There was a girl in the store today who sat for two hours and wrote and illustrated her book. For two whole hours, she sat, pens and pencil in hand, with her own thoughts, uninterrupted by the television, the computer, video games, an Ipod, Mom, Dad, sister, brother, dog, neighbor….and she was singing and smiling the whole time! Amazing!! Her output was not a 40 word twit, or a rushed text or self-indulged blog entry. It was a book. And the book made perfect sense. It was a story with a beginning, middle and end, and illustrations to boot!! Yesterday, two three year olds did a similarly amazing thing- they sat for several hours and made art. They collaged and glittered and glued and they were perfectly happy and not at all distracted. That’s what I love about Scribble Press. The low-tech approach to the brain and creativity. A chance to have a thought and stick with it. A chance to follow through, to use your imagination and not be distracted by all the technological noise that clutters our kids minds even when they are in their own homes. Scribble kids amaze me. They are kids who can sit with their thoughts for longer than two minutes. People think kids these days can’t do these things. Gadgetless creativity, who would guess? But they can, and they do every day at Scribble Press. Christy, Creative Director

Self-publishing companies like Blurb, Lulu and ibook have experienced strong growth in the past few years, providing one of the few bright spots in the consumer economy.  There are a few reasons for this growth: software platforms are more user-friendly; variable printing technologies have advanced so that a single hardcover books can be produced at a cost previously available only to large publishing houses doing 10,000 copy runs; and consumers have gotten used to the idea that they can go online and create their own photobook or cookbook or offer their unpublished novel for sale to the general public.  

As Eileen Gittins, CEO of  Blurb pointed out in her recent blog entry on Huffingtonpost , we  are all storytelling creatures.  Since cave paintings we have wanted to describe, explain and put our own personal spin on the world around us in words and pictures.  Self-publishing is growing because people need to construct our stories and share them with the world. 

And none of us enjoy making up a story more than a kid does.   From the moment she can scribble with a crayon on the back of a menu a child tells stories.  I spent a lot of my time at my progressive New York City grade school writing books on construction paper, illustrating them and binding them with thread and remnant cloth covers.  My 5 year old son right now is drawing very complex monsters with huge backstories related to garbage trucks.  The last book he created was an almanac of monsters. 

When I founded Scribble Press (www.scribblepress.com) with Darcy Pollack two years ago, we wanted to make it fun and easy for kids to do what they are already doing – writing and drawing – and turn their stories into professionally bound books.  Scribble Press is a retail concept store where kids write and illustrate books that are “published” while you wait.  Kids can drop in to do it, or take classes or have parties – all focused on making books. We have taken a really low tech approach to creating books – they are written and illustrated by hand with markers and pencils.  The high-tech piece comes with the bookbinding – we create covers with actual author photos and typeset title blocks, and bind the books with a proprietary “board book” method that gives the pages a satisfying weight. 

 We think this lower-tech system is the right approach because it reflects the way kids like to create stories.  Most kids who sit down at Scribble Press to write a book don’t know what story they are going to write until they start drawing, and the story comes out of the drawing.   The tactile aspect seems to be key to the creative process, and so we purposely have no computers in our studio – just art supplies.  It’s a sort of MyGym for the mind, or a Color Me Mine for the book loving set. 

Some kids create books with two pages that take 15 minutes to write, and we’ve had kids come back as many as five or six times and spend upwards of ten hours creating a book.  But whether they spend a lot of time or a little, the sense of accomplishment is the same.  Seeing the pride and joy on the face of a child being handed her first professionally published creation is incredibly rewarding. 

In addition to the sense of confidence and accomplishment that self-publishing give to kids, there is a strong educational rationale for making self-publishing kid-friendly.  Leadership consultants like Stephen Denning (www.stevedenning.com) actually offer storytelling workshops for CEOs; being able to communicate a good story is a key leadership quality.   Daniel Pink (www.danpink.com), in his bestselling book A Whole New Mind, argues that the key skills of the 21^st century are right-brain skills such as brainstorming and storytelling, rather than left-brain skills such as retaining information and solving math problems.  

Writing is also a great way to encourage reading.  There is a stack of books my 5 year old likes to read to me every night.  The same six books – all books that he “wrote” and illustrated himself in his kindergarten class.  The connection a child has to a book that he or she made really makes the words come to life. 

These creative muscles benefit from exercise.  Getting kids in the habit of writing their own stories from the time they can draw a stick figure is one of the greatest educational gifts we can give them.   Many elementary schools – such as my son’s LAUSD classroom – are beginning to include bookmaking as a central way to deliver curriculum.  To support book publishing in the school system, in 2010 we are launching a major philanthropic initiative to give every 3rd grade student in the Los Angeles Unified elementary school system access to Scribble Press publishing. 

This 6 year old writer has published 5 books already

We ought to be working as a society to harness new emerging creative technologies for educational benefit, and Scribble Press aims to be a leader in that arena for kids personal publishing.

- Anna Barber, co-founder and CEO, Scribble Press

Dr. Cara at home with the family

Pediatrician Dr. Cara Natterson will be at Scribble Press on Friday, November 6 from 5 to 7 talking about her new book Dangerous or Safe:  Which Foods, Medicines and Chemicals Really Put Your Kids at Risk.  There will be refreshments served and she’ll say a few words about her research into this timely issue and what she found.

Personally, I am really looking forward to hearing what she has to say.    It will be refreshing to know what we can stop worrying about – the default these days seems to be worrying about anything and everything.  I’d also like to know what we do really need to worry about.  Let’s make sure if we are worrying, it’s about something that actually matters.

Dr. Cara is well-known locally in Santa Monica and this should be an interesting and lively event.  You can read her blog at  http://dangerousorsafe.com or buy a copy of her book now from our website if you can’t make it – http://scribblepress.com/e-store/prod_details.asp?pcid=1&cid=1612193595807&pid=2714474230934.  Stop on by next Friday evening to hear what she has to say.

E!  Correspondent Scott Cushing and producer Peter Glowski visited Scribble Press last week and shot a really funny segment for That Morning Show.

Everyone enjoying shaving cream at our Colors class

From guest blogger Christy, our director of marketing:

Spent a fantastic hour with my toddler yesterday in the Scribblets Colors class. Made an amazing red painting for her book. Can’t wait to show it off to the family! Read a great book, sang songs….and, best of all, learned about colors by dropping watercolors into mounds of shaving cream and using our hands to mix it! The moms had a blast, the kids were laughing….everyone was smiling and everyone left in a little bit of a brighter mood! What a way to start the day! That’s what it’s all about!

Painting with trucks in Colors Class

Photos from our first-ever class in the new Montana Avenue location!  This class is Scribblets: Colors – a class for kids 2-3.5.  The 9 kids in this class had a great time creating a blue page for their color book, hunting for blue treasures around the store, reading about the little blue truck and playing trucks in the big rice bin….Next up – yellow!!

We are offering free trials on all our classes – ABCs for the 4 and 5 set, Things that Oink & Quack & Moo, Creative Writing for K – 2nd grade, comic books and Famous Artists. 

We’d love to hear your feedback on the classes and to see you here for a trial!

Anna, Christy, Erin, Kerry, Carita, Adam, Brian and the rest of the Classes team

We’re busy this month prepping our brand new, much bigger space in the heart of Santa Monica – 1109 Montana Avenue.  The new location will have more of everything you love about Scribble Press – a bigger studio space with natural light, a larger party lounge, a full schedule of classes beginning in September, unusual art and creativity gifts (including a brand-new pencil bar!).  And did we mention free parking behind the store? 

Come visit us on our grand opening August 8 or anytime after that. 

And in the meantime, check out this post about Scribble Press on the Intuit website!  http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/blog/where-small-is-going/2009/07/scribble-me-this-scribble-me-that-draft.html

Making instant board books with kids from Leimert Park area

We had a great time last weekend at the Leimert Park Book Fair making board books with kids.  The kids wrote and illustrated their books and we turned them into books while they watched.  Just over 200 kids were able to make a book (and some grown-ups as well).  A special thanks to Fair organizer Cynthia Exum and to Nestle for sponsoring the Scribble Press Book Booth.  We saw books of all kinds – many kids made “All About Me” and many others made up their own stories from scratch.  And they all walked away with their professionally bound books!

Military Cookies by Flynn R.

We just finished another session of Comic Book/Graphic Novel classes at the store.  The class was full of lively and talented boys who wrote some very entertaining comic books.  The picture above is from Flynn’s book, Military Cookies which will make you look at Chips Ahoy in a very different light!  Two of the boy’s books were published and are available on our website.  You can purchase copies of these or other Kid Author books by visiting www.scribblepress.com