With someone with a communications, marketing and journalism background, you’d think that selling children’s books would be easy. But not quite so for Perth based author, Vercess Caina who has written six children’s books to date. In fact, when she had written her first book, she didn’t tell anyone except her family. It was her mum that told her to tell other people. And when she showed the book to her friends, her friends starting to order. That’s when she thought that there’s something to this.
At work, Vercess, or Vee to her friends, writes speeches, press releases, and more. But a little over a year ago, she felt that she wanted to do something for herself. So she started researching about how to learn to write children’s books. She thought it was easy but it is actually quite difficult, because you’re not just writing for the children but also for the parents who are buying the book for the children. You have to find a niche, a topic that is not the same old story. She also joined a lot of groups, like The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Perth, where she meets other authors, and gets inspired by them. Vee said, “Being part of a group of people who think the same way as you are, have the same goals as you do, it helps you and motivates you. We help each other out.”
The first book, “Anna’s Upside Down Adventure” was made up by her eldest daughter, who is nine years old. They just did it for fun, writing it, editing it, getting it illustrated and then publishing it. And then, whenever she has an idea, she would write it down on her phone. But of course, not everything gets published. And because she has a full time job, most of it is done on the weekends.
The second book “Sofia’s Magic Origami” was because of her daughter Sofia who makes origami and she also teaches other kids in school how to make them. The other book, “Isla’s Rainbow Quest”, was written for her other daughter Isla who likes rainbows.
She tries to write books with lessons, except for the recent one which is ‘Filipino Food ABC’. It is a book having different illustrations of Filipino food starting from A to Z. Vee thinks that a lot of the (Filipino) kids born overseas want to know more about Filipino food.
As for her future plans, Vee said “eventually, I want to write a book of poems. Something that’s uplifting. These days, mental health is an issue for most people, I want to write something like gratitude journals, that will motivate you to be 1% better everyday. When I ride bikes, I listen to podcasts on self improvement. I’d like to be able to put it in writing and help someone, I want to use my talents to help other people.
To find her books online, please go to https://linktr.ee/vercess
