This will be a tough mission, since we won’t be stopping at the super obvious fact that the charismatic tomcat Beato’s vertiginous rise in popularity is due to his visual look. The people behind the illustrations for the “Beato Goes To” children’s books series are none other than our colleagues at Deveo Studio, Alexandra Abagiu and Oana Vaida.
The author Sucheta Rawal was born in Candigargh, India, and currently resides in Atlanta, in the state of Georgia, in the United States of America. In between these endpoints, however, there exists a whole range of other places which Sucheta has visited and loved. It is no wonder then that she has undertaken to share her travel experiences with young readers! This is how the series “Beato Goes To” came to be, as a challenge for 4-7 year-olds, or even for 47 and 74 year-olds. The only prerequisite for enjoying these discoveries are to have a young heart and to be driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Her characters and the curiosities presented in her texts are inspired from the varied and fascinating realities inhabited by people from several parts of the planet.
To make things more exciting, she created an alter-ego for herself, which she then sent out to trek the world far and wide. Beato began as a simple domestic tomcat, comfortably settled in a suburban Atlanta home. Subsequently, however, he became an ardent traveler, exploring places like Greenland, Israel, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil. This punctuates an important similarity to Deveo Studio itself, whose creations also reached many points on the world map: the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Romania.
In each place he visits, Beato becomes acquainted with the local animal species, he learns about the way people live there, and tastes the most bizarre dishes. His sense of adventure also characterizes us at Deveo. More specifically, art-venture is our main specialty, and this explains how we are able to navigate a multiplicity of illustration and animation styles with so much ease.
Finally, let us not neglect one more essential similarity between Beato and Deveo, especially since it is favorable to us. Both the traveling tomcat and we at Deveo believe that Sucheta is very right in her assessment that we are the best team ever!

So many writers think they have what it takes to become a published author and win their place in the spotlight, but sadly most of them don’t ever make it that far. Most often the problem isn’t a lack of talent or writing skill, but a lack of knowledge about how and where to go to get their book published. It’s disappointing that so many potentially great books are sitting around never to be read because the author couldn’t get it published. In an attempt to stop this literary tragedy, we’ve explained below some of the key components of getting your book published. Pay attention, because we don’t want to lose anymore great books that just haven’t gotten published!

The very first thing you need to do, although pretty obvious, is write your entire book. Publishers are looking for someone they know can complete an entire book, so it’s necessary to finish the whole thing before sending it in. This is most important for first-time authors who haven’t been published before, because you need to create a sense of trust and responsibility. If you turn in half of a manuscript, publishers will doubt your ability to finish an entire book, and it will all be for nothing!

Once you’ve finished your whole book, you must decide if you want to go through an agent or go directly to the publisher. There are benefits and drawbacks to each, and every author has a different priority. It’s up to you to do the research and become fully confident in your decision.

Whether you decide to go through an agent or directly to the publisher, you need to find the one that specializes in your genre/style of book. You wouldn’t want to bring your historical fiction book to a publisher who’s only interested in science fiction! Again, it’s necessary for you to do your own research here about publishers or agents near you, which ones suit you, etc. Once you’ve found “the one,” send in a query letter. In this you need to introduce yourself, your book, and write a brief summary of the book. Make sure this has no grammatical or spelling errors! Everything depends on whether the agent or publisher is impressed by your query letter, so it must be in tip-top shape. If they are impressed, they’ll ask you to send in your manuscript, and then they’ll make their final decision of whether or not to publish it (or take you on as a client if you’re sending it to an agent). Make sure everything you send in is proofread and edited by family or friends, that way you send in the best quality possible. If your book is accepted, you’re well on your way to a successful career as an author, and getting your books published will just get easier every time!

When it comes to our children’s education, we want the best. Along time, parents have been looking for books that the little ones will love and also learn from. To honor the best books who have successfully managed to bring both, and were adored by millions, we put together a list of Top 10 children’s books of all time.

1. Charlotte’s Web written by E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams tells the story of a pig named Wilbur and his special friendship with Charlotte, the spider. Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered; to save him, Charlotte writes messages in her web praising the pig, to convince the farmer of how special Wilbur is.

2. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is one of the most popular stories ever written (by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith). It tells the story of the 3 little pigs from the perspective of Alexander T. Wolf. He runs out of sugar and goes to his pig neighbours to borrow some. They all say no and, after an accidental sneeze, he blows down the houses of two pigs, and then eats them. The third pig’s house is made out of bricks, so he’s saved and A. Wolf goes to jail.

3. Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon is the ultimate bedtime story. Written for children from 0 to 3 years, this little hero is saying goodnight to all things around him “Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon”.

4. There is no child born after the 1930’s who hasn’t read or watched A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. Funny, innocent and  eager to learn, this teddy bear and his friends make the cutest story that your kid will absolutely adore.

5. Imagination and fantasy reach a new meaning after the publishing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. J.K. Rowling, introduced us to a boy wizard in this fist book of a series and, after seven more, she became one of best-selling authors on this planet.

6. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a children’s book written for adults. The little prince falls to Earth to meet the author, who has crashed his plane. He retells the story of his life, his travels on other planets and the strange creatures he met. This novel is the 3rd most-translated book in the world.

7. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis. When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – step through a strange wardrobe door, they find themselves in Narnia,  the land of talking animals and mythical  creatures. Best suited for children over the age of 7, it can be the delight of adult-fantasy-lovers as well.

8. Dear Zoo, this story about a little boy who is looking for the perfect pet will open doors to your child’s learning. Making a game out of finding the perfect pet, Rod Campbell gives you all the tools for fun learning.

9. Where the wild things are is a children’s picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak. The story focuses on  a boy named Max who’s bedroom undergoes a mysterious transformation into a jungle environment. After successfully intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things
10. The Hobbit, this fantasy story has delighted readers ever since its first publication in 1937. J R R Tolkien was awarded a prize for best juvenile fiction thanks to this story of the hobbit who lived in a hole in the ground.

Are you looking to illustrate your own book and become a Top Seller ? Dont hesitate to contact us.

In the past years, the Children’s Book Publishing industry has been encountering challenges like competition from new technologies and the postrecessionary income problems. Children’s literacy remained important enough that even the slightest gains in disposable income brought greater demand for children’s books. From 2013 to 2014, print juvenile books experienced 12.8% sales growth. 2015 has seen more social media engagement and activity from businesses, but it has not replaced traditional book marketing. Marketers learned and will continue to learn to use them in colaboration with one another.

The European children’s book market has stagnated, in contrast with the US, Chinese, Brasilian  or Australian market that have increased sales, some up to 28%(Brasil). In China (where children’s sales are a smaller proportion than in the West) total unit sales were up 3%, but children’s units grew by 10%.  Why? Some of the reasons are local; for instance, the relaxation of family size legislation in China might have influenced their growth in sales of children’s books.

Another important aspect of the 2015 market is that children start reading e-books more and more often, and from younger ages.  In 2014 we have seen that 21% of purchased books are e-books. The sale of e-books has tripled for the past 4 years, starting from 7 % in 2011. In spite of this growth of eBooks readers, print books remain the touchstone for children and families.

As a writer, editor or illustrator, you should take the following numbers into consideration: approximately 27% of children’s books are bought by adults without any children and not as a gift. In 2011, five of the U.S. top 20 bestselling children’s books fell into the Young Adults category. In 2014, 11 of the top 20 were also Young Adults . Shocking, but true 80% of YA books are bought by adults for themselves to read.

A survey by Jonathan Nowell has shown that the ranking of books in children’s life decreases with age. From age 0 to 10, children still prefer printed books in favor of toys and TV.  The age sector from 11 to 13 puts the book at the bottom of their priorities, after TV, mobile phones, computer games and live games. Finally, the majority of 14 to 17 years old  teens no longer find interest in reading (at least not on paper), as they are drawn into the social media life. Here comes the biggest challenge- finding a way to make young adults books attractive for the 11 to 17 age sector.

Even so, with teenagers’ absence in the book market, children’s share of overall print books are quite high: 34% in the UK, 37% in the US, 18% in China.

The e-book market is developing rapidly and publishing houses have started to integrate options to publish on paper and/ or online into their offers. If you don’t want to spend money on a publishing house or you think they might not fully respect your concept, here are some of the best websites where you can self-publish your book.

To be noted that Amazon offers 70 percent royalty (which means profit) for authors with books priced between $2.99 and $9.99; otherwise, the rate kicks down to 35 percent. Amazon’s publishing platform is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). The platform provides incentives for authors who decide to offer their works exclusively on Amazon. This service called KDP Select offers authors financial rewards and plenty of benefits as long as they publish their books exclusively on Amazon for at least 90 days.As for your cover and possible illustrations, you could try to do it yourself, though if you’re not a designer, it would be better to hire a professional illustrator.

The Create Space slogan “Publish your words, your way” pretty much sums upt their publishing style. This platform brings to the table the whole package: free tools, design, editing and marketing services, wide distribution and permanent help available from real professionals. Not only manufacturing and shipping is taken care of, but your book is always (and we do mean always) in-stock. Your profit is calculated depending on your book size, complexity and distribution place-of your choice. Take a look at their website and see if it “speaks ” to you.

iBookstore store is an e-book application by Apple. Here, you can upload your e-book directly, but you do have to fill out an application and it’s a bit of a longer process. This website is great because it can also display e-books with multimedia content. iBookstore is the heaven of iPad books.

Smashwords.com is one of the first e-book online publishers with over 125.000 titles. This website not only allows authors to publish their book, but it also has tools to help you create it: you upload your Word document, your cover and press a button. In a few minutes, the Smashwords Meatgrinder will provide you with your own brand-new book. Smashwords also gives writers the option of selling the book on their own website or distribute it to some of the major e-book sellers(here mentioned).

Barnes & Noble’s PubIt. With the amazing reputation of Barnes & Noble, this seems like the perfect place to sell your “baby”. It sets the rate at 65% profit for authors that price their books between 2.99$ and 9.99$, and the percent lowers to 40% if you go either lower or higher than these limits. Barnes & Noble’s PubIt includes a free conversion tool that takes your files of any kind and automatically converts it to an EPUB file, which you then upload to their eBookstore.

BookBaby has often described itself as ‘a team of authors, poets, bloggers, and artists’ who have put together an e-book distribution network and various publishing services. Unlike other big publishing platforms, BookBaby is ready to offer a wide range of design, layout tools and many kind of support services for file creation and production. The great part is that this team has packages with the option of distributing your e-book on other publishing titans websites (Apple iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, eSentral, Scribd and PagePusher).

Publishing a book is a serious, challenging process. In order for your vision to be well-represented and for a good collaboration with your publisher, there a few things you need to analyse before submitting your manuscript.

Firstly and most importantly, you need to determine the age range of your audience. Is your manuscript for toddlers, mid-grade children or young adults? Some publishers have a better understanding of one sector of the market than the other. Do you need a publisher that cand also offer illustration services or is your book picture free? After having determined who is your book destined for, you should now figure out the genre of your children’s book. Is it fiction, non-fiction, nature, concept, religious, adventure, history, contemporary, humor, folktale or educational? It doesn’t just have to be one type; genres can be combined resulting multiple possiblities, such as a non-fiction history book or a fiction adventure book.

Now that you have a clear image of what type of manuscript you have, it’s time to search for the publishers who print what you have to offer. The worst thing you can do is randomly call publishing houses, without a clear picture of what they publish. It will be a waste of time and money. You must hunt for publishers that WANT book. Look at the books each publisher has released. Are they anything like yours? Do you think they publish quality books? If the answer is yes, go find some of these books and READ them. It might seem like a lot of trouble just for finding the right publisher, but you know what? Good things don’t come easily. You MUST read the publishers’ books to know the flavor and style of the publishing house.

When you have the publishers list in front of you, it’s time to prepare your submission. Make sure your manuscript has no grammar faults, number your pages, use a readable font and print it on high quality-paper. If you want to be taken seriously, your sumission has to be very professional. Write a descriptive statement for your book and include in your cover letter. The letter does not replace the manuscript, but it can arouse the editor’s interest in reading it.

In a perfect world, you might think that if you write well, you will be sure to succed. The truth is that smart marketing will make the difference between a wannabe writer and a published author. Don’t just chose a publisher, chose THE RIGHT PUBLISHER for your book.

Finding the perfect style of illustration for your children’s book can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve never done it before. Most people don’t even know where to begin, and what should be a fun and creative process turns into a dreaded and draining one. Below we’ve listed seven tips to help make this process easier and fun once again.

1. Find books with similar stories and plots and look at the illustration styles used in those. Obviously you don’t want to publish a book exactly like somebody else’s but this should give you a general idea of where to start. Pick your favorite one, and use that as your primary example.
2. Think about the age group your book is targeting. A seven year old has a better attention span than a three year old, meaning they might like less bright and hectic illustrations, among other things.
3. Know the meaning and mood of your book inside and out. If it is goofy, a goofy illustration style can bring that out even more. If it is serious and teaches a very important lesson, choose an illustration style that will compliment that.
4. Decide whether you want your children’s book to be very modern or more timeless and classic. Some illustration styles come and go, while others tend to be a favorite for the long haul. It’s important to decide if you want your book to have that timeless look or if you want it to be a representation of the styles and time you wrote it in.
5. Look at similar real life situations. If your story takes place at a park, visit many different parks and see which is most appealing to you. You might love the way a park looks and have your illustration be pretty realistic to convey that, or you might not be fond of the way any of them really look, so you’ll decide you want something more abstract and different.
6. Watch children’s television. Children’s shows are pretty much children’s books with movement and noise, so this is a great place to look to find illustration styles (except instead of illustrations, they’re called animations). There are so many different types of animations, and looking at these can spark your interest in one that would look good as a still illustration in your book.
7. Be creative, and let others help you. If somebody suggests an illustration style, take it into consideration even if you don’t like it at first. You might grow to love it! If you have little kids, nieces, nephews, etc., you can even show them some illustrations (maybe two example pages of the illustration style and the pictures that would actually be in your book) and have them pick which one is their favorite! After all, the illustrations must be appealing to the children they’re meant for.