La creación de un libro

The Making of a Book

You'll receive a special discount coupon code to use for Dr. Donna's 73 classes and four groups once you have completed each section of the class! 

Children have a chance to come up with their stories and your teacher, Dr. Donna, will guide you through you, as the Outschool student writing your story during class time, two times a week of fun! I will help you to develop and shape your characters and the stories you want to come to life in a 25-page creative book with pictures and illustrations that you will see created right before your eyes that you will participate in to make your story dreams come alive! 

Improve your child's career and career choices by enrolling in this class!
Help your child create winning books that will help with their post-secondary, college, or university acceptance.
Course Outline:

You can also choose to write poetry.

This class will be an introduction to book publishing, spanning different aspects of book writing and publishing techniques for children from an introduction to self-publishing and traditional publishing, to also marketing books and selling on online book platforms, plus in-person bookstores as a consignment author. Books can range from nonfiction to literary nonfiction, to children's books, fiction books, and poetry.
Here is the outline of the week's lessons and supplies needed:
Week 1 - March 24, 2022: Theme: What is self-publishing? An aspect of publishing connected to your choice of the book project..
Week 2 - March 31, 2022: Theme: What is traditional publishing? An aspect of book publishing connected to your choice of the book project.
Week 3 - April 7, 2022: Theme: How much money do first-time authors make with self-publishing? An aspect of book publishing connected to your choice of the book project.
Week 4 - April 14, 2022: Theme: How much money do first-time authors make with traditional publishing? An aspect of book publishing connected to your choice of the book project. 
Additional resources include Reading A-Z, BrainPOP, and Kahoot!

Please note: You may enter and leave from any class at any time! These are ongoing classes.
There are more than 60 books that have been published so far.

Example of Dr. Donna's Work:
Opening scene: It’s Cindy’s last year of high school at Stephen Leacock Collegiate in Scarborough, Ontario. Her friend Gino and Cindy sit on a bus on our way to downtown Toronto. A man boards the bus and immediately screams at the passengers standing in the bus aisle who he thinks deliberately blocks his path.
Gino: “He’s nine-nine-nine. He’s nine-nine-nine. 
Cindy: What does that mean?” 
Gino: “It means he’s crazy. He’s from 999 Queen Street (a psychiatric hospital at the time) and he’s a loon!”
Cindy sits quietly and fidgets with my hands. Cindy stares at the man’s facial tics and listens intently to his babble about “spies” and “the devil coming” and “the end of the world.”

Other Weeks include:

-Twenty to a 30-minute lecture on writing a book, the different types of children's books you can write. Brainstorming session on what you would like to write about. Additional 20 to a 30-minute lecture on quick tips of the style guide that will be used for this class that is used in book writing - the Chicago Manual of Style. Information that I, the teacher, will be editing your books for grammatical corrections. Information on where to find royalty-free photos online. 
Homework: Come up with your first 25-page book idea. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-In-class time to start writing your book draft. Rest of the class, share your ideas with the rest of the class for feedback and comments that will help your book idea and writing.  
Homework: Continue to write your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-In-class time to continue writing your book draft. Rest of the class, share your ideas with the rest of the class for feedback and comments that will help your book idea and writing. 
Homework: Continue to write your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-In-class time to continue to write your book draft. Rest of the class, share your ideas with the class for improvement of your writing of the book.
Homework: Continue to write your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-In-class time to continue to write your book draft. Rest of the class, share your ideas with the class for improvement of your book writing.
Homework: Continue to write your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-In-class time to continue to write your book draft. Rest of the class, share your ideas with the class for improvement of your book writing. The tutor will begin to edit your work-in-progress book draft.
Homework: Continue to write your book draft. The tutor will be editing your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-Discussion of your book drafts with edits from the tutor. Discussion of your book draft with edits from the class. In-class time to write your book draft.
Homework: Incorporate changes from the tutor and continue to write your book draft. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.
-Start completing your book draft in class. In-class discussion of books from students.
Homework: Start thinking of illustrations, photographs, and book covers for your book. Also, include illustrations if you choose to.

You can also do photobooks and illustrations books.

If you would like to add photos (illustrations) that can turn into cartoons with your writing, we will discuss how to do this as well with such online applications as BeFunky. As well as where to find royalty-free illustrations and photos online. I can also accommodate books written in French, Patois, Spanish, and Swahili. The class can also work with Canva created books. Also, use Director 365 - Photo Director. We can also use Adobe Stock images.

Activities with BrainPOP, IXL, and Reading A-Z can help to inform your writing, plus stimulate ideas, especially for learners where English is not their first language. ESL learners or ELL learners are encouraged to enroll as well.

Also, if English is not your first language and you would like to write in any language that Zoom transcription and Google Translate accommodate because you would feel more confident and comfortable, this is encouraged in this class.

Please note: The Making of a Book boot camp is also available by request at any time that is convenient for you.

Please also note: This is a professional writing class for children in order to produce a marketable book. Your journey to a completed manuscript begins with the first complete sentence. Please don't worry too much about the rest. Just keep writing! It will be complete if you keep writing!

Please note: If you're worried that with all of the profits that you would be making from your book I would be hunting you down and asking you: "where is my money," this will not happen! I have not done this yet, been doing this for close to 40 years and I have not done this even once. You have nothing to worry about. 
Please note: I will support you if you want to traditionally publish your book either right from the start, or after self-publishing. Please read this article to find out more information about the possibilities:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/12/amanda-hocking-self-publishing 

Please note: It is optional, but in a group class, if you would want to share your writing with the other learners, you can! I discourage this in part because I would like to encourage all of you to purchase each others' books, plus the books produced from all of my writing classes to encourage sales. However, there are many families that may not seek out your book on Amazon and/or Lulu.com, and having read a draft of the book COULD ACTUALLY ENCOURAGE the sales of your books from other learners and spread more the word of mouth about your book. This is optional and needs to be agreed upon by everyone in a particular section of the class.