The children's book industry lost an iconic author recently. Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, passed away. But he helped let children's imaginations run free with his classic story.

So, Is holding a contest to honor his book. There is a new folder in the Contest folder for you to submit fanart of Where The Wild Things Are.

We are accepting entries until midnight of July 1st. This is a perfect opportunity to show your Wild side!

Contest Rules:

- All Artwork needs to be a fanart of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are OR your artistic interpetation of the story.

- As always, the artwork must be suitable for children


Prizes:

Grand Prize Winner:

- 3 Month Subscription to DeviantArt

- 2 Week Feature on front page of


Good luck!!

Here's the first Promotion

Promoting your books!Hello everyone, I think this can be interesting to everyone here.
Today starts a new great featuring about our publications. It is open to every Member who has a publication to promote.

:star: HOW IT WORKS:
:bulletpurple: IMPORTANT: You must be a Member of this Group to promote your publication here.
:bulletpurple: Send a NOTE to this Group with title: promote my book (any note with other titles won't be considered)
:bulletpurple: The book MUST be a book for children and must respect the rules of this Group.
:bulletpurple: Answer to the following points:

TITLE of the book
Synopsis of the book
Who's the publisher? e-book or hard copies?
Dev

Why aka Michelle Vinall is the first?
Because she is the one who asked me to help promoting her book and gave me the idea of this featuring.

    

Synopsis of Hurricane Lane
‘Hurricane Lane’ is an interactive rhyming picture book about a young girl who has a homework assignment to find the ‘seven wonders of the world’ in her own life.
It is set within a cosy suburban neighborhood but frequently delves into the mind of its main character to create a surreal atmosphere.

Hello, Michelle, welcome! Who are you?

I am a BA Animation Graduate from Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in Greenwich, London.
I am currently working as a 2D intern at a games company in London but in my free time I create children’s picture books for fun.

why did you decided to do this book? Please tell me something about the genesis of this book: how did it started, did you send it to any publisher?

Originally 'Hurricane Lane' was an entry for a contest Puffin books were having to create an interactive e-book. When I didn't win, I decided I was enjoying making it so much that I would continue regardless. I sent off about six manuscripts to publishing houses during the making of the book but was unsuccessful there too so I decided I would publish myself.

  Is it your first self published book? Why Amazon? Why smashwords?

So far this is my first self-published book but I'm already working on the next one. I'm still quite new to this which is why I chose Smashwords since it was free and unlike some other companies it offered good advice on self-publishing and marketing. I wanted to release it as a hard copy on amazon as well just because most of my friends don't buy e-books and signed up with CreateSpace to do so. Both of these sites are free and offer a good service  

   Do the interactive pages work on paper too? If not, why deciding to do the paper book too?

I'm afraid the interactive pages won't work with the hard copy which is the bad thing about it! But I thought the art would be strong enough that people could enjoy it anyway and this way it gives a reason to visit the website, try them out and hopefully share it with someone else who might enjoy it and want to read the book.

   There's something in your drawuing that reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki: what do you think about this?

Wow! Thank you very much!  It's nice to hear that comparison as I'm a huge fan of his work. Subconsciously I'm sure that the inspiration from him went into my book but it wasn't intentional. If I can re-create a little of the magic he puts into his animations though I feel like I've succeeded in creating something magical myself.

   Something you think an artist who wants to publish should know.

hmm.. I think the main thing is expect to do a lot of the work yourself. As someone who started this book expecting a publisher to take over towards the end, I realize now how naive I was. It's very unlikely that your first book will get anywhere and if you want to publish it be prepared to do a lot of researching on marketing, online self-publishers and even web design (if you want to make a website to advertise like I did). It's a long road but I also think that if you don't think too much about just how much work is involved and concentrate on making the book for the love of it, you will be able to get there in the end!

Please visit the website [link]