The conception
Growing up in India, we enjoyed many stories as part of Indian folklore, from epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana that have been told millions of times to some less well-known but excellent short stories. These were originally passed over generations by word of mouth and later written into books and picture books. We grew up listening to them through our grand parents and caregivers and loved them a lot. They were remarkable works of literature that appealed to all generations. As I became older and a father, I started looking for them for my son. In searching for that, I realised these stories fell into two categories. They were very religious or simple narrations. They were too preachy or lacked good illustrations to capture a child’s imagination. There was very little that would attract a young 4 or 5 year old child. This is not to say there weren’t any such books, but they were hard to find. One such good book was Ganesh’s Sweet Tooth by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes, which my 4-year-old and I liked. The lack of these books manifested into conversations I had with my wife and friends where I kept pondering, there are so many good stories, but why don’t we have good books for younger children? In the age of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, these stories can’t be just retold like they were in the 1990s. They needed to be adapted to the modern generation and made palatable. Today’s generation has too many choices for entertainment, and the presentation of these works of literature needs to game up to that level.
As it happens with these conversations, one thing leads to another, and I started contemplating doing something along those lines. I had a few ideas for stories. Typically, most of my ideas would stop here, and I would have moved on to the next big thing in my mind. But for some reason, I continued to be motivated to do more. I started researching how best to write a book like this. I had no publication experience, but in today’s world, there is no shortage of information on YouTube and other such sites. One thing to my benefit was that there was no content shortage in this realm. Indian folklore has several well-written stories, and the core of the content was already there. It was more a case of figuring out how to present it. That’s when I discovered Upwork, a platform for connecting different skill sets. You can find illustrators, book editors, etc., from across the globe. I spent a few weeks researching the costs of publishing books, what is needed to make the cool stuff like illustrations and the boring things like ISBNs etc. The more I understood, the more the picture became evident. I crunched numbers to understand what it would cost me and started noting down things I would need to do and how long these would take. I put this all together into a few “business case” slides and ran it by some more people. More feedback followed, and I was increasingly convinced that I had to do this regardless of where it ended in terms of success or failure. It was my mid-life calling, my mid-life crisis.
The execution
Armed with the conviction of just doing something, we wrote a couple of draft stories, one that I did and one my wife contributed. I then had to pick an illustrator for the book. I had no artistic skills, but I could explain what I wanted in words. I used Upwork to help select a good illustrator. This was tricky as the choices were numerous, from lots of Indian artists who knew these stories to lots of artists who were interested and had an incredible catalogue of previous work. This selection was difficult as I was worried that the ones who had never heard these stories would struggle to capture the story in their illustrations, and on the flip side, the ones who had heard it might bring their own biases to it. Ultimately, a fresh take with no previous knowledge was most beneficial for my project.
I drafted the whole book and added some sample images from the Internet to paint the picture. The content and story were already there. I had to add some literary spice to it. I selected two pages from the book and put that on a paid trial with three illustrators. Surprisingly it took little time to get a proof of concept page from the illustrators. There are some creative and talented artists out there! Selecting the winner, however, was more straightforward. While two were good in their own right, the third illustrator hit the nail on the head with what I wanted. Very bright illustrations and it bought a new feel to the story.
From that point, it was a case of working through the pages individually. This was a rewarding experience as pages transformed from boring text with some “idea” images to vibrant illustrations. There was some unplanned delay due to the Ukraine war, as my illustrator, from there, had other more significant problems to handle than illustrating a children’s book. This pushed my timeline by 6-9 months, but she was excellent, and there was no way I was deserting her during such a difficult time.
The story presented some challenges as well. The story is a small part of the epic Ramayana. The story is quite good, but if you stick to the original epic, it is more of a chapter within the larger narrative. I stayed with the original, but when I read it to my 5-year-old, he wanted to know what would happen in the end and how Sita would be rescued. That made me realise that children will enjoy a proper ending. So, after some deliberation and poetic license, I decided to end it slightly differently from the original epic and give it a more child-friendly conclusion.
I also decided to publish using Amazon Kindle Desktop Publishing (KDP). KDP is a good platform for budding publishers, and it takes the headache out of some of the logistics of book publishing at the trade-off of profits. Profit was never my motive, so I went the easier route. The KDP interface had its quirks, but there is enough information on YouTube and the Internet to learn and adjust. Formatting for KDP took a while, and eventually, I hired the services of an individual familiar with KDP formatting. The book was ultimately published 19 months after the conception of the idea. It was an enriching experience for me. I am now trying to figure out how to market this on a budget and using the resources I have at my amateur level. Only time will tell how this rendition will be received by the younger audiences, their parents and caregivers. Thanks for reading this far, and if you have any comments, do let me know using the various mediums listed at https://granthin.com/.
A note about the illustrator:
Yelyzaveta Anysymova is an amazing artist and she can be reached at https://www.behance.net/lisasobacca or https://www.instagram.com/lisasobacca/