Should You Spend Money Self-Publishing your Children’s Book?

Spend money self-publishing your picture book if you are rich and want to lose a lot of money.

Most self-published picture books sell only a few dozen copies and cost many thousands to produce. You do the math. Of course if you are a marketing guru, you can probably sell anything, so go ahead and disregard this tip.

Self-Publish copies of your picture book if you don’t care at all about having an inferior product.

It’s just the way it is. We can’t be experts in every aspect of the production process. Experienced publishers take care of the copy editing, content editing, choosing the appropriate illustrator, production, marketing, pr and much more. And they do it all professionally. Amateur choices (ours, usually) lead to an amateur product.

Self-publish if you are so good that you can’t improve.

The road to finding a traditional publisher is long and arduous, and not for the faint hearted. The chances are very, very slim. Revisions, rejections, disappointments, critique partners, workshops, reading books and more books. But along the way you grow tremendously as a writer. And often your story grows too.

Self publish because your children like your stories.

That’s wonderful, but your kids are not an objective audience.

Self-publish because your book rhymes and traditional publishers don’t want rhyming books.

Publishers do want rhyming books, but they want good rhyme. And no less important, good rhythm (meter). And those are very hard to do.

Tip: If you have trouble singing your rhyming text, then something is not working.

Self-publish because your book is about a controversial subject or a story that isn’t mainstream and speaks to a small group of individuals.

That is an excellent reason. One of the few.

Self-publish because you know you are dying soon and won’t have the time to wait around for years for a traditional publisher and/or agent to say the ‘yes’ word.

Let me know how I can help you before it’s too late.

It took me eight years of serious writing and querying to secure a publishing deal and an agent. And I’m no ‘spring chicken.”