Everything I’d thought about self-publishing when I started writing my novel could be summed-up in that warning. (If you’ve read that blog you’ll know that eventually the title was ironic. I discovered I loved the process of publishing it myself, and it was absolutely right for me.)
However, that title would have been an appropriate description for the events that intervened in my life at that point and which explain why it has taken me so long to complete my second novel, and to return to this blog — serious family illness, and new caring responsibilities came my way. But the second novel, ‘My Name is Tamwary’, is finished and will shortly be published, and blogging is resumed. Four years is a much longer chapter than I’d expected between when I’d hoped to publish it in 2022, and now.
The big difference between the self-publishing processes for the two novels is that for Tamwary, which is for a younger reader, I wanted to find an illustrator to create a picture for the book cover. And I wanted to search for someone starting out on their career, possibly someone even looking for their very first commission. I also needed someone who knew about children’s book illustration, whose art included animals, and who would enjoy engaging with the story to create an image to do all that a great cover can do for a book. And I wanted an image made with paints and brushes.
Last year, through a family connection, I heard about Charlotte Graver, a recent graduate in fine art, specialising in children’s book illustration. I looked at her website, we talked, and she asked to read the book — which I took as a very good sign! Charlotte has created a book cover I love, and I’m very excited about you seeing it soon when the book is published. I might write more in a future blog about the process of working with an illustrator as part of self-publishing. For now, I shall leave you in anticipation.
Oh, except to say something about the image at the top of the blog. Tamwary is set mainly in the 1960s, and my first ideas about a book cover were perhaps something in the style of that time. The books I loved reading as a child in that era had covers created by many fine artists, but my favourite ones were by Anne Bullen. This picture by her, a large drawing in red pencil, I have on my wall. It gives me very happy memories of those books.
Jane Allsopp Writer 