So… my first book HAD to be the poem, ‘Please Don’t Go in the Dryer’. I loved listening to it on my CD – it made me laugh out loud so many times. I even performed it, quite a few times, as part of my children’s show. I got a big yellow dryer made out of corro-plast for that bit and pretended to find my kitty inside it, and started admonishing him for going in there, which launched the poem recital. The poem was already written and ready to go. Step one – create the text – accomplished.

Step 2: Look for publishers who were taking unsolicited ideas for children’s books – didn’t have much success there. Then I talked to a bunch of people about publishing children’s books. I have a cousin who’s had some success writing and self publishing in Alberta and she gave me some great tips that made it seem doable. Have since found quite a few more and found a site that makes it all seem even easier to accomplish (they do as much of the work as you are willing to pay them to do).

Step 3: Ask around and put out some feelers on Facebook, looking for an illustrator (it’s obviously NOT going to be me)! Then a light went on in my head, and  I went back to my friend, Peter Achurch, who did the illustrations for my CD cover. I loved the cover and thought, why not? What’s the worst he could say – no? Happily, he agreed to give it a try and we’ve got a few ideas started, one that’s featured on this site. It’s not finished but has our star character in a basket looking oh so cute and innocent (but we know better!)

Step 4: Think up ways to finance the making of the book. I really want to make sure that my friend Peter gets paid as much as possible for his time and talent, his materials and his all around great guy qualities. And, of course, I want the project to be a success for me as well,  monetarily and otherwise. I saw an ad for a new government-sponsored site called ArtsFunding.ca and had a nice long coaching session with someone there. I bought a book that he recommended and have started working on their recommendations for a successful crowd funding venture for arts projects.

Step 5: Get a professional, friendly and sympatico graphic designer to make the book look great! That part was pretty easy – my cousin used to work with someone who also lives in her co-op. Contacted her and… voila! she’s on board too. Lucky me! (Her name is Elaine Littmann, if anyone’s looking….)

Step 6, 7, 8, 9……. sleep, work, think positively, take care of myself, don’t try to do it all at once, i.e. do one or two things per day, (remember you already have an almost all consuming full time job), rinse, and repeat…. 🙂 (just don’t go in the dryer!)