Behind the Books

 “Bookstores are lonely forts, spilling light onto the sidewalk. They civilize their neighborhoods.” — John Updike What Is Bookshop? Bookshop.org is an online bookstore that partners with independent bookstores in the United States and the United Kingdom. You can even pick your favourite local bookstore to support through their site while you are shopping from home. Instead of functioning like a typical online retailer, part of its model is designed to support indie bookshops through online sales. Over the past few years, it has become increasingly popular with readers who want another option for buying books online while still supporting independent bookstores and when I saw people talking about it in the forums, I decided to check it out. Why I Started Using It as a Canadian Site Even though we are in Canada, and Canadian bookstores are not included, our traffic and customers are all over the world. But it turns out since our books are distributed through IngramSpark, many of th...

“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.” — Aesop Earlier this year, I released the hardcover edition of The Wolf and The Goat , as part of the Monarch Tales series , inspired by one of Aesop’s classic fables. This week the softcover is out making it a more affordable option for families. There are two versions of the hardcover Canadian & American English but the softcover I've combined into one English version. The story follows a hungry wolf trying to lure a goat down from the safety of the rocks. Like many traditional fables, it’s a simple story with larger themes underneath it about trust, caution, persuasion, and learning when not to listen but to trust yourself. For this book series, I've wanted the illustrations to feel textured and timeless, with a blend of handmade clay and other assets style that matched the feeling of an old folktale. It's easy to see at just a glance this series gives me the chance to explore a very different atmosphere ...

Like a lot of my blog posts, I didn’t plan to write about release timelines. I just wanted my books to line up in a way that made sense now that I have translations in the mix too.  (See Why Human Translators Matter in an AI World  about how we're tackling translations for our picture books.) When I first started out and still today, it's hardcovers first, then softcovers later. It used to be weeks later but now it's months later when I have an open slot, then the next title. Spacing the books out this way creates a steadier flow across the calendar and gives me more time to focus on actually making the books instead of constantly uploading files like I was through much of 2025. Once I started planning releases further ahead, the differences between the platforms became much more noticeable. (See, What is Print-On-Demand and Why We Use It ) Spacing out the releases This year, I've started separating my formats more intentionally. Hardcover first, then the matching softc...

“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” — Vincent van Gogh Starting a new series always feels a bit like starting over in a way that's a bit different than starting a new book in a series that already has characters or styles that are working.  Even when I’m using the same tools and the same general process, shifting into darker scenes changed how everything behaves on the page. I’m self-taught and while I can sketch on paper, that all needs to be layered into Krita, so a lot of this comes down to testing things, using tons of tutorials and reference images and, at the end of the day seeing what actually works on the page. When it comes to this scene you can see clearly, l ight becomes the focus at least that's what I see. What I've learned about creating a picture book Why Colouring Takes So Long When Everything Starts to Blend In brighter scenes, there’s a lot doing the work for you c olour, texture, and contrast help separate objects nat...

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller My Very First Author Conference Last weekend, I attended my first author conference at the Toronto Reference Library for the Toronto Indie Author Conference . I didn't go alone, my co-author and editor Lauren came too.  Neither of had been to a conference like this before and we had no idea what to expect walking in, but it ended up being one of those experiences where you leave with your head full of ideas and your notebook completely full.  Splitting Up to Cover More When we looked at the schedule it was clear to make the most of this experience that we'd have to split up. There were so many sessions running at the same time in two rooms and they were all interactive so i nstead of trying to attend everything together, we each went to different talks and compared notes after.  Splitting up did two things, opened up the opportunities to meet other authors and creators as well as ensuring that the wee...

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King While I waited for my Spanish translator, Vanessa, to be able to review the book, Bye-Bye, tetita  proofs, I finally had some time to work on creating ebooks for my picture books that have been published in both hardcover and softcover. It will take a while but it's worth it and there's been enough of a break to try again. Up until now, I had one picture book as an ebook out there, Bye-Bye-Boobies (original Canadian poem) but the process of getting it into shape was frustrating enough that I kept putting off doing more versions.  The program I made that file with wasn't the best even though I paid for it and followed all the steps. The file looked fine when I tested it in Thorium. Then when I uploaded it to D2D, it came with so many errors that I had to get that company to fix before I could upload it to get it accepted by them. When I tried to use that same file to submit it to a new platform inside of D2D, it was reje...