This year—I’ve been told—is the year of the adult colouring book. I’ve seen them around in local stores. My first reaction was to giggle. Colouring books for adults? Seriously?
Then I flipped through them and thought, “They’re complicated. I’ll stick to my kids’ old colouring books.”
You see, I don’t think it’s horrible for adults to colour. I’ve been colouring all my life. With crayons. Coloured pencils. Markers. And whatever I could get my hands on. I think colouring is a great relaxing exercise, and it’s a great physical exercise for your hand. It also sparks imagination, and trust me, I’ve got lots of imagination to prove it works.
The thing about adult colouring books that probably struck me funny was someone finally saw the demand and filled it. It made me feel like my secret was out and everyone would be colouring.
I’ve never and probably never will publish a colouring book for kids or adults. I draw, I colour and hang it on my wall. Since colouring books are becoming more popular, however, perhaps you are interested in publishing one.
If so, visit Tracy Campbell’s blog Wacky World of Writing and read Mandatory Information to Include in a Coloring eBook & Fuzzy Wuzzy Things for Creative Tuesday. While you’re there, check out her wonderful artwork.
Nice to see a follow-up on coloring books to my post. Thanks for much for the shout-out too, Diane. 🙂 I’ll share this post too.
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I gave my mom two colouring books and crayons/markers as part of her Christmas gift. I knew she’d laugh and think I was NUTS when she opened my package (she’s in Ontario so I wasn’t there), but once my siblings told her they were all the rage, she kinda calmed down. Still not sure she’ll ever use them. But I think they’re a perfect gift for someone who has everything!
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Hi Cathy, my mom loves coloring too. It has to do with remembering the good old days. It’s a nostalgic thing. I live in Ontario too. Great to meet another Canadian. 🙂
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I’ve seen those colouring (see I used Canadian spelling just for you :-)) books in B&N and a few other places. I thought it would be a cool idea to offer a book like that as an add-on to my novel. You know, portraits of the characters or certain scenes.
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That sounds interesting–adding it to the back of a novel. It would be a first for me. I have seen colouring pages in the back of kids’ books, but they were printed copies. Ebooks certainly open up the possibilities.
PS: Thank you for using colouring.
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Hi Ernesto, yes, offering a coloring book for your cast of characters is the next big thing. I’ll be doing that for my children’s book, once my coloring book is published … coming soon. 🙂
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