In the front of my mind lately is the goal to work on pages for a coloring book which I will publish on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). If you aren’t familiar with KDP, it’s Amazon’s on-demand publishing branch. Any author can join for free and upload content for a book. It’s cool because as an author, you don’t have to have money up front. On-demand publishing means that the books aren’t actually printed until they are ordered by the consumer.
There are a few drawbacks to this method. One drawback is that it takes some time to produce the book, so customers will wait anywhere from 2-6 weeks to receive their book order – depending on the book format (softcover books are quicker to publish than hardcover). Another drawback is that the KDP format rules are very strict. Your book has to pass a ‘review’ process in order to ‘go live’ or become available for purchase. One perk is that authors can order books at cost and not have to pay the retail price if they want to order physical copies to sell or as promo copies. ? Another perk is that as the author, I can set the price of my book and know exactly what I make on each copy. It’s not a lot but, it’s better than nothing and I don’t have to carry any inventory.
To make a long story short, I have a lot of artwork to do before my coloring book will be published on KDP. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and a publisher will pick it up. At the very least, I need to create about 40 more illustrations! This project started out as an assignment for my SCAD Master’s degree. The idea was/is to create coloring book illustrations that feature the unique flora and fauna of the desert southwest where I live.
One of the drawings I made for the assignment was a cougar, or mountain lion as they’re known around here. I was never really happy with my original drawing. It looked more like a cat than a lion, so I recently revised it. Here’s the original drawing:
Meh, not exactly my strongest work! So I reworked it last week, and here’s the revision:
Yeah. I’m much happier with this new version. She looks so much more fierce! I love the way she looks at you and gives the impression she just might pounce! Ha ha. The only change I might make is to add some more leaves in the foreground, but that said, I like how the big cat seems really close to the viewer. Makes her feel a little more threatening, without being too scary for kids to color.
Post a comment and let me know what you think! ? ❤️
PS – did you know you can purchase a lined, blank journal with one of my artworks on the cover? Yes, I already published a journal/notebook on KDP just to try it out. I will write a future blog about that process but for now, check out my author page and order my journal on Amazon:
Liz Stevens Amazon Author Page
It’s got a fun rooster Alebrije on the cover. Here’s a cover photo:
Let me know through the comments if there are any of my artworks you’d like to see as a journal cover. I’m also thinking of making a blank fitness journal/planner using an artwork from another SCAD project. I’ll save that one for a future post too! For now, here’s a teaser image:
