NJ Creatives Network June 2005 Meeting

by Eileen Watkins

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Too many people assume that, compared to writing for adults, creating and publishing a children’s book must be a snap. Two New Jersey authors testified otherwise at the June meeting presentation, “The Pleasures and Perils of Writing for Children.”

Lori Lee Corson has lived on farms in Wall Township for most of her life, and her observations of animals inspired her first book, Everyone is Different! She got the idea when she noticed a cow “mothering” an orphaned baby goat--“I saw that she didn’t discriminate because he wasn’t a calf.”

A full-time paramedic who’d returned to college at age 38, Corson loved her writing class. She decided to try a children’s book about animals of various kinds who coexisted and cooperated on a farm. She said she probably rewrote the story “a hundred times” before she was satisfied.

Despite warnings from friends, Corson took out a loan for $25,000 to self-publish; over the two years it took her to produce her book, she actually spent $10,000 more. Even getting the ISBN number and bar code presented more challenges than she’d expected. At least her stepmother, a schoolteacher, edited the text for free. Corson paid $3,000 for a web site and $10,500 to the artist, who was contracted on a work-for hire basis.

To find the perfect illustrator, Corson ran an ad in her local paper and received calls from 11 artists. “I knew I wanted bright, active drawings that kids would respond to,” she said. She ended up going with Terri Palmer, a Pennsylvania artist who heard about the ad from a sister living in Brielle. “We met and immediately clicked,” Corson said. “We have a very similar background--we both live on farms, and neither of us has children.”

Corson sent Palmer pencil drawings of her own concepts for the illustrations, and they came back to her as full-sized artworks. She mailed these to a printer in Singapore, along with a Pantone color chart to make sure all the hues matched.

Once the book was ready to print, she bought 5,000 copies, and so far has sold half. They are carried by the distributor Baker & Taylor, and Corson did one signing at a Barnes & Noble. She also has visited 75 schools on the East Coast and has read the book to school groups with audiences numbering from six to 250. She said one of her most satisfying experiences was speaking to a group of mentally challenged children in Jackson, NJ.

She has sold her book through QVC and from a table near the entrance of the Central Park Zoo. At first she brought a live cow with her to signings; now it’s a friend in an adult-sized cow costume. “I try to think of things that will catch people’s attention,” she said.

She admits that the self-publishing route is both cash- and labor-intensive. Ready to put out her sequel, Everyone Grows Old, Corson said, “Now I think I’d just like to have a publisher!”

Deborah Guarino’s book Is Your Mama a Llama? just marked its 16th year in print. She came up with the title while she and her young son were petting a “rather bedraggled” llama at the Central Park Zoo. Guarino hit upon the rhyming question, and it stuck in her head.

She worked at the time as an advertising copywriter, and said she wrote the first draft on a Selectric typewriter in about 45 minutes. She also belonged to a theater workshop in New York, where she met a children’s book editor who helped her find a publisher.

Going into the process without an agent, she received a minimal advance. The name of the illustrator, who was better-known, originally appeared in larger type than Guarino’s on the book cover. The publication date kept getting pushed back, so that Llama came out two years later than expected. But the book’s catchy name drew a lot of attention and many book clubs requested it. These days it’s used in literary programs around the country.

Not only has Llama stayed in print all this time--a major accomplishment in itself--but an animated version has just been produced.

If you want to write a “perennial” children’s book, Guarino advises you to stick with a universal theme or concept; write to amuse yourself, and not to “talk down” to kids; and to watch children’s entertainment, including TV programs, cartoons and movies.

Also, don’t but surprised if the book takes on a life of its own. Although Llama has been touted on the Oprah Winfrey show, Guarino notes that she has never appeared as a guest--“My book is much more famous than I am!”

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