Has anyone written a book?

[TBM]

We had problems this weekend after my nephew told my daughter that there are monsters under her bed. I decided to use what she knew from Sunday School to help her to sleep and put her mind at rest about the monsters. It's now all she talks about!

Anyway, I could see that what I spoke to her about has many introduction points to different parts of Christianity that I wrote down what happened as a story, I made it into a booklet on publisher and I'm going to get TBD to do some pictures to go with it for her. It's only short and I don't know how good it is but I don't know what to do with it, if it's good. Has anyone else done something similar or have any advice?

Your best bet would be to get the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2009. This will give you all of the UK publishers and their submission criteria. It also gives general advice about publishing/writing etc.

There is also a version of the yearbook specifically for children's publishing which has lots of useful advice. Google Children's Writers and Artists Yearbook and you should come up with it.

It is very, very hard to get a children's picture book published purely because of the cost of printing images, especially if you want them to be colour. Writing chapter books is less expensive and so more readily printed.
I would think you wouldn't get it published wholesale but maybe you could bring it to Christian publishers and maybe see if you could get it published as a Sunday Schools suppliment.

Unless TBD is an accomplished illustrator I would advise against adding pictures with it. Publishers will have artists on their books and may be put off the whole idea by sub standard illustrations. Instead you could add a few samples of the style in which you think the illustrations would look good. have a look on the internet and search for illustrations to get a few different style ideas.

I probably should have said before, but was posting quite late, TBD is an artist. He did it as his degree, his calls himself a cartoonist although it's not the art he does for work. I'm also an artist but I'm a fashion designer and my art is mainly 3DD. I don't think either of us is precious enough, especially having experience of working with art, to worry about if someone liked the pictures and wanted to change them. I can see the pictures in my head of what goes with it, probably because it's based on a true story, but his drawings would just be to make the story work.

I think I'm going to finish it and print it out for Sunday School and Mum's group to see what the other mums think of it. Considering I only did it this week I'm not sure what I think of it yet and no one else has really read it.

Go and havea look on Lulu the self-publishing website. TBH a book like this might well work as something you sell yourself by word of mouth - the great joy of something like Lulu is that you don't have any outlay, you only print when you need copies (ie have a buyer)and you get to keep all the money yourself.

That looks good, thanks for that It's bit like CafePress for books, I guess.