If I Were a Bee , Dolores Keaveney
I
live in Mullingar with my husband John. I have three children, and five
grandchildren.My grandchildren and the bees are my inspiration.
I
am an artist not a qualified illustrator, and I like to paint in strong
vibrant colours and I think this adds greatly to my books. I love
painting and it is a great way for me to chill out and to relax and to
express myself in my paintings. Flowers are my favourite item to paint
and I have made this my painting choice.
I
have been painting for the best part of 40 years. My first art lesson
was in early 70's when I attended night class in Mullingar under the
guidance of our very own gifted artist Anna Marie Leavy. She was such a
great teacher and when finished our group went on to form the Lakeland
Art Group and I painted with this group for 25 years. I branched out on
my own and have been painting miniature watercolours and painting on
slate for the past 10 years. I have to say Anna Marie was a great tutor
and she gave me an excellent foundation for watercolour.
Before
I started to write I was a qualified holistic therapist and a Reiki
Master with a small business in the holistic side of work, but this only
lasted one year. I missed my garden and the outdoors and I decided to
take a break for a while.
I
am a member of Belvedere Bee Breeding Group in Mullingar and I love to
go there to learn about the bees and what amazing insects they are. It
is a great hobby and teaches how to be cool calm and collected when you
have to open a beehive full of 45,000 bees and take a frame in your
hand.
It
was during this time and out of the blue I awoke one night with lots of
poems in my head. I sat up and wondered what it could all be about. I
got my pen and paper and wrote them down. They were poems about bees and
I had no idea where they were coming from but I went with my intuition
and felt inspired to write down these poems.
I
had lots of paintings of flowers completed and I took the poems and the
flowers and put them together and I had the makings of a book. It was a small picture book with simple little rhymes about bees. I called it If I Were a Bee.
Each poem explained how the bee would travel to a flower and collects
up nectar and pollen, and takes it back to the beehive and turn the
nectar into honey, and feed all the little bees with the pollen. It
also explains about the beehive, how they make combs with lots of wax
and also about pollinating the blossoms of the apple trees. If I Were a Bee was in a rhyming sequence and it buzzed and flowed as you said the poem.
Where do I go from here I thought?
I had heard of a web site called www.blurb.co.uk that
is ideal for illustrated books, and proceeded to make my own little
book and publish it to myself. The day I got my first little book was
just an amazing experience for me. I had this small book in my hand and I
was very pleased with my efforts. I showed it to some of my friends and
they suggested I submit it to a publisher. I did submit it to a few,
and I got the usual reply, ‘very pretty but not our line’. I had been
reading a lot about self publishing and I then decided to self publish
this book. It is quite expensive at the start but I had some money which
I could have used to go on the holiday of my dreams, but instead, I
decided to use it to self publish my very first book.
I
took the book to a graphic designer here in Mullingar, he laid it out
and made the fonts more children friendly and colourful and I printed
2000 copies of my very first book. I am now on my second reprint. The
year was 2008 and it was a very special year for me, it was the start of
my self publishing career.
I
submitted this small book to libraries throughout the country and was
delighted when they took in into stock and booked me to read at the
Children’s Book Festival. For me this was a great achievement to have
your book in the libraries and to be able to read it to small children
and to explain about the bees. The children loved it.
To date I have self published 5 books and I am working on another at the moment.
I launched my first book If I Were a Bee in May 2009. My second book Jenny the Little Brown Hen was launched in August 2010. I applied for and received a grant from Foras na Gaeilge to translate Jenny to Jenny an Chearc Bheag Dhonn
which was launched in April 2011. I also launched a spiritual book in
August 2011, which is for everyone young and old alike called Earth Angels Are Everywhere; Are You One?
I have compiled, illustrated and just launched my 5th book called Beelicious Recipes with Honey
in April 2012 and this is a first cook book for boys and girls. My
granddaughter Ellie has written some of the recipes and this adds great
charm to the book. My grandsons Greg, Mal, and Will also contributed to
the book with their cooking of the recipes along with little Ali. All
the recipes have been tried and tested many times by my grandchildren.
I
have two distributors: Eason and Argosy. I have been lucky to have
appeared on Nationwide RTE. I have many wonderful reviews for my books
from Siobhan Parkinson, Manchan Magan, Benji Bennett, Mary Arrigan, Mary
Esther Judy, and many more.
The
following is a kind of a roadmap for anyone who intends to self
publishing. This is the route I took with my self publishing and I hope
you the reader finds it helpful.
- Write the book
- Find money to self publish
- Edit Book
- Decide to Publish or Self Publish
- Apply to Nielsen for ISBN
- Design front cover of book.
- Get book typeset
- Print mock-up
- Edit Edit Edit
- Print copies for review and submit to people you would like to review so that you can insert it into the book.
- Submit to Easons, Argosy at least 8/10 weeks before the launch so that they will either agree or not to distribute the book for you and so that it will be in the shop when you launch.
Edit Edit Edit
- How many books will you print
- Send to printers either yourself or your graphic designer who has designed the front cover and who has type set the book.
- Print invites, posters, banners
- 3 Weeks before launch put out fliers/web texts/emails/invitations
- Get a WEBSITE IF POSSIBLE. Very important for people to look you up and check out everything about you.
- Submit books to libraries for their catalogue.
i.e. 1 Book to British Library UK
5 Books to Trinity College
1 Book to National Library of Ireland
You will find addresses in Neilson information.
- Register Book on PubWeb online Neilson
- Submit book to libraries throughout the country to see if they will buy it.
- Contact all shops throughout the country with an email telling them about your book
- Sell at craft fairs, functions etc etc.,
- Set up Facebook page www.facebook.com
- Sign up Twitter www.twitter.com
- Set up Account on authorcentral.amazon.com /authorcentral.amazon.co.uk
- Join www.goodreads.com
- Get your book into the newspapers. Think local. Do your homework, become a story of local interest. ‘Local authors publish book’….
- Contact everyone you know and let them know you are a published author. Get some nice testimonials and write ups.
- Get into magazines.
- Have book signings if possible in local bookshops.
- Focus on an event, or an accomplishment, not about purchasing the book.
- Keep thinking about ways to get you and your book in the paper.
- Write your next book.
- Most important of all enjoy what you are doing ……..and don’t take it too serious.
(c) Dolores Keaveney July 2012
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