Publish a picture book- Taffy and the Tapir Party

Hello, we are Julia and Matt, a creative couple from Somerset in the UK. We are looking for help in publishing our children's book.

About the book

Taffy and the tapir party is a children's picture book we wrote, illustrated and designed ourselves over the last year and a half. Now we are looking to publish ourselves too!

The idea came from Julia wanting to illustrate a children's book, so I decided to write her one. Many, many rewrites, edits, and the best part of a year spent by Julia drawing in her spare time, we have the finished book (well 99%).

It is a story of friendship and helping others. It follows Taffy the tapir as she makes her way to the elephant ferry, to go to the tapir party. On her way, she runs into some friends that need her help. Penelope Pelican has lost her hat, Cara Capybara has lost her wellies, and Leonard Lemur has lost his glasses. Taffy stops to help her friends but in doing so, she gets delayed and misses the ferry! At the last minute, her friends all arrive to help her get to the party just in time.

We hope you enjoyed the trailer video showing some of Julia’s beautiful illustrations from within the book. Whilst I am really pleased with the story, it is the illustrations that really bring Taffy to life. That, along with all the extra little creatures and details that I feel, makes Julia’s work really stand out.

About us

Julia is a Swiss freelance illustrator and graphic design artist who moved to the UK 3 years ago to study. She has over 10 years of experience in graphic and motion design and recently completed a degree in animation at The University of the West of England. She would love to transition into full-time illustration work, and we hope this book will enable her to do that. As she said herself, “I love to create animals and characters with personality and whimsical scenes for them to live in.” www.juliahenauer.com, www.instagram.com/flowerpolarbear/

Matt is a designer maker originally from Brighton. Matt has worked in many different areas, from silver jewellery to musical instruments to wooden portraiture and graphic design. Making many things in many different materials. Taffy the tapir was the first book he had ever written, and over the last year and a half has really enjoyed the process, even if it has been a rather steep learning curve!

What will the money go towards?

The money will be used to help print and launch the book. We hoped to be able to fund it ourselves, but unfortunately, we cannot afford to pay for it all. It will go towards getting an ISBN (book ID number), a test print, the initial print run of hardback books, packaging and distribution, advertising online and traditionally, and getting a small amount of merchandise produced for promotional events. Things such as postcards, bookmarks, stickers, magnets etc.

What we have already done

The book is 99% finished, all the illustrations are complete, and the text is in its final layout. We have already hired an editor who has provided feedback which we have taken on board. They are now doing the last proofreading of the final design.

We have tested the book at various stages with friends' children, and they all really enjoyed it. Some provided great feedback that made it into the final version.

We have built a website which has just been launched; we have also set up various social media accounts to help spread the word. The website is available here StrangeFishBooks and our instagram is here StrangeFishUK

The printers are all ready to go, they are UK based and do excellent work.

Julia has designed some merchandise, postcards, and colouring sheets that will be available on the website and given out as freebies. We have also created an educational sheet that will be available to download with information about all the animals featured in the book.

We have explored and researched how book distribution works for self publishers and have set up accounts with distributors, created lists of local and national book shops as well as set up accounts with online outlets such as Amazon, Etsy, Folksy, Ebay etc.

Future plans

We hope that from the success of this initial print run, we can get a bigger run done next time, hopefully with some funds ready for the next book. We already have several other Taffy titles in the pipeline and some other separate stories too.

We have also discussed with local teachers about creating an educational pack for schools to accompany the book.

Thank you for taking the time to read over our GoFundMe. We really appreciate any help we can get in making our first children's book a reality. The website is available here StrangeFishBooks and our instagram is here StrangeFishUK if you would like to see more of Julia's illustrations.

Gifts of Appreciation

As a thank you for helping us, we would like to offer some gifts to our contributors.

Donors of £200 or more - All the below plus, An original digital artwork by Julia.*

Donors of £50 or more - All the below plus, a free signed copy of the book.

Donors of £30 or more - All the below plus, a pack of 4 of Julia’s greetings cards.

Donors of £20 or more - Below plus, Stickers, a postcard and a bookmark.

Donors of £10 or more - Get a 10% off voucher for Julia’s Etsy shop and 10% off the book from our website.

*The artwork will be an illustration of your choice. This will be an illustrated portrait of yourself, a couple, or your pet. It will be supplied as a high resolution, print ready file.