The creativity and publishing process behind children’s books |
When it comes to writing children’s books, Nebraska authors Jodi Adams and Kelly Brakenhoff, along with publisher Phil Whitmarsh, dove into the creative and publishing process behind producing a relatable and well-crafted story.
Across Nebraska, children’s book authors are writing stories that reflect their own experiences and local communities to create stories for young readers. From developing characters and navigating their own route of self-publishing, producing a children’s book comes with many steps.
For Nebraska authors Kelly Brakenhoff and Jodi Adams, the process for writing children’s books begins with local inspiration and personal experiences within their own homes.
Kelly Brakenhoff, a self-published author and ASL interpreter from Lincoln, Nebraska, grew up around the deaf community, ultimately leading her to learn sign language. Brakenhoff went on eventually to become an ASL interpreter but still had the desire to become an author. Brakenhoff decided to combine her two passions to make a book series of her own that catered towards the deaf community.
Nebraska has a deaf population of approximately 18,000 people, and Brakenhoff feels as though having a book series that represents the deaf community and challenges they face is important to showcase something that they can relate to.
Never Mind! Is a book apart of the Duke the Deaf Dog ASL Series where duke feels left out when dismissed by people with “never mind” because he wasn’t able to hear them.
“I write in two series, the Cassandra Sato mysteries and then the Duke the deaf dog children’s books,” Brakenhoff said. “Everything that I write has deaf characters in them, and ASL is a part of the story. I try to make the creative process as authentic as I can. It just starts with a real-life scenario.”
Brakenhoff shared that when writing her books, she tries to connect her themes to relatable experiences for her readers.
“Every single-story idea comes from my personal experience that I’ve seen or what deaf people have told me happens to them,” Brakenhoff said. “I vet everything with my deaf friends to make sure that it’s the highest quality and the most authentic it could be.”
Although Brakenhoff was inspired to write her books to represent the deaf community, a fellow author and friend of hers, Jodi Adams, a children’s book author and publisher from Omaha, had writing a children’s book on her bucket list for quite some time.
While spending time reading children’s books with her daughter, she got the inspiration to start writing her own. Her first series, started with The Train Rolls On; her next book was inspired by her eight-year-old daughter. Through her daughter’s drawing activity that she brought home, the idea for Adam’s fourth book, Squiggle, was born.
“She came home with this activity where she had turned this simple little squiggle into a ghost, and then she wrote a story about it, and she was telling me about this activity, and I immediately fell in love with it,” Adams said.
“I loved how it stretched kids’ imaginations, how it hones their drawing and writing skills, and I knew, then and there, that I wanted to somehow turn that into a book.”
One Little Squiggle was the book that Adams wrote after her series The Train Rolls On, that includes real squiggle art that was created by children throughout the book sparking creativity.
Brakenoff shared that making the story look fun is a great way to draw readers in, even when a lesson is involved.
“Children are really honest,” Brakenhoff said. “If they are bored, they will just walk away. So you have to entertain them, keep their attention. But also, I like to sneak in the learning. When my kids were little, I used to sneak vegetables in their mac and cheese. You have to blend them up really well. Really well so that you can’t see them. I kind of feel like that’s the way it is with books and kids. I have to look fun, and then you can teach the lesson when they’re not noticing.”
While making sure a story is going to connect with children, Adams said that making the story come together is a difficult part of the process.
“For me, writing is hard,” Adams said. “I love the idea phase. I love brainstorming ideas for plots and characters and titles and things like that. I’m often full of ideas, but when it comes to actually harnessing those ideas and shaping them into a compelling story that is well executed when I only have, we’ll say, roughly 500 words to work with, and some of those words need to rhyme. It’s a really difficult task.”
Once the creative side of making a children’s book is over, the more challenging side of publishing begins.
Phil Whitmarsh, founder of Redbrush and publisher at Do More Good Publishing, said publishing is a more difficult process than authors expect.
“The thing that authors have to remember when they start thinking about publishing is they have to remember the writing of a book is art,” said Whitmarsh.” The creation of a children’s book is art; publishing is business. And so people have this romanticized idea, whether it’s creating beautiful illustrations and adding wonderful words and creating a book.”
Not only does publishing a children’s book take an average of one to three years, but Whitmarsh also included that the entire process is an investment.
Phil Whitmarsh shared that when it comes to being an author, having a personal connection with your audience is important. When authors build relationships with the readers, they are more likely to be able sell their next book to them, therefore making more profit.
“You have to be ready to invest your time, and in most cases, you have to invest money into the process of publishing that book and rejection is something that is definitely part of the process,” Whitmarsh said.
“At Redbrush, we say we’re a BS free zone. You have to be ready for the business response and to hear it with business ears and a business heart, and to protect their creative heart a little bit.”
When it comes to publishing, there are three different types. Traditional, self, and hybrid. Traditional publishing involves an author submitting their piece to a publishing house. Once the piece is accepted by a publisher, they take on the costs of production, taking care of distribution of the book, and all the rights to it.
Self-publishing is done without a publisher. The author takes on the challenges of working to release their own book. This includes paying all the costs of putting the book together, responsibility of handling the publishing process, and marketing their book to the intended audience.
Then there is hybrid publishing. This is a mix of traditional and self-publishing. How it works is instead of either the publisher or author doing heavy lifting, an author will partner with a publisher to produce their book where each party splits costs, editing, design, and marking of the book.
When it came to picking a route of publishing, Brakenhoff and Adams said they knew that self-publishing was the best option for them.
After writing stories in her free time, Jodi Adams started to feel as though it would be a shame to keep writing all of these children’s books and to not share them with anyone; leading her to pursue self-publishing after researching what route was best for her.
“Publishing was completely new to me and I spent months researching the options available,” Adams said. “Ultimately leading me to choose self-publishing because I didn’t want to spend time persuading a traditional publisher to take my book on.”
When it came to publishing her children’s books, Brakenhoff felt the same way as Adams about the process, but also felt it was important that she oversaw how her books turned out and that they weren’t changed by a publisher.
“I kind of thought about doing traditional publishing, but it takes a long time, and I’m old, so I don’t have time for that,” Brakenhoff said. “I did self-publishing because I wanted control over what goes in my book, especially with my knowledge of the deaf community, and felt like I wouldn’t get that with traditional publishing.”
However, compared to traditional publishing, self-publishing means more work for the author. Adams shared that through her experience of self-publishing for the first time, there is a lot that goes into it besides writing the book.
“I learned so many things going through the process for the first time,” Adams said. “Things including how to write a children’s book, publishing it, hiring an illustrator, funding the production of the book, marketing it, and the list just goes on.”
With so many books in the publishing world of children’s books, how do authors make their books stand out amongst the competition? Brakenhoff and Adams shared that making connections with readers and helping make stories that resonate with families is their main goal from publishing their books.
“I try not to worry too much about the competition,” Adams said. “I think there’s room in this world for everyone’s stories, and my overall goal is to just create high quality books that resonate with other families as much at they resonate with my own.”
Being an expert after being around the deaf community for such a long time, Kelly Brakenhoff knew that self-publishing was the way to go to make sure that her books represented that deaf community properly.
Brakenhoff shared that when it comes to competition in the children’s book world, what’s important to her is that her readers are able to relate to her stories not so much about the competition around it.
“I don’t really think about the competition very much. It’s more about the connection with the readers,” Brakenhoff said. “Especially with my books, when a parent tells me their child with a hearing aid finally has a character to relate to, it’s sometimes the first time these kids are seeing themselves in a book.”
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