Hi everyone, I'm looking into self publishing, for my partner who has written an excellent series of childrens' short stories. Could anyone recommend a relatively low cost online service? I've been thinking about one of these book club type websites - where you sign up for a monthly fee? Any thoughts? Mark
Best solution is to learn to do it yourself. Formatting and uploading to the retailers isn't that hard. However, others have said that children's books don't sell well when self-published.
are you wanting to put them out as print books, or e-books? i can help you with formatting, if you have any problems, as i've had 6 books of my own printed and did all the formatting myself... they're now also available as e-books... i've also written chldren's picture and chapter books for a chicago publisher... i'm only a mouse-click away, if i can be of any help... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
Do you want to sell each short story seperately, or are you looking to publish a collection of them? For both, but particularly for short stories, a combination of Amazon and Smashwords is a good way to go. Out of interest, what are the "book club" websites you mention? I've not heard of that as a method of self-publishing before. Do you have an example of one of the sites? I'm curious.
If they're excellent, have you considered traditional publishing? I always worry that people considering self-publishing aren't aware of the potential down side. So I just wanted to mention, in case you didn't know, that once these stories are self-published, they are essentially "used up" as far as more traditional publishing is concerned. It's highly unlikely that you'd be able to sell them to a publisher, magazine, or other traditional outlet, once the first publication rights are used up. If you know all the pros and cons, dandy. I'm just posting in case you don't.
It might be a little different on the children's side. I'm not sure how common it is, but I've talked to two agents who said if I wanted to take my children's book from self-published to traditionally-published, they didn't think they'd have a problem placing it (assuming it was otherwise of acceptable quality, met the needs of the publisher, and so on). In other words, the "first rights" issue didn't concern them.
Hi, My advice is look before you leap. Self pubbing is a good option - I do it, but if its possible to get a trade publishing deal first then that's usually a better option. If you do choose to go the self pubbing route, than you should look at ebooks with Amazon's Kindle and Smashwords and potentially (especially for children's books with lots of pictures) paper with CreateSpace. Investigate them all, check out the communities on each of the related fora for advice, and go for it. Feel free to ask here as well. Cheers, Greg.
From what I have seen any service that charges upfront fees to publish your books don’t have any further incentive to market your work in an effective way. Sure they make a few cents here and there from the occasional sale, but they know it’s not worth the time and money it takes market the book properly. The easiest part of self-publishing is the actual publishing, the marketing that you need to do afterwards is the hard part. And for that you hardly ever get what you paid for.
As I know, the "book clubs" websites in brazil are the same service as pod publishers, some you pay subscriptions (like BabyBook for example). I don't know why they put another name on it :/
True, but it also be a lot of fun. I have a few self published educational and technical books out. I really enjoy the things you have to learn to market yourself, such as learning to use image software to make pictures and promotional material, and acquiring the basis skills to make websites and how to format them to get on google. Other things like wording emails in A/B campaigns (sending two different versions of an email) and seeing which gets the most sales, can also be fun and rewarding. Sam
Hello, While the book is good in the opinion of the publisher, so it is good in print issue using the publisher. You get a little of one copy, but he arranges for the sale of many pieces. To have it only as an ebook, so it is better to give yourself and offer it to many e-shops. I have another problem. I wrote a e-book suitable for the U.S. (English) readers, but in my language. I can translate it into English, but my knowledge of English is not enough for a good translation for release. Maybe someone advise me, or expressed interest in cooperation. bkocarek@gmail.com
What do you mean by 'short story' b/c there are plenty of bound children's books that are 10K words. Also, what age group are you targeting? "children's" literature is everything up to YA, so if you clarify you might get more directed feedback.
