In other words: if Strongbad could write a children’s book, so can I.
And probably, so can you.
Dear Strongbad,
I mean dear… whatever.
Back in 2001 I was one of those kids who tuned in to Homestarrunner.com every week to watch the latest installment of Strongbad Emails. Out of all the hundreds of webisodes, there is one that has been so thoroughly ingrained in my head all these years that it actually inspired me to do something silly:
I wrote a children’s book.
Because as Strongbad points out:
Kids can barely read as it is, so how hard can it be??
Wise words.
While Strongbad was able to “write” a book that taught kids important vocabulary words like fangoriously, gelatinous, and linebacker he MAY have had a bit of a strategic advantage in that he just crossed out and replaced parts of an existing book.
If only I’d thought of that!
But it turns out, it’s not so easy!
My own book-writing journey started on the bus. I rode it to work each day, jotting down ideas and doodles to pass the time. Absent-minded scribbling is something I’ve been doing since before I was literate, but one day riding down Portage Avenue I wrote the words:
A Th*nk that’s free can touch, can teach, can learn and grow.
Alongside it was something that looked like a fuzzy light bulb.
Another day I scrawled:
Dos can climb trees, and Yeses can ride bikes.
A little pep talk to myself, if nothing else.
I never intended to do anything with these notes. But eventually I found myself wishing I could find the kinds of books I would want to read to my own kids. Aesop’s Fables are great, but a little old-fashioned and I wasn’t WOWED by anything contemporary. I wanted to read them something simple, silly, and a little weird.
So I sat down at my computer to make an honest go of creating a book to be published.
If nothing else, I figured I’d learn a new skill or two along the way. At best I’d be making my own small contribution to someone’s bookshelf.
Goodnight Moon is a treasure, but it isn’t Shakespeare. Mr. Messy goes on a grand adventure and Mr. Noisy learns to be quiet, but Roger Hargreaves wouldn’t have been hired to paint the Sistine Chapel.
…though that would be HILARIOUS.
The charm of those books is their simplicity. They are for children, and they are lovable.
So making a book is going to be easy, right?
I had no idea how much there was to learn!
There are plenty of tools and resources available for self-publishers, I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for how steep the learning curve would be! A book seems like such a simple object.
I should have known better.
After all, I’ve read I, Pencil by Leonard Read.
I recognized very quickly that it’s one thing to doodle in a notepad, but entirely another to do it IN THE COMPUTER.
Even more so when your experience is limited to creating greeting cards.
Maintaining consistency across multiple pages was a daunting task. Selecting a colour palette when the options are endless is overwhelming. And figuring out fonts?
Forget about it.
But, as my grandmother used to say:
It’s like eating an elephant. Do it one bite at a time.
So I sat myself down, took a breath, and got to work. I established the line weights I liked, added one character or element at a time, and made notes to help me find my way back.
Because, as I learned the hard way, making one change likely means you really need to retrace your steps to make thirty other changes.
And that’s just the creative part.
Then there is the business of book-making.
Paper weights. Page-number requirements. Saddle-stitching? What the heck is a print-on-demand service? And, once you’ve actually made a book, how the heck do you get anyone to read it?
My “simple” project turned into a crash course in publishing, marketing, and everything in between.
My only advice is this:
Figure out what you don’t know quickly, and make a plan for how you’ll fill that gap.
I was lucky enough to find the Tom Woods Author’s Academy – writers of all ages and backgrounds who just wanted to produce something worth reading.
My kind of weirdos.
It was tremendously helpful just to have access to other people at their own stages of the book-making journey. And they may have had more practical advice to offer than Strongbad.
After a few missteps and approximately a million-and-two tiny tasks, I can proudly say that my first book, A Th*nk That’s Free, is available for purchase.
Maybe next time, I’ll just find another book and cross out some bits.
Because there really is no “wrong” way, right?
As Strongbad says:
Everyone is different. No two people are not on fire.
Education at its finest.
I hope you’ll add A Th*nk That’s Free to your collection!
Crapfully yours,
AD