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If children ‘published’ books, would there be a market?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Today, ‘to publish’ means something else entirely.  It used to be tied to the notion of a ‘publication’ – which often meant material that got edited, bound and distributed by certain entities.

So should children publish books? 

I want put this question to those of you professional communicators, and also in education:

  • Should the definition of children’s books also include children-to-children books?
  • Could book stores get into the business of encouraging children to become storytellers, designers and illustrators?

Sure, there is a good self-publishing model out there at places such as Blurb, Lulu, etc. But (a) It is hardly affordable for most children (b) The POD model presupposes the content is already ready to go to press.

  • Are there places (such as ‘Maker Spaces’) for kids to polish their craft, and go all the way to putting a book on a shelf?

Many will say that the market is not significant enough to give it serious thought. But is that good enough reason to not consider it?

I pose this question because of a suggestion raised by one of my 3rd grade classes today. They wanted to know if they could publish their work in a book form. I was shocked at the question. This after all, was from 9 and 10 year olds!

I have pat answers for questions like this. Such as: “It depends what kind of readers you are thinking about” – an opening to a discussion about eBooks, online publishing, Wikis and such.

But this is a serious question that should not be confined to school-made solutions. Any suggestions?

Wikis to books worth experimenting

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I often make the point that we spend too much time clicking on links, rather than spending time on the meaning of what we read.

So I thought of experimenting with PediaPress, a service that lets you convert Wikipedia pages into a book.

The book? On Clark University – for my son’s graduation today.

Knowing fully well that information on the university will change, did not bother me. In fact, that’s precisely why I wanted to do it. After all, Wikipedia content is not exactly writ in stone, could be considered as relevant for a moment in time.

(If you’ve been watching how pages get edited, and the edit wars that ensue over single words or phrases, you’ll know that this ‘moment’ sometimes changes several times an hour as a result of furious edit wars!) I want the book to be a sort of  time capsule that he could one day look back on.

PediaPress is basically offering a print on demand (POD) service, but the beauty of this is how simple they have made the steps. There’s very limited customization (the cover and title, plus a preface), but the layout of pages and sections are very clean.

I would have liked a bit more customization, such as:

  • The ability to move photographs and charts into separate pages
  • Uploading my own photograph for the cover, and a few others for other pages
  • An acknowledgment or title page
  • Adding text to back cover

But as this was an experiment, I was willing to take the risk.

Other risks. For a different project, say trying to compile a short compendium of knowledge on a breaking news event, or a current topic, using Wikipedia as the source of content is more risky. While the Creative Commons license gives anyone permission to use and re-purpose content, one has to me meticulous about accuracy.

I began to wonder of there are other similar services that let you blend knowledge from multiple sources, and let you add chapters to the book. I’ve looked at Blurb, which offers a Blog-to-Book option. Lulu also has a great service. a cookbook/ A book of poetry/ Wikipedia has a rich selection.

Give it a try!