I am an uncle to two nieces. They are now teenagers, but when they were younger, I wrote them books for Christmas. Five, in fact.

The first was a one-off picture book I made with paper, glue, and photos of the girls.
It was about an oversized talking chicken (personifying me) in search of his family in Hong Kong.

The next was an animated story about two family cats solving a cozy mystery.

After that, another physical book (a short story) with the return of the chicken and his eggy sidekick. Only two copies of the book exist in the world.

Then, another digital ‘book’ of limericks followed. And finally, in 2022, a book of 26 tales about rotten uncles (only one of them is me).

These children’s books have all been fun projects because they allowed me to write for just two people. If you know your audience, you can really nail the humour and include some Easter eggs. See some pictures of the books and of me being mean to my nieces in this post.

I’ve never had any desire to become a children’s author, just a desire to give cool presents (plus an infantile sense of humour and a ready supply of fart jokes).

Back in my coaching days, I worked with a brilliant Italian illustrator and author, helping her translate children’s stories into English.

In summer 2024, I got in touch with Caterina and asked her to illustrate the uncles books. We’d self-publish and split the profits. Typically, this is a very big ask for an illustrator, but she was keen to help due to our previous work together. She knew publishers in Italy who might be interested, and I figured she’d be someone great to work alongside.

It felt nerve-wracking going back to self-publishing after working with indie publishers on my last three books. I didn’t know much about marketing to the parents of 6-11-year-olds. But, I readied myself to go, once more, unto the breach, and attempted to build hype online.

We really worked hard on the book, even translating it into Italian. As many of the characters come from different places, I figured I could offer a royalty split and tap into my network to get more translations done. (Many of these translations are still pending, and I do still plan on batching them together and publishing later this year.)

As often happens with self-publishing, the launch fell flat. I found it very difficult to get reviews from early readers, and couldn’t find the right category and keywords to help parents discover this book.

Before publishing, I'd imagined uncles desperately looking for birthday or Christmas presents for their little nieces and nephews. This book would have answered their prayers, making them look like saints in comparison to the 26 featured knobheads.

Still, it was worth a shot. As with any project, I learned a good deal, and I’m thankful to all those who contributed. Entrepreneurs (writers included) fail with the vast majority of their ideas.

My career as a children’s humorist remains on the back burner, and I’m not sure I’ll write another book for my nieces. Nowadays, they usually roll their eyes at my cringeworthy jokes.