My Journey into Self Publishing Childrens Books

Warning – Below is a collection of notes, I have added bits and bobs here and there so things probably wont flow as intended. If I get time I may rewrite this post so that it is a proper account of my journey… I dont think I have even read this in full myself haha… so, yes, best of luck… you will need it 😛

Having children mean’s it’s inevitable that you will read more books than you would ever imagine. My favourite’s were always the rhyming picture books such as Room on the Broom and The Jumblebum Beast, however Whiffy Wilson by Carly Hart was my absolute favourite to read. The words were clear, the rhyming was was easy to follow and the illustrations were enjoyed by myself and my children.

In this ‘My Journey’ I have periodically written progress updates on this post which I hope may help someone else too who would like to self publish. This post in particular briefly outlines the key stages in My Journey, yours may be different, however a more in depth guide can be obtained simply by clicking on the appropriate link in each section below. So, lets dive in…

The idea for Calvin came to me late in 2019, I done a quick google search and only one other book with the same title came up but seemed very different to my story (later I came to realise that I had a typo in my search…), so I went for it. It wasn’t until mid to late 2020 that I had the script almost complete and as a result of writing this book I had come up with other stories that I started working on at the same time. Work and home commitments meant that time wasn’t on my side. However, there was one advantage to me regularly having to drive long distances… time.

Over a period of months the story came together, my time on the road allowed me much needed thinking time. I couldn’t believe I had actually managed to complete it, AND that it actually sounded like something I would have enjoyed reading to my children. Obviously over time, with the introduction of illustrations some words were changed to make it flow better, and I have to admit, it seems to have worked out pretty well.

Now it came to illustrating the book. Many moons ago I did enjoy a doodle here and there, even won an easter egg competition in primary school (what a hero eh?), but creating the caterpillar took much much longer than I expected. Many attempts were made and some I went back to, but the moment finally came when I decided to give the little guy some arms and have him stand up a bit higher. It really did take me months to come up with the main character, mainly because I cannot doodle when driving, and spare time at home was never something there was much of.

If you plan to illustrate your own childrens picture book my advice is to doodle and keep doodling… no matter your art skill level, when it comes to children’s picture books the illustration’s can and often appear better if there is an element of a rough edge to them. What I mean is, illustration made on the computer first hand can sometimes look a bit too sleek. For doodling I used a clipboard with loads of paper so I was never looking around for another sheet. Pencils, pens, crayons, water pens and paint pens. I tried them all and found the right combination for me based on my needs. Remember… DO NOT BIN ANYTHING! sometimes the first doodle is perfect, you just need to eliminate all other avenues before making a decision, furthermore, any doodle’s not fit for that particular purpose may be perfect for another!

For writing its best to keep notes organised especially if like me you use multiple devices, I personally opted to use Microsoft one note as I could easily sync all my notes across all my devices very easily… I just needed an microsoft account, which I had already with my hotmail email address. All my notes were organised pretty much for me that way, easy to keep track of and was easy to add or change any part whether I was on my laptop, tablet or on my phone. OneNote also allows you to insert images and links and it’s also easy to print. Changes are automatically saved so you never forget and sync is almost instant.

Next I wanted to see if I could replicate the images on the computer, having some illustration experience helped me a little here however nothing that a youtube video couldn’t fix if I was a complete novice. Its rather straightforward and easy to undo a mistake or something that you dont like. Using a number of different graphics packages such as Gimp and Vectr I was able to play around and make a few different versions of my doodles, but even my digital doodles were not what I was looking for.

I tried to take it a stage further by creating my character in 3D using the free animation software – Blender. The idea behind this was that instead of having to draw the characters in different positions, I could move the 3D models into position. This meant I needed to create the characters in 3D and Rig them in order to be able to move them in natural ways. In order to get some help I joined an absolute beginners Blender Facebook group but this lasted a couple weeks at most as I really did not have the time needed to commit to this project. Back to the 2D drawing board…

As things were starting to come together I decided to research the process of becoming published and he criteria required. It seems you cannot simply ‘become published’. Reading more into the industry I realised that going through a publisher meant that I would lose all the rights to my images, story and characters. Was I really willing to give this up? I started looking into publishing myself and quickly got scared of the prices I was being quoted for the quality and size of book I was looking to produce. In a last bid (but not really my last) I looked to China for cheaper printing. Printing was indeed cheaper however the shipping wasn’t… so, I decided looking at prices for printing in the UK again, but more specifically, Scotland. I thought that prices should be better the closer you get, not really. However, I did manage to get a quote that I was happy with and the company was within driving distance.

Social media is hugely important, I checked out Twitter and Instagram and my name was taken. The account was inactive and I decided to contact Instagram to see if I could somehow take it over, after all, what’s the point in an account that’s not being used? I’ve managed to obtain an inactive account on Twitter before so thought there’s maybe a chance… no joy. Instagram were not interested that I wanted to take ownership of the account, instead just suggested I choose another one… ah well.

I purchase an XP Pen 13.3 Pro to try to get into my illustrations, the device itself is an excellent piece of kit, but it is more for an artist, not for the casual drawing (in my not-so-expert opinion). So, after 2 days and trying a few different open source softwares (I don’t like paying for software 😂) I decided to sell it as I knew it wasn’t going to get used again.

My daughter had recently bought herself a Samsung Tab S7 with her birthday money – she sold her laptop and PS4 too in order to afford one and I was very impressed with the tablet. There are loads of free drawing apps on there, and as she enjoyed doodling too let me see and have a go. Now this ticked all the boxes! It’s getting serious now… I’ve bought my own Samsung Tab S7 (April 2021). Now the drawings started coming together much quicker and it’s great to see steady progress. The only drawback that I came across was that Ibis Paint X could only use RBG colours, but I was looking to paint in CMYK which is what printers use. The printer in Inverness sent me print outs of a few pages of my book to give me an idea of colours when printed. They really did look just about right so I didn’t need to make too many changes at all, what a result that was!

As things grew more and more serious, and it seemed like this was actually going to come to fruition, I decided to start working on my website. Luckily enough the domain name RichardWatterson.com was available, I found this rather odd since this cartoon character has such a big following. Having a background in IT meant building the website was not too difficult or time consuming, however creating the content itself was. Working on my illustrations while simultaneously creating the website content, working, and family life things were getting a bit crazy but I kept at it.

Months of drawing, learning, and talking to the printer, getting an actual demo book printed have all paid off. I collect my final copies on Friday 13th August just a bit later than the actual launch date of the 4th. I have also entered the book into the British Book Awards under 2 categories; Self Published Book & Children’s Trade 0-8.

Notes, doodles, demo book (scribbled all over) & script all filed away… Caterpillars CANNOT FLY! is completed… phew…

Now from all my extra notes and doodles, I have at least another 5 stories… where will I find the time for these??? 🙂