The past few months have been so filled with so much support for my first children's book, "This Is What an Engineer Looks Like"and I am so grateful!! But a lot of people have been asking me pretty much the same questions about why I wrote it, why I want to become an engineer, how I even made the book... so I thought I would make a post about it because creating a book is no secret and it would be awesome for more teenagers and anyone else with great ideas to write books 📚
Q: Why did you write your book?
A: I wrote my book because I wanted to see a book on shelves that had diverse characters and focused on engineering/ STEAM jobs at the same time. Growing up I normally found books with one or the other so I wanted to create one that had both and I love seeing that as I got older more children's books similar to mine had the same purpose.
Q: How did you publish your book?
A: I formatted my book using Adobe Indesign (which took A LOT of trial and error) and Adobe Illustrator. My parents helped me get the hang of using Illustrator but I used YouTube to learn about Indesign. Then I edited the book with my mom to make sure there were no mistakes and fact-checked every part of the book to make sure there was no incorrect information. I then went to Lulu Publishing inc. to print my book. So my book is considered a self-published book.
Q: Why do you want to be an engineer?
A: Ever since I visited the Udvar-Hazy Center in third grade for a field trip I fell in love with everything I saw (sounds very cheesy but still true). Then I saw an IMAX movie there (I do not remember the name at all) and the movie showed how engineering can be compared to art, nature, and music so like 8-year-old me was freaking out and wanting to be an aerospace engineer has genuinely stuck with me for the past 8 years still. But as I got more educated on the field I most likely want to focus more on the graphic design aspect of aerospace engineering.
Q: How long did it take to make the book? Was it hard?
A: I have been thinking about the issue for a pretty long time but executing the book happened a bit over a year ago. Way before that I started the concept with the title, how I wanted it to be formatted, and what kind of characters to include. But it took a while until I figured out what programs worked the best and which ones wouldn't delete my work (yup, major setbacks)! Finally, things started to look like we were getting somewhere but of course, balancing trying to create this message with track and classes became difficult but the result was worth it! 💖
