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I've got a new book fresh back from the printer and it's time to announce it
to the world! While technically it's here before Christmas, it's
probably too late to actually advertise and sell it as a Christmas item. Here's the
executive summary: it's a children's book, hardcover (8.5 inch x 5.5 inch),
full-color pictures on extra-heavy glossy paper, 76 pages. Oh, and it's an
"interactive" (game) book, where the reader chooses what ride comes next and
flips to the appropriate page in the book, so it's chock full of nonlinear,
branching narratives.
A little background: I was happily greeting folks at a Disney fan
convention last year, just twelve months ago, when a woman came up and
introduced herself as Mary (I never learned her last name). Mary noted my
work as an author and then asked me out of the blue: "Why don't you write a
book for children?"
Taken aback, I stammered that I wouldn't know the first thing about kids'
books… this hasn't been my target audience all this while. She then pointed
out that *no one* has done children's books, at least not anything specific
to the parks. The market was underserved.
After ruminating about this for a while, I realized that Mary was right.
There are souvenir picture books, there are trivia-oriented books, and there
are even novels (see the runaway success of the Kingdom Keepers books, for
instance). Disney has a history of creating books solidly aimed at the
middle of the pack, the kind of books with the greatest chance of selling to
everyone. That means that "targeted" books seldom get made.
This is related to my decision to get into book publishing in the first
place, actually. Jason and I had wanted a book on Disneyland-only trivia,
but could only find the Disney Trivia Books, which were whole-company
focused. Lacking the book we wanted, we made our own, and I've done the same
thing several times over now. I still have a white whale of sorts from those
days, now that I think about it. In those early days, I had a parallel
vision for a different kind of book showing nothing but maps, concept maps,
and aerial views of Disneyland Park (everything from above), but even after
all these years it still has not come to pass. Yet I've never given up hope
that Disney will put something like that out.
Back to Mary and her desire for a kids' book of some kind. She was
unspecific about what exactly she wanted, but she pined for something she
could read out loud to her kids at bedtime. I knew that traditional kids'
books were art-heavy, and I simply can't draw, so that was out. But
narratives I understood, and a coincidental appearance in my day job of
"non-linear narratives" made the two ideas collide in my brain like two
giant Certs mints (whaddya mean, you don't get the reference? Did you sleep
through the early 80s? It's two, two, two mints in one!)
In the end, I knew it could work to let the reader decide how the story
unfolds. Branching narratives can be carefully constructed to loop back in
some places, and dovetail in others. I decided early on that this book would
not have multiple endings. If there are future books (and I'm already
mulling ones for the other WDW parks, as well as Disneyland), I'm sure I'll
explore the "alternate endings" route, but I don't think anything will ever
be "unfriendly" to the Disney image. This is very much a "pixie dust in the
eyes" kind of book. Remember, it's for kids!
The resulting story is hugely engaging, at least on the kids who have
tested it for me so far. Many finish the narrative and want to immediately
start over again, to try for different rides this time. No one was more
enthusiastic than my own six year old son, who has shown zero interest in
any of my previous books. He touted the interactivity as the prime
attraction; something about being able to construct and personalize the
narrative himself drew him back again and again. Not every child may visit
Disney World as often as my son, to be sure, but their zeal for this book
should still be strong.
To keep the appeal as broad as possible, I included full-color images on
every page. If the reader chooses to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, for
instance, he flips over to the BTMRR page and sees an image of that ride
dominating the page. A few lines of story continues at the bottom, then the
reader is given yet another choice.
Images are the only focus of the last several pages, after the story
ends. The idea is to provide kids something visual to help them dream of
their next vacation to the Magic Kingdom.
The book was written for young readers, but functions equally well as a
read-out-loud book for bedtime, such as Mary suggested for her own kids.
Since children would be using and handling the book so much, I wanted to
make the physical construction as durable as we could.
Consequently, this is my first book with a hardcover (still in the
8.5-inch by 5.5-inch size). The color photos called for a glossy sheen on
the pages, and we splurged on extra-heavy-duty (100-pound) paper, to make it
as thick and rip-resistant as we could. Too many of the children's books in
my own house suffer the fate of accidental tears as it is.
"Your Day at the Magic Kingdom" retails for $19.99 – and since it's the
Christmas season, I'll take care of the tax and the shipping by media mail
for a single penny. Your total cost is just $20 USD.
However, please note that you will not receive this book in time for Christmas
morning. Anybody really desperate for priority two-day shipping
($5 extra) or overnight shipping ($18 extra) should contact me at
[email protected]
immediately; it will be too late even for overnight Express Mail by 4pm
Eastern on December 23.
Sales for now are only available via PayPal (Amazon will come later,
probably in February). Sorry, no international sales or international
shipping at this time. I don't want to say right here on MiceAge how to pay,
because I only printed a limited number of books on this first run and I
would need a way to update the info in case I run out. Instead, I'm going to
provide exact directions for how to purchase the book on
www.ultimateorlando.com,
where I can update the directions if quantities run low. Head there now for
information on how to pay.
And Merry Christmas! My thanks for reading through to the end of today's
"advertisement," even if you aren't interested in the merchandise. |
