Fun in the Snow

Usually my day is filled with similar strategy and branding issues for various companies. But things are slowing down as Christmas approaches even if the snow has yet to fall. For the last two years I have produced a children’s book for my nephew Nathan about the life and times of a snowflake. The first book was about the Life of a Snowflake, and the second dealt with his dreams. Now I am no illustrator but I do the best I can and I think that this year’s book and my third in the series turned out better than ever.

Fun in the Snow Book Excerp
Fun in the Snow Book Excerpt – Snowmen always seem friendly to me.

Usually the most difficult issue with creating the book is coming up with the idea for the story but this year I came up with two ideas fairly quickly. So now I have an “idea in the bank” for the next year. Yipee! Since the last book was about his dreams I thought that this year’s could be about what he likes to do for play time. As with last one, I kept the format the same and will continue to do so until Blurb no longer carries it. This eliminates a few headaches but more importantly it gives the books a nice sense of brand.

Since last year, and it seems every year, Blurb changes the way they collect your book and the plugins that they supply for Adobe Indesign. This moving target approach is a little annoying but since year one their actual template hasn’t changed so I really shouldn’t admonish them. In fact, I think that Blurb has done a terrific job putting their process together for the end user. So kudos to them.

Fun in the Snow

Last year I mentioned that the obvious thrill of creating these books is that my nephew loves when people read to him. Fortunately for me this hasn’t changed. He is now about 3½ years old and is just delighted when people read him a story. I keep wondering how long I will continue to make him books for Christmas as opposed to buying him a toy or some such present. I wonder if he will appreciate these as he gets older… as a teenager I do not think he will want a silly little book from his old uncle but something tells me that he will remember them fondly as he gets much older. (hopefully me as well)

One rather silly side note to this book; I still haven’t got over the fact that the snowflake is essentially playing with other snowflakes. At least he didn’t try to melt them.

I hope Nathan likes this book as well and perhaps next year I will even be able to read one of them with him rather than to him.


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One response to “Fun in the Snow”

  1. Billy

    Great book, read it to my kids last night they loved it. Well done. I will have to look at your others.