Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Book question

My vote would be to do with the size of book and the little hands that are going to hold it. Will it be available in paperback to start or only hard cover? How long in hard cover until available in soft cover? I agree that throwing HP in a backpack was difficult. Also for sneaking through at school the smaller books passed easier than did the bigger/thicker books. (I use to sneak books into my kiddos class in her backpack to read after she had finished the work or it was individual reading time.)

Well, that's a conundrum of a different sort -- technically, it is probably too late to get it into publication (even if it were finished right this second) due to the time-sensitive nature of the need to save the world from this particular threat. It doesn't hurt to say that the problem they are solving has to do with the Mayan prophecies. But if kids wouldn't mind that it was already past, I'm still ok.

That said, assuming I could get one book out before the end of the world, so to speak, it would be impossible to get them all out by then if it were split into a series.

It's hard to imagine what you could do for an encore after saving the planet, but then again, the Benedict kids managed to do it again, I believe (I have only read half of the second one, so I'm not sure). And Harry Potter kept doing it again and again, although it was all part of one big thing. And comic book heroes do it every issue. So I'm sure that there would be other quests that my kiddos could be roped into -- and there's a NaNoWriMo every year.

If you can get in shape to go, you could self-publish on Kindle through Amazon, and in softcover POD through Lightning Source in plenty of time.

Hi Everyone-

I've been peeping in on the Davidson discussion boards for years now while raising my now 10-year-old, but this is the first time I felt compelled to register and post.

Nautigal, I agree with the other posters, shorter is less intimidating for many younger ones. My daughter cruised through the MT series at 5 partly because of the sense of accomplishment she got from "finishing a book." (And flower -you made me laugh about small books being easier for sneaky-reading. My daughter still gets in trouble for reading at school. Gosh, that sounds odd, but it's true.)

But you're the writer, so it's up to you.

As far as self-publishing goes, I just listed a book on Kindle -written for the same reasons as you - just to provide fun reading for young advanced readers. But now that it's up there, I have realized that while a lot of teens buy ebooks, and moms load up picture ebooks for the younger crowd, the 8-12 crowd still relies primarily on librarians to help them find new books. (Or just going to the library and cruising the shelves.) So at least for the near-future, it might be better to aim for the traditional publishing route. That's what I plan to do now.

I also had an early reader whose abilities were quite high but who was intimidated by "fat" books. She would read books that were quite hard if they "fooled" her by having pictures and being thin and light. Hey, that's one thing. Pictures! You want pictures for this crowd, IMO.

[quote=ultramarina Hey, that's one thing. Pictures! You want pictures for this crowd, IMO. [/quote]

Yes I think pictures are a must! When their reading that young they still want to see what the characters and the setting of the story looks like.

As far as the thickness on the book, I'm mixed on that because I have two different type of readers.

with dd8 she was reading 200 page chapter books at 4 by herself, now she reads whatever interests her and that could be a 400 page book or a very simple 50 page book, The only question is does it interest her. With her she never read the MT books , no interest

with dd6 she likes the smaller chapter books, she loves reading the MT books

Hope that helps, good luck with your book!

I totally agree. DS 5 loves seeing things, particularly the equipment, outfits, anything that makes the story distinctive but not in a picture book way. It's also what DS likes in his nonfiction, he can absorb really complicated stuff when it comes with pictured. He especially likes really crowded pictures, sort of like where's Waldo or blueprints, apparently this is usual though, according to my school librarian friend.

DeHe