It has been a fantastic journey
with Rachael and I am delighted she is to revisit her previous work and have it
illustrated. Rachael and I have been together now for approaching three years
and based on the latest figures, from a couple of days ago, she has the top
aggregate sales figures for all her books for animals on Google. Rachael has 44
books and the gentleman who was the leader had, I believe, half Rachael’s sales
but for just one book. Rachael’s total sales based on last week are double.
What have I contributed to
Rachael’s success? Well practically nothing as far as Larry is concerned. The
Story starts before Rachael was born, back in 1967 in the Basel Zoo in
Switzerland. I was about 18 at the time and working as a Courier taking school
children on holiday from England to Austria but doing the return run from Basel
to Innsbruck where they were shooting The Sound of Music at the time.
Having a half day to kill I
treated myself to a visit to the Basel Zoo where I found a Liger! I thought a
spelling mistake! I spoke to a lady zoo keeper who knew the history. 'His father
was a Lion! His mother was a Tiger!' she said. Where did he come from? Bohemia
was the answer. Hence the Mad Professor from the Prague Zoo!
That’s my contribution full stop.
The rest is all Rachael!
From 1967 until late 2012 I
carried the idea around in my head for about 45 years! Rachael was working on
Anastasia The Epic when I visited her and to be honest I was too scared to
mention it in case she was not receptive. However, I plucked up the courage; how
wrong can you be? Larry was born on 1st December 2012 and is now
part of the considerable collection of Rachael’s books on Amazon.
Perhaps a few words of
encouragement might help would be authors and here I am targeting mothers with little
children at home. Many mums want to get into print. That is very healthy but a
few words of caution might assist. Identify a story that is going to sell! That
is the businessman in me coming out. Is the product marketable?
The Acid Test is sales!
We started with Anastasia as a
young girl. She is still 16 and has been for the past 2 years! If you are
marketing a series then the cover has to be easily identifiable.
If you are writing horsey stories
for girls then you will have considerable competition. “Black Beauty” – what a
great name! Anna Sewell sets the standard. “Polly Rides to Town” will never
compete with “Anastasia and the Palomino Foals”, “Anastasia and the Russian
White Stallion”, “Anastasia and the Puppy Farm”. You must capture the reader in
the title. Then you must recapture her in the first sentence. ”A magnificent
Palomino pony stood outside Polly’s house”. What a great start! Compare with
“Polly was preparing her picnic to ride to ….” I have fallen asleep already!
Take time to consider the market.
Horse books for young girls is an extremely competitive market? Could it make a
film or TV Series? Have that in the back of your mind? Is it merchantable like
Larry the Liger?
Your family must come first? Do
you have enough time? Ask yourself this? Will it interfere with family harmony?
Neither Larry nor Anastasia have
a bad thought in their heads. They have old fashioned values of good and bad!
When you write books you must
write books people wish to read! Rome was not built in a day! It has taken
about three years for Rachael to get to where she is today.
Children must be literate and
numerate. That is the key to a successful life.
If you produce a book that gets
children reading you will have done a considerable service to the education of
primary children.
Fergus Wilson
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