It’s always a joyful day when a new book is born!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday, dear LAKE FUN FOR YOU AND ME

Happy Birthday to you!

I’m really thrilled to turn the spotlight on this book right now because kids who are #shelteringathome definitely need to hold on to their dreams! And what better dream could a kid have right now than to be enjoying a vacation at a lake! PLUS, Rinda has created an interactive book…the readers are encouraged to write/draw their own vacation experiences…and this could be real or imagined…perhaps their bucket list for the future when this health crisis has passed.

And guess what? Rinda agreed to stop by and chat with us.

ME: Hi Rinda! Welcome to PIcture Books Help Kids Soar. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some thoughts about your path to publication. All of us love to get an inside peek at how this writing journey unfolds for others.

RINDA:

Hi Vivian! Thank you for having me! I never planned to self-publish, but I ran into a story that wanted to be told. It was about Neil Armstrong, age 16. He dreamed about building a wind tunnel, just like the Wright Brothers. I discovered the story in 2018, one year before the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Self-publishing was my only choice.

Along the way I discovered the profitability of a niche market. I’m from Wapakoneta, Ohio, Neil Armstrong’s home town. I put a lot of work into self-publishing so I decided to try another book, and another niche market.

I picked Norris Lake because my family spent summer vacations there for years. The marinas have ice cream and t-shirts, but nothing else for kids. Why not a book? I brainstormed a list of all the ways my family had fun. That became the first rough draft.

Nine months later, thanks to my two critique groups, the story grew. It morphed into a picture book about a family with three kids. The kids are competing to win a treasure hunt. That’s the left side of each spread.

The right side turned into a space for kids to write and draw their own adventures, at their own lake. I hope the right side will open up other lake markets for me and my book.

Best of all I have my idea for next year’s niche book . . . Beach Fun for You and Me. It’s perfect for my publishing arm, Beach Girl Press. It’s almost June . . . time to start another book!

ME: WOW! First of all, thank you so much, Rinda! You are an inspiration. You had an idea. You researched, wrote, and, most importantly, you followed through! Plus, thank you for taking us all on a virtual lake vacation…your photographs really put us in the setting! I remember that my sons loved those Choose Your Own Adventure books years ago. Your LAKE FUN FOR YOU AND ME goes one step further…the kids can actually write and illustrate their own adventure – one that they’ve taken or one that they dream of doing. Let’s keep the kiddos focused on the positive and looking towards the future.

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.

And to connect with Rinda and find out more about her: http://www.rindabeach.com/

Dear friends, have a wonderful week…I’ll be Zooming with a 4th grade class today, chatting about following your dreams and making your voice heard…and then on June 6th, I’ll be presenting a Writer’s Loft webinar on Writing Nonfiction PB Bios…demystifying that topic with lots of tips and techniques from my nfpb bio toolbox…hope to see some of you there!

Please stay safe and well.