UPDATE: I AM A GIANT IS NOW AVAILABLE!

The first book in the Tiny The Giant series is only a short time away from being published. It’s a picture book about a little boy who decides (quite reasonably, I think you’ll agree) that he must be a giant because he can’t reach the end of his shadow.

The entire process of writing, illustrating, designing and publishing a children’s book has been a learning curve for everybody involved (except for Nicola who has illustrated LOTS of beautiful books).

For example, what read reasonably well across a few pages of A4 didn’t, once divided into a 32-page picture book, work well at all. That was a lesson.

Illustrated text which looked beautiful on its own, didn’t work too well with the illustrations. That was also a lesson.

And there were many more lessons to come. From realising I was writing TOO much (leaving little space for the illustrator to tell her story) to understanding how digital files display on different devices.

Each step has helped produce a book which I believe is as lovingly produced as any you’d find lining the best bookshelves of bookstores. It’s so lovely, in fact, that I was keen to share it around with colleagues.

And by gum, I’m glad I did.

Everybody here at Inkology had read I AM A GIANT before. It’s one of the stories you can read (with our blessing) for FREE here on the site. We’re ok with that. The book contains more or less the same text but the value lies in seeing it as a complete book rather than just the words.

So I expected people to pat me on the head and say “well done”.

I didn’t expect a little girl to point out quite a major mistake right at the end of the book. But by gum, I’m glad she did.

Listening to it as a bedtime story, she took in all the words and all the pictures. Then right at the end, she asked why Tiny was facing the wrong way. She had been told he was looking at the Mountains and Trees and he just wasn’t.

She was right.

That led me to take a closer look and remember why. And in doing so I realised that I’d made the wrong decision many many months ago. Seeing it with a new pair of eyes led me to get the art changed and that in turn showed me I needed to make a major change to the text on one page. The result is a much more solid and satisfying story.

Tiny details make the difference.

As I ought to have learned from the story itself.

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