Children’s Book Author Stories – Darryl Silver – Poppi the Okapi
Darryl Silver is a TV Producer/Writer/ Creator. Darryl is the owner of The Idea Factory (www.tiftv.com), a production company. I also own a Brand of Tequila called Calavera Tequila. www.calaveratequila.com
I have always been a creative person and have had some great success in the past and still do today.
This is actually my first entrance into writing children's books and it has been an adventure to say the least.
In my early career I was blessed to have great mentors. One in particular told me, "write what you know about better than life itself." What this means is write about what you know and it will come out honest and real. I truly believe this.
When my kids were little I used to take them to the zoo almost every weekend. I did this to give my wife a break as she took care of the kids during the weekdays. It was at this time that I became fascinated by the okapi. I was actually more obsessed with the word and I created a rhyming game that my children and I used to play when we would go there. This game continues even today as they are all grown up. I always knew that this would make a great children's book and one day I just had to get it out of my head and down on paper.
About two years ago I finally decided to sit down and write it. The writing process took me about three months and I got a great response from friends, family and educators that I had shown the work too. Since I am a TV producer/writer, I am represented by an agent. It was at this time that she submitted the manuscript to several children's book publishers. We instantly got a great response. However, during the phone calls that I had with the publishers I found experience to be creatively stifling.
My book is long. It's 48 pages long, and, when publishers looked at the manuscript their notes were, "the book is too long", "the book needs to be half the length", "there are too many words on the page" and "some of the words are too big". Being someone who is in control of my creative work in my other business I did not respond very well to these notes. The nail in the coffin for me was actually when I asked them what they thought about an illustrator and they informed me that that would not be my choice – publishers would assign an illustrator to the project.
I decided that If was going to write I book I wanted it to be how I wanted it and not someone else's vision. This is not to say I did not listen to others when they gave me notes, this just means that if your creative vision is going to be decimated then what is the point in writing the book.
It was at this time but I decided that I would go at it by myself and that I would self-publish via Kickstarter.
But, first things first. I had to find an illustrator. I met with a bunch of illustrators domestically and I wasn't overwhelmed with any of their art. The one person that I did think was just okay wanted $170 a page. To spend $8,000 on art, for a first time book writer, was too big of a risk for me to take. I had had great experiences with my other businesses working with fiverr.com and thought that maybe I could find somebody somewhere else in the world who might be more reasonably priced.
I put out an audition and found about a dozen artists and sent them one page of the book and all I asked them to do was illustrate the page with their style of artwork. I was blown away by the level of quality that was sent to me and the person I finally settled upon was a woman named Mary who lived in Pakistan. I can tell you that her art was far more superior than anyone I had seen stateside. It was then that I hired her to do the artwork for the book at a fraction of the price.
The way I approached her was we started with a few pages at a time and then as we went along I would pay her for between 5 to 10 pages at a time to ensure that she would actually finish the project as sometimes people on this platform either don't finish the work or disappear. I made sure that she sent me the masters with each group of pages so that I always had all the work in my possession.
Because of my inexperience I had no idea that it would take another year-and-a-half to finish the art, but in retrospect 48 fully Illustrated pages done in a year-and-a-half isn't too bad. I was very lucky that Mary was so great because as we went along there were a lot of changes to the book not only the illustrations but with the words. It is amazing how you realize what works and what doesn't as the process moves along. Mary was amazing and even though there was a slight language barrier we got the job done.
Once the book was finished (or what I thought was finished), it was time to print a sample of the book. It was at this time that I realized that the formatting that Mary had done was completely wrong. This was not her fault nor my fault but just both of our lack of experience. It was during this time that I started speaking with printers in China. I used www.Alibaba.com and had conversations with over 20 different book printers. I settled upon a couple different printers who gave me amazing help in understanding how to format a book. They were extremely patient with me and we just kept going back and forth via Alibaba and Skype until the actual formatting was done correctly.
I'm very lucky that I have a great friend of mine and somebody has worked for me for years Andrew who knows how use Adobe in such a professional way that he was able to sit with me and we were able to go frame by frame word by word and make changes to the small artwork and formatting issues until the book was actually properly formatted. This was NOT an easy process.
I believe it's important for independent book writers and publishers to figure out the most financially responsible ways to get the job done. We are taking on all the risk to achieve our goals.
I also think it is super important for the writers to understand the process from beginning to end. Each time you hire someone to figure out something for you is one less thing that you understand in this very complex process.
A great resource that I believe every independent writer should join is https://www.ibpa-online.org/. This organization was a godsend in helping me in getting the project done and done correctly.
There are no shortcuts to learning how all this is done it is HARD work.
During this process I wasn't afraid to ask for help. I asked family. I asked friends. I went online and asked strangers for help. You would be shocked at how many people are willing to share their experience and their skills with you.
I am now at the point that I am launching the book. I chose to do it on Kickstarter because I have a great social media network due to my television background. I am relying on lots of friends and associates to help me drive sales of the book. I spent a lot of time looking at how other people were launching their books on Kickstarter and found the most successful ones. I am trying to emulate what they did. But there is no easy shortcut. I know that going forward this is going to take a lot of work and the only person who can do that work is me since I am the best advocate for my own work.
The first thing I did when the formatting was done was print one book via www.bookbaby.com. The reason I did this was that in theory you think you know how the books going to look when it's printed but only once you get a copy in your hand are you able to truly understand the nature of what you've done. I would say at this point my book is about 90% done and when it goes to the final printing we are going to be making the final changes.
I've actually partnered with a charity https://www.okapiconservation.org/ and I have found that they have been super helpful and promoting my book as well as connecting me with lots of people in the Okapi community. They have even connected me with our local zoo who are also going to help me promote the book. I even had the opportunity to meet an Okapi and many other animals in a VIP behind the scenes tour. During all these events I filmed myself to use in my social media for the launch of the book. The Okapi zookeeper even gave me a stellar book review. The more people on camera and in print who give your book a great review, the better it will be for your launch.
I have also spent a lot of time on social media pre-promoting my book. When you settle on a title it is imperative that you get all your usernames locked down for your social media. Well before you launch the book you should be promoting the book and creating a social media community that you think would be interested in the book. As of today I have not sold one book and my Instagram is over 700 people. It is crucial to create a buzz for your book well before you launch your Kickstarter pre-launch and your final launch page.
I've also been using my television contacts and there's an opportunity for my book to be featured on a children’s show this summer.
I always tell my kids if you are going to do something you should do it right.
You only have one shot to launch a book the first time and you should put all your effort energy and resources into launching that book.
I also believe that it's very important to have great focus groups. Within days of getting my first copy printed I met with teachers, friends and children of my friends to read them the book. I've had the great opportunity to read it to several kindergartens to see what reaction they had. It is never too late to figure out what you did wrong so you can change things before the final printing. I will always consider this book a work in progress and anytime I can make it better I will.
I'm cautiously optimistic for the launch of my book but you never know what's going to happen. I could sell 100 books or 100,000 books. You never know until you try.
I believe that it is important to pay it forward so if anyone reading this needs help...
Here is the Kickstarter page for my book:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darrylsilver/poppi-the-okapi
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: www.poppitheokapi.com
Instagram: @poppitheokapi
Twitter: @poppitheokapi
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poppitheokapi
