Our publishing company Little Platinum Books focuses on fun kids books with themes and stories that are crafted to be enjoyable for parents and grown ups. We have the first book: How to Rob a Bank complete and ready for mass printing, Our second book: How to Wipe a Crime Scene written and going through illustration now. Each of our first six books will be published about one every month,
Combined, we have over 45 years of publishing experience in Magazine, Book, Audio Book, and News Print. Traditional publishers work great for a lot of projects, but having worked with publishers in the past, this time we wanted to work directly with you: the community. In doing so, we all have more latitude in the subjects for each book.
Between the two of us, we have also raised or are in the process of raising nine children with various levels of success. We have been there. There are so many stories we wish to share with our kids to foster conversation, play time and imaginative follies.
Little Platinum Books Mission Statement: Create fun books that will encourage reading for both kids and adults.
This is your chance to help create something that is fun for readers of all (most) ages.
What we will accomplish
Printing of Seven books:
Several of the books are fantastic introductions to satire for your kids. Multiple books are fun educational trips, and How to Steal an Election shows how everyone running can be silly (don't judge a book by its cover!)
- How to Rob a Bank
- How to be an Archaeologist
- How to Steal an Election
- A Head Above the Rest (See Below)
- How to Hunt Ghosts
- How to Wipe a Crime Scene
- How to Handle a Gun
#BrewAndBooks Events
Reading to kids is important. And you know what? You can read to kids at times other than bed time. To encourage reading anywhere and any time, we are hosting our #BrewAndBooks events at bars and pubs around the nation. At these events, we take over the stage or a corner of the pub, and invite parents to bring their kids to listen to great stories while Mom and Dad enjoy a tasty beverage.
Content Submission Platform
Our Little Platinum Books Create a Content Submission platform will be launched by years end, and is designed to allow readers, authors, illustrators, and content creators to submit ideas for publication within the Little Platinum Books brand AND get reimbursed for work chosen for print! We are the first publishing company to bring crowdsourcing to publishing and actually pay folks for their ideas.
How to Rob a Bank has the reader hanging out with a father and his child as they go on an adventure together. Its Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and we are following Father and Daughter as they rob the bank together. From planning at the warehouse, securing the hostages, to cracking the vault and attempting to out-smart the police... Will they get away and fly off into the sunset together? (Spoiler alert: Yes they will!)
Page 1-2
Father and Son enter a nondescript warehouse. They're each carrying a drink (Coffee, hot chocolate for the kid) at one point Kid is blowing on his hot chocolate and Dad has a black coffee. They're here to meet the ‘crew’ and do some planning.
Page 1-2 Text
Okay, here we go Son. Get ready for some fun. Bring your kid to work day with Daddy has just begun.
We’re going to stop by the warehouse for a little while, where we’ll meet the guys, form a plan, and access our stockpile.
Once the day is through we’ll head out to the train station, jump the state, get in the air, and take a long vacation.
With your mom and your sis, we’ll cross the pond and chill swank. But first we need to go over the plan of how to rob this here bank.
Page 3-4
How to Rob a Bank is fully written and illustrated. At the end of this campaign it will be sent off for printing with shipping out to all our glorious backers approximately 60 days after the completion of this campaign.
How to be an Archaeologist follows an archaeologist and their child hard at work in the Egyptian desert as they pass along decades of experience to the next generation.
From finding a site, to founding their mission, working with the local government, and unearthing historical treasures. We will be with them as they unearth knowledge and secrets that lay millennia without seeing the light of day.
How to be an Archaeologist is currently being written based on input from actual Egyptian archaeologists. We'll include exciting pieces of their job, which isn't all about finding amazing artifacts in the dirt. Raising grant money to continue their work, writing and filing papers with the ministry of antiquities, and off-season research to set up their next dig. Yes, there will be digging... as well as an entertaining and educational look at Archaeology
For this book, and the other Little Platinum Books below, you have a chance for your and a child's likeness to be illustrated into the book!
We've all been there. Chomping at the bit to pass along nuggets of information to our littles. In most cases, there is knowledge in our occupation and stories we've been a part of that we are saving until "they are ready". Why wait? We want to take that which we are restlessly withholding from our kids and present it in a form that we can experience together right now.
With Little Platinum Books you will help us accomplish the following:
- First and foremost, encourage the act of reading to our kids. Parents will read more if they enjoy the subject matter. Present topics that we as adults want to share but don't want to wait 18 years to do it
- A path to share topics that foster creativity and make believe.
- Establish Little Platinum Books so that we may continue to do this work for you for years to come
- Creative space for us to produce for YOU.
- It would be cool to have healthcare.
- Create a Content Submission platform. Speaking of...
Okay Let's be honest. Our books are pretty awesome, but come on, this is Kickstarter. You want more than just a cool thing. You want to help innovate, create, and change the world.
Right here. This is it. This is how we are changing publishing.
By the end of the year, we will launch the Little Platinum Books content submission platform. This will allow readers, authors, illustrators, and content creators to submit ideas for publication within the Little Platinum Books brand.
- Readers submit ideas to the Little Platinum Community
- The Little Platinum Community acts as a sounding board
- Community can up/down vote ideas, provide feedback, and bubble ideas up
- Submitted ideas will be reviewed by LIttle Platinum Books
- The person who submitted the idea will get reimbursed, and see their content brought to life!
We have already accepted our first user-submitted content for print! A Head Above the Rest by Krista Kay.
Krista Kay of TLC's "My Giant Life," is one of the authors whose children's book we will be publishing at Little Platinum Books, and here are some of the preliminary sketches Scotty is working on for her book, entitled, "A Head Above the Rest," in which she deftly, sensitively and comically approaches the topic of body and self-image insecurities in kids.
Our content submission platform will:
- Allow readers to submit content
- Up/down vote and get community feedback
- Guide the creation of content
- Pay authors who submitted content that was approved.
The first book (How to Rob a Bank) is already complete, with the 2nd book (How to be an Archeologist) written and going through illustration right now. Book 3 (How to Steal an Election) is already partially written and storyboarded. We are already ahead of schedule. We have the format and setup already complete from Book 1, so at this point creating a consistant product is a non-issue. We are a creative lot.
We have a printer secured that can produce books en masse: a printer that is used by large publishing houses, we've just cut out the middle man.
We have given ourselves a buffer for production. Having worked in IT for over a decade, we understand how Montgomery Scott keeps his reputation as a miracle worker. Our estimates of one book every month is more time than we need, but keeps things safe.
Printing takes 60 days from submission to delivery to us, where we prep them for shipment, sign copies, and distribute to our backers.
Shipping is the most expensive component here. Costs can go up, delays can happen, packages can get lost. Shipping is already expensive and while we would love to offer traceable shipments it will get prohibitively expensive, especially for the subscribers who will receive six or seven separate packages. We aim to ship as safely and securely as possible, though, and we plan to replace or reimburse lost orders as far as possible.
Your risks should be low to non-existant. At absolute worst case, you'll have to wait a little bit longer than expected, but we WILL deliver on our promises and make sure the trust in us is not misplaced.
Our most basic contributions are $5.00 to help the project along. If you can't support us financially we totally get it, you can help in other ways.
- Share this post and say something (nice or not whatever) about us. Its free and it helps spread the word.
- Post about us on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, or Facebook.
- #LittlePlatinumBooks the crap out of your posts!
- Join us with our #Brew&Books events
- Like/Subscribe/Click the Little Bell on our YouTube channel here.
- Write a newspaper article about how evil we are and how our books will bring down a religion. It Worked for Harry Potter.
- Ask folks to get the word out and make some noise about your campaign.
- Use Kickstarter share tools!
That's it. Thanks for supporting us! And may the odds be ever in your favor.
While all the books listed in this Kickstarter are at various stages of development, We also have several books designed for Little Platinum Books that are not in this initial crowdfunding campaign.
These other Little Platinum Books titles are well ahead of the planning stages, with some fully written, partially illustrated, and spec-ed out. Even before launch, we have content ready for over a year of releases including themes like:
- Take your Kid to Work
- Science Fiction
- Time Travel
- Pop Culture
- Educational
- Comic
- Content submission allowing our readers to submit ideas and let the community help guide some of the content creation.
We have so many stories to bring to kids, with topics that adults can get into as well. Pledge now to support us, and help us create something wonderful.
Images from Future works:
So what could go wrong?
Well, a lot. Anything can happen really. We have both experienced quite a bit recently. Scotty went through open heart surgery a year ago, and a move last month. And after relocating his family 1000 miles away from his roots, Pierre's full time employer eliminated his position while he was still unpacking boxes.
We even had Kickstarter make a mistake with our original campaign causing us to go from funded to far from it minutes before the end of the campaign.
Risks and challenges
Even with all of that, we have not only stuck to our timetable, but adjusted it to allow for a quicker publishcation of the first four books! If we can brush off events like that, there is nothing we can't accomplish together.
Also, Here you have more than a dude making this work on the side. Our full time efforts are focused on Little Platinum Books. We have already spent several thousand dollars getting us to this point, and just need the last push from you fine folks.
There is no where to go but up. And don't forget, We've published before.
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Funding period
- (30 days)