Many years ago, I wanted to write a series of children’s books about travel and cultural experiences with both a story and entertainment/education feel to it. I did some research and was put off by the “I have to find a publisher first!” mentality. Since there are thousands of authors like myself trying to find publishers and agents, I decided to put that dream aside for a while and continued on working in the entertainment industry. Once my husband and I became empty nesters, I decided to start exploring the writing world again. I was inspired while living in the romantic French countryside for six months, so I put pen to paper and “Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow” was born. We have a field behind our French farmhouse where beautiful French cows and their calves graze on the rolling hills. I started with a poem, that turned into a children’s picture book, then my husband suggested I create a rhyming story, which is now the final product. My ambition to write a book became a reality and I loved working on this fun project, but what about getting the book published? Oh no, here we go again, so I took a course at the London School of Journalism and did some research on self-publishing. Wow, what an amazing and exciting world self-publishing is! We published Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow on May 17, 2015 and now have thirty (30) paperback and digital books in publication as of October 2016. Our core language is English, and we translate these books in up to ten (10) other languages over time. The English titles consist of:
I love the fact that I can travel the globe and be a free thinking digital nomad as an indie author. I make my own deadlines, create my own stories, work from anywhere in the world and am not put into the creative artist box. It was scary at first, when I put myself out there in front of the world, with very little guidance. But I am so thankful that I have this wonderful opportunity and platform to share my stories with children and their families through songs, books and videos. We are almost done with our Klara The Cow Dress-up App. Children will be able to dress-up Klara in their favorite clothes, shoes, eye color, glasses, etc. and even print a nice picture of what they have created. I wrote a Christmas song last year (always something I wanted to do) featuring Alook, which is currently in the studio (for vocals), which we hope to release in December, along with an animated music video. We are also working on Luna and Alook’s Fun Music Book and eventually we plan to release some coloring books for the younger children.
Next year we will be publishing 4-5 more books in multiple languages within both the Travel and Friendship Series. We are also excited about our merchandise line of backpacks, key rings, hats, etc. that which will be launched in 2017. I could not have done this without the help and support of Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace, and the various social media platforms. Each day I am learning something new that helps support me as an author, songwriter and artist. A year and half ago, I never would have thought that I would be publishing my own books and that they would be distributed worldwide in many languages? #itsakoolworld #PoweredByIndie
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There is an awful lot going on at Koolamundo HQ! Let’s start with our Amazon Kindle Free promotion for Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow. Klara is available in ten languages in paperback and seven languages on Kindle. Unfortunately, Kindle does not accept the Hindi, Chinese or Japanese language characters. Please mark your calendars for September 14-17, 2015 or you can go to our "Author Page" on Amazon and add Klara the Cow to your wish list. You can also go to our “Books” page and click on any of the book covers. The next bit of exciting news! We just released the Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese versions of Klara the Cow and we retired our previous German version “Klara Die Kuh Die Weiß Wie Man Sich Verbeugt“ and replaced it with our new rhyming version, “Klara die Kuh zeigt, wie man sich verneigt”. I would like to thank my good friend Johanna Hattner for making the new German rhyming version possible! I am thrilled to share a glimpse of our newest book, “Luna and Look’s Funny Food Book” which is currently being illustrated. I have to say that this is my personal favorite cover so far! In this book, Luna and Alook go on a journey through the worlds cuisines. Some healthy, some not, some naughty and some nice! We are looking at a November release. Lastly, please be on the look-out for Alook’s Dance in France in print and on Kindle October 12, 2015. We just finished the read-along video and I think the team did an incredible job putting this together. The video will be available on our YouTube Channel until October 12th, 2015, so please take a look below when you have a moment. I would love your thoughts please. Here we go! |
AuthorKimberley grew-up as a third culture kid; born in the UK, and then living in Africa, America, New Zealand, several European countries and currently residing in Hong Kong. She is on a journey to educate and entertain our children and youth about the Kool world we live in through her books, audio books, sing-a-long books, videos and fun puppets. Please join her on this edutainment adventure! Archives
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