A local children’s author has decided to go it alone in the tricky world of book publishing and has relied on the help of others to help her get her books online.

Sheila Clarke recently released ’The Naughty Mouse’, her second book in her own ’Magical Rainbow Garden’ book series, along with re-writing and re-releasing her first book, entitled ’The Rainbow Garden’.

Sheila published the books herself via Amazon Publishing and released them at the St John’s farmers’ market.

Sheila originally released ’The Rainbow Garden’ two years ago through an independent publishing company. However, she said that, due to certain complications, she wasn’t satisfied with the results and decided to redo the books herself.

’I have written seven books in this series altogether and I really wanted to make sure they were done well, and that I was happy with them,’ said Sheila.

’After I finished my contract with my original publisher, I decided to go through Amazon self-publishing and do it all myself.

’Technology does leave me scratching my head a bit, so I was lucky to have help from a fellow writer, JP Sayle, who is also for the Isle of Man, to help me get it done.

’Also, I have a new illustrator, Emma West, who has done all the wonderful pictures for my books. She has helped me get through it too.

Now Sheila is a fully self-published author, who plans to release more children’s books throughout the year, starting with ’Bertha’s New Shoes’, which will be released in September, and the third in the Magical Rainbow Garden series, entitled ’Poor Mrs Quirkie’.

’My books are children’s tales about things like friendship,togetherness and helping people out and I’m lucky to have had some help from good friends myself,’ she said.

’You learn from your own mistakes and I have made some and learned a lot myself over the past couple of years.

’Also, at my age, you need all the help you can get!’

Sheila’s books are for sale at the Isle of Man Farmers’ Markets and online through Amazon. More details are available from the ’Magical Rainbow Garden Book Series’ Facebook page.