored, but I was so intrigued by watching this character who was struggling. Even though I saw a clear path, there was something about seeing him succeed after seeing how hard it had been for him that I just watched and watched until he flew away, even though I knew how it was going to end. I knew he'd get out eventually, but it was interesting to feel that story element of, he's struggling and I want to see him succeed. I don't know that I would have stayed if it had been an easy thing and if I hadn't seen the progress of how he'd tried and been looking all over and really was working on it. Okay, so I want to explore more though this other story arc in picture books, it's not necessarily a traditional story arc. You look at the how to dino Board books that I have. I have how to potty train a dinosaur, how to dress a dinosaur, and how to put a dinosaur to bed. They do not go through this typical story arc, but it is okay. You want to put a dinosaur to bed, it's really hard. Here are the steps, blah, blah, blah. Uh oh, but this might happen. They might not go to sleep, but do this and then, yeah, everyone will be happy. Um and the potty training, it's like, Okay, it's hard to potty train a dinosaur. Here's how you do it, step, step, step, step, step. Oh, there might be accidents and then it resolves. The tension doesn't have to be so intense for picture books because children feel things so deeply that they don't have to stay in that scared place for too long before resolution, but they are intrigued by problems being solved and wanting to see that. It's human nature to want to see tension and then growth through figuring that out. Uh, so I already gave the brown bear, brown bear example, but you see color books like this is teal and this is green, there's not really a story. Sometimes at the end, maybe they'll have all of the colors together and that will feel satisfying. Especially board books where it's a very younger audience. You don't necessarily need that rising action, a satisfying ending and some sort of pattern. And then sometimes it's disrupted at the end by humor or a surprise. Then in our next video, we will talk about fleshing out your manuscript. 8. Formatting Manuscript: All right now let's format this book. Get your manuscript all put together so that you can either send it off to an agent, send it off to a small publisher, send it to an artist, or so that you can have a manuscript ready as you are starting your picture book dummy. So I want you to keep in mind that a standard picture book is 24 pages 12 spreads, and a spread is two pages side by side. It's what you see when you open a book to start reading. I would suggest sticking to this. With the end pages and everything, it brings it closer to 32, but this is very standard. Not many publishers want to create a book that's much bigger than that because of printing costs, so they like to keep it pretty close around there. Eight by ten is a great size to start with. If you go on Amazon KDP, you can try to find out what other sizes they have, but they definitely have eight by ten, and that is very standard. You can have a horizontal or vertical, but that's where I would suggest to start now. Keep in mind that Amazon KDP is soft cover, and when you do the outside cover, they will tell you about formatting and exactly if you have how many pages and what the bleed will be like there. Bleed is around the edges. It takes some trial on air. I format them often several times. They have silly things like you need to put the title on the spine. Something to look into, but Amazon KDP has a lot of that information on their website. So I'd suggest to start by eight by ten unless you have a huge preference. Keep your word count low. This isn't law, but as a parent and I've seen other parents as well as agents and publishers requesting low word count. At the end of the day, you are tired. You don't want your child to pick out the longest book, you want the shortest to get through. When I'm at the bookstore or at the library, it is something that I take into consideration when I open up a book. It's a huge priority for me to have fewer words. 400 to 600 words is a good range to aim for. Is what I've been told, is what I've followed. Less is more in my opinion. Don't be afraid to go lower than that, but I would hesitate to go higher than that. Now, that wouldn't include at the end, if you have some history or some background to add because you can skip that if you want to. Keep in mind that most of the story can be told in images. I like to get the manuscript done and then start the picture book dummy so I can really be conscientious of the illustrations and how it's going to be told visually. And there's the whole show don't tell concept, and that is really important in picture books because that's where the children's eyes are going to be. If you don't feel like a writer, but you do want to tell a story, you could go wordless. I personally, I like those in one aspect that you can hand it to a child who can't read and they can look at it on their own. But also I have been brought that as a tired mom at the end of the day and they say, read this, and I guess I can just flip through the pages, but they're like, Where is the story? Where's the words? But make sure that there is still what happens next Question in mind that there is some tension or something to keep the interest of flipping pages. Now, age range is something to keep in mind as you are choosing vocabulary. You don't want to be talking down to the child. You could be educating in that maybe one complicated word every couple of pages. If you're explaining that word somehow or making it very clear what that big word is so that they can be growing their vocabulary without disconnecting feeling like you're talking down to them or that they aren't intelligent enough for the book that you have created, you want to make sure that they feel connected to it. Here is an example of a manuscript. Um, keep in mind if you're doing Amazon KDP that they don't print board books, or, I think we talked about that. So 16 spreads, eight pages. This is a board book. That is why I made that note. So spread, remember? And it doesn't need to be anything fancy, in my opinion, as long as you can kind of tell the pacing of the book and where things go. But see, there's not a whole lot of words, and this is a board book, so you have more words in a picture book, but I just wanted to show you what the format could look like. You can send that to a publisher and they will send you edits and you're on your merry way. Also, I wanted to say you want to have it digitally, so you can send it to friends and family and to the publisher. They don't like to take physical submissions anymore, so go ahead and just get it on the computer. It's much easier to edit and don't stay in this place for too long because as you continue, you'll make changes. Start creating that picture book dummy here is an idea of what that would look like. We'll talk about the art next because if you wanted, if you are an artist, but you're not maybe feeling confident enough to create the art, you could create a picture book dummy showing what's going to be happening in each scene. So to get an idea of the flow, if you don't want to draw it out, you could just write notes. This is what's happening visually here, here and here, remember, I have had notes from authors that involve movement in one picture, not of like you can see movement, but of like this and this and this happens, remember that it is one picture, and it's not an animated thing yet. Maybe someday we'll get there with technology. So that's something to keep in mind. It's one picture. Yes, someone can animate movement, but not from one post to the next. There are ways. There are ways, but but they will be like their tail swishing through the wind as a storm starts and passes. Anyways. Okay, so you see the end pages here and sometimes the story can be told within those end pages without taking up more spreads in the middle. I have seen that done, and I have enjoyed doing it as well where the title page, you're already trickling in who the character is, where they're at, what their normal life is like, and maybe some pre story stuff. Preface preface. Pre story, preface. Okay, so next we will talk about what to do about the artwork, whether or not you're going to hire or whether you're going to do it yourself or send it to a publisher. 9. Hiring An Artist: So time for the artwork or time to submit. Okay? That depends on the publishing route you are going. If you are self publishing, doing Amazon KDP, let's talk. So if you're hiring an artist or if you're doing the artwork yourself, we're going to discuss mostly about hiring right now, and then we'll talk about what to do if you are the artist. But this video, we will focus on hiring. So if you are doing Amazon KDP because you want to get this out there and start the next book, you're already excited about brainstorming other ideas. Here are some places for you to look for illustrators that aren't wildly expensive. I would suggest Etsy, upwork freelancer. Those are all nice because they have reviews, they have star ratings, and there's a little bit more help if they don't turn out to be legit because there's a lot of people on the Internet. Another idea could be to reach out to universities and find a way to contact artists there because poor college students often will do it for much cheaper in order to add it to their resume and their portfolio. But hiring inexperienced artists can be risky because they don't understand that illustrating a picture book is a little bit like a marathon for somebody who hasn't been in the workforce. It is quite a commitment. You might end up waiting a long time. Also, the characters might not be very consistent if they don't have a lot of practice with that. But if you're not feeling very picky and you would like to not spend so much money, then try to figure out how to reach out to a university. If it's a good university and with a good art program, you might get really lucky and have some high quality, but make sure to look at portfolios beforehand. Then another option would be AI. I'm not against this if you are self publishing for fun, you're just trying to get this out there, you want it for your own children. If you are selling it and wanting to make a business out of it, I would recommend and advise and plead that you would just state that it's AI on there, maybe don't take credit for it, but to go ahead and cite that it was AI. Here are some red flags as you are choosing an illustrator for your book. Some red flags would be in their portfolio if there are lots of different styles. Now sometimes artists are good enough that they can do lots of different styles, but sometimes that's an indicator that they have stolen artwork from the Internet and tried to piece it together, which is highly problematic when they're needing to draw the same character over and over again with the same places and situations and different angles. If they're stealing from the Internet, that is a lot easier now with AI probably, but there might be some inconsistencies if they are cheating a bit, so to speak. Oftentimes, if they're cheap, they might be doing that. Have them send you a sample illustration, maybe tell them about the character and then have them do a couple of poses. Now, if you want to be really nice, I would say to pay for the sample illustration. But many people will do it for free if they are desperate for work. So it's in your budget, offer to pay for the samples once they send them to you, not before. Then also giving them a deadline for that sample would be good to see how fast they will be because oftentimes it can take an artist. Some artists will take years and will take weeks or months. That way, you'll know what you're getting yourself into. What's it going to cost you? Personally, I will not do less than $250 per illustration, which is $500 per spread, which does add up. But my first few years of college, I would do a whole picture book for 500 to $100, which hurts me now and sounds like slave labor. But there's still places you can find that like Mascot Books or college students. You can try that. On Mascot Books, that's where I worked as an illustrator for a while after my first picture. And they do send you the portfolios of different artists so you can pick which style you like best. I think you might pay more than $1,000 because I think mascot pockets some of that for pairing you with the artist. But it is nice that you would have that flexibility to have mascot asking for the revisions or doing the groundwork of making sure that they are on deadline. But yes, um, printing through mascot books can be rather costly, so you may want to ask if the artist is willing to also format and add text into the illustrations if that's not something that you want to do, but it will also help them keep in mind where the text is going to go because you don't want them to complete a whole book and then have nowhere to put the text. I have run into that problem myself in my early stages of picture bookmaking. If you're getting an agent or traditional publishing, you won't be spending a penny. You won't be I don't know how much choice you get in the matter, I think the publisher is going to pick for you. With traditional publishing, now you could put that in your contract right away if you wanted, as you were signing, you could say, I want to pick my artist and that is possible, I bet if they really like your book, but they might fight back and want to pick someone, which is fine. You don't have to pay for them. They do the direction and they know what they're doing. Small publishers, if you're going that way, the AI is not going to work for either of these. If that's something you're considering, the small publisher will also be pairing you up with an illustrator. I've never found a real publisher who doesn't. It's another red flag if there is a publisher who's claiming to be a publisher and is making you pay for anything. That's a red flag but it's not a real publisher. It is a self publisher. Yes. Okay, so we're going to talk about what the artist should do next, and I'm going to make that a separate video in case you are not doing your own art, but it might be interesting to you nonetheless so that you know as you are currently the art director of your own book. So I'd suggest looking into it. 10. Doing the Art Yourself: If you are looking to do the artwork yourself for your picture book, this section is for you. I have mentioned before that as a recent graduate, it felt like a marathon for artists to do picture book illustrations because we're often focusing on one beautiful picture and now you get to focus on 24. 12 spreads. That is one tip. I do like working as a whole spread with two pages next to each other. It seems to simplify it in my mind that it is one instead of two illustrations. Even if I am doing 21 page illustrations instead of one illustration that bleeds onto the next spread. That is a quick tip to simplify. That way, you're doing 12 illustrations instead of 24. So first step will be to just get it all out, make sure your story is working that you can see visually that there is a story arc with the colors. Sometimes it's fun to see how the colors work to see if they're intensifying during the climax, and there's a lot you can say with colors and color palettes. As you're doing this, though, let it be messy. I like to change the story up as I go and at this point, I am still working through some kinks in the storytelling and let it be messy and you'll tighten it later, just like when you start a drawing, I used to start with the eyes and I would render them all out, but I found out that that was not the best way. You want to start broad with an illustration. You want to get the idea of how the whole piece is going to look and then you go into the details. That is how you want to approach the picture book dummy is from a whole. Sometimes I work small, really small, the size of what you see on the screen just to get a quick idea of where things are going to be and then have it be bigger. You'll tighten it before you send it to the publishers or the agents, tighten it up so that they can tell what it is before you send it off. But you can set it off black and white. But I would say finish out a few of the spreads of the illustrations in color so that they can see how the final will look if you finish out a few so they can see that your characters are consistent, that your color palette is consistent, that will look really good for you. And just to reiterate, as an author illustrator, you will be sending the manuscript and the picture book Dummy they do really like author illustrators, it seems to simplify things for them. You do have an upper hand on that. I want to share some tips before you jump into the artwork. This class isn't necessarily about the artwork but of getting the project done, but I do want to share some tips. Keep your designs, your characters, your backgrounds. Keep them very simple because you need to bear in mind that you will be drawing these characters over and over and from different angles and perspectives, keep it simple and it doesn't have to be complicated. If you look at Mowill and stuff, very simple. Very simple. I don't overcomplicate it. I would also say with your characters, aim for it to be iconic. I like to ask myself, could someone dress up like my character for Halloween and be recognizable? Do they just look like the average Joe or are there little elements to their design that make them iconic and that they stand out be sure to consider text in your artwork. These are accidentally animated illustrations. But if you see where the text is, you have to think about what's behind it. You don't want a lot of contrasting colors or shapes behind it. I wouldn't even say these are good examples, but it does show you how to consider it because it looked like they were going to be fine because there wasn't a lot going on behind the text. But even I would like to simplify it more and make sure that it is maybe just a solid color behind there. It clears it up and on my first picture book, I didn't take this into consideration and mascot books put a fuzzy solid color behind it and I felt like it looked really unprofessional. That was my bad for not making sure there was very simple solid colors behind where the text will be. Now mind the spine. If you are doing a full spread illustration, both one page illustrations together, the middle part in the spine, they call that the gutter, I believe. You want to be mindful of that because the pages they're going to curve in this image, you would be losing most of her into the gutter, you'd want to move her off to the side and make sure that not the main part of what you're wanting to draw is there in the middle. So something to be cautious of. Also, I would say the most professional looking picture books, they have a simple color palette. If you think about doctor Seuss, he only had a couple of colors, and that was a little bit forced by the printing costs. But also, it's really nice. If you look through some of your favorite picture books, you might be able to catch that most have a simplified color palette. I feel like this has really helped me to like my finished product better if I simplify my color palette. So if you open up your workbook, you can start filling in really small of how you want everything to work through your picture book. You can try both horizontal or vertical. But I would say horizontal is really good for adventure stories. If your story has a lot of environments and is really heavy and the background backdrops, if it's an adventure story, I would say to consider doing it horizontal. Then after you sketch all of that, if I like my sketches, I often like to take a picture of those and upload them into the app that I use, which is Procreate. Huge tip. Do it digitally. Do yourself a favor. Or if you're going to do it physically, make sure to upload it because you will be sending it digitally and it will be so much easier if you edit it digitally. Yes. But you don't want your digital things to look digital. You do want them to look hand drawn, hand painted, make sure to use texture brushes and not make it look perfect or clip art, especially for children's books. They like that texture, they like it to look like it was done by hand. So if you do want to scan it in, I have trouble scanning it in, so I usually end up doing a lot of work in Procreate on my iPad anyways. So try out different things and see what you like best. Then my last tip is finish No Perfect. Let that be your motto. If you want to watch a whole video about it, look on YouTube at Jake Parker's video, I believe, titled Finish Not Perfect. This really helped me to move forward to not get stuck because I could still be working on my first picture book and I feel like moving forward helps me learn. But if you are a perfectionist, it's possible that this might be hard advice for you to take. So if you're having fun, then keep going. But if you're feeling stuck or hopeless that you'll ever get it finished, then just allow yourself to let it be imperfect so that you can move forward and learn and grow and keep making things better and better. We're going to talk about editing next, so I'll see you there. 11. Editing: All right. So you're feeling pretty good about your manuscript, I'm hoping. Your story feels like it's good enough, you know? You had fun doing it. Your kids will love it. But it's maybe not perfect yet and it probably never will be, but let's talk about editing so we can get it as good as we can. While still having fun. If this is just for your family, your kids, yourself, just for fun, then don't worry too much about it. But if you are wanting to make money off of it or have it traditionally published, I would suggest trying to polish it. Before we proceed, I just want to say, even if it does really well, that's not the happiness that you're looking for. When I look back, even seeing my book on Animated on Netflix or getting to be interviewed for a local television channel, it didn't feel quite as satisfying as being in the process and enjoying the creativity. I'd say my happiest moments are when I am making the book. I guess I say that so that you don't rush to get it done so that you can find that happy feeling when it's successful and when you're making money off of it, be present in the now. But how can you make the revision process fun and playful and creative? This is a question I don't have a lot of answers for, except for that I did like seeing the story from a different character's point of view or something like that. I like the story revisions, thinking about it in new ways. Exploring other possibilities that might work better. But the actual grammar and stuff is less fun. But before we talk about some ways to be able to go ahead and do some of the hard work to go ahead and get it where you want it. I do just want to say some of the pressure and some of the fun goes out the window when you start saying it's never going to be good enough or I hate it, and I suck at this. Ignore all of that. Just say, this is a fun thing. This is an optional activity, extracurricular that I'm not being graded on. And that you are important and valuable and awesome even if it doesn't sell any. I have several books that sit on Amazon and nobody sees them, and it's okay. It was fun to make it. I learned from it. It doesn't have to be perfect. But also, as you're editing and wondering like, Okay, is it good enough? What does that even mean? Is it good enough for publishing? Is it good enough for submitting to a small publisher? Is it good enough to put on Amazon KDP? Is it good enough for other people to see? Is it good enough for you? The biggest question is, what will it take for it to be good enough for you? What would it take? Sometimes our expectations for ourselves are so high, much higher than the expectations that we have for other people. But what would it take for you to lower those expectations, to be gentle with yourself and say, This is going to be fun. I'm going to learn from it, I'm going to get better and better, and I'm going to do my best and that's my goal, right? So let it be fun. Don't make it too serious. If you have a spelling error in there, nobody is going to die. Isn't that nice? I actually was reading Princess blah, blah, a book that I worked on with my niece and sister in law, and it had spelling errors in it, but my daughter wanted to read it twice and loved it. She didn't care. She didn't even see the spelling error. She can't read. Oh, it's okay. All right, here are some editing suggestions for the different kinds of publishing. If you are doing as on KDP and self publishing, if you want it to be great, then I would suggest hiring an editor or a friend who studied English in college and you can take him out to dinner as a thank you. But also, I think it's really possible for you to let AI edit your manuscript. Go into chat GPT, put it in there and say, please, will you edit the grammar, the punctuation? Let me know what needs to be changed? Just see what you can get out of it. I bet you could get most of your editing done that way, especially for punctuation, capitals, grammar. So that's one idea. If you're hoping to have this as a major side hustle, then yeah, finding an editor is probably a good idea. They probably know more than AI, but, you know, it's growing every day. Some publishers like Mascot books helped a little bit. The small publishers and the big publishers definitely do. So but don't rely on that. Don't lean on that because it is a major turn off for agents and publishers if they do see some of those errors because it just looks sloppy, it looks like you didn't care. It looks like you're not invested into it. So if they see a bunch of errors in the query letter from the podcasts I've listened to, some agents won't even open up your manuscript. They won't even look at your story. So I would do your very best to edit it. But you are going to have edits afterwards too. Then for small publishers, the small publishers I've worked with have been the easiest to edit with. It is so simple. They have an editor in house and they'll just say, change this, change this change this, because of the way I was able to get into that small publisher, I didn't even have to send them a query, but even when you do, I don't think they are quite as picky if it's what they're looking for. Now, small publishers aren't publishing a zillion books a year. They're looking for something specific, which is why I recommended to reach out to one that you really like and see what they're looking for. They might let you know, which would be really nice. I also think that they give a leeway for author Illustrators because that is really high in demand. If you are willing to do the pictures, that does give you a leg up. Is that the phrase leg up? Okay, so here's a checklist for you. It's in your workbook. But just to go through and say, Okay, how is the pacing? Does it feel good? Does it intensify? Does it get intense? And then does it resolve itself? Is it just a straight up and down, or is there a little bit of, like, interest as you're going up and down? Then cut out as many unnecessary words as you can and then check each sentence for is this showing or is this telling? Am I telling this? Am I just saying it out loud or is this something that I can show through the illustrations? Is this telling? Look for misspelled words, punctuation, grammar, share it with some children and watch their faces. If they start to get bored. You can start to think, maybe I need to increase the stakes here to keep them on their toes. Now, that depends on the age of the children. It's not always an accurate. You know, you have to get a pool of a lot of children and they do want pictures. So if you're with your picture book Dummy, I feel like that would be a good time to share with children. Does your ending feel satisfying? And is your main character likable? Those are important. That's it for now and then we're going to talk in the next video about sending your query for agents. If you're looking to get a big publisher, you can skip this if you are certain about what route you want to go and you don't want to get an agent. See you in the next video if you are ready to query. 12. Agents: If you are looking to get an agent so that you can get in with one of the big publishers, keep on listening, we're going to talk about querying. A query is basically just a cover letter that's saying, This is why I'm coming to you agent. This is my story, idea, and a pitch, and this is why I think it's needed in the world and why it will do well in sell. And that is, in essence, what it is, and you might not get anything back from these agents. They might not respond and you might get some rejection letters, and that is okay. It's part of the process. So go into it with hope and excitement and the availability that anything is possible, but be prepared that, Hey, you might just not be someone's cup of tea. Some people don't like Harry Potter and some people are obsessed with it. The same with your book. Some people might drive with it. So it might not be their cup of tea. Even Disney got rejected by a lot of companies, and so did JK Rolling. Keep trying. I submitted to lots and lots of agents. Nothing came back for the first one. There was maybe one little bite and then they decided to not then I changed up a story made a completely new story actually and submitted to just a handful, and they were interested. It was what the marketplace was looking for. So if it's not working, try something else. Now, if someone does come back and say, Hey, I want to sign with you, don't just jump at the first opportunity. I would say to research, look up on their client list of authors that they represent and then reach out to them on Instagram. And ask, hey, how is it working with so and so? Have you had any books picked up by publishers? Do they XYZ before you're signing any documents because on the first illustration agency that I almost signed with the illustrators were like, no, don't. I'm just waiting for my contract to end. I want to get out as soon as possible. So I dodged a bullet there. If you're wanting to be an author illustrator, during this query process, you'll be submitting not only the manuscript but the picture book dummy so that they can see visually. You'll, as I said, complete a few of those drawings so that they can see that you can be consistent with art style and you do have an advantage as an artist illustrator. Now, before sending your query, research the agents as much as you can and they have specific guidelines. Maybe they will want your manuscript attached as a Word doc, maybe they will want it inserted into the body of the email and then also research about them specifically so that you can make your email as catered to them and as personalized as possible. They really like to know that you've done your research, that you're taking your time, and that this is important to you. And that you are reaching out to them because you do think that they will be a good fit. It's been said before that an agent relationship is like a marriage just because you're both working together and as a team. Here is the letter that did end up with me signing with this agent. She said in a podcast episode that she loved being a literary godmother, so I started it with that and there was this beautiful Twitter thing called picture picture book Pitch Wars Pitch Wars. You can Google it to get more information. I believe it's on pause right now, but there's one day where if you use that hash tag with your pitch on Twitter and I was not active on Twitter at all, that doesn't matter. But that day, the agents will be scrolling through and looking at some pitches and she liked one of mine, and that was really helpful for me to say in there. In Twitter pitch for Charlie's Big feelings in this 395 word picture book, Charlie struggles with his strong emotions. The sun tells him to always be happy. The lake says to stay sad, a hurricane suggests to be angry, but a flower says to feel it all, at least just a tad. You're on my dream agent shortlist because we have similar goals and tastes. I heard in a podcast that you delight in seeing magic intertwined in everyday life. And I hope that you can see in my art that we have that in common. I was also pleased to discover that you work with Christian titles because I do, too. It would be a dream to get to work with you. Then I go into my past projects that I have done for you, if this is your first book, I would suggest if there's any credibility that you have for the topic, you could explain that. Say I'm an expert in XYZ and that's why I am the person to write this book. Then she asked for my website and my Twitter handle. If you don't have a website, I think that's okay and even just a social media account. Maybe start posting and presenting yourself as an author if this is something that you want to do. And I did end it funny. Here it's like below you can read my manuscript or just open up the attached picture book Dummy to read it there. I will be praying that you see some potential. Slightly desperate, but she obviously didn't seem to mind. So I didn't I didn't put in the word not the word count, the page count on here or anything or even separate it by spreads. So I didn't really format it, but there it is. That's what I was sent. That is in your workbook. And so it doesn't have to be perfect. Head over to manuscript wish list. It's a website. And filter through for picture book agents that are open to submissions currently, and my recommendation would be to send ten or 20 and then see how it goes they're often really slow to respond. But if you keep submitting and nothing's happening, go ahead and try a different story. Something will work eventually. Just have that attitude that this is something that you want and you're going to keep going despite the hard things, if you think about your story, storytelling tactics. An interesting story isn't one that everything goes smoothly. This might just be part of your story if it is hard, but it can be easy. Let it be easy, let it be fun. 13. Finishing It: Alright, so if you are self publishing, doing Amazon KDP or printing out your own books. We're going to talk about completing this project. You've got your sketches done. You've got your story arc. You figured out a lot of stuff at this point, but now it's just time to put your shoulder to the wheel and push along. There's different personality traits in animals for the workforce. There's the lion that's the leader, there's an owl, that's the thinker, and there's a squirrel. This is the squirrel time where you're wanting to move forward, collect those acorns. Keep the momentum going. If you're hiring out the artist, my last suggestion would be to make sure that you get the sketches in and wait for your approval before they start on to color. Tell them, I'd like to see the sketches before you color it and ask for changes at that point because it is a lot harder to change for the artist after the color has already been added. That's just a quick little tip there. The rest of you that are embarking on this marathon, let's buckle up. This section, we're going to talk mostly about how to schedule the time to make this happen. Consistency is key and some creatives like to wait for inspiration to hit till they're feeling up to it. But I like to schedule the time during the time of day that I typically feel most up to it and allow myself to to ease into that creative flow state. I don't always snap right into it, but if you have the scheduled routine time, it's like you're inviting that creative flow. Hey, this is when I'm ready. So is there a time of day in which you feel the most awake, creative, and focused? You'll be able to maximize your productivity if you lean into this. So for me, it is the morning before 2:00 P.M. Anytime during that I feel that I am productive, I have energy. And then what times of day do you feel tired and unable to exert much energy or brain power? For me, that's in the evenings. Yes, if I have to, I can start the momentum in the evening, but my more natural inclination would be to rest at that point. There are different things if you want to go ahead and embrace instead of push against your natural flow, you can ride your energy coaster by planning out the things that take the most brain power to be in your energized state versus for me, the more mindless things such as coloring, I do in the evenings or in the afternoon when I start feeling a decrease in my energy. Are there changes you can make to optimize the hours in the day that you feel the most awake, focused, and creative so that you can work on your book? Are there activities, home responsibilities, parts of the art process that you can do during the time that you are not feeling as energized or focused? And I would like you to consider this. I know this is a sensitive topic, especially with gender roles and gender in general. But I for a long time was unhappy and unfulfilled as I was trying to seek success and importance and value with a masculine energy, looking for progress and pushing and making sure that I used by sheer force to make things happen. But picture books and creativity is more of a feminine energy and I needed to embrace that side of me in order to find balance and peace and harmony in this process. I listen to this podcast by the yoga couple that really shifted everything for me. If you lean into that feminine energy, even if you are a male, um, still try to understand yourself and where you feel the most peace and harmony. But as I listen to this, I really resonated with feminine energy is rest, creativity, and there's ebbs and flows of this energy. To be gentle with yourself, if you have this schedule, that's a little bit more of a masculine energy, making sure that things are happening. But the feminine energy says, Okay, I'm in my cycle. Today, I'm not really feeling it to allow yourself to rest or to go about things a little bit differently, maybe go for a gentle walk that day and you can think about your picture book or just to let your mind let go of it and listen to your body, there is space for that. There is, as with everything, a balance to it. Balance that masculine and that feminine energy and you'll be able to complete this book without getting burnt out. I hope that makes sense. If you look through the workbook, there is a planner. I want you to list anything that you can delegate that doesn't bring you joy. And there's this monthly calendar so you can pencil in when you'd like to complete things by. But know that it's nice that this is flexible. It's really nice that you get to be in charge of that. I want you as you are scheduling to focus on finding a balance between the hot potato and perfectionist inside of you. We all have a little bit of both, I would say. And in order to get this done and to have it be something that you're proud of, try to find that balance. I find that if I'm too much on the perfectionist side, sometimes I totally just drop the project if I have the flexibility to do so and I get paralyzed with perfectionism and I say, there is, and I stop moving forward on it. So sacrifice progress because of your perfectionism. Then that hot potato on the other side, it's like, you've worked really hard on creating this. Now don't just stumble and throw up this project. Go ahead and make the steps necessary to make sure that it's something that you can be proud of. Strive for that balance. Yes, it is hard, but go to your workbook and try to schedule it out and have gentleness and flexibility and love with yourself at the process. But go ahead and set some of those goals and strive for balance as you are progressing towards perfection. 14. Marketing: I'm so proud of you for making it this far. We are to the end of this course. Hopefully you have some more clarity on your picture book making process. So we're going to talk about marketing. Now maybe you haven't published it yet, at this point, I would say, yes, if you're going to do Amazon KDP, go to the site. You'll look up formatting for there's bleed, which is the edges of the paper. The gutter is inside where the spine is at. And you'll be able to see some formatting things. You'll type in how many pages it is, and they'll give you a template. I like to take that template and pull it into Procreate, and then I put it on a multiply layer so that I can see the template as I am putting in all of my title, a little bit of words on the spine. That is the part that I usually have the most trouble with. Sometimes I will submit it and they will respond, Hey, you didn't do XYZ, and I'll try it and I'm not very good at being very detail oriented, and so this part is a little bit of a struggle for me, but you submit it, you put in your tags. For marketing, I would say with this picture book savvy method, the tags are really important. You're going to want to if it's a niche subject, make sure your tags are things that people will be searching for, but not finding a lot with those tags. So the more specific that you can get, the better. Those are tags that you will put as you are submitting your Amazon KDP file. If you are printing with a self publishing printer, they will help walk you through the formatting. But at this point where your art is done and you can put text in or some people will do that for you if you want to hire that out on Upwork, but I like to just use Procreate and have the text box and stick the textbox directly in there and you can figure it out. Most people want it saved as a PDF, and you got this. Let's talk about marketing. You submit it off to publishing. Amazon KDP will take just a matter of days. If you're printing from China, that will take a little bit longer. If you're going with an agent, be patient. It's going to take a minute. But you can still start marketing now. Okay, so marketing. Everyone who's hoping to sell books could benefit from marketing even those that have a publisher who's marketing for them, it still a nice to have hype from the authors and people often follow the authors and want to support the authors directly. And a lot of these top publishers and agents will help schedule book launch parties, book signing, school visits, et cetera, but it's something that you can do on your own as well. So we're going to go through a bunch of ideas and tips and just do the ones that sound fun and light and exciting for you. A book launch party. When your book comes out, you can get the hype up and throw a party for your friends, family, neighbors, the followers on Instagram, whatever. You can have snacks, you can read your book to them. You can offer to the sell you can sell your book there if you want. But it just gets things excited. You could have some giveaways or whatever sounds fun to you. School visits. If you're wanting to make sales, I would make sure to send out a flyer before the visit for the parents to send money with an envelope and so that you can come and give them the books, sign the books and parents are often really excited to have a signed book for their child because it will inspire their children to also have big goals. Sometimes schools will pay for these visits. I have never charged a school for my visit, but I have heard that if they have a budget for it, it, it doesn't hurt to ask if that's something that they can do. Book signings, Barnes and Noble, I've done a book signing ad. I was fairly easy to have that happen. A lot of bookstores are pretty eager to have book signings because it does bring in people. But I have found that I need to do my own marketing and inviting people to come that sometimes the boost the bookstores don't do that much promotion. And they're kind of hoping that the authors will. So just don't expect that you'll have a bunch of people if you didn't invite anyone. And you could ask them what their advertising is like and maybe offer to send them a promotional poster or something to put on their wall. So, bring your own fans with you. Just make sure that you're not talking to an empty room if you're doing a book reading. And social media. Obviously, I don't know the secret to social media, but it seems like consistency, but it's starting to maybe be more quality than quantity. It changes all the time. So if you enjoy it, then look into it, but also do what sounds fun to you because don't let it run your life because it doesn't often pay you. I mean, unless you're really good at it and super devoted. But I have tried to shift my perspective to be more of this fun connection instead of a way for my ego to feel seen and approval of others. So you'll find your own balance there, but I highly recommend using it and trying and post your process and your sketches and your journey and definitely leave room for like, Oh, I want it so I can look at it, maybe don't post everything about it. You got to leave some intrigue. The publishers say the same thing. They would say to share some of it, but e keep some of it so that people will have something that they'll want to pay for because you did work hard on this and so I think it's fine to have an energetic exchange of money there. It is hard to feels like a salesperson on there, so you can find ways to go about it where you feel like you're having fun and not selling but talking to your friends about something that you made. Sending people free books seems to be a good strategy. I have illustrated for businessy men who are really good at this and send books to a lot of influencers who seem to be very willing to post about it. And I feel like that has helped spread the word for a lot of things. And then blogging, if you really enjoy writing, I feel like there's a lot of possibility there, and then pin it on Pinterest. Pinterest is nice. The posts stay around a lot longer and get shared for years instead of the post of the day being popular for a couple hours. But maybe some blog posts could be like ten best picture books for those dealing with blank. And then and then you can talk about other picture books other than yours, but have yours in the list so that you are helping and not being super self emotional, but while also promoting your book in a gentle way, and then you can list, you know, the best books for XYZ for potty training or for sharing toys with friends, and then pin that. And then there's conventions, fairs, markets, and booths. I have told my husband I will not do outdoor booths again because paper products, books, and prints, I have been rained on, stormed on, and it is a bit of a hassle, and it's nice to be able to set it up and have a day or two of being able to. I do love being behind a table and connecting with people and answering questions, but it is a lot of work to get all set up, and I have found that the Internet is a great way of selling because it's there and you don't have to keep exerting so much effort. But if you have a good sales pitch for your book of why the parent will benefit from it, it's a great idea. I have had friends who have really enjoyed it and I do enjoy seeing people's direct response to what I have created is really fun. Sometimes the booth fee is really high, and so sometimes the profit isn't necessarily congruent with the amount of effort, but sometimes there are other things that come of it. If it sounds fun to you, it's definitely worth a shot. I also tried having a painted tree, little store. Painted tree is just a storefront that has creatives, have their own little booth that is permanently there. But that was a lot of money and it was stressful to feel like I needed to make sales to break even. So, which of those ideas marketing ideas sounded fun to you? And what would be a step that you can take to set that up? Who could you contact for book signing or school visit or library? Library went along with book visit in my book signing in MyHad. But contact libraries, that's always really fun. And what other ideas do you have? This guy is the limit. Is there anything specific that your audience or niche that some activities, some conventions, anything that could help spread awareness for your book that a lot of people from your audience would go to. Then how can you start spreading the word now no matter what stage you are in? That's it. I hope you have fun with this picture book process. I can't wait to see what you've created. If you are still struggling and want to check out one of these other workbooks, we have the Art of getting crap done. Which is more focused for moms and productivity and figuring out that balance between motherhood and your creative projects. That is a great one for you. Then if you are wanting to find a style that feels congruent with who you are and what you want to say, there is this workbook discover your unique style that will help you as you go through that. Thanks for being here. I would love to see your progress. If you have any questions, email me at Alshapace art@gmail.com, and that's Alicia with the Y. I am really grateful that you made it through this whole thing, and hopefully we can be Internet friends or face to face friends and can't wait to see how your book turns out.