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How to Publish Your First Children’s Book
As the author of “How to Write a Children’s Book in 30 Days or Less”, thousands of people write to me every month to ask the same questions about self- publishing their first children’s book. To make it easier on everyone, I decided to write up a list of answers to these questions.
1)Should I use a print on demand publisher or a traditional publishing house to publish a book? Traditional Publisher Pros and Cons:
Traditional publishing houses will take care of the final editing and formatting without charging you a penny. They will also hire an illustrator to illustrate your book for you, at no extra cost. On the down side though: - they are very competitive - they can completely redo your story line - they only pay up to 3% of the wholesale cost on your first book and your next few books pay out only a slightly higher percentage.
Publish a Book : Print on Demand Publishers Pros and Cons
Print on Demand Publishers will print your book for an up front fee. You must provide the text pre-formatted and edited and you must provide the illustrations. Many print on demand publishers do not have the capability to add illustrations to your book because it can be cost prohibitive. Iuniverse.com my favorite print on demand company, charges an extra fee per illustration but they pay you 20% on each book that you sell.
This is a fantastic royalty rate! The positive aspects of print on demand are that you remain in control. You handle the marketing and receive a much higher percentage, up to 30% with some print on demand companies. You pick the illustrations and get final approval on your book and no one will ever change one line of your story without your express permission.
Publish a Book - ebooks
2)What are ebooks and why should I also have an ebook version of my children’s story?
An ebook is an electronic version of your story that can be downloaded into the buyer’s computer. The benefits to having an ebook version are huge. You can earn anywhere from 80% of the profits to 100% depending on how you distribute it. If you decide to have another company, like digibuy.com, handle all the transactions, you can keep about 80% of the profits every time someone purchases and downloads your story. If you decide to sell it through paypal.com and set up all the links and code on your own site, they receive about a 3% commission on all purchases.
3)What format should my ebook be in?
The best format is pdf because it can be downloaded by customers who own computers running windows or macintosh.
Publish a book with ebook software
I have seen ebook software on the net that claim that they make writing an ebook easy. Do you recommend them? These are good starter programs, if you can’t put your book into a pdf format at first. The only problem is that they put your book into an exe format which can only be read by people who own computers running a windows platform. That eliminates all of your potential Macintosh computer customers.
4)The final question that I am asked is,” When I publish a book, do I hire an illustrator to illustrate my book or do it myself?”
When you publish a book through a traditional publisher, you do not need illustrations. They prefer to use their own in house artists. If you are self-publishing, you can either illustrate your story yourself or hire an artist. When hiring an artist though, remember to treat the arrangement like a business agreement. -Have a contract drawn up by your attorney. - Know your terms. Are you purchasing all rights to the art work or do they get a percentage of the profits? Are they paying for any part of the self - publishing process? If not, make sure that you get your investment back before any profits are divided. - Set firm deadlines with penalties for going over the time limits. If you agree to move the deadline, make sure that it does not become a habit or you could be waiting on the work for months if not years, depending on the artist. - When you publish a book, make sure that you get final approval. Make sure that an approval clause is in the contract. - Pay only half of the money up front. Never pay the full amount until the work is completed to your satisfaction.
Caterina Christakos is the author of How to Write a Children's Book in 30 Days or Less. For more writing tips go to: http://www.howtowriteachildrensbook.com
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