About a year agog, Kes Grey, of Daisy fame, introduced me to the idea of a catalyst book edition. What on Earth is that, you may ask?

Kes was in advertising for many years and is a great salesman! His idea was to make the most of on demand printing to produce trial editions of books that he thought publishers might pass on in the hope that they would see the potential once a bit of real marketing had been tried out and they could see the finished product.

I remember the smile creeping over my face as he explained (sold) the idea to me. Brilliant, I thought, but I didn’t have anything that fitted, so I forgot about it for a while.

Until this week, that is.

I’ve been telling a story in schools for about ten years now, originally called the naughtiest girl in the world. It’s changed and grown organically over that time.

I wrote it down about five years ago and adapted it for a novelty picture book. The recession put paid to that as the publishers at the time pulled out of all novelties until they knew what was happening with the economy.

Since then I’ve rewritten it several times. It is now a completely different story that I’m really happy with. I have two problems. The first is that I’m pigeon-holed as a young readers series book writer and the second is that I’ve really come to love pen and ink more and more and would like to do it as a black and white picture book.

Black and white picture books aren’t really done. I don’t see why not. So I think I should have a go and see what the reaction is. You don’t know until you are holding a copy in your hands. If it doesn’t work, at least I might find a publisher who would think it better done in colour – in which case I’m sure I’d be happy to oblige.

Do you think I should? Do you think I shouldn’t? Why?

I’ve added a poll on the right hand side, so you can be part of the catalytic reaction!