There’s still time to sign up for the Create Your Children’s Picture Book in a Year cohort that I’m facilitating. It meets once a month (first Monday of the month, 4-5:30 PST) via Zoom. Maybe you don’t have a children’s picture book you want to make, but you are working on another type of book. The skills you will learn, the virtues that will be encouraged, and the team you will gather will help you bring whatever kind of book you are working on to completion.
You can learn more about the cohort or register here. https://sunnyshorestudio.com/2020/12/12/create-your-childrens-book-in-a-year/
Here’s a preview of our journey from the Introduction to the digital book you will receive chapter by chapter as we travel our book creating journey together.
Introduction
You can write, illustrate, and publish the children’s picture book that you’ve dreamed of if you have three things: a plan, a coach and a team.
First you need a plan to bring your book to completion. You may have great creative potency. But if you don’t have a path to follow you might get stuck in a dead end or stall out at an stop along the way. To publish your children’s book, you will a strong commitment to reach that destination and a road map for the journey. Through trial and error, I have developed a tried-and-true process to bring a story from the imagination to publication. I’m honored to share that plan with you.
Second, you need a coach to teach, support and encourage you along the way. A coach doesn’t do the work for you. He or she calls forth the skills and strengths, virtues and visions, attributes artistry you already have. A coach inspires and encourages you and cheers you on. You are one one in the game. It is your book to write, illustrate and publish. I have been helped by many coaches in my journey. I’m blessed and honored to coach you.
Finally, you need a team. None of us are designed to be fully self-sufficient. We are designed to be interdependent. Along with our superpowers, we all have weaknesses, limits, blind spots, insufficiencies and places where we need help. God made us for each other. You will need to rally a team to help you bring your book to completion. I’m honored to be part of your team.
This book guides you through a twelve-step process. Think of each step corresponding to a month of the year. My goal is that in a year you take your book from imagination to publication to promotion. This will require a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears on your part, and a team to come alongside you. But it can be done.
In each chapter I share stories of my struggles and successes. I hope they help you, or at least make you laugh and learn from my mistakes. Each chapter also shares a skill to be learned, a virtue that is encouraged, and a checklist to complete. There is plenty of room on the side of the page to write notes, and places for you to journal throughout.
We bring who we are to the table. I’m a presbyterian pastor. My faith in the Creator God and belief that your creativity and virtues are endowed by him spills out on these pages. I can’t help it. I hope that you will understand.
Come, let us begin our journey together.
