With Christmas leftovers still in the fridge and my tuxedo hanging ready to dress me for a night of debauchery this New Year’s Eve 2011, I thought it time to write a quick post summing up the year for Beachy Books.

I have little recollection of what happened earlier in the year, and I’m assuming not much significant as the only blog posts this year start in May 2011. However behind the scenes much work was happening on figuring out what our next move would be: Is Beachy Books a one book wonder? What book should we publish next? How could we sell more of our first book?

Before we had time to think, our first children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures, won the Children’s category of the DSJT Writing Magazine Publishing Award. This really gave us a boost and we had some very supportive feedback and praise from our wonderful social network Twitter crowd, who have continued to grow and be brilliant throughout the year.

To celebrate the award, we republished a new cover (unfortunately it was too late to put “Award Winning” on the cover as we’d started the process before knowing we’d won). We received helpful feedback on our first book’s cover and also on the price from various people including book sellers and industry people. The feedback was noted and we created a fresh new look that would unify the design and work across future planned Jack and Boo sequels. Crucially, we dropped the cover price from £7.99 to a winning £5.99, which we felt was a better RRP to the end consumer, but allowed less room for trade discounts.

We published Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood (the difficult second book, as we made changes after getting constructive criticism from a professional – changes we think improved the book however!), an adventure inspired by our family love of wild woodland and celebrated with a fantastic foraging walk in the local woodland where some of the photos in the book were taken. I was invited into a local school to read the book, where I did a story and book making workshop with the kids and displayed their wonderful story books at the Quay Arts Book Fair. Oh and we met our wildlife hero, Chris Packham, who kindly wrote some inspiring words about the book, which we used on the back cover. We also got some great promo for the book in a competition in the Wildlife Trusts’ Wildlife Watch magazine.

2011 saw the first time I’d been kindly asked to write guest blog posts. Some of the highlights covered my most cherished childhood picture books, how I introduced my son to the joys of Fighting Fantasy books and a ramble on book categories. Thanks to all who asked and I look forward to future offers!

We didn’t want to wait long to get on with the next book, and besides I needed something to distract me from the slog of trying to get our books into bookshops and other retail outlets – no easy task! So, In October Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day was published, just in time to go on sale for Christmas. One of the highlights was getting a call from the manager of our local Waterstone’s telling us we’d sold them all on Christmas Eve and did we have any more? Unfortunately, we didn’t have any stock in at Beachy HQ due to all our other books getting sold at various events and to other shops – doh! Must order more stock next Christmas!

To finish the year I did a reading of Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day and some activities at a local school, which was scary but an incredible experience – one I’ll be hopefully repeating in the new year.

I wonder what 2012 will bring? In spite of the world being on the “brink” of financial ruin, the planet continuing to heat up and the prospect of wall-to-wall Olympic coverage in the media, Beachy Books is going to push things further and really make our mark. To whet your appetite we have the following new year resolutions:

1. Publish a new Jack and Boo book.
2. Publish a new fiction book for children that’s nothing to do with Jack and Boo (shock!).
3. Commence an exciting publishing project with a local primary school.
4. Jack and Boo wild walks for the 2012 Isle of Wight Walking Festival.
5. Start Project X (not even I know the exact details of this).
6. Save the planet.
7. Tweet!

Happy New Year to all our friends, family, Tweeps, supporters and fans! We love you!

Last week I visited Newchurch primary school to read our new winter children’s book called Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day. In fact, it was more than reading the book, it was a half-day marathon session of discussion, questions and winter activities with four classes from reception up to year 3. I’d only read the book in a school once before, so I was still very wet behind the ears. To add to my apprehension, the headteacher had also invited in parents along to sit with their children and listen in. Eeek!

I’d prepared loads of research material, read the book aloud a few times and planned things to do, plus I’d set beeping reminders on my phone so I could dash in time from one classroom to another. Fortunately my job was made easier by the headteacher who based me in one room and arranged for each year group to shuffle in throughout the morning.

My heart was pumping as the first class from year 3 walked in along with a few parents. I had wanted to use the electronic whiteboard to display a digital copy of my book, complete with turning pages. Unfortunately – or typically – the laptop took ages to do anything and I couldn’t control the pages directly on the whiteboard. As I waited for the technician to help me sort the laptop out, the class sat in embarrassing silence on the floor – it was unbearable, so I suddenly announced, “I’ll do it the old fashioned way!” and sat down and started to read from the book. Before long, the class was captivated (mildy interested) and I was away. Soon hands fired up as I turned pages and we got into a great discussion about winter wildlife.

I got so engrossed I hadn’t realised the electronic version was now working on the whiteboard behind me, so when I saw it I proceeded to read from the book, but this time with the benefit of the huge stadium version on the board – very useful to point out things in the book dramatically. There was soon a sea of eager hands waiting to get involved.

For years 2 and 3, I used the themes in the book – winter wildlife, hibernation, migration, snow – as the basis of a quiz, which really got the kids thinking. A child threw out a great fact about stoats that I didn’t know, which prompted me to remark: “That’ll teach me to stand up here pretending to be Chris Packham!”

I ended each reading and discussion with a “make” by showing the class how to make a plastic bottle birdfeeder and gave out instructions so that the children could do the same over the Christmas holidays.

Year 1 and reception were amazing fun too. They got so involved as I read the story and it was fascinating to hear the difference in questions they had. Sometimes a hand would fly up to answer a question, I’d look at them to answer, but they’d suddenly drop their hand and say, “I’ve forgotten now!” and giggle! More often than not, a child would ignore my question and tell me an anecdote about how they made a snowman once – brilliant! I found I got so involved in talking to the children I forgot I’d read a page of the book. A particular highlight was hearing the reception children call like two tawny owls, “t-wit” and “oo-oooo!” It took me ages to get them to stop calling. Great fun.

To finish, I had brought in some ice – not just any ice, Beachy Books Christmas Ice! This was an icecream tub filled with garden leaves, berries and sticks, a few shakes of glitter and then popped into the freezer over night. I was suddenly surrounded by a sea of hands all wanting to touch the ice. They went mad! One boy asked me, “Is it REAL ice?” It was even more impressive when I removed it from the tub and held it aloft for all to see the frozen layers while melting water dripped into a bucket on the floor. Before long we got into a mini science lesson discussing what was happening to the ice and how it felt to touch.

And so, before I knew it, the half day was over, and the last class skipped out chanting “Jack and Boo! Jack and Boo! Jack and Boo!” – I kid you not! I got some great complimentary feedback from the headteacher, teachers and parents and I even sold a few books to parents for Christmas surprises. Later in the day I had children greeting me as “Hello, Mr Bell!” which was very odd and a few saying they’d enjoyed it, so I guess I must have made an impact. I only hope the children learned as much as I did. To paraphrase Bruce Forsyth: “Keeeeeeeeeeeeep learning!”

Look out for Jack and Boo visiting more primary schools in the new year.

I was asked the other day how I would describe our Jack and Boo children’s books. I answered by saying they were nature-led stories for children that combined fact and fiction, with spotter guides! Not exactly as catchy as Don Draper from Mad Men would have come up with, but it did start me thinking, was it an accurate description of the book? Just what category or genre does my writing fit? Do categories matter anymore? How would you describe your book? I don’t have definitive answers, but these are my musings…hop over to historic novel writer, Helen Hollick’s blog to read my guest blog post on the conundrum of categories… (extreme author photo warning!)

I usually try to get a morning walk in across the fields, through woodland, along footpaths, when I can, after doing the school run. It banishes low feelings, exercises the body and gets me thinking about the day ahead. It’s especially useful if I’m working on a new Jack and Boo book, which are all set out in nature. A writer needs to observe the world and then try and describe it anew. I try to do this when writing Jack and Boo books. I try to think about how I can describe something we might see everyday and take for granted, in a new way. Our autumn book called Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood took ages to write despite its brevity. This is partly because I’m the world’s slowest writer, but mostly because the story follows the adventures of Jack and Boo in a wood from spring through to autumn. It’s a challenge to write about a season or event you are not directly experiencing, so I make notes through the year and then later refer to them. Ultimately, you cannot beat getting out into nature and observing. But, please do watch out for cows.

On my frosty walk today I encountered a herd of cows blocking the style I needed to cross. Bearing in mind this is the same field I got chased by sheep in during summer, I really didn’t fancy my chances, so I opted for the country lane instead. Still, all grist for the mill…coming soon… Jack and Boo’s Terrifying Run from a Herd of Evil Cows!

Some time ago I was asked by Beth Cregan, a teacher and writer, based in Australia who runs a great educational/writing company called Write Away With Me that inspires young people, children and teachers to educate through story telling.  She asked me to write a blog piece about my inspiration for writing our books. I’ve reproduced it here with some edits in case you missed it, which include some insights into how we create our books:

I’ve always loved picture books. Like most children, picture books were my first introduction to the world of literature. I have wonderful electric feelings of being read a picture book on the sofa or at bedtime by my mum and grandma. My favourite picture book, or at least the one that resonates most from my childhood, is Cuthbert and the Thingamabob by Kim Chesher, illustrated by Yasuko Kimura, and a sequel, Cuthbert and the Sea Monster, now both sadly out of print. (Interestingly, there are other versions published where the name Fergus is used in place of Cuthbert?)

This story and the images in the book stayed with me until I had children of my own, when I was delighted to find out my mum had kept the luminous green, well worn, hardbacks to give to me to read to my two offspring. To my surprise, one of the books even has some of my first attempts at writing – T’s and H’s scribbled at varying size and my attempt at drawing the eponymous Cuthbert of the title in red felt tip all over the interior title page. On first discovering this, I thought the graffiti was the work of my young daughter who regularly fills paper pads with letters and drawings. It reminded me that picture books, the shape of letters on the page, the rhythm of hearing our parents read them, are an essential step in learning to read and write.

And so I rediscovered my childhood favourite, but this time as an adult, and now a writer, seeing other layers to the simple story of how Cuthbert searches for a special Thingamamob that reminds him what kind of animal he is. What chimed most as a child was the picture book images, the monstrous versions of familiar animals, although on re-reading (especially reading to my children) I noticed the author’s writing, the style, the flow and rhythm. This is normal as a child does tend to focus on the illustrations, especially at pre-school age. But words are just as important and must work together with the images, often with a subtext flowing through both. Words and pictures have to compliment one another, but can also subvert to create humour or surprise.

To write picture books you have to read them to understand how they are constructed. It’s only then you can find your own likes, dislikes and develop your own writing style. What initially put me off writing a picture book was the picture bit, something that obviously makes up a considerable part. I’d known through my research that publishers tended to only accept picture book text from writers, sent in without pictures, and if you were lucky, good enough and fitted into their existing list, they’d match an illustrator to your words. Obviously if you are a writer and illustrator, and you have a truly original style in both – greats like Quentin Blake spring to mind – then you’re laughing.

I was fortunate that my wife was handy with a pencil and taking inspiration from our own family adventures with our two children, Jack and Boo, the characters in our book, were born. We wanted our book to easily stand alongside other published picture books, so we chose a popular modern format and went for a standard 32 page interior. (Basically picture book page counts must be divisible by 4 i.e. 4 pages to each sheet of paper.) When I wrote various drafts I’d just write the text on a new page in word, to represent each picture book page. It was a long process finding the right style and what really helped was creating several “book dummies” made from plain sheets of paper folded and stapled, to get a visual feel of where things should go, how the story should flow – essential to simulating what a reader experiences as they turn the pages.

To keep things simple I chose a standard format of text on the left, with an illustration on the opposite page. I particularly like free verse and prose poetry and, as the idea was to capture a family day out, I wrote it in this style, as though writing a diary using poetry, but from the child’s point of view. While going through old photos we hit upon the idea of using them in the book as we hadn’t seen that style before. My wife’s illustrations reflect a snapshot in time, like a photo, but don’t necessarily represent the exact actions of Jack and Boo described in the text – the picture or text should bring something new to the party. Often the text talks about a moment just before or just after the snapshot, and in this way I hope children enjoying the book will imagine what happened leading up to the event, or following the event, sparking their imagination.

Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures, or our new book Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood, are nothing like the Cuthbert stories, but I hope I’ve captured the spirit of it in my own style. Now when I sit down to write a story, I start by rereading a childhood favourite to remember how it inspired me. When I write I then try to recreate that sense of magic, wonder and discovery that I felt.

As a writer you have to get used to criticism, whether it be from your own critical brain, or from an external comment from friend, family member or professional. I’ve had my fair share along the way and still get criticism and rejections, every so often. But, if you publish your own books, you avoid all this, right?

That’s what somebody on Twitter implied to me the other day - why am I worrying about rejection if I publish myself? I’m sure they assumed I was trying to get something published, but what they may not have realised is, as independent publisher, you still have to go out and try and sell your book to the world, try and persuade the “gatekeepers” who own the bookshops, book buyers, distributors, wholesalers, organisations, why they should take a risk with your book. And, remember, it is a risk taking on an unknown book from a new author or independent publisher, unless it’s an easy sell, preferably, a book that has got the backing of a TV series, film rights sold and from an established author.

And so, like a writer trying to get their book published, trying to sell your self published book is also a struggle, one that is littered with rejections and criticism along the way, but hopefully if your book really is good (it is good isn’t it?), some great feedback and success too.

I write this because recently I’ve stepped up my marketing activities in order to get our books sold in more outlets around the country. I say “outlets” as you have to think further than traditional bookshops (my views on the future of real bookshops, however much I love them, I’ll save for a future blog post). I recently got some feedback on our new book from a senior person in a big organisation that I won’t name. It was confusing as the email was very vague and suggested that certain aspects of our book would not chime well with them. I immediately went into panic mode, flipping through a copy of the book on my desk, checking to see if there was anything contentious contained within.

I started to guess at a few possible things, mind racing. In the end I was bold and politely emailed back to ask for some clarification, asking that their expert feedback would be greatly appreciated. To my delight I got back a quick email with more detail. I took on board the feedback and realised that some elements of the book could be construed in a different way, from their point of view – they were thinking of a managerial point of view, health and safety etc. I could have just thought – no I’m not changing MY BOOK, how dare you, it’s perfect! But, they did have a point, and if a senior person, experienced in their field, noticed things that set off alarm bells, other people might also think the same. This would have been devastating  if we had thousands of stock books piled up, but we use Print On Demand (POD) technologies to only print the books we want at the time. I have now made some changes, which only took a few hours and future books will be improved following detailed constructive criticism. And that’s the point, when you get criticism, ask for more detailed feedback.

This is easier said than done as I know, if we’re talking about getting published, agents and publishers rarely give you specific feedback – a standard form rejection is de-rigour due to the sheer height of most slush piles. Having said all this, years ago I got a hand written rejection from an agent that gave me so much confidence on my writing (the story sucked) that it really helped me push ahead.

And so, I say, to all those that give criticism, please, please, if you can, spare a moment, a few helpful, honest, specific words to the recipient will be appreciated. And to those who have got some recent criticism and rejection, please listen to it then wipe away the tears, make some changes, get back on the horse and make that jump. Although, be prepared to fall off into that muddy ditch again, sorry.

On Monday this week I visited Newchurch Primary School in Isle of Wight to read our new Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood children’s picture book to a class of 7yos and then get them thinking about making and writing their own stories.

I had never read any of our books to anyone other than my own children – two of the harshest critics ever born – and small groups of children at various book signings. Reading to a class of children sitting on the carpet in front of me, their teacher and classroom assistant sitting behind them, was daunting, but I’m happy to say my nerves were soon quenched by the enthusiasm of youth. They got so involved as I turned the pages, stopping to ask questions about the wildlife illustrated in the book, and eagerly raising hands to win my attention to tell me the right – or wrong – answer.

We had a great discussion about going out into nature and spotting wildlife. I was heartened that most of the children could identify a bluebell and had tasted a wild blackberry. The questions came think and fast. The discussion led onto talking about the writing process and how writing is really all about rewriting, redrafting, until you are happy (some writers are never happy). The copy of Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood I read was a proof copy and had some mistakes, which I got the class to try and identify.Children love to discover adults get things wrong too!

After reading, I showed them how to fold paper into a mini book and on each panel I’d written some basic writing tips to get them started on a simple picture book story. I covered titles, begginings, middles and ends and I was also pleased they all knew about writing good book blurbs on the back cover.

I think I must have confused the children at one point when I told them not to do the title/cover page first, because most writers don’t come up with a title until they’ve written the book, as they don’t know what it’s going to be about yet. One little boy found this most annoying and asked that he must do the title first as he couldn’t start his story without it! It taught me that writing has no rules, just good and bad advice. In the end you have to find your own way.

There was much noise and folding and writing and drawing. Some of the children had immediate ideas about what to write, while others needed some ideas. I told them to use their own experiences and adventures to find something truly original. It must have worked, because, by the end of the session, all the children were deep in thought, writing.

I’d like to say thanks to the teachers and children at Newchurch school. I can report the future is in very safe hands judging by the intelligent children I met.

And if you want to see the finished books and have a go at making one yourself, then come along to Quay Arts, Newport IOW, at the Artists’ Book Fair on Saturday 28th May between 11am and 4pm. I’ll be signing copies of the “old style” Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures, before the new cover version is published this summer – so that’ll make them even more valuable and rare one day. Here’s hoping…

By now the whole world will know we’ve won the children’s book category of the David St John Thomas Self publishing Award 2011, in collaboration with Writers’ News and Writing Magazine, in London on Wednesday 11th May. Did you get the memo? This is my account of the day, lessons learned, the future…

I travelled by Bongo, Catamaran and train to the fabled North Island alone from our secret base on the Isle of Wight. I passed the time by reading the next book for my fabled #wightbook twitter book group – a book I cannot speak of as I’d violate the first rule of the book club. Anyway, I digress. I got to London, wide-eyed, staring up at landmarks I’d seen on TV (OK, I’m milking it here – I did work in London for years) spotting Ian Lee and Paddy Ashdown on my walk to the venue for the awards. No doubt my entire journey past The London Eye, across Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, captured in the foregrounds of a million snapping tourists’ holiday photos.

And then the wait. I’d got there too early so I had my first coffee of the day in a boring chain coffee shop. A mistake, as little did I know that at the end of the day I’d pay for all the coffees I drank as it kept me awake half the night and did serious damage to my guts. And I read and started to daydream about winning and getting up to address a stadium-sized hall of thousands of publishing professionals and authors. The DSJT Awards couldn’t have been further from my fantasy, set in a conference hall laid out with chairs for around 100 people or so, with the judges sitting, like judges, behind a long desk on a raised platform. It wasn’t the BAFTAS but all jokes aside this was a well established event, started some 20 years ago by David St John Thomas Charitable Trust, who, along with charity work overseas, was created to encourage writers and self publishers. I remember seeing photos of previous winners years ago in Writers’ News and Writing Magazine, so I immediately recognised David, a tall well spoken and humorous man, now some 82 years young.

I sat nervously while they went through the awards, reading out highlights and a summaries of the various nominees’ major achievements, runners up and then winners announced in each category. And they got to the children’s award and I got really nervous. When they announced the runner-up I knew I’d won, my heart raced. I wiped my sweating hands on my trousers so I’d not disgust the judges when they shook my warm wet hand. They got to us, and it felt so strange other people talking about our book. The room erupted – there was some applause – and I got up to collect my award, a certificate and cheque for £250. Am I sounding ungrateful? No, an award is an award – the recognition that we’d written and published a book that well respected judges had chosen to win was incredible. I felt good.

We were also “highly commended” and seriously considered for the two other awards for Self Publisher of the Year, which went to a historical novel, and Winner of Winners, which went to an anthology produced by a writers’ group. Maybe next year we could scoop those two?

After photos were taken of all the winners together – a feat of endurance smiling I’d not accomplished since my own wedding photos – we had refreshments and a chance to network and sell a few books we’d all brought. It was interesting to note not many of the authors bought many books – my sales came from people who hadn’t self published, guests, etc. Just shows, networking with other writers and self publishers won’t necessarily boost your sales.

I had a chat to a few authors who, on the face of it, had done remarkably well selling their books, sometimes in their thousands, but they still seemed very negative – or should I say jaded? – about the whole self publishing process. They told me how difficult they had found it to get into bookshops, and even selling direct had not yielded the expected sales for them. I cannot say I felt the same as I’d not gone into self publishing with any great expectations of big sales – or even any – although there was a part of me, an arrogant, naive one, that felt I could compete with the big publishers and “do it better”.

With “some” experience behind us now, I have a more realistic view of what can be achieved with self publishing, and a better idea of how to take advantage of it. Firstly, it’s crazy to compete with other established publishing companies – learn from them for sure, but to compete in the same market, where even they are under pressure to sell books, is folly. In my view the benefits of being wholly independent and able to make all the decisions ourselves, the ability to react to the market – and our readers – quickly and target sales in areas that the main publishers don’t compete in is our advantage.

We hoped Jack and Boo’s adventure would appeal to children and families, but it wasn’t until we sold books and began to get genuine positive feedback from children and families telling us how much they’d enjoyed the book that we realised it really did appeal to others. Learning how children were inspired or families learned new things was our biggest reward in this whole process and has spurred us on to complete our next Jack and Boo adventure, out in the coming months.

We’d like to thank the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust for running these competitions, for choosing us as winners and encouraging other self publishers – you’ve certainly encouraged us! Importantly, a big thanks to everybody who has bought and reviewed our book and all the great friends and contacts who’ve supported us along the way. Winning this children’s award is just the start of even better beachy books to come.

They say, don’t judge a book by its cover, but everybody does. It’s usually the first thing you see and has a massive impact on influencing a person’s decision to pick up a book,  let alone buy it.

A year on from its publication, I thought it a good time to reflect on our first book’s cover: What reasons led us to choosing this cover, how this impacted sales, and lessons learned.

In order to get some objective comments, all be it unscientific and loosely qualitative,  I elicited feedback from our wonderful Twitter followers, made up of parents, teachers, writers and publishing professionals.

The book had gone through a few initial sizes and designs before we settled on the final format shown above. The cover was designed last. I’d love to say it was thought out in great detail, but it wasn’t. That’s not to say it didn’t go through many iterations and layouts, before arriving at the finished cover, but we didn’t have an overall strategy, apart from wanting to ensure it looked “professional”. We didn’t want the fact it was “self-published” to set it apart from picture book’s published by established publishing houses. And let’s face it, the design and cover of many self-published books is dreadful.

The fonts had been chosen  to give a “seaside” or “pirate” feel, and we wanted the “Jack & Boo’s” to suggest a brand, a continuation of sequels that we had planned. It does use 3 different fonts, which I know is a graphic design sin, however I felt they didn’t compete and all had their jobs to do, as a title, body text and brand font. I’d done some research on cover design in the book trade, knowing that it was de-rigour to keep unknown author names smaller, and to allow more space for the title and images. I guess, looking at it now, the Jack and Boo illustration was us trying to establish a brand for Beachy Books. It was the image we’d chosen in the logo for Beachy Books. My main reason for choosing this illustration for the cover was, I thought it summed up the essence of the book: two children treasure hunting on a beach. I admit the image is simple and almost anonymous, with detailed faces kept to a minimum. Some feedback has suggested they don’t even know what the two characters are doing though. In hindsight, we should have chosen a more interesting image, showing Jack & Boo’s faces.

I used simple graphic elements to break up the areas, making the title stand-out and suggesting a graphic representation of sand and blue sky. I’d tried using some of the photographic images inside, but for some reason we rejected them, in favour of keeping it very simple and graphic. In hindsight, I think we should have shown the photographic/illustrative mix on the cover because it’s a key original feature that makes our book look look different. Also I wish I’d chosen more exciting poses and chosen ones showing faces. I’m a bit of a fan of keeping it simple and graphic, hence the cover we ended up with.

Anyway, a year on, how has our cover effected sales of our book? Hmmm, this is tricky to quantify as not everybody that bought the book had to make a judgement through just the cover. We got many of our sales on-line, where customers could look inside the book on our website before buying. At book signings we got to chat to families and children, which helped sell copies. But of the copies in bookshops, such as Waterstone’s, we’ve not had as good sales as we hoped. Of course there are other contributing factors that influence people, such as the high cover price compared to competitive books ( something we are addressing on future books) and, in some outlets, the book hasn’t been positioned in a prime eye-line position, cover facing out.

I asked some Twitter followers what they thought of the cover to get some objectivity. Most liked it, although were not blown away. A surprising amount said it was “retro” or “70s” and reminded them of books from their childhood. This was never our intention. Ours is a picture book that just happens to have a boy and girl coloured using primary colours, that’s where the similarity ends. In any case, it shows people are also heavily influenced by the books they read as children, which the publishing industry has tapped into heavily over the past few years by releasing a succession retro children’s style books into the market.

In any case the cover did seem to resonate with adults, who ultimately have to decide to buy a book for a child, so I’m not sure that reason put people off. I have looked at it so many times I’m unsure of my judgement any more, but seeing the whole one piece cover, the more interesting illustrations, pirate and mermaid, are the ones used on the back cover, and perhaps would have worked better on the front cover.

Another big factor influencing book buyers is advertising, be it direct or more subliminal. Most book buyers have already made a decision about the book title (or type) of book they want, before entering the shop, as they’ve been exposed to adverts, reviews and word of mouth recommendations, or because they have already bought a book from a favourite author they’ll be more inclined to buy a sequel. Obviously 3 for 2 book deals and cheap best sellers in the window and front of shop help persuade a person to buy an unexpected book, along with the books they had already intended buying.

So, that said, what have we learned?

• Do more research into similar children’s picture book covers. What are the latest trends in cover design?
• Design to attract the target audience. In our case, initially parents, but must also capture a child’s imagination.
• Canvass some feedback from potential customers and professionals, before going to press.
• Get the technical typography, colours and graphic design bang on.
• Don’t print the price on the back – if you want to change the price, it’ll mean a new cover, costing more than a simple price change.
• Make the cover image or photography exciting. Easier said than done. Entice the reader to pick up the book, look at the book and take a peek inside.
• Taking all the above into account, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Learn from your mistakes, be proud of what you have achieved so far, then move on…

While sorting some things out I found the “original” copy of our book, then named The Bucket of Treasures, printed via Lulu as a test, back in November 2008. The format is 9 by 7 inches landscape and, looking back, I do like the original image used and the shadows, which also feature in the interior pages. It feels more intriguing, makes me want to see where Jack is walking too. I like the offset design, the way the title leads you into the image. Perhaps if we ever get famous, this early original could be worth something…or maybe not!?