So you’re a celebrity and you’re thinking about writing a children’s book?

I’m a non-celebrity children’s book writer and illustrator, and the funny thing about children’s books is that a high percentage of the general population think they could write one. It’s something I hear again and again when I meet new people and tell them what I do ‘Oh, I have an idea for a children’s book! Can you tell me how to publish it? Would you be up for illustrating it for me?’. 

All harmless and innocent, but it also betrays an assumption that writing children’s books is easy. I always smile politely and tell them the convenient truth that they really need to find a publisher for their manuscript before engaging an illustrator, as the publisher will want to have a say in the pictures. 

Celebrities are just the same, except that they are connected enough to have a direct line to a publisher, not just me. Their career is established, perhaps they’ve had children, or grandchildren, and suddenly think they’re qualified to write, and sometimes illustrate, a children’s book. Because yes! Everyone thinks they can do it! It’s easy isn’t it!

But being a celebrity, and maybe having children and reading them books does not qualify you I’m afraid. Nor does the urge to ‘give back’.

This assumption that you can write a children’s book is actually as preposterous as me meeting a lawyer and telling them that I could represent their clients, or an actor or musician and telling them that I’d like to be in their next film, can they introduce me to their agent? Or play on their next album. Or even telling my plumber that I can fix his toilet. It’s both ignorant and arrogant.

And for the average person the same would apply when it comes to getting their hypothetical book published… Unless you are a celebrity. Publishers, seeing their bottom lines (and perhaps being a little giddy about your fame) pander to you. Of course we will publish your mediocre book idea. In fact, we’ll write it for you, but have your name on the cover. And spend an enormous amount on the publicity. 

Why do celebrities want to write children’s books?

Looking in from the outside, I can imagine it seems like such a wholesome thing to do, a point in your career when you can ‘give back’ to the younger generation. You’ll wear a stylishly bookish outfit to the launch, and beam your best Hollywood smile for the cameras as you clasp your work. Children will sit before you rapt as you read the story aloud. The newspapers will be full of delightful publicity pictures: You, a household name, doing something so lovely. And! It’s another revenue stream now that you’ve done all those films and fancy fannying about in your country home for a bit.

I should say that I don’t think everyone has to stay in the their lane. I rather like some of the wonky creative side projects famous people have. Like George W Bush’s portraits. And it is possible that some famous people are already storytellers and writers and that it’s a transferable skill. But, I still want you to question your desire to get in on children’s publishing, and what you can do to help non-famous people who might actually be creating children’s books that are better than yours (more on this below).

I do wish celebs would desist from ceramics though.

What I did to become a children’s book writer and illustrator

If I sound bitter it’s because I am. I’m a non-celebrity children’s book author and illustrator, and it’s actually a very difficult thing to do. So if you’re curious, this is how me, a normal person, became a published author and illustrator.

I did an art foundation course and then did a BA in English literature before working as an editor and copywriter for over a decade. This meant I was practiced in writing and analysing books. I also did evening classes in graphic novel writing, storyboarding, and spent some of my career making short films.

But, it was only after I did an MA in children’s book illustration, which I did part-time over 2.5 years, that I got a book deal.

how much it cost me

It was a world-renowned course and I was taught by some of the best illustrators and academics in the industry. It cost me over £8,000 in fees, plus lost earnings from working part-time. And I dedicated at least one day and many evenings per week over those years to hone my craft, and spent my holidays sketching and doing coursework.

I was also very lucky in that I had the spare money and time in order to do this - in that way I am not normal. You have to be very privileged to even begin to have a stab at this, which is why there is a lack of diversity even among non-celebrity authors.

After all of that I got a book deal in 2019, have published 4 books since, and been long and shortlisted for several prizes. But unfortunately, when you’re not famous you don’t get a lot of money for your books.

what I earn

Celeb, I’d love to know what your book advance is, because this is what I got for mine, spread out over the course of 4 years:

• Book 1: £4,500

• Book 2: £4,500

• Book 3: £6,000 (but no royalties and minus my agent’s fees, as I had engaged an agent at this point)

• Book 4: around £10,000 (also minus agent’s fees)

I now earn about £1,000 per year in royalties. 

As you can see, there’s no way I can make a living from this. So I have to do other work to support myself, which means that my time for actual book idea development is very limited. Which is why it really irks me that your (probably mediocre book) got picked up so effortlessly.

What can you do to help this situation?

If you do happen to have a genuinely good idea for a book and a publisher to print it, you could consider using some of your advance to fund a book commission by an author from an under-represented group, or a first-time author or illustrator. You could help someone train - sponsor a student, or persuade your publisher to also commission (and properly pay) a first-time writer or illustrator as well as your book. Hey, you could even split your publicity budget with them.

In general you can help non-celebrity authors and writers by buying their books. Mine are It isn’t Rude to be Nude, Hooves or Hands, A Ladybird Book: The Stone Age and We Are Human Animals.

If your idea is not good, then  just don’t do it, please. Like I won’t record an album, or turn up to star alongside you in your next film. Because that’s ridiculous. 

Willies are not silly, not even just a little bit

There is a small amendment in the second edition of It isn’t Rude to be Nude. A tiny change that took a lot of thought and a few discussions with my publisher.

The change is on the willies page. Here is before:

Here is after:

The original sentence in brackets came about after I’d written the first draft of the text and finished the first drawings, and was showing the book to people close to me to see what they thought. 

It was a male friend who suggested it. He looked at the page and said “but willies are a bit silly!”

I liked the suggestion, and I thought of my brothers and all the other boys (and some men) I have known having innocent and silly fun with their willies. And that was my intention - there is a lot of funny waggling and aimed peeing that can be done with the male appendage, and this is a book whose spirit is a bit silly and tongue-in-cheek. 

Since publication the book has received loads of fantastic feedback, I’ve been on BBC Radio talking about it, it’s been covered by the national press and selected as an Observer/Guardian Children’s book of 2020, as well as a dePictus outstanding picturebook of autumn 2020. 

But that line has caused a few quibbles, a few wobbly reviews, and one quite strongly worded email.

I have to say I was completely unprepared for criticism like this. Perhaps it was naive of me, but this was my first book, and I’d not thought about how I’d feel if I found a one star Amazon review, or opened an angry email. I could shrug off as ridiculous the instagram commentators who wrote (without reading the book for themselves) that it raised child safeguarding concerns, or that children should not be made to look at naked adults, but I found it less easy to dismiss the idea that boys could be damaged by this line. 

A few other, and on the most part really positive online reviewers said that they wish I’d used all the ‘proper’ names for all body parts. Some felt that it was unfair on boys that I’d used willy for them, and vulva for girls - boys’ bits deserve equal respect! Others felt that it was unfair on girls - how come boys get a frivolous word, encouraging them not to take their private parts seriously? 

I did a lot of thinking about it all, and talked it through with Tate, who support my decision. We thought about changing willy to penis, we thought about adding an author’s note about language. I (very briefly, and not seriously) considered changing the text on the page to “Testes are the bestest”, or “The penis is very serious”.

But in the end we decided just to take the line out.

I know what my intention was, but I’d realised that if just a very small percentage of boys were upset, or thought less about their bodies because of that line, then that is against the spirit of the book. It’s easy to apply our own adult context and life experience to what we write in books for children, but does every child have the same understanding that I do of the word ‘silly’? Will they see it as a light hearted joke, or will they take it to heart?

I didn’t want to risk this, so the line went.

Willy stayed, however. Because it rhymes with the word silly, and for other reasons, which you can read about in my post about language used in It isn’t Rude to be Nude, below.

Language in It isn’t Rude to be Nude

When I was writing It isn’t Rude to be Nude I started like this, much the same as the book is now:

”It isn’t rude to be nude

Everyone has a bum

Nipples are normal

Willies are not silly…”

And then I came to female genitalia, and there just was not an equivalent word to willy. There’s fanny, but that has some negative connotations, and means bottom in the US, so that wouldn’t work. Then there’s the cute words - noo-noo, front bottom, twinky, etc. And then the not so cute - clunge, tw*t, c*nt, the anarchic euphemism cunny (which I actually quite like, but I don’t think can single handedly bring back). And of course vagina, a ‘proper’ word, but it’s often used to incorrectly describe all of the female genitalia when it is just one part (I actually used this in the first iteration of the book, before I’d found a publisher, but was never very happy with it).

If you compare the list above to the words we have for male sex organs then I think it’s fair to say that men get off relatively lightly. Yes they can be d*cks, and c*cks, but are those the worst insults you can think of? No, you’d call a really awful person a c*nt (I mean I do).

I think willy is a good and useful word, and that boys are lucky to have it, and I wish girls had something as neutral and free of baggage, which is why I used vulva. It is the anatomically correct word for the external female genitalia, and it’s little used, so I thought it would be good for children to learn and use it as a more neutral word if they’d like to.

Some reviewers and readers said they would have preferred it if I’d used the correct words for all body parts, and it’s true that if children know the correct names then they are better able to describe what’s happened to them if they’ve been abused. 

I think this is very interesting and valid, but it did not make me want to change my language. There is nothing stopping parents from reading my book and having a conversation with their children about the ‘proper’ words for their bits. My book is not an anatomy book - there are plenty of them out there already. Instead it’s a lighthearted, funny book that uses language that children are mostly familiar with to introduce a topic that can be difficult to talk about. I did not want to use bottom, penis, or breasts, and vulva was used because I did not have a better word.

Gender
Some readers and reviewers have picked up on the fact that I do not use the word boy, girl, man or woman in the book. This is very much on purpose. I feel quite strongly that we are too attached to the binaries of gender and sex, and believe that this is unhealthy. 

Although we live in an era of increasingly gender equality, we also live in a world of exaggerated gender performance, where hyper feminine and masculine bodies are idealised, and where babies are given gender reveal parties while still in utero.

When I first heard of these parties, I honestly thought they were for people who were transitioning to make their new identities official. But actually, children are indicated as pink or blue before they’ve even taken their first breath, and their clothes are colour coded as soon as they’re out in the world, because (I think) the ambiguous gender of babies makes people uncomfortable. How can you condition for gender if you don’t know the sex of the child?

Anyway, back to the book. I did not want to say that boys have willies and girls have vulvas, that girls grow boobs. I wanted to keep open the possibility that anyone could have these genitals, or may or may not grow breasts. 

Other language 
I’ve always had ‘imperfect’ skin: I have freckles, lots of moles, two birthmarks, and a skin condition. So in the book I liked the idea of rebranding these perceived defects as just part of the amazing variety that humans come in:  

“Bodies come in all shapes and sizes / And in lots of different colours and markings”. 

Why shouldn’t we think of ourselves in the way we think of other animals, who are celebrated for their variety? Why can’t vitiligo or a scar be seen as as individual as a beautiful tattoo, and skin colour to be just the shade that you happen come in?

How not to be lonely when you're an illustrator

Drawing pictures all day can be isolating 

It’s a job that I love, and I’ve slogged away at evening classes and then an MA to get to this position, but sometimes I find myself at home feeling unhappy and isolated.

Lack of human contact gives me what I call freelance paranoia. Unanswered emails make me think that people don’t like me anymore, and if I’m not happy with how my work’s going I can quickly lose confidence in that too.

I’ve spent years doing stressful and uncreative jobs in offices, but I never had these issues then, because I was surrounded by nice people who would distract me from negative thought patterns, get me out of myself, and give me a sense of perspective. 

It’s proven that small daily interactions with people, even casual acquaintances, is very good for your mental health. So while I work from home (which I do love), I now miss out on those little chats with the man at the desk opposite me, the girl in the kitchen, and the woman at the coffee shop. I never have to smile and tell people that I’m fine, and how are they, and yes the weather’s rubbish, and in so doing feel better and connected and human.

So what to do about it? 

This January I was able to take a full month away from office work to finish my first picture book (I work part-time as a producer and project manager, which is what I did full-time before moving into illustration). But I knew that isolation would be an issue, and so I used one of things that I do on a daily basis at work to see if it would ease the isolation.

It’s called a standup and it’s a short meeting that I do every morning with my team at work. Everyone gets together and takes it in turns to say what they did yesterday (or since the last meeting), what they’re doing today, and if they have any blockers. 

It comes from Agile project management methodology, which is a way of working where projects are broken up into ‘sprints’ of work, and small tasks that are done in priority order. It’s an excellent way of ‘eating an elephant one piece at a time’, and can be applied to any project, including writing and illustrating a book. It keeps everyone on the team feeling motivated and supported.

Of course, as a freelance illustrator I don’t really have a team. I have an editor, or whoever has commissioned me, but it’s a different relationship. So I decided that it’s irrelevant whether or not someone is working on the same project as me, and asked my illustrator friends if they would like to do daily standups.

Standups are called standups because they’re meant to be done standing up, to keep the meetings short and concise. They’re also meant to be done in person, which is another hurdle when you don’t live or work with your illustrator friends. So four of us have been using Google Hangouts for video calls each morning at 10:00am, and spending around 5 minutes each talking about our work. Sometimes we share our computer screens with everyone on the call, and show work that we’re doing digitally. Sometimes we hold artworks up to the screen. Some people on the call are working on books, but others are working on ideas that are not yet sold. Some are at the planning or writing stage, while I’ve been at the final artwork stage. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, just that you’re doing something that day.

I’ve really loved doing these. Talking about your plans adds a level of peer accountability, and I feel really motivated when it’s time to get to work.

When I’ve been feeling less confident my friends have encouraged me, their knowledge and advice has helped me to overcome problems in my work, and more than anything, it’s just lovely to see their faces each day! 

how we do it

We try and keep it to a maximum of 20 minutes, but we do have a nice chat too. I think it’s made us more in touch over the course of the day, sending emails and Whatsapps of work in progress, and getting feedback from one another. 

I think it’s definitely made me happier and less lonely this month.

People don’t have to attend every day, there’s no obligation. We’ve had a core group of 4, which feels like a good number - it would be hard to keep it brief if there were many more, but I think that up to 6 would be just about workable.

A screenshot from one of our illustrator standups

How to do it

Here are some tips if you would like to have a go:

• Find a bunch of people in a similar situation to you who you trust respect

• Agree a time to hold you standup. We used Google Hangouts as its free, and Google Calendar invites supply a link when you make an event. You could use other video conferencing services though, Whereby is good but you’re limited to 4 people with the free version

• It’s much easier to do these on a computer or laptop than your phone

• Let everyone know the rules - so tell them that in the meeting everyone:

  • Says what they have done since the last meeting

  • Say what they are planning on doing today

  • Say if they have any blockers/issues that are hindering their work

  • If there are any blockers then the team can briefly discuss ways to solve these
    

• Do it as regularly as you can

• You can sit down if you want, I usually do!

I’m really going to miss the frequent contact with my art buddies, but I will keep on doing these standups on the days that I’m working on illustration.

Other ways not to be lonely

• Do a ‘breakfast club’ with your creative friends who live nearby. Meet once a week at someone’s house for breakfast and a nice chat before you get on with work for the day

• Meet a friend/friends for a morning or lunchtime walk

• Go and meet an office-bound friend for lunch

• Get a dog and then everyone will want to talk to you when you take it for walks.