Many parents, grandparents, relations or carers who read to young children, end up making their own stories. And this is how it started for Sarah and her family.

She moved into a village with baby Amy and husband Pip.  They were given a present: an African Land Snail sitting at the bottom of a tank, with a stick of cucumber, a bit of peat and a piece of cuttlefish. Sarah became involved with fundraising for the local church. As her daughter grew, Amy loved to draw. Mum and daughter began to make up stories about the snail in the tank sitting on the kitchen table.

They thought it was funny being given a snail in a tank as a welcoming present and as Sarah became more and more involved in fundraising, an idea for Snail Trail (book one) started to grow in her head. 

What if everyone was to wake up one morning in the village and find a package on their doorstep and in that package there was a snail in a tank with a stick of cucumber, a bag of peat and a piece of cuttlefish? Could it be an April Fool’s joke, something to do with raising money for the local church or just someone messing about?

Amy went to school and another baby soon came along, as did another snail, then another. Mum began to put Snail Trail onto the computer with the drawings that Amy had produced and that Christmas they decided to ‘sell’ the book for £10.00 per copy to raise money for the church. Then people began to ask for book two, then book three and so on. 

Sarah came to Cradducks because she’d worked with us for a legal client of ours for some years. She wanted to look at publishing her books but knew they’d have to compete in a very tough market. And they have. One year on and with a local market of a 15-mile radius, she has now sold over 1,000 books. They are stocked in local bookshops, are nationally available through the madaboutsnailbooks website and even through Amazon etc. Her challenge now (with the constraints of a young family) is to expand those geographical boundaries. 

‘When I look at our books on bookshelves I know they’re as good as the rest. Everyone says so. The finish and layout is just superb. Cradducks certainly fulfilled the brief.  I’m so proud of the books and can’t thank Cradducks enough!’ says Sarah.

After Snail Trail, came Snails Don’t Burp! then Snail Park. But where has it all led? To an exciting place. Sarah has been working for some time now with a Hampshire primary school. She is producing a children’s fiction story with the school’s Able and Talented children – their plot, their characters, their illustrations. The project began in May 2008 and is well under way. The book should be published by the end of the summer term 2009. 

Is it a big deal? Unbelievably, no author has yet managed to produce such a book in the UK. It’ll be a national first.  And yes, before you ask, there’s a snail in it – but it doesn’t have such a big part to play!