Writing children’s books can be a rewarding and lucrative endeavor, even if you’re planning to go at it alone by publishing the book by yourself. If you’ve always felt like writing a children’s book but don’t feel confident that a big name publisher will give you the opportunity, maybe it’s time you try to publish the book on your own. If you want to be successful in self -publishing children’s books, here are a few things you need to do:
Create an attractive cover
As much as we love to tout the age old maxim that people shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, market realities prove otherwise as book covers do affect people’s buying habits. After all, when stacked on a shelf or displayed as a thumbnail on an online store, the first thing that will catch people’s eyes is the cover, not the text.
A good cover is particularly important for children’s books, because kids still place a lot more value over visuals than text. You need to please their eyes first before they even give your text the time of day. In fact, many of your potential readers can’t even read yet – it’s their parents who will read for them. All they’ll look at is the pictures.
Publish multiple books
If you want your self-published kid’s book to succeed, the secret is having a sizable catalog of books available. There are a number of reasons why this is so; first is that it of course increases your sales, as customers who like one of your work can buy the others.
Next is that having multiple books on the market cements your position, as it allows the books to support each other. Each kid’s book out on the market serves as advertisement to the others. Finally, it also establishes your credibility. After all, which author will seem more credible to first time buyers – the author with only one book or the author with five published books?
Market and promote
As much as some authors balk at the idea of “selling out” or any other misguided notion about marketing and promoting, you really need to get your name out there. Build an author platform and advertise your books through social media or through ad networks (if you have the budget). Books, even though very important, are not as high on the list of people’s needs as basic commodities like food and shelter, so they don’t always actively seek out books. The ones that they buy are the works that enter their radar and seem interesting enough. If you’re not promoting your children’s book, this is never going to happen.
Focus on getting reviews
Reviews are very important marketing tools and you should try your best to get your children’s book reviewed. Reviews, especially peer-written ones, are more effective than huge dollar advertisements. This is because people generally trust the words of reviewers as there’s the belief that the reviewers aren’t getting anything in return. Additionally, a really good reviewer will be able to convince many potential readers just by shining a spotlight on your book’s redeeming qualities.
What this means is that you should actively try to get people to provide their thoughts on the book, sending press kits, review requests, and even free copies of your book. And you should be accommodating in case the reviewers need to clarify something or ask for more details. The better their reviews come out, the more sales you’ll get of your books.
Image credit: Pratham Books on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]