I love books. I love how they transport you in another world. They let you see the world from a new perspective. I love how they make you yearn to know what will happen next. That is why I started reading to my children as babies. They both have picked up on this love of reading. My daughter just finished a 14 book series and my son is reading book 7 of a 7 book series. Before they started reading to themselves, I read to them. First picture books, then short story books, then book series. One of the first chapter book series we read together as a family was The Jupiter Chronicles by Leonardo Ramirez.
I say it is a chapter book series for 3rd graders because that is around the time my daughter read the series and loved it. However, she is a prodigious reader so I would have to say it is a great book series for 4th graders and 5th graders too. It is written a local Nashville author. When we read the books, I told my kids that someone who lived right here in Nashville wrote this book and now they could get it at the library and read it. Well, when the author, Leonardo Ramirez asked to share a guest post on my blog, I was flattered. Here is what he wrote about how one fan changed the course of a book series… and she had no idea she was doing it!
How One Fan Changed the Course of an Entire Book Series
By Leonardo Ramirez
I love readers and fans of my books. Really….love them. And it’s not just because they support my work. It’s because they connect with the author part of me in a way that even some of my closest friends do not. They’ve connected with a portion of my soul that longs to be a source of encouragement, healing and a means to daydream about magical faraway places and escape the stresses of this world. And while there is quite a bit of disagreement on the internet, it is when a sweet pure voice of innocence says something to an adult that is the most candid and piercing to my heart in the midst of chaos.
I started my children’s SciFi book series as an alternative to Magic Treehouse. It was originally designed to be something short, sweet and easy to read. But when The Jupiter Chronicles Book 2: The Ice Orphan of Ganymede released, I received a wonderful review from a nine-year-old Sierra. It was a short review, but the one that was the most gripping.
“Why did it have to end?” she asked.
In a positive way, that review shot right to my soul. It was as if I had inadvertently left a hungry child wanting more. Perhaps it’s because that I grew up poor that I feel the need to give every child I come across everything they need. Perhaps not. But this, I do know. I asked myself time and time again if I had gone about it the right way or if I had been true to myself and written it to be longer.
I wanted to reach an audience that had not been catered to and feared losing the consistency of the series by writing a third book that would be much longer than the second book. But then, I looked at the relationship I have with my own daughter. There have been too many times when a road was not taken after much discussion because my sweet girl simply said, “Wait, Daddy.”
Wait. The one thing we as adults don’t like to do. Much like…listening.
Because there were some surgeries that I had to recover from between books two and three, I had plenty of time to process on how best to move forward. After talking it over with my wife and daughter and replaying that review in my mind over and over, I decided to allow the story to tell itself no matter how long or how short it was. Lo and behold, book three is three times longer than the first one. It’s also about twice as long as the second.
Lesson learned. We, as adults, should remind ourselves to listen to those untainted voices of truth in our lives. It’s perfectly fine to drop our defenses and egos and let the voice of innocence pierce our hearts. Listen to them. Not just talk. Listen. They will get something out of it.
And you will too.
I hope you enjoyed Leonardo Ramirez’s story of how the words of one fan inspired him. You too can play a role in his journey to publish his third book.
You can help this Nashville children’s author launch his third book in a series of children’s space adventure chapter books. He needs to raise a minimum of $1,000 to self publish his book.
Can you click the link and make a donation of $10 or more to help him realize a dream AND reach children with a new adventure through reading?
Here’s a “secret perk offer” just for followers of Family Focus Blog. When you donate to help publish his third book in a Kids SciFi Series, you can get a digital package of ALL of his published books:
- THE JUPITER CHRONICLES Books 1-3 – A SciFi (like Star Wars) Kids series (Epub/PDF)
- HAVEN OF DANTE: The Staff of Moshe – Paranormal Fantasy (like “Mortal Instruments”- Epub/PDF) ‘The Dantes are inheritors of a legacy to contain the nine circles of hell known as “The Aristocracy”. Today, the nine circles have infiltrated the world as a secret society. Now it’s Haven’s turn to stop them.’
- HAVEN OF DANTE: The Trade Comic (PDF only)
I hope you enjoyed learning how one fan can impact the course of a book series. I think you will enjoy this chapter book series for 3rd graders. Let me know what you think!
Related Post:
New Science Fiction Books Kids Will Love And Steampunk Coloring Pages