Inside Look Of 'The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower'
Curious to see more of our first published picture book? We'll give you a sneak peek of 'The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower'
We wrote a picture book inspired by the old fairy tale of Rapunzel, and published it late last year. Since then we’ve sold a more than we could’ve dreamed of although in publishing terms still quite small amount - and have been trying to find ways to promote our book.
Now we’re not big on big market sales tactics, and are quite determined to keep our promotions genuine and small. So, the first thing we did was think about how we buy picture books and it’s almost always because we instantly fell in love with the illustration style. In the hopes that more people share this instant smitten-ness (not a real word, I know), we wanted to share a first inside look of ‘The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower’.
The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower
Perfect for fans of Tangled and Home Alone.
Suited for children of all ages, this funny picture book tells the story of a princess who wants to read her book but can’t, because everybody keeps disturbing her. To escape the crowdedness and finally be alone, she locks herself in the tower.
But when princes from neighboring kindoms hear the news of a princess locked in a tower, they all set out to rescue her.
Now, the princess must come up with all sorts of traps to keep the princes out of her tower room. Will it work? And will she ever be able to read her book? Find out in this heartwarming book about setting boundaries and the importance of alone-time.
The Illustration style of ‘The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower’
As I was writing ‘The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower’, I already had some vague ideas of what I thought I might want the illustration style to look like. Soft and fun, were the most important keywords I used in my notebook. When I finished writing the story, I was able to hand the manuscript and those vague illustration ideas to my husband who listened, nodded, made some sketches and scratched out all the impossibilities (because, as it turns out, I am rubbish at the technical side of book illustrating). He created something far better that I could’ve ever imagined.
Soft. Light. Fun and Slightly Whimsical. That what we were aiming for.
Once we both approved the sketches, we started working on the color palette. One of my favourite steps in the process. I love playing with color: mixing and matching until all of a sudden, it all magically seems to… fit. Sure you can use color wheels to find all the colors that match that perfect shade of brown you love - but where’s the fun in that? Neh, we’d rather pick by hand. The official color palette of ‘The Princess Who Stayed In Her Tower’ contains a lot of browns, yellows, pinks and blues.
For the ones who want to know, Bram drew all the illustrations using Procreate.
This was fun! Writing about the illustrating process has really confirmed what I already knew: I love what we created. Especially the little hidden details in some of the pages. (My personal favourite being a chair wearing socks in the castle tower)
Did you like this sneak peek and do you want to see more? You can purchase your own copy of the book here. Interested in seeing more behind the scenes of our publishing process? Please consider subscribing to our Substack list or come follow along on Instagram.