LOOK WHAT I MADE WHILE I WAS IN THE KITCHEN!

[Aerowyn]

AND IT'S NOT A SANDWICH EITHER!!!

.... it's actually a children's book that my sister and I worked on together. :O aww, I know you're bummed.

We just finished going through the publishing process, and we've received our first 100 copies of the book to sell locally. (It's not a self-publisher. They're more selective than that, but neither is it a "traditional" publisher.) I know you guys probably have no need for a kids book but I wanted to share the good news with you all anyway.

The book is the first in what we hope will be a series, titled "Sunnyside." I wrote the story, and Kelly did the illustrations.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c183/Lady-Aerowyn/COVER2.jpg

The book is for children between the ages of 3 - 9. The idea is that the book is ideal for parents who like to read to their kids, but it's also suitable for children who know how to read but are building their vocabulary.

I'm not going to presume that anyone wants to buy one, but IF YOU DO, I'm obliged to link you up to where you can get it. They're a good quality book, with very bright and vivid colours, and they are very affordable at $12.99 a book.

Buy it on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Thief-Sunnyside-Kelly-Jesberger/dp/1936352540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280890456&sr=8-1)
Buy it on Barnes and Noble (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/9781936352548/?itm=1&USRI=thief+in+sunnyside)

And, if by some off chance, you would like a personalized, signed copy of the book, you can leave me a private message with your address and we can work out payment/shipment. You can send a check or cash, or pay via paypal, and you will receive a signed copy of the book in a padded mailer.

In closing:

aDTwO0TlwOU


Thanks guys, much love!

[Crackers]

Seems like a nice little book, but shouldn't this be more studio related?

[ICEE]

Very cool. Errybody talented except me.

[Aerowyn]

Seems like a nice little book, but shouldn't this be more studio related?

If it's in the wrong place, the admins are more than welcome to move it.

[Bodzilla]

verly noice!

Good work

[sevlag]

god damn it i was hoping it was food, you cant eat a book

[Cojafoji]

No offense, but that cover is unbearably creepy.

[L0d3x]

Admittadly the kitchen thing got me into this thread, but that book does look very cute.

[sleepy1212]

Look at Aerowyn breaking all the rules..in the kitchen sure but instead of sammich she's pretending to be literate!

Hey, everyone in my family seems to be shitting out babies lately, if you could post another page or two i might buy one since they're so cheap (have you seen the price of children's books lately?)

[Llama Juice]

Told you that thread title would attract attention haha.

I'm buying one, gotta support ze friends, no?

Plus I'm sure it'll be a good one. Definitely one of the best books I'll read this year no doubt.

[Aerowyn]

No offense, but that cover is unbearably creepy.

lol, I'm sorry you feel that way. Trust me, it doesn't look nearly as creepy when you're looking at the book in your hands. Sherman Hokes is probably the least threatening cat detective you'll ever see, anyway.


Hey, everyone in my family seems to be shitting out babies lately, if you could post another page or two i might buy one since they're so cheap (have you seen the price of children's books lately?)

Sure thing, here are a couple of illustrations from the book. My sister hand drew, inked, and coloured the images with coloured pencil.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs258.snc4/40223_147812341902399_147804835236483_460982_12055 7_n.jpg
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs138.ash2/40223_147812348569065_147804835236483_460984_84149 0_n.jpg

[ICEE]

I like the squareheaded style

[StankBacon]

damn that's some amazing art there.

[n00b1n8R]

ITT: Aerowyn comes out of the closet about her furry tendencies.

Seriously though, good job! What kind of profit are you looking at making on these? Glad to see somebody here's making money out of something they love doing.

[Aerowyn]

damn that's some amazing art there.

I'll tell my sister you thought so, I know she will appreciate that.


ITT: Aerowyn comes out of the closet about her furry tendencies.

Seriously though, good job! What kind of profit are you looking at making on these? Glad to see somebody here's making money out of something they love doing.

I'm just the writer. My sister actually came up with the original idea, from a comic strip she drew during our freshman year of college (2006). She's much better at drawing than I am, and I'm better at writing than her (though that can be argued upon), so it seemed to be a pretty good team strategy, ha.

We're trying to publicize this as much as humanly possible. I know that we don't have great odds of success because we weren't published by a big-named traditional publisher like Harper Collins or Scholastic or anything. The current publisher we have pretty much left us with all the rights to our book, without any strings attached. If Sunnyside got big enough and Harper Collins were to offer to represent us, we would be contractually free to take our material elsewhere. Which is good, it leaves a lot of room for expansion. I would've liked to have been accepted by a traditional publisher, but we would've had to get an agent, which really takes a chunk out of an already paltry bottom line.

I don't expect it to be a replacement for an actual job, of course. It costs us about $800 for 100 copies of the book (that's not counting online sales--those are free for us, but we get dramatically fewer royalties). That's like a $500 profit we make off of every 100 books, which then needs to be split between my sister and I. We're really hoping for support from our friends and stuff.

In a dream world, this would take off, get to be huge, we'd get a better publisher to represent the Sunnyside series, get a cartoon, and a swimming pool filled with cherry jell-o. But I'm trying not to get carried away, haha.

[iizahsum]

I'll see if I can get my parents to buy it for my baby sister, she starts pre-k soon and apparently you have to be reading by the end of pre-k now.

[Kornman00]

I love you. Oh, and your sister. I love her too. You should sign your books with lipstick kisses :trollface:

Really awesome illustrations, looks way better than the crap I remember having as a kid. I don't have any kids myself though ~<3~

[English Mobster]

Aerowyn:
As someone who has been trying to get published myself, first off, I would like to say congratulations!
Second off, I'm a bit worried about your publisher. It's by Mirror Publishing (http://www.pagesofwonder.com/), is it not? A quick Google search revealed their past hasn't been so reputable (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164096).
Did ANY of these signs come up (copy and pasted from Writer Beware (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html), a great site for making sure everything checks out)?

1. Fee-charging--whether for the actual printing/production of the book, or for some other item related to the publishing process, such as editing or publicity. Some publishers require authors to buy bulk quantities of their own books. Fees range from a few hundred dollars to more than $25,000. A nominal "advance" in the face of other fee-charging practices does nothing to legitimize them.

2. Author-unfriendly contracts--including rights grabs, taking copyright, restrictive option clauses, sub-standard royalty provisions (including reverse-accounted royalties), inadequate reversion clauses, draconian "defamation clauses," and a host of other inappropriate and abusive contract terms.

3. Deliberately misleading advertising--including directly soliciting authors, misrepresenting services to authors in an effort to masquerade as commercial publishers, hiding the fact that they are vanity operations, and making false claims about distribution and bookstore presence.

4. Conflicts of interest--some of these publishers are the vanity "arm" of (or otherwise under common control with) a fee-charging literary agency, which directs clients to the publisher under the guise of having made a "sale"--often without revealing the financial and personnel links between the two businesses.

5. Lack of editorial gatekeeping--as befits vanity operations, many of these publishers have few, if any, standards for the books they acquire. Some don't even bother to read the books they accept for publication.

6. Poor or inadequate editing. Some of these publishers don’t even pretend to provide editing. Others do little more than run the text through a spell and grammar checking program, or employ unqualified, inexperienced staff.

7. Repeated breach of contractual obligations--such as nonpayment of royalties, refusal to provide royalty statements, incorrect accounting, publication delays, ARCs not sent for review as promised, failure to ship books or fulfill orders, failure to make author changes in proofs, and failure to respond properly to author queries and communications. Some of these publishers have been the focus of successful litigation and other legal actions by authors.
Seeing "Pricing" on their site (looking at their old site through the Web Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20070629045934/www.pagesofwonder.com/PRICING.html)) is a clear violation of #1, and hopefully they haven't infringed in other places as well.
I see you've made it to Amazon, which is promising, but I'm still a bit worried about the publisher. Too many of my friends have fallen into that trap; I'd hate to see you get screwed over as well. Keep a close eye on your ass; perhaps they've changed, perhaps they haven't.

P.S. A good agent will only take 10%-15% of what you make. Considering an Agent is the difference between a $200 book deal and a $800 book deal for a children's book, I'd say it'd be worth it in the future. Again, Writer Beware (http://www.sfwa.org/) is a great resource, and be sure to double-check with a Google search before you close a deal.

[sleepy1212]

Very cool, I'm sure my nephew will enjoy this.

btw: cheaper at B&N

[Needles]

The drawings look pretty good =P

[kid908]

Really like the colour pencil style colouring

[Heathen]

Its beyond adorable and I'd definitely buy one.

[Aerowyn]

Its beyond adorable and I'd definitely buy one.

You're such a sweetheart. <3

[Corndogman]

Very nice Aero! I made a childrens book for a project in high school, it looked like crap compared to this though.

[sleepy1212]

Just got this in the mail today, read it while i ate lunch.

It's cute, the art was pretty cool, definitely better than some of the other children's books littering our house, although the character's faces were pretty much the same (mostly the thin lines like the eyes/nose/mouth - and they had this really odd expression on their faces sometimes). I really liked looking at the pictures. They were bright, engaging, and there was lot's to look at...which is really important for a book that seems to be geared toward toddlers.

The story was paced too quickly which made the climax really weak, but, imo it seems more directed at toddlers so this really isn't that big of a deal. I think you could have upped the age on it by a year or two by slowing it down a little and including more involvement from the main characters (which i'm assuming were the two children on the first page) and maybe implying who the thief was throughout the story (which would also help illicit more sympathy to the thief). The inclusion of "noise words' was a nice touch and the reading was smooth which is good since, most likely, this book will be read aloud.

Overall i think you guys did a great job and I could see this turning into a series if everything works out.