Self-Publishing a Children's Book: ALLi's Guide to Kidlit Publishing for Authors

By Alliance of Independent Authors

Children's book authors: Self-publishing a children's book means not just writing a good manuscript but also producing the book in various formats, and selling it to those who purchase books for young readers. This guidebook from the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) provides the practical guidance you need.

Drawing on the expertise of ALLi's self-publishing children's writers, and with input from ALLi's Children's Advisor, the highly successful children's author Karen Inglis, this book provides everything you need to know to publish and sell children's books in ebook and print editions, and promote them face-to-face and online.

Structured across the seven stages of the publishing process—editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing, promotion and rights licensing–it will teach you:

- How to work with professional children's editors, illustrators and designers, and how ALLi can help you to find them
- Why in-person events like school visits matter and how to do them successfully
- How tools and tech can help you and make your publishing life productive and profitable

In this #AskALLi Guidebook: Everything you need to know to create beautiful children's books and reach the readers who'll most enjoy them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Font Publications
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781913588809

Book preview

Self-Publishing a Children’s Book

SELF-PUBLISHING A CHILDREN’S BOOK

ALLI’S GUIDE TO KIDLIT PUBLISHING FOR AUTHORS

ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS

CONTRIBUTOR: KAREN INGLIS

Font Publications

CONTENTS

A Note from ALLi

Preface by Karen Inglis

I. Self-Publishing A Children’s Book

1. Becoming A Children’s Book Author

2. Self-Publishing Your Children’s Book

3. Copyright and Piracy

II. Before You Publish

4. Pre-Publishing: Writing & Editing

5. Early Self-Publishing Questions Answered

III. The Seven Processes of Publishing

6. Editorial

7. Design

8. Production

9. Distribution

10. Marketing

11. Promotion

12. Rights Licensing

IV. Self-Publishing Services

13. Choosing A Self-Publishing Service

14. Evaluating A Service

V. You’re in Business

15. Later Self-Publishing Questions Answered

16. Conclusion

The Glossary

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A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

THE END

Acknowledgments

Resources

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Advice Updates from ALLi

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A NOTE FROM ALLI

THE ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS

About This Book

This book is one of a number of self-publishing guidebooks and campaign books for authors produced by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), aimed at authors who wish to self-publish a children’s book.

Books for young people form a distinctly different arena in publishing. This guide is intended to be an introductory overview, offering a high-level viewpoint on this specialist genre.

We have drawn on the expertise of ALLi’s Children’s Book Advisor and international bestselling indie author, Karen Inglis, to compile this condensation of the essentials of self-publishing a children’s book.

To go more deeply into any aspect of the information covered here, we recommend as a companion volume her own publication How to Self-publish and Market a Children’s Book (Second Edition). There, Karen shares her personal experiences and advice. We also recommend the following:

Karen’s blog for children’s book authors at: SelfPublishingAdventures.com

ALLi’s blog for more general self-publishing advice: SelfPublishingAdvice.org

About ALLi

If you haven’t yet heard of ALLi, it is a global, non-profit association for self-publishing authors. Our mission is ethics and excellence in self-publishing, and we bring together thousands of indie authors all over the world who are united behind this mission.

All our profits are reinvested back into the organization for the benefit of our members—and the wider author community.

ALLi is pronounced ally (al-eye), and an ally is what we aim to be to self-publishers everywhere. Our name is spelled with a big ALL and small i because our members are like the three musketeers in Dumas’s eponymous novel: ALL working for each individual i, and each for ALL.

ALLi offers members a range of benefits, but our real strength is our members, team, and advisors who provide something like the ancient system of craft apprenticeship, with the wisdom of the hive-mind instead of one master.

Our work is fourfold:

ALLi advises, providing best-practice information and education through a Self-Publishing Advice Centerthat offers a daily blog, weekly livestreams and podcasts, a bookstore of self-publishing guidebooks, and a quarterly member magazine.

ALLi monitors the self-publishing sector through a watchdog desk, alerting authors to bad actors and predatory players and running an approved partner program.

ALLi campaigns for the advancement of indie authors in the publishing and literary sectors globally (bookstores, libraries, literary events, prizes, grants, awards, and other author organizations), encouraging the provision of publishing and business skills for authors, speaking out against iniquities, and furthering the indie author cause wherever possible.

ALLi empowers independent authors through a wide variety of member tools and resources including author forums, contract advice, sample agreements, networking, literary agency representation, and a member care desk.

Headquartered in London, we operate all over the world and at every level, bringing our mission of ethics and excellence in self-publishing to beginner, emerging, and experienced authors. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re already widely published, ALLi can empower you to make better books, reach more readers, and generate greater profits.

When you join ALLi, you’re not just joining an organization, you’re becoming part of a transformative, self-organizing, global author movement. Whether you’re self-publishing your first novel or your fiftieth, ALLi is with you every step of the way, with a suite of member benefits that includes free guidebooks, discounts and deals, member forums, contract consultancy, advisory board, literary agency, watchdog, and more.

Your membership also supports our advocacy work for indie authors globally, from Alaska to New Zealand, and offers access to ALLi’s supportive, dynamic community.

If you haven’t yet, isn’t it time you joined us?

AllianceIndependentAuthors.org

PREFACE BY KAREN INGLIS

CHILDREN’S BOOK ADVISOR TO THE ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS

If you’d asked my 10-year-old self what I wanted to be when I grew up, it certainly wouldn’t have been a ‘children’s author.’ Up until age 14, I spent every spare moment helping out at the local stables, earning my rewards in free rides–and later with the pony I finally convinced my parents I deserved. (My older sister, meanwhile, was devouring The Borrowers, Enid Blyton, and all the rest back at home.)

As I grew older, I dropped the ponies, and my mind turned to boyfriends, bilingual secretarial work, and living my life out in France. Alas, this didn’t happen–but I did get the French degree and spent a year living in Tours!

My first job was teaching English as a foreign language where I quickly fell into writing the weekly lessons for a rolling syllabus. My later roles all involved writing one way or another, culminating in over 30 years as a professional copywriter, consulting to government and the financial sector. It was during this time I had the idea for my first children’s story.

As I suspect might be the case for many reading here, this was when my children were toddlers and I spent hours reading to them–adoring some books, but loving others far less, and wondering if I really shouldn’t try my hand at this? (Household favorites Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy et al, and Six-Dinner Sid are still up in the loft!)

Like so many other writers, I went through the process of sending my stories out to agents and publishers only to receive back (in those days) the brown envelope with the single paragraph rejection. It was disheartening (not least when I had a ‘close shave’ with Bloomsbury) to the extent that I finally packed all of my writing, including The Secret Lake, into a box and went back to my day job for 10 years. Fast-forward to December 2010 and a year’s sabbatical, and I discovered the term ‘self-publishing’ when searching (this time online) for agents. From that moment, I didn’t look back.

With my professional writing background, I knew I had to do it ‘properly’—and that was hard! I was all at sea on my own back then–getting to know print gurus in the online forums of Amazon’s early self-publishing platform, CreateSpace; spending literally days trying to format a Word file ready for print; then giving up and outsourcing to my newfound formatting friend, Doug, over in Texas. I later spent a full week trying to format the same file for Kindle, this new eReader thing that was suddenly all the rage. No one ever said it would be easy–but it really was the wild west!

For those of you just starting out, or thinking about self-publishing, I promise those days have long gone! The writing and planning and rewriting doesn’t get any easier, mind you, although there are great support groups, podcasts, and courses to help with this, as I’m sure you know. However, compared with just a few years ago, we now have at our disposal a plethora of tools and online platforms that make self-publishing so simple compared with ‘back in the day.’ By this I mean technically simple. This is especially true when it comes to formatting your books ready for publication, finding specialist freelancers to help you complete your project, and tools to help you create collateral marketing material to promote your book.

We also have wonderfully supportive organizations such as The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), whose thriving Facebook group is both a safe haven and a place to get advice if you get stuck or need moral support. The organization is now working closely with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) to support its children’s book authors.

Last, but by no means least, the marketing opportunities that have opened up to authors in the last few years have been game-changing for me and many other children’s authors I know. Until this happened, 95% of my sales had been face-to-face at school or book signing events. I achieved close to 10,000 sales by the end of 2017 that way–and that was no small feat–but, without a marketing team behind me, it was hard to scale up.

Love them or hate them, Amazon and other online retailers now enable us to reach our buyers online. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings–and anyone else who is shopping online for children’s books–can now see our books as they browse the site. From the moment indie authors were given space on this online table alongside traditionally published books, things started to change. And this is an opportunity for everyone.

If you have a children’s story that you can’t find a home for that has been written from the heart and gone through all of the required stages of research, drafting, writing, rewriting, feedback, and review as well as professional editing and proofing, then there is no reason you can’t self-publish that book and get it into the hands of hundreds if not thousands of readers, without breaking the bank.

All of which is to say, welcome to ALLi’s book on self-publishing for children and YA. I was honored to be asked to contribute to it, and I have shared, at appropriate points and at a high level, much of what I have learned over the last 10 years of self-publishing.

There is way too much to say on each subject in the space allowed, so I hope you will forgive me for unashamedly directing you to my recently updated title How to Self-publish and Market a Children’s Book (Second Edition). Coming in at over 400 pages, this is a book written from the heart and borne out of my compulsion to explain what may feel like complicated topics in plain English.

Onward…

Karen

PART I

SELF-PUBLISHING A CHILDREN’S BOOK

1

BECOMING A CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR

Those of us who read or were read to as children still recall those books with the sense of joy, adventure, and wonder they inspired. Some of us take that recollection into writing and publishing a book for children ourselves.

Writing and publishing for young people is a responsibility, a privilege, and enormous creative fun. By fostering love of the written word at a young age, children’s book authors help to nurture and grow the next generation of readers.

The process of becoming a children’s author is different for everyone—there are many tools available to you and many pathways you can take. It’s important to clarify your creative intentions from the start. Some people simply want to create stories for the young people in their own lives. Others want to build a career as a children’s book author with a trade publishing house, licensing their publishing rights exclusively. This book is for those who want to self-publish and become an indie author.

We explore and explain the most cost-effective and creative ways to publish your own book(s) for young people, your own way.

Your Creative Intention

Ask yourself what you want to achieve from publishing a children’s book. Is the process more about personal creativity, or professional advancement, or business start-up? Will you just do this one book or do you want to build a career, or an authorpreneurial enterprise, that includes merchandise, video, and audio as well as books?

If you are aiming to sell your book and make a living as a children’s book author, that will influence your story and design choices as well as your publishing, distribution, and marketing approach.

Becoming a successful children’s book author is challenging. There’s a lot of competition, because people with little experience think it’s easy.

In truth, only those who haven’t engaged with the challenge think that writing and publishing books for young people is easier than for adults. There is no harsher critic than a child, who will not hesitate to drop a book and say it’s no good.

You must do this because you love it for its own sake and not because you are expecting instant acclaim or lots of money. That’s not how it goes for most authors, especially at the start.

Begin your book project with realistic expectations and focus on the creative side of things, what gives you joy. Heading into the process with clear creative intentions mapped out, alongside realistic expectations, sets you up for success.

Most successful self-publishing authors have certain things in common—good planning, persistence, talent, and, most of all, hard work.

Case Study: Karen Inglis

UK and USA bestseller and ALLi’s Children’s Book Publishing Advisor, Karen Inglis, first started writing for children when her sons were toddlers. The three books written then sat in a box for over 10 years while she went back to her day job, but in 2010 she decided to rewrite and edit them and prepare them for self-publishing. Since then, Karen has seen over 300,000 print sales across her titles, over 8,000 audiobook sales, around 20,000 paid e-book sales and several foreign rights deals.

Karen is an independent author, using the DIY method of self-publishing which we will outline in this guidebook: hiring individual services and assistants, rather than using a third party publisher or publishing service.

Her first children’s book The Secret Lake, a time travel mystery adventure for ages 8-11, which came out in September 2011, has regularly been an Amazon UK and USA bestseller and a firm favorite at school visits. It has been considered by CBBC for adaption and attracted several foreign rights deals. At time of this guidebook’s publication, The Secret Lake has sold over 250,000 print copies, a phenomenal sales record for any book.

Karen followed up with Eeek! The Runaway Alien. Singled out by reading charities, teachers, librarians, and book reviewers as great for boys and reluctant readers in particular, it has been used in the Get London Reading Campaign. Next up came Henry Haynes and The Great Escape and her latest book for middle grade readers is Walter Brown and the Magician’s Hat. For younger readers, aged 3-5 yrs, Karen has two rhyming picture books about a fox: Ferdinand Fox’s Big Sleep and Ferdinand Fox and the Hedgehog as well as a (non-rhyming) picture book, The Christmas Tree Wish.

Karen says:

Lots of writers are doing their own publishing these days, because it means we can get our stories out to our readers more quickly than waiting to be discovered by a publishing house…  This means that as well as writing the book I organize everything else—including finding an illustrator and cover designer, finding beta (test) readers and editors/proofreaders, getting the book interior designed and formatted (I do some of this myself, but not all), then uploading to the printer or Amazon.

Once the book is up there, there’s all the marketing to do—so that people know it’s available and can buy it.

Your Process

We are sharing Karen’s writing and publishing process to inspire you and show you what’s possible with dedication and focus.

It all begins with writing something! So many people talk about writing rather than getting on with it. Try to write every day, especially if you’re new to creative writing or you haven’t been writing for a while.

Do you think you don’t have time? Alice Hemming, who writes across age groups from picture books to teens, describes the life of a busy children’s author who is also a parent.

As soon as the children are out of the door, I head to my writing shed at the top of the garden and work on my longer WIP. To keep me on track, I use the focus booster app to work in short, highly focused bursts (using the Pomodoro Method, see: pomodoro.com).

I use WriteTrack.cloud to help me organize word targets for each day and to keep track of how I’m doing. I try