Ultimate Guide on How to Self-Publish a Children’s Book
Inexperienced writers may think that writing a book for kids is nothing different from writing for adults. Although, it’s not further from the truth since it varies in content, style, and audience. You can be a brilliant young adult fiction writer but flops in telling stories to kids.
Children’s books cover a range of books that are categorized based on a certain age. So adapting your story to the stage that fits the child’s cognitive ability is imperative. It amounts to effective delivery and emphasis on the story’s theme. Most importantly, learning these steps on how to self-publish a children’s book will take you up a notch in your creative game. Let’s start!
Know your target audience
Identifying your market or audience is essential to determine which age category you are writing to. One can’t broadly identify children as a whole. Children’s book fiction is categorized based on the child’s age and its cognitive ability to get engage with your story. Children’s book writers are often in a fun competition of keeping a child engaged with its short attention span. Here’s how you can start your children’s fiction book:
- Picture Books: under 5 years old, under 1,000 words
- Early Readers: 5+ years old, 2,000 to 5,000 words
- Chapter Books: 6–9 years old, 5,000 to 10,000 words
- Middle Grade: 8–12 years old, 30,000 to 50,000 words
Conduct research on your market
Comb through the children’s book genres or tropes that are hot in the market. If you are writing to sell, then researching what’s hopping, and what literature usually mothers prefer for their kids is the best research you can do. Amazon’s Best Sellers list and Barnes & Noble are great options to spot the recent trends. Scout for authors that are popular in your genre, trendy topics and themes, and the self-publishers who put out these books.
Keep refining your book
A novel may take longer to write than children’s books, but it doesn’t mean it’s close to simple from making one. Keep in mind the important elements that should enwrap your story: unforgettable characters, suspenseful action, realistic dialogue, storyline, and a recall factor that remains in the minds of our young readers.
Get feedback
The children and parents are the best beta readers you can hear feedback on. Kids are the most candid and honest when it comes to their experiences, so they make excellent unbiased comments from your book. Parents or the ones that buy books for their children are also a good source of feedback since they’re the ones who gauge the content their children would engage in.
Get involved with writing communities
When you’re just learning the ropes yet, you can expand your writing knowledge by involving in writing communities under the same category. Friendly online communities like Children’s Book Authors, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and Children’s Literature Association are influential communities to network with, to get advice from, and take great insights on how you can tighten up your children’s book. Registering as a member also makes it easier to build connections to influencers and massive literary entities to get your foot on the door.
Brushing up on how to self-publish a children’s book can be quite different than publishing an adults’ book. The key is to commit to writing and always know your audience. Just like grown-ups, children can be stubborn and hard to please too! But if you capture the heart of the parents, you get higher chances to get recommended to others.
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