Josie is
a children’s author from Halstead in the UK. She has been a support throughout
my writing journey and I asked her if she would like to be interviewed about her
own writing journey and her children’s story-book series in the making –Lum.
Lum is a book character in a children's picture book. It is aimed at children aged 0-7years and contains life-lessons and morals. For example anti-bullying and learning to cope with fears.
1.
What
made you decide to write a children’s story-book?
When my children were little, I found myself making up
rhymes and stories for them. I read a
lot of books with them, because we all loved story-time together, and found
myself thinking maybe I could do this too.
2.
What
is your background? And did this influence your writing journey?
My working background has not influenced my
journey. I have always worked in
office-based roles – administrator, PA, Office Manager, although knowledge of
computer software and the ability to type does help. Going back further to my own childhood, I was
a writer then but never imagined (or I think even understood) that children
could grow up to write books. My
background as a Mum has been more of an influence because it has opened me up
to the world of children’s books again.
3.
I
see you are self-published. What made you decide to be self-published?
After writing a number of stories, I wrote Lum and this was the story that I felt
was ready to become a book. With that in
mind, I researched publishers and sent my manuscript off to a number of them. After getting a few negative replies and
quite a few didn’t respond at all, I continued to research the publishing
world. Which is when I came across
self-publishing as a concept.
Self-publishing was becoming more widely accepted. I also discovered that traditional publishing
companies did not work with unknown authors on the marketing and therefore all
of that side of things would be my responsibility whether I self-published or
was published traditionally. That was
the clincher for me and I plunged in!
4.
Did
you think about approaching an agent? Going to a traditional publisher?
I did think about going to a traditional
publisher, but I did not have the confidence or understanding to find an agent.
5.
What
has your self-publishing journey been like?
It has been a learning journey. When I published my first book, Lum, I did everything myself including
the layout of the book using Adobe InDesign.
Although I managed it and a book was produced, I was ready to tear my
hair out! When it came to publishing my
second book, Lum’s Mum, I found
Matador who although more expensive took on all the tasks I had not enjoyed the
first time around and that made the whole undertaking much more enjoyable. I also took the opportunity to publish the second
edition of Lum through them at the
same time.
6.
Is
there anything you would change about your writing journey?
I don’t think I would change anything about
the journey, but if I could go back in time I would give myself greater confidence
so that the journey was more enjoyable.
Lack of confidence in my writing and marketing abilities has held me
back.
7.
What
has been the best part?
There have been a few wonderful highs: being named as a
SmallBiz100 in 2018; being selected as a winner in the Fenwick/Colbea
competition and then this year having the opportunity to have a pop-up shop as
a children’s author in Fenwick for one week; running a workshop and hosting a
story-time at the Essex Book Festival this year.
There have also been lots of little wins as I went along:
seeing my stories in book format; going into schools to read my stories to
children; having cuddly toys made to accompany the books.
8.
What
has been the worst part, if any?
The need for continual marketing! And the nerves!
9.
How
do you find the marketing and promoting part of being a self-published author?
Marketing can be hit and miss! It’s something I’m still working on. If
something doesn’t work then I’ll try something else. I use Facebook, Instagram
and LinkdIn. I contact schools directly, send out press releases and look out
for local gigs, festivals, book fairs etc. I see it as a work-in-progress.
10. Where did you get your
inspiration from for your Lum story-book?
Lum started as a
rhyme to encourage my children to clean their teeth instead of larking around
in the bathroom. After I’d said the
rhyme, and we’d all laughed and actually done the job in hand, I wrote it down
with the thought that there was “a story in there somewhere” (which is a
catchphrase of mine). The next day I
woke early with the story in my head and rushed downstairs to find pen and
paper to write it out. As I wrote it,
the story changed a little and Lum
redeems himself instead of being chased away.
11. How did you come up with the name
Lum?
The original rhyme had Mum in it, and I needed to change
Mum to a character for my story, so literally just found a name that
rhymed. I did check to see if it was an
obscure word but couldn’t find anything.
Just recently I separately met two Scottish ladies whom both informed me
that Lum means chimney in Scotland.
12. The story contains morals, how
important has this been for you to include? And why?
I think at the time that I wrote the story
and the ending changed, it was subconsciously important to me that Lum the bully could improve his
ways. However, I did not set out to
write a story containing morals, and I think that is better as otherwise children
feel preached to and no-one likes that.
This way, the story is enjoyable and if you look a little deeper you
will learn a valuable life lesson.
13. I see that you visit schools to
share your book. How are you getting on with this? Any special moments you
would like to share?
The actual visits are always a joy! Special moments have been seeing the
excitement the children have when meeting a real author; getting spontaneous
hugs from children who have enjoyed hearing my stories. I like to add a little extra to my visits by
getting the children involved in creating art or crafts based on the stories
and instigating a Lum treasure hunt with stickers as a reward for every child.
14. Have you got any advice for
anyone wanting to get their story-book published?
Do not underestimate the amount of time you
will need to market yourself and your book.
If possible, get some feedback from readers in your target age-group.
15. Are you working on any new books?
I have approximately 10 stories written and waiting in
the wings for illustrations and then publication! My next book will (hopefully) be Brave Brian about a boy who finds a
rhino in his local park and returns it to Africa. I will return to Lum stories again as there will be seven stories in his
series. I have written two and a half of
those. Aside from that, I am always
thinking of and writing new stories.
Whether any of them will become books is another matter, but I enjoy the
writing of them.
16. What are your future plans?
World domination! Haha!
Seriously though, I would just like my books to reach a wider audience
and my plans involve making that happen:
lots of marketing, lots of school visits, going out to meet people and,
of course, lots of writing.
I would
like to say thank you to Josie for her honest answers to my questions. I hope
you find them as interesting as I have. Isn’t it great to read how other
authors have approached their writing journey? It all helps to inspire others
on their own journey. Let me know in the comments if you have been inspired by
Josie’s interview.
I wish Josie
well in her future writing and for her Lum series of children’s books.
Josie’s
social media links and contact details.
Website:
www.josiedom.co.uk
Facebook:
@JosieDomAuthor www.facebook.com/josiedomauthor
Instagram:
@JosieDomAuthor www.instagram.com/josiedomauthor
No comments
Post a Comment