Publishing your Children’s Book: Should you Self-publish?
September 8, 2009
You never fail to delight kids with your stories. You know you want to share them with other children from here and there. So you write your stories on paper. What do you do next? Do you send your work to a traditional publisher or publish a book yourself?
Before you take the plunge, it is better to understand first how the world of publishing works. Traditional publishing, in a nutshell, is where a publisher publishes your book. They cover all publishing costs and pay you a royalty on every book sold. From the time you sign an agreement with them, they will assume full creative control of your book. They will also own the rights to your book.
Self-publishing, on the other hand, is where you publish a book yourself. You turn in your manuscript to a self-publishing company and cover all costs for printing the book. They then churn your work into a professional, high-quality children’s book. You also have full control of your book – from its editorial and artistic aspects, to ownership rights and book sales.
The publishing industry is highly competitive; publishers are constantly searching for the next bestselling book. More and more children’s book writers want to become published authors these days. However, not many of them get published. This is where self-publishing comes in.
The flak against self-publishing may still be there, but authors are now getting more discerning, with a deeper understanding of what separates self-publishing myths from facts.
Aside from getting full creative control of your book, you retain ownership rights to it as well. After all, it is you who wrote that book.
Self-publishing is a smarter option especially if you are writing a children’s book that has a highly targeted, out-of-the box subject. This is because traditional publishers usually look for children’s boos that have greater market potential, nevermind if the story is predictable.
The list of successful self-published children’s book titles are growing as well.Richard Paul Evans’ The Christmas Box, which landed #1 on the New York Times list bestselling books, sold 8 million copies worldwide and was later produced into an award winning TV show. Xlibris author BJ Moesner was awarded in the 2008 New York Book Awards for his self-published children’s picture book, Monty, the Traveling Cat. Michael Hoeve also self-published Time Stops for No Mouse and was later picked up by Putnam.
You may not know it, but self-publishing your children’s book may give you a higher return on your book than when it is traditionally published. In terms of royalties, traditional publishing houses now pay only 10% at most of wholesale. (they used to pay royalties at 10% of retail). You may even have to split your royalty with an illustrator if your book contains visuals. On the other hand, self-publishing may give you a highly favorable return on your investment, depending on the distribution mix.
Publishing, like any endeavor, always has its risks and it comes with rewards too. And like any endeavor to succeed, you need to work hard and not be afraid to take chances – the tradeoffs may just be far below the gains.
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