IamA Parent of a 5 year old who wrote, illustrated, and published a successful children's book! His book is beating Dr. Seuss! Ask Us (almost) Anything!

Does he want to be a writer like you?

Yes... He told my wife that earlier in the year. She was talking about what he wanted to do when he grew up and his answer was "an author, like my dad".

I'll support him in whatever he wants to be (unless he wants to be an international arms trafficker or something - I might not support him in that).

This is just incredible amazing. There are so called amazon ebook classes out there to help adults make money using amazon and your son just did it like a complete pro! Amazing! Congrats to both of you.

My question is, would you teach your young son a second language, or even a third language?

I doubt I'll teach him a second language.

I don't know one personally, and I think that's half the battle right there :).

If he decides to learn one I won't stop him.

Does he plan to keep making stories?

Yes... He's already a couple pages into his next book.

[deleted]

He says NO.

So how much of the book did you write for him? Mostly all, or just the entire thing?

Have you read the book? It is the work of a four year old mind, not mine. This isn't some crazy-overpolished book, it's a silly book that talks about seeing a double rainbow, finding the grand canyon in a cave, and of course, the twist ending nobody expects (I laughed when he told me what to write on the last page).

He wrote it. Every single word. We flipped through every page and he told me what to write. I wrote it all down in a pages doc, and I transcribed it onto his pages word-for-word. Is that so hard for you to believe?

The only thing I changed was putting an H at the end of CHEETAH even though he was convinced it should end with an A.

Us?

Yes, us. Ask us anything (I'm here too, so if you wanted to ask me a question, ask it).

You and your 5 year old?

Yes, I'm here, with my five year old. I'm not sure I understand what is making that difficult to comprehend... :)

He didn't beat Dr. Seuss? Does he have millions of sales? No? Fix your title?

I was also a little put off by the title of the post. The book is cute and I wish this kid success... but he doesn't have shit on the good Doctor.

It was meant as a silly nod to the fact that -today- his books are outselling Seuss books.

Obviously, Seuss has sold a -lot- of books. My son owns his whole collection :).

But hey, who knows, give him a few years. The kid wrote a book, he published it, and it's climbing rapidly toward the top 100 children's books in the whole US. I think that's pretty cool.

He's beating Dr. Seuss books on sales-rank in the kindle store today. Cut him some slack, he's only five, he'll need a few years before he can match Dr. Seuss's lifetime sales ;).