I have finally finished one of the projects I’m working on, the text for a children’s picture book. I wrote it specifically for my first daughter, and it’s based on a story I made up for her one night when we didn’t have a storybook handy. It’s a fairy tale with a whimsical premise, some classic fairy-tale motifs, a climax that might surprise slightly by breaking convention, some action, and a moral I think is not too hamfisted.
Before I hire an illustrator, I’m looking into how exactly to go about producing a picture book, which is quite a different format from the novels I’ve produced before. Unfortunately, my formatting software, Vellum, is not set up for picture books, so I might have to pay to have the book formatted professionally. That will make me nervous because it means that, once it’s formatted, I can’t tweak the text. I’m nervous about the options I see on Amazon KDP, too, which also does not seem to be set up for picture books, but I have several articles open on my browser which claim it can be done.
I also still need to send it to an editor, though the funds are rather short. It’s only fifteen manuscript pages, so I’m reasonably confident in it, but it would still be foolish to publish without a second pair of eyes on it.
