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:
"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