FYP - Research, Research and More Research

A key part of this project is research - this post will cover my progress in researching children's book illustrating and writing, and in shopping around for excellent local printers/graphics firms.

 I've been speaking with Vanessa Brantley Newton, a children's book illustrator and writer, and she's been kind enough recommend some books to me. They're must-have reading material for newbie illustrators. I haven't gotten them yet, but I know in my gut that they're chuck full of knowledge and will help me out with my research paper:

1. You Can Write Children's Books - Tracy E. Dills
2. The Encyclopedia of Writing and Illustrating Children's Books - Desdemona McCannon, et al
3. Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication - Ann Whitford Paul
4. 2011 Children's Writers and Illustrators Publishing Market - Alice Pope

A couple titles I picked on my own are:

1. Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children's Books - Uri Shulevitz
2. Show and Tell: Exploring the Fine Art of Children's Book Illustration - Dily Evans

Thanks for the titles, V! I ordered them Tuesday (Sept. 14), so I'm just sitting here cooling my heels figuratively speaking until they arrive.

Since my last post, I've been keeping on top of my written work as well as my project's proposal. Where the latter is concerned, that's 70% complete. I have enough put together to make a draft for my lecturers and advisers to read, but I'll probably add more to it before this weekend is over. The Product Description aka. the Story Summary needs a lot of work. It's bad when I'm the one who wrote it and it's failing to convince me to be interested. ^^;

Other things I've been looking into since are ISBN registration, and looking for full-service printers/graphic designers. For the first one, I'll have to go through the National Library of Jamaica. At least I won't have to worry about making a bar code, since I was directed to a free generator on-line: link. For the graphics/printing, I have two I'm looking into:

1. Pear Tree Press Limited - I need talk to them face to face, but they got the thumbs up clearance from a graduate and one of my lecturers. That's pretty good news for me! I can get most of my print media done through them, but they (currently) only offer off-set printing (translation: low cost printing at high volume) for books. I don't need that for this year.
2. Jemar Printery Limited- I can get short run digital prints done here. Translation: get a small number of books done for my school project. If interest is high enough, I'll go the off-set printing route with Pear Tree Press.

So far, that's all I have to report. All being well, I plan to work on character sketches tomorrow as well as some other written work. *crosses fingers*

I'll keep you posted!