Yes, yes I am. I’ve decided I’m going to become a children’s author. I woke up a few weeks ago with a dozen stories in my head, mashed potato scrambled eggs style, inspired by my son’s incredible ability to be into absolutely everything. I want to leave a legacy to my amazing child, and honour the memory of his twin Oli, and this is how to do it.
With the first story down on paper, Oskar and the Bear, it was time to find an illustrator on www.upwork.com, and start hunting around for a self publishing company so I could print a few dozen copies for friends and family. Oskar and the Moon Rocks and Oskar and the Storm soon followed, three books down in a couple of weeks.
After speaking to a couple of companies, I came across Ocean Reeve Publishing (www.oceanreevepublishing.com), loved the name, epic reviews on Google, Ocean picks up the phone and says he’ll be back in contact with me at 1pm, and he was. Good start with the customer service, the reviews helped me have faith in the fact that other people had a great experience with his company, so I was all ears.
It was only a half an hour conversation. In that time my mindset went from ‘just wanting to print a few copies for family and friends’ to ‘I can publish all three books at once and become a children’s author!’ You just have to have a conversation with the guy and your entire world changes.
It’s on my bucket list to write a novel so I did (number 10) and become a famous author (number 56), I have just added another one to the list, number 82. Write 10 children’s books for Oskar and get them published. For the complete bucket list, and to see some of the adventures I’ve been on, please visit my facebook page The List.
I’m diving head first into this whole experience. The mentoring is helping me understand the process, which is fairly straight forward, although patience is not my forte so learning one step at a time is challenging. At least I’m enthusiastic!
In the mentoring program I’m meeting other authors going through a similar experience to me. It’s been great to connect with like minded people, to support and be supported, to learn about other people’s journeys, and to gain priceless information to assist my author journey.
There’s a long road ahead, hence why I referred to it as a journey. The creative energy surrounding the experience is exhilarating. My creative juices were suppressed for so long, now they are flowing like some vintage red wine, oaked and aged to perfection, as clear as a beautiful summer’s day and ready to be unleashed.
The thing I’m really digging about the self publishing thing is total creative control. I know how the story should go, how the illustrations should look, and how my book should be as the finished product. It’s all in my head, I thought it would be more difficult to get it out than it actually is, which I attribute to the exceptional way the ORP mentoring program is designed.
I’ve spoken to other authors who have been burned by different companies, paid so much money for promises that weren’t ever going to be kept. The scammers preying on people’s dreams, it’s so unfortunate but sometimes has to happen in order to learn from mistakes and grow. Turning a negative into a positive is such a skill, one that should be practiced every day no matter how hard the situation seems.
I did my research, and didn’t make this decision based on emotion, looking at this as a business opportunity, an investment in myself, my future and the future of my family. I wholeheartedly believe that decisions based on emotions can lead to some pretty hairy situations. I am emotional about my book, don’t get me wrong, but the decision to invest thousands of dollars on an emotion is a whole other ballgame.
This adventure is taking me on a completely different path than what I was on a couple of months ago. I volunteered to assist a lady to finish her health course, never afraid of becoming a guinea pig, this decision changed my life!
Laura spent the first session asking me questions, prising information out of me that I’d never really given myself time to think about. How often does someone just sit there and ask about what you want, what you need, how you are and what your goals are? And actually listen to you, then rather than offer solutions, they give you ideas of how to make a plan and how to implement it. It only took one session, it sparked a flame and I walked away from it with a totally new mindset. Thank you Laura. You can find out more about her here: www.practicalhealthcoach.uk.
I hope that you have a spark. I hope it’s fully ignited, fuelling passion and driving you to be the best that you can be. We all have something inside us that needs to get out, the burdens of life usually get in the way, but what if they didn’t? What would you do? Would you turn your life to totally new direction and do something you love? I did that, I’m so happy with my decision, it was just like that, so easy. I decided I’m going to become a children’s author and I will.