Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I'm a Published Author!



Support independent publishing: buy this book on Lulu.

Here's how it happened:

  • My mother-in-law told me I should write children's books.

  • My niece had a birthday coming up so I decided to write a book for her.

  • I found http://www.lulu.com/ and decide this is an amazing site.

  • I wrote a story about a girl named Addisyn trying to get a pair of red shoes.

  • As I sat down to draw the illustrations for the story, I realized I CANNOT draw.

  • The birthday came and went so I found and "hired" a real illustrator-my father-in-law! (P.S He gets paid in pictures and blog posts and cyber kisses from Renae)

  • Kevin sends me the the scaned copies of his work and the pictures are beeeutiful!

  • I attempt to upload the pics onto http://www.lulu.com/ and discover it's harder than I thought. No worries-they have LIVE chat help! Four different people helped me figure out how to do everything over the course of my day. They were so nice and helpful. (As it turns out, I was making it harderd than it needed to be. Simply create your story in Word, and upload that file!)

  • I set up the cover and choose my options, and my book is published!

  • The book is being printed in the next few days and Addisyn will receive her gift (probably a few days late-sorry.) for Christmas! Don't tell her though-it's a surprise!

I nominate the following people to publish some books on http://www.lulu.com/:

  • Kari-you've got plenty of recipes to fill a much sought after cookbook
  • Jenny-you can write AND draw!
  • Mandi-Mandi's version of "Kids Say the Darndest Things"

13 comments:

Mandi said...

Julie! How fun, creative and SPECIAL!! I love it! So will Addisyn!

kpjordan said...

Julie, congrats on publishing. You will now be inspired/encouraged to do more of the same. And thanks to you, Kevin is again excited about doing some art work. Is rather difficult to be inspired when time is precious and his little students require so much physical and mental energy on a daily basis throughout the school year. But he's delighted that he did this project.
Thanks for the reference to a site for writing our own books, should we decide to accept the assignment ;o)

kpjordan said...

Ohhh....I LOVE the name of the publishing company! Way clever.

kpjordan said...

Julie: congratulations on getting your book published!! Awesome!! Interesting choice for the cover:)I am delighted that the art worked out ok...looking forward to seeing the book in person...some people from work have already asked where they can get a copy and now I know...so with your permission I will refer them to the site so they can buy a copy...do you get a royalty? K

Wendi Reger said...

I'm so proud of you! YOu finished your first of hopefully many more books. Will you write a book for Renae? (you should have lots of ideas) I've ordered my copy and can't wait to see it. Will you sign it when you are home in May?

Jenny said...

AWESOME! What a great present! It's funny...my parents have been telling me to write a chidren's book....I have a cabin magic series in the making in my head...but I just can't seem to get anything cute on paper. Maybe someday....

When you get back to the states you'll have to do a book signing!

Jenny said...

ps. you can so draw! I would know...we took an art class together!

Keely said...

Julie, that is soooo cool! Now you and Kevin are FAMOUS!!

Senegal Daily said...

congrats, julie (and kevin)!

P_31Girl said...

Love the book Julie!! I went on the website and read some it. CUTE! My grandma used to write amazing stories and I always wanted to make them into a book, but didn't know how. I think I might try doing this!

Dee said...

Being in the book world on a daily basis I have to tell you Julie (and Kevin) that I'm VERRRY impressed. It's so easy to start projects and exhausting to finish them.

Well done!
Aunt Dee

Scott & Julie said...

Awesome!!!!

I'm so excited to get this! I'm sure this will fast become on of Addisyn's favorite books. I'm excited to see it. :-)

Nate and Natalie said...

Congrats on getting your first book published, that's awesome! Hopefully there will be lots of copies so I can read it to Elyse :)