Five-year-old Child Releases Tenth Published Children's Book

May 31, 2010 - PRLog -- It may seem like a big accomplishment for a five-year-old to write and release a book.  However, in the case of five-year-old Zachary Malott, his latest release; “Let’s Explore Hollywood” is young Zachary’s tenth published book release.  The book is the seventh release in an ongoing Let’s Explore” children’s book series authored by Zachary with help from his dad.  Zachary began writing and releasing books with his dad, Michael Malott when Zachary was just two and a half, after Zachary spent the summer with the Harvard University football team as their water boy.  The first book release, “I’m With the Team”, highlighted Zachary’s experience with the team as they went all the way to become Ivy League champions.  A few months later, the second book, “Let’s Explore Boston” was released.  This would be the first in a long series of “Let’s Explore” titles, each featuring Zachary taking children on an entertaining journey to various points of interests, introducing them to not only the attractions of those locations, but also the history.  The “Let’s Explore” series now features seven titles including such points of interest as San Francisco, Berkeley, the California State Railroad Museum, and even Rodeo Drive.

Zachary and his dad began writing books to help meet living expenses after Zachary’s father left a very lucrative career touring with major recording artists to take on the responsibility of being a full time single parent.  Michael comments that “I had to reinvent the wheel, to make a drastic career change, because a then two-year-old child has no place living on a tour bus with a rock band”.  He adds “so we joined forces and tried doing something we could do together, as a team”.  Despite the drastic change in income Michael says he’d do it all over again tomorrow without a second thought.

But getting books out was no easy task.  In fact, selling copies became a much greater task then writing the books to the father and son team.  “It was discouraging” states Michael.  “We had all this work we’d put in to get these out and the potential, and we weren’t selling any books”.  Michael had literally gone from five-star hotels and Lear Jets working with recording artists to the food stamp line.

They self-published each book through a print-on-demand publisher, allowing the team to create each book without the high overhead usually needed to print large runs.  Zach and dad would spend weeks visiting points of interest and compiling photographs.  Most photos in fact, taken by young Zach himself.  Zach then goes through and hand selects images to use in each book.  Dad comes in only to help with the spelling and grammar issues that the young child faced.  Together the two create entertaining, full color, professionally bound books complete with ISBN numbers.

Each title was then placed on Amazon.com.  The two struggled to try and get their titles into bookstores feeling their true potential remained untapped.  Zachary’s last book release, “The Streetcars of San Francisco” was co-written with Leia Kaba, a long-time friend of the families and has been Zachary’s top selling title to date.  That book features the historic streetcars of San Francisco’s “F” line and their history.

Zachary’s dad continued to contribute to the team’s effort by writing and releasing two solo children’s book projects, “The Adventures of Seymour the Cat” and most recently “The Adventures of Crusty the Crab”.  He also released a series of photo books for the adult market including such topics as Chinatown, delivery truck graffiti, and even a book featuring images of the homeless manipulated to be reminiscent of the style of Andy Warhol.  He also wrote and released an erotic adult novel under a pen name, and most recently releasing a biography on Dennis Peron, who was the person who led the way for the legalization of medical marijuana in the State of California.  Peron was best known as the author of Proposition 215, and the person behind the highly controversial San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first medical marijuana dispensary in U.S. history.  The book also chronicles the history of medical marijuana in California to its present state.

In all, the team has written and published a total of 19 titles in just under three years.  The original motivation was to help supplement their living expenses and start something that can help reinforce Zachary’s future.  All nineteen titles are available on Amazon.com and dad remains optimistic that one day their hard work will pay off.  They hope to attract the interest of the right person someday who will see their potential and help them market their creations.  They hope one day that bookstores will carry their books, and that means finding distribution.  But for now the two continue to work on books for the series and plans are underway for a “Let’s Explore New York City” book later this year.

The two launched their own website last year at www.zachscorporation.com and continue to try and work to market their titles with their very limited resources, the website also features Zachary’s incredible abstract paintings which brought him media attention when he was just two-years-old.  Also featured is dad’s professional streetcar photography and info on Zachary’s Best Brands, organic Catnip.


FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact;
Michael Malott
Email: mikeinsanfrancisco@hotmail.com