✍️ Picture Book Progress

Hello Eccentric Creators,

Welcome to issue #3

A quick reminder of what to expect each week.

• This newsletter is a diary of my “Publish in Public” approach to children’s picture book making. You are invited to sit in my studio with me and look over my shoulder!

• It will “shape up” over the coming weeks as I discover the categories and cadence, as well as style, I want to write in. It’s just like making a book and finding out what’s in it…as you go!

• Tools, resources, insights, tips & tricks you can use on your own journey.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Topic Wish List

• Publishing Plan: Are you lost in make-a-book land?

• Mission Statement

• Ads “Click Layering”: How to sell existing books, or book ideas you want to try

• Monster Alphabet book cover

• Drawing thoughts

• What is “flow state?”

Topic Wish List

What topics do you want to see first / the most? Here are some from my end I’m most excited to work on. But tell me yours in this little survey, and I’ll do my best to accommodate!

• Reviews of art and style from the most classic children’s picture books of all time

• Strategies for learning to draw anything, even if you can draw “nothing” right now. No worries there!

• Reasons to “steal” from your favorite children’s book artist.

What do you want see covered in this newsletter sooner than later? Let me know and I’ll plan accordingly!

Click here for the 5 Question Topic Survey.

Now lets talk about how to get from Idea to Publish.

Publishing Plan: Your Guide to a Lovely Book

The Publishing Plan / to do list is my personal road map to completing all the projects I will be working on in public. I’ve made too many books to count, but never wrote down all the broadly applicable steps that apply to any book I’ve worked on…until now.

More than that, it is YOUR plan too, to completing your own book! “Where do I begin?”, “What steps do I need to do now?”, “What does doing X or Y really involve?”, “What should I do first, or fifth?” So many 100% valid questions, and I’ll have all the answers for you.

Start with your inkling, and the Living Roadmap, and you’ll be on your way:

• You’ll get to see every step I’m working on, with screenshots right here in the newsletter as I progress.

• You’ll see all the past, present, and future steps.

• It will be shared as a Google Doc so you can copy it at any time for your own use.

• It will be versioned at every major update so the freshest, hottest, most-useful version is right here in every issue.

• SEE in your MINDS EYE the whole picture, where you are in it, and where you have to go.

• It’s like a GPS app…for your PICTURE BOOK!

There are SO. MANY. STEPS. in publishing books, it will kind of blow your mind. Maybe it’s already blown, and that’s why you are here. To get it unblown.

A clear publishing plan and a checklist is the key to getting your book done, from ideation to writing to drawing to layout production to publishing to marketing. It’s ALL going to be in the to do list. And we’ll be discussing all in the community. Bring your curiosity and your questions.

COMING SOON!

And how is this newsletter and community going to help speed along your bookmaking journey?

Mission Statement

First and foremost by understanding what we provide for you. And to do that you must get your head around The Eccentric Picture Book newsletter and the community that will be opening soon:

Are you on board?

Let’s chat for a second about marketing (yes, we are bouncing around because it’s all so fun.)

Ads: “Click Layering” for magical secret insights

Which ad do you think did the best in our tests? 1, 2 or 3? (Scroll to very bottom of newsletter for the answer.)

How can you learn to sell books you already created, or create ones you know IN ADVANCE your readers want? This can be done, and so few people know about it, especially indie creators and hobbyists. It’s a bit of a way into “marketer nerd zone”, and isn’t a self-explanatory process at all, but the concept is very, very simple. Understand the concept, and the rest is details.

I'm doing something I call "click layering" with Meta ads in Facebook and Instagram where you break down ads into their components (there are 6) and test them one at a time, and stack the winners from each “layer” or round. The result of each successful test rolls into the next test until you have tested all the components, which then yields a layered winner!

It's like tasting all of the separate ingredients that are going into your pizza one at a time to make sure each one is delicious on its own. But the final pizza is greater than the sum of its parts. That is the click layering concept!

I'm currently testing the best ways to market this newsletter to get people to sign up, and also exploring the best ways to position a paid community to help all of us get to the next level. In a couple weeks, I’ll be showing ongoing test results for a picture book.

You can use this method to test your market and sell directly too it, purely based on the numbers it reveals. How do we do it?

This is something we will talk about A LOT in the paid community when we open the doors.

I’ll be doing this process in the coming weeks for The Hideous Very Bad Monster Alphabet, as soon as production wraps up. Since this book is already done (the contents), it will be about finding the right way to position the book, finding the audience.

Speaking of which…

The Hideous Very Bad Monster Alphabet book cover

I started making the cover as you saw in the last issue. I got the front done for social media. Here is again for reference. This weeks goal is to get the soft and hard cover for Amazon done:

Next week, I hope to show you the cover spreads done in Affinity Publisher (because I’m done with Adobe until they repent. And so should you be unless you have no choice for technical reasons OR you already have free access to the Adobe suite through work).

Let’s talk drawing approaches for a couple minutes before we sign off this week.

Drawing thoughts…

If you are drawing your own illustrations (which I encourage!) or sourcing them, which style of “Action Max” above do you think is going to:

• Get done quicker

• Allow most creative freedom for the time / $$$

• Be easier to correct

• Be least time consuming overall

• Help you launch your book quicker

Instead of choosing any of the images above, think of the images on a spectrum from “slow” to “fast”. Your illustration style will be somewhere on this spectrum. Now think of publishing by a certain date vs not publishing at all because of being held up by time or expenses related to illustrations. This is a conversation you want to have with yourself.

Some thoughts on how we’ll help you draw better, even from scratch, to the end that you can do all your own artwork:

• We help you draw by suggesting effective “limiting” strategies instead of just winging it and biting off more than you can chew, which is the primary problem for many aspiring bookmakers, when it comes to art.

• A critical aspect of drawing is directly related to the format of book you choose. One format could escalate into a project you can't complete, and another strategy will create creative constraints that help you complete the book and inspire you along the way.

• Digital vs analog! The size of your file, the software, the scans, the brushes you choose: these are all things over the course of producing many illustrations for a book in some cases dozens, can make you or break you. Do you know what to choose and why?

If you want to make a series of books (you do), which style do you think will get your project done quicker?

I’m advocating, and practicing, a “limited palette” approach to illustrations. Keep it simple, for so many reasons we are going to discuss in time. Look at these two images. One from Wanda Gag’s Millions of Cats, and the other from Ron & Judi Barrett’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Both are listed among the top selling picture books of all time. Which one will help you get to a series of books faster?:

So let’s suppose you have a style all figured out. Great. But how do you actually sit down and draw 20, 30, or 50 drawings for a picture book? After choosing a style wisely, now you need to produce them.

Flow State for Bookmaking

You have a superpower at your fingertips. Learn how to slip into flow state at will, instead of only when the muse drops by. Here is a quick definition:

Some great quick-read resources are:

• Flow: The Science-Backed Key to Your Creative Breakthroughs (Skillshare Blog)

• The ‘flow state’: Where creative work thrives

• How to Harness a Flow State of Mind for Effortless Creativity by Puja Aggarwal (The Dream Catcher)

As you work through making your book, tackling all the varied processes and steps, you will 100% need to repeatedly get yourself into a flow state. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, but it’s always a choice to sit down and work towards your goal.

Quick Reader Poll

Until next time…

Thanks for coming by. Get excited for your book project and let’s work on them together!

ANSWER: 3