My son Jaxon is a whirlwind of curiosity! My little man, who's been on a four-year adventure with me, has become my biggest inspiration. Lately, that inspiration has taken us on a wild ride – straight into writing a book!
Jaxon has a brain that never stops learning. He's already a master of letters (English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and now he's tackling Korean!), numbers and math whiz, and most importantly, a total space fanatic. Planets and the solar system are his thing!
We tried everything to fuel his space fire – NASA apps, Galaxy Builder stuff, awesome books – but there was a problem. Most kids' books were just exploring the planets or the moon, while Jaxon craved the nitty-gritty details his grown-up space books offered. But those weren't exactly bedtime story material.Then, something clicked! I experienced the same phenomenon that I used to when I was writing songs in my twenties. A line popped into my head:
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"The first thing he noticed, was that Uranus liked to play,Its rings stood upright, and it spun the wrong way"
Just like my songwriting, this line became the cornerstone of a story, and in this case, it was the beginning of "Jaxon the Astronaut: A mission to count all the moons!" Words just started flowing, inspired by our space adventures together.
I didn't want just another basic story about planets. I wanted something more, something that would excite Jaxon and maybe spark a love for the solar system in other kids too.
When I read the story to Jaxon, his face lit up like a supernova! I even got a little choked up. Then I jumped online to see how I could take this further than a nice poem, maybe this could be a book that we read him at night before bed. That's how I found Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – a place for authors like me to publish their books and sell them on Amazon.
Learning how to make an illustrated book was a whole other adventure. Forget fancy AI – Amazon frowns on that (for good reason!). And while AI art was interesting, it just wasn't the right fit (or maybe I am just not the prompt guru that others are).
So, I dove into Figma and Canva, tinkering with designs and layouts until I found a style that worked for me (even with my limited design skills). It had to be simple enough for me to handle, but cool enough to grab a kid's attention.
Three weeks later, I had something I was proud of. After a few tweaks with the KDP team (margins are a thing!), I finally saw the magic words in my inbox: "Your paperback book has been published!"
KDP even has this awesome feature where you can order author copies basically at cost – way cheaper than a regular printer, and definitely with fewer mistakes! This way, I could share my book with others.
The day the books arrived, Jaxon exploded with excitement. He practically signed his copy before I could blink! After reading it through once, he looked up at me with stars in his eyes and said, "Daddy, let's do the dwarf planets next!"
And so I did, I started working on my second book, and this time I really wanted to take my time and polish the story even more. “Jaxon the Astronaut - A tour tonight of Dwarf planet delights” was published and I received copies yesterday but to all of our delight.
You can check out my "books" page; I will update that with new books as they are available
