Oops — Too Many Pages!

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” — Scott Adams

Somewhere between the spreadsheets, stanzas, and storyboards... I lost count.

When you're self-publishing a picture book, every page matters. Literally. I had carefully mapped out all 32 pages of Bye-Bye, Boobies, laid out each stanza, sketched each scene… and then realized I'd gone over.

Not by a little.

By a full two-page spread! Of course, it had to be one of my favourite moments in the book. Soft, quiet, and full of feeling. And I had to cut it.

Why?

Because I forgot to count my copyright page in my original 32 pages. I hadn't even thought about it until I started the last bit of colouring that I needed to do before ordering proofs.  I even tried a workaround before I removed those pages, I added the copyright block onto my title page but that looked terrible and cramped and I had to reduce the font to such a tiny amount to get all the info in there.  

Why two pages?

Picture books need to follow specific page counts, usually in multiples of 8. And since I use full two-page spreads, one missing single page meant I had to pull two. Oof.

The silver lining?

I now have a proper copyright page that doesn’t feel crammed onto my title spread, and I even added a bonus page introducing the book and its hidden butterflies. It’s cleaner. It’s stronger. It just meant saying goodbye (for now) to one of my favourite scenes.

Even more good news? It’s not gone forever.

The scene will find a new home in my next book. This one is going to follow the same family but focuses on night weaning and those last bedtime feeds as that is something that is often the first goal of families before saying goodbye to breastfeeding. 

I haven’t settled on a title yet (maybe Bye-Bye, Boobies at Night? or Bye-Bye, Night Boobies?), but I’m already ahead on the sketches thanks to this mistake, so I'm thinking that after feeling sad and a bit frustrated, it's definitely a blessing in disguise.

Here’s a little glimpse of that page, just a peek, no words. The rest will have to wait.

Self-publishing teaches you a lot about pacing. And not just on the page.
Sometimes you have to slow down, take a breath… and shift things around and then take another breath.

While I'm surprised how long this is taking me to finish the last stages of colouring, I’m glad this book is taking its time as this is allowing me to notice the mistake before hitting publish.

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