Five years of Sniffing and Wagging

Five years in business as Sniff and Wag - Frogtastic! What an eventful, exciting, and exhausting five years it has been. But it's only when reminded by family that I really look back at our various adventures. I tend to be so focussed on making the present into a successful future that it's easy to overlook just how far we have come.

When I started, I just wanted to be one of the 20% of small businesses in the UK that make it through the first year, and that did feel like a real achievement.

We had a quiet spell in the middle when we had to decide how to go forward with printing the books - full colour printing in the UK is expensive, and I wanted to be sure that we could justify the print run. Five years on I am in the process of deciding on how soon we will need a print run ten times the size.

We have met so many amazing people, and made such good friends along the way. We have learnt more than we could ever imagine that we would need to know! And yet, it feels like the beginning.

Because now I have set my sights at achieving much larger goals, and starting to supply into one of the UK's top four supermarkets is the beginning of that strategy coming together.

Not everything we try falls into place - I worked hard to put myself forward to be the author of choice to promote the Lancashire Library big summer read, but without sucess. I worked with two other companies to put in a bid to the BBC children's tv for a pilot programme for under fives, and Frog Ted was our ambassador at the New York Licensing Show back in June, to showcase Frog the Dog to international licensing companies. There has been some interest from the far east, but this is a process that takes time, so we have put it to the back of our minds for now. None of these ventures would have seemed remotely possible five years ago, or even 18 months ago, but now, we tuck them away and see what else might be possible.

It's hard to listen to the news being so negative about the economy; but I am told over and again that it's those of us who keep going through the bad times that will make it through the other side. I CAN see the light and it's very bright - I'm going to be here in another five years. What's going to happen next?

Have fun!

How do you become a writer?

There are some questions that children will always ask and this is a favourite: "How do you become a writer?"

Got a pencil and a notebook/pen and paper/electronic gadgetry ready?

Get writing! It really is as simple as that. Don't put it off, worry about the finer points later - to start off, just get writing. Do it!

Children are amazed when I tell them that I got up one morning and decided to be a full time writer, and this is where it got me!

Of course, I want to encourage them to believe in themselves as creatives, and that they can make exciting things happen for themselves, and it's not sensible to burden infant school age children with some of the harsher realities of making a living. But the reality isn't too different - it's more or less what I did.

I believe that three things are important in order for me to be able to create: emotional support, financial security/backup and available time.

I had scribbled long long letters to anyone and everyone I could think of all my life, for the pleasure of writing and for the need to express my ideas. I had to write or my head would go off bang. I was too busy bringing up my family and not sufficiently nurtured to believe that I was capable of writing anything as astonishing as a book.

But my life and circumstances changed dramatically, and I found myself in a position where I was supported, nurtured and encouraged to try out my newly found creativity.

I was drawing and writing regularly, and had created the original set of characters with several stories for pre school children. It was at that point when I woke up one morning and said "I am going to work full time at writing and trying to get published.
I had not an inkling at that point where that decision would take me; how much I would learn, and still have to learn, how much I would grow personally and creatively, who I would meet and work with. It has all been the most fantastic adventure, yet having come so very far, I have so much further to go. Where will we be in another five years?

(PS: Maybe I will have learnt how to format this blog! TSK. Why does it always re-arrange my line breaks??)