The Tale of Tree Keeper Books

In a slightly surreal twist, we find ourselves co-owners of an indie publishing company, with less than a week until our first book is officially launched. This is the tale of how it came to be.

Prologue

Our tale begins many years ago with two little girls.

One of the little girls was named Lydia, who filled her days with writing stories, letting her imagination run wild.

The other little girl was named Emily, who spent her days drawing and crafting, letting her imagination run wild.

Both loved stories and dreamed of a life filled with creativity and inspiration. Lydia dreamed of being a writer and Emily dreamed of being an artist.

When they left childhood behind, they each pursued corporate careers, but while they didn't follow the creative paths they once wished for, and though their childhood dreams dimmed through the years, they were never forgotten.

In her spare time, Lydia wrote stories and shared them with friends and family and sent them to literary agents, with the hope that she might one day write books that would reach and inspire many more readers.

Emily spent her free moments drawing, painting, and crafting, sometimes for herself, sometimes for friends, and always for the pure joy of creativity.

Chapter 1

Years passed. And with the passing of time, the dreams of childhood grew brighter within them once again…..

They each began to wonder, what if…..

“What if I don’t need to find a literary agent and publisher for my stories? What if I could share my stories with the world by publishing them myself?”

“What if I could do more that just draw for myself and for friends? What if I could share my art with the world and bring stories to life with my pictures?”

Lydia took voluntary redundancy and set to writing full time. She started her own blog and revisited a chic-lit novel she had begun when she was younger. She wrote blogs, research papers and articles for clients.

Emily resigned and set to drawing full time. She drew business illustrations and personal illustration commissions, pet portraits, painted murals and much more.

Still, they seemed destined to lead separate lives unknown to each other.

Until……

A shared obsession with something completely unconnected with writing and drawing, bought them together.

Instagram crystal sales.

The isolation of lockdown had made these a way to connect, a way to feel a sense of community. Having both been drawn to the same one, it was here, in the most random of places, that they found each other.

Emily found Lydia’s blog and fell in love with her uplifting, funny and light writing style. Lydia wanted to do with words, what Emily wanted to do with pictures¹.

Lydia found Emily’s website and fell in love with her beautiful, bright and colourful illustrations. Emily wanted to do with pictures, what Lydia wanted to do with words².

In March 2021, Lydia found the courage to ask Emily whether she would be interested in collaborating on a children’s Christmas book together.

Emily said yes.

Chapter 2

Over the next 18 months, they worked on many projects together, commissions for business clients and private commissions for individuals. They became collaborators, team mates, friends.

Life threw lots of stuff at them, as it does with us all. Good and bad. There were amazing highs, and heartbreaking lows.

After years of trying for a baby and going through brutal IVF, Lydia and her partner made the decision to stop trying, only to fall pregnant a short time later!

The financial crisis that followed Covid and the unpredictable nature of running a business meant that Emily had to return to employment after a large commission fell through.

But throughout it all, they kept on believing in each other and supporting each other. When one wobbled the other was there as a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on.

And the book was there, holding them together.

Chapter 3

We started working on the book late in 2022, when the story had been through its final edits.

We’d decided early on that traditional publishing wasn’t the right route for us, as publishers would be unlikely to go along with Lydia’s crazy scheme to choose her own illustrator.

At first we planned to publish through Amazon and IngramSpark, and set our sights on releasing the book in September 2023, ready for Christmas.

But with Emily now working 30 hours a week, trying to fit in illustrating an entire book alongside all the other life stuff in time to release in 2023, proved unachievable.

There were more wobbles, more ups and downs. There were many times when Emily questioned whether she could actually do it.

But Lydia never stopped believing and eventually, a year after their initial deadlines, the illustrations were finished.

Yes, Lydia wrote the words and Emily drew the pictures, but the story was crafted as the illustrations and the narrative came together, piece by magical piece.

At some point through it all, it became more than just a children’s book. We talked about other stories and characters, some from stories Lydia had written and others from pictures that Emily had drawn, and we slowly realised that what we were actually doing was taking the first step towards bringing to life a magical world, a home for all our stories and characters.

And publishing through Amazon or IngramSpark, somehow didn’t feel right.

Chapter 4

So, to going all in and becoming our own indie book publisher.

But what should our imprint name be? What would we call our publishing company? Should we choose a partnership or limited company?

Emily named her business after her children, merging their names to create Thomkat Illustrations, with a cat as her logo. So at first, we considered how we might combine our children's names in some way.

Maybe some kind of kitten, incorporating our children’s initials, for Katelyn, Thomas and Noah. We went back and forth with ideas, finally coming up with Quirky Kitten Books.

Who doesn’t love kittens?! But somehow, although we thought it was a great name, it wasn’t quite right.

Through our many conversations, we had discovered the magical place where our characters lived. Years earlier, Lydia had written a story about the Tree Keepers, guardians of the gateways to a magical realm. When Lydia shared this story and its characters with Emily, we both realised it was the perfect setting to for the stories and characters we had each been creating.

And Tree Keeper Books was born.

Epilogue

Tree Keeper Books was incorporated in England and Wales, on 1st July 2024.

We have a logo, we have a website, we have an Instagram account.

We released 100 co-signed copies of Is Aunt Moll from the North Pole for presale on 1st August and they were all sold within a few hours, so we had to sign some more!

The book will be officially released on 8th September. We’re having a party!

We already have another five books planned, with our first business goal to make enough from Aunt Moll to fund the next one, The Tale of Tree Keeper Cottage.

Lydia has a chic-lit book partially written and Emily has an older children’s story planned.

We hope to one day offer publishing services to other indie authors and maybe even publish other people’s books that we love and fit with our values.

We’re basically making this all up working this all out as we go along.

And loving all of it.

Bye for now,

P.S. If you would like one of the few remaining co-signed copies of Aunt Moll, just head over to our beautiful new website to find more 💛✨

1. Read more of the story of how Emily and Lydia met, as written by Emily, here:

When Thomkat Illustrations met Written by Lyds

2. Read more of the story of how Lydia and Emily met, as written by Lydia, here:

When Written By Lyds met Thomkat Illustrations