For a long time, I’ve wanted write books. I dabbled with various ideas for science fiction novels, then spent time thinking about non-fiction, but nothing really stuck. I work full time as a Director of Product at a technology company and it’s a job I love and that I find very fulfilling (and which keeps me very, very busy). But I still wanted to write… Then I had kids – two beautiful daughters. Even less time left in the day… After a few years, while reading for Luna (my older one who, as of this writing, is 3.5 years old), it hit me – I’ll write children’s books! Seriously, how hard can it be? I’ve read countless awesome children’s books and also seen countless terrible ones (which I still somehow bought or were gifted to me). Not to mention I’m always making up stories for my daughter, so I’ll just turn those stories into books.
So I thought about it like a Product Manager – scope out the work, build an MVP (that’s a Minimum Viable Product – the least costly thing you can build that your customers will value and that will help validate your concept), and work efficiently within specific boundaries and with a specific goal in mind. I’ll find help for the things I can’t do (illustrating isn’t exactly my strength), gather feedback along the way (I “user test” with my kids and wife), and then release my MVP to the world and improve my content and marketing strategy incrementally, in an agile way. What could possibly go wrong! Turns out none of it’s easy, but I’m holding to it and decided to document my learning, so that perhaps another aspiring writing slash full time professional slash full time father could benefit from my experiences.
Read on, check out the books I’ve released, and most importantly, please give me feedback!
Here’s the list of books I’ve released on Amazon so far:
- Dreams of Monsters ABC: https://amzn.to/34i6Uah
- Dreams of Monsters ABC (tracing edition): https://amzn.to/316RIe9
- Princess Spells ABC: https://amzn.to/2ZDr5A6
- Robots Emote ABC: https://amzn.to/2NIfuJo
I’ve also started a YouTube “read aloud” channel where you can find videos to some of these books:
- Dreams of Monsters ABC read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG0lCAVDxBQ&t
- Princess Spells ABC read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDAPN-n66Kg&t
Please enjoy and let me know what you think!