Category Archives: Writing tips

Local Mums in St. Albans, Hertfordshire publish a children’s book

Posted on by bugleboypublishing

I just want to reiterate that Suzy & I are local mums who live in St. Albans, Hertfordshire.  Even though we are equally fabulous (Suzy used to run an artsy jewelery shop) and (I am a jack of all trades) we still are two yummy mummies who have put this children’s book together.

Our children have inspired us to create this story as well as our little dogs, Bud & Roo.

I think that at ‘stay at home’ mums it still is important to be creative.  I work as a part time Counselling Psychologist; however, I enjoy staying at home, sitting in the sun at my desk and writing short stories, writing on my blogs, or putting together ebooks.  And, now nothing is more enjoyable then working on this new project with Suzy.  We were thrilled when we put Bud & Roo’s Spectacular Adventures- The Beach together and can I just say my three children cannot put the book down!

I am sure they are very supportive of my endeavours, but the book is so colourful and of course they can relate to the dogs in the book.

But, this was the main purpose of creating this book- and, that was getting my children interested in reading.

My three year old actually said ‘this is like Rosie’s Walk.’  Now in no way I am comparing our book to Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins; however, she was some inspiration of the design of Bud & Roo.  It is my daughter’s favourite book,  Rosie’s Walk that is.

Anyway, to all of the local mums out there- get out there and achive your dreams- because Suzy & I are on our way!

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How many books have you written in one year?

Posted on by bugleboypublishing

We have set our goal to print as at least two to three children’s books per year.  I think that once you’re in Waterstones and you’ve got the wizard fingers when putting together everything on your computer program of choice then voila. 

I think one of the most difficult things when putting a book together is the people you do not have control over i.e. the printers, the computer programmers (although our’s is ACE) and/or working with a partner.  The only thing you can control is yourself. 

We’ve made a schedule- we are going to meet often to discuss our targeted plans and how we are going to achieve those goals.  Now, that the book is out we have to get ourselves into the saleswomen positions (which Suzy has been great at thus far) and like I’ve said before in my earlier posts, sell, sell, sell. 

I think it is important to set yourself goals as little as one might be.  And, we have already set our goal of writing our next book, The Circus. 

We will be meeting with the manager of our local book store, Waterstones, to schedule our book launch.  We’ve gotten a lot of great feed back on our children’s adventure books.

We need to get Amazon reviews though!

Only 77 books damaged in the last delivery! Oh, yes- the courier must have broken the boxes.  So, I’ve counted 77 damaged little books.  So annoying, but I have send the pictures of the books back to the printers.  Hopefully, they will come back with what we’ve asked for.  It must have been the courier- let’s hope.  They did not even shrink wrap the books.  Our first edition is A4 so perhaps it is difficult to ship that size, but don’t take on the project if you can’t handle it I say!

Stay tuned with all of that stuff. 

In the mean time our January goal is to get our book in the local grocery stores, one department store as well as independent bookstores.  Because our book is titled The Beach we are also going to target the beach front bookstores. 

Fantastic goals!

So, when organising your goals, think to yourself- how many books can I achieve in one year?  And, write it!

How to Convert a Photo to CMYK for Commercial Printing in PhotoShop CS2

Posted on by bugleboypublishing

Before you send your picture book to the printers one tip is to make sure the photo is saved in CMYK mode.  This will ensure that your picture book will be the exact same colour you anticipated it to be in.  Otherwise, it would only have three colours and the pictures would not be as bright.

Most digital cameras these days capture images in RAW, JPEG or TIFF formats in RGB mode. RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue–the three colors monitors like televisions, computer screens and camera LCD screens use to display images for viewing. Most home printers or photo printers also use this mode with their equipment for printing photographs. But if you want to have something printed commercially–such as a postcard, brochure, flyer or business card, your printer will likely request your files be submitted in CMYK mode. Here’s how to convert your photos for the commercial printer.  Read more…

Quick uploading tip

Posted on by bugleboypublishing

When sending over the pictures to the printers I noticed that every time I got to picture number 10 it automatically went beside number two.  After calling the print shop I asked them ‘what’s up’?  They suggested I save each page/photo like this:
001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011 and so on.

This is a short cut tip so that when you’re self publishing and uploading your pics on whatever program thy use- save it in the format just noted.  It will save a lot of frustration and if you don’t have much patience when it comes to computers and wanting it to get right away (like myself) then it is key to do it correctly the first time around.

Good luck!