It took Lisa Peters about 20 minutes to write her first children’s book.
But the 42-year-old Imperial resident spent the next two years bringing her tale to life, and to market.
In 2018, Peters was inspired by her then 6-year-old daughter, Lorelai, during a family vacation in Destin, Fla.”
“This book like downloaded into my head – ‘Little Miss Lorelai loves the sea. She frolics and plays, and giggles with glee,’” Peters said. “It just rolled like that. My husband (Zach) was like, ‘You need to get out and write that down.’”
It turned out writing down her verses was easy, but the next step took some time.
“I created my own illustrations using watercolors,” Peters said. “It took about two years to learn how to sketch and paint with watercolor. It is probably more basic and amateurish than somebody who had done it for 20 years, but I’m pretty proud of what I came up with.”
The finished product, titled “Miss Lorelai Loves the Sea,” was ready for sale on Aug. 28, which is 10-year-old Lorelai’s birthday.
The book can be purchased at mailchi.mp/c1e1d08f3672/little-miss-lorelai-loves-the-sea website or through Amazon. The self-published work is produced by St. Louis-based company Dean Diaries and Amazon.
Peters named a character in the book – a clam – after her 10-year-old son, Kanen.
She said her family rents a condo in Destin, Fla., and heads south a few times a year for vacations. During one of these trips, the family was at the beach and Lorelai was busy pulling various sea creatures from the ocean.
Lorelai would put each catch in a bucket.
“She had a baby puffer fish, a seahorse, sand dollars, crabs, everything you can think of in these buckets,” said Peters, who calls herself a chaos coordinator and domestic engineer. “She was telling me all about it.”
Peters said she used her phone to record her daughter’s tales about the sea creatures. As the video neared its end, Peters asked her daughter if she was going to release the creatures back into the ocean so they could be with their friends and family.
“She ignored me,” Peters said. “Then I say it again, and she (reluctantly) says, ‘Yes, mom, I will release them.’”
Pictures and the video from the trip that inspired the book are on an Instagram account Peters created. It can be accessed through a QR code that is in the book or from Peters’ mailchi.mp website.
In order to help boost sales for the book, Peters also is offering a free three-night stay at the condo her family rents.
She said if 100 books are sold by Dec. 31, she will use the sales information collected from the website to randomly draw a winner. Only those who order through that website will be eligible for the drawing, not those who order the book through Amazon.
“I thought that would be a good way to market it,” said Peters, who along with her daughter signs copies of the book ordered through the mailchi.mp website.
Peters said there possibly could be more stories about her daughter and Lorelai’s fondness for animals.
“My daughter keeps saying we need a series,” Peters said. “She loves frogs and lizards, and she has all kinds of stories I can write about her and her critters.”
