Maya & Friends Visit the Acupuncturist is the first children’s book focusing on acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
The Project:
First, I had the pleasure of creating the concept of the book, and the story outline along with the author (who just so happens to be my wife). At that point I began the illustration process, sketching out the characters, storyboarding the scenes, and illustrating over 30 full color pages for the book.
Publishing
Setting up a file in InDesign, I formatted the text either next to, or on top of the images, and created the print-ready file. Through CreateSpace, I was able to select an ideal size and make the book ready for print. There was some trial and error with services and formats, and ultimately we came out with several different sizes and formats including e-versions for iPad and Kindle.
Marketing
Now, we had to make sure people could purchase the book, and that they wanted to. I set up and designed a website to sell the book from, creating character profiles, a blog, and of course ways to actually purchase the book. The site was set up to be responsive and easily accessible by mobile.
From there, I worked the marketing campaign over social media, and made sure other professionals had access to the right imagery for being featured on their blogs and podcasts. I created social media friendly images, blog hero images, and produced an animated video version of the first half of the book to post online as a preview. In addition, I designed physical marketing collateral including business cards, gift certificates, a calendar, and even a short coloring book version.
Results
The book continues to sell copies at a steady rate due to initial efforts, and on Amazon (the main sales channel) it has 5 stars on over 50 reviews.
