Nearly a year has passed since the launch of my first children’s book. It takes a while to get to that point. And there’s that whole pandemic thing that got in the way as well. But we finally did it in March of 2021. Yay!
I don’t work on site, and my publisher is over 1,000 miles away. Everything we do is via email and phone calls. Sadly, during the week of my release, my editor quit. She just walked in and said goodbye, so I was told. No notices or anything. That says enough about her character, but she had also made a lot of promises on which she failed to follow through. Those promises were in my contract, fortunately.
They waited to do some of the marketing since the libraries were closed, schools were closed, and it didn’t make sense to market a book where no one would have access to it. So here we are, a year later. The publisher has decided the best way to fulfill their obligation, and to get my book out to market, is to do a re-release.
I am pleased to announce that process has begun. Today! February 1st.
Sooooo, they are doing it right this time. At least that’s what they tell me! The Kindle version will be on sale for $1.99 for two weeks, starting February 1st. Look for it there! If you would kindly purchase the Kindle version, or if you already purchased the book through Amazon, would you kindly take a moment to please write a review. I am shooting for at least ten reviews on Amazon. I would be EXTREMELY GRATEFUL! I hope they are all good reviews, but of course all feedback is welcome.
Finding a publisher, for those who are interested.
It’s a daunting task finding a publisher, to be honest. All the well-known publishers want celebrities (or their ghost writers) who guarantee millions of sales. They won’t accept a new author, and certainly not someone who is virtually “unknown,” as they are taking on a big risk since they pay up front for an author to write the book. Now that self-publishing is so much more popular, many authors choose to take that route rather than waiting for a traditional publisher to accept their manuscript.
When I published my first book, Mastering Test Anxiety, my co-author and I decided to publish with a professional counseling organization (ASCA, American School Counseling Association), as a way to give back to the professional community. They were looking for a book to add to their school counselor resource series. Although we are not school counselors, we are counseling professionals. We knew this book would greatly benefit children who were suffering from test anxiety as well as math anxiety. All royalties from that book went to ASCA.
My second book, The Breast Cancer Journey: Stories of Hope With Action Items for Survival, was self-published through Westbow Press. This book was a compilation of stories from various breast cancer survivors, to help other survivors on their journey. Westbow Press is a division of the better-known publisher, Thomas Nelson and Zondervan. Overall, they did a good job with that book, and many people have been helped because of it. My co-author and I paid up front for publishing and design costs. We then bought books and sold them, to recoup some of that cost.
I turned all the royalties over to MD Anderson, to further research on cancer. Once my books were all sold, and I nearly broke even, I didn’t continue to buy any more. People can still get them on Amazon. Westbow seemed more interested in selling books to the author, rather than doing the marketing for the book in other venues. To get marketing support—you got it—you have to pay for another package.
A true self-publishing company, Westbow asked for more money at every step of the process. We could accept or decline, but authors are very limited as to how much support you get from a purely self-publishing company. I already mentioned marketing. Here’s another example. We had two reviews of the cover design. If we didn’t like it the second time, we would have had to pay for another revision. Fortunately, we liked it the second time. But that’s a lot of risk when you don’t know the designers you are working with. Additionally, you have to pay for an editor. We decided to hire an outside editor rather than use one through Westbow. (I could write a whole blog about editors, which I’ll save for later.)
That brings me to my third book, One Day I Tried to Rhyme a Word With Onomatopoeia. This was my first children’s picture book, with full-color illustrations. It’s the first book in a series, or “I can say big words” series. Some of the words may or may not have six syllables, although that was the original intent. I didn’t want to go fully self-published with Westbow, as I felt the marketing and other services were lacking. I wanted a bit more support along with my up-front costs. I really wanted a traditional publisher to take it on, to get the marketing, editorial support, as well as illustrative supportive, but traditional publishers are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts, and unwilling to take the risk.
I did some searching and finally landed on a company called Atlantic Publishing, out of Ocala Florida. We visited their location while we were there, toured the warehouse of books, talked with their editors and support folks. They seemed legit. They seemed genuinely interested in selling my books, not just selling my books to me. Some might say they are vanity press, but they are known as a “hybrid” publisher. Their claim as a traditional publisher is to provide you with all the traditional supports, but they do not take on the risk. So, authors pay up front for the publishing process, then sales come later. I felt like I had a much better publishing experience with Atlantic than I did with Westbow. They provided me with an editor who stuck with me through the process. She found an illustrator (gave me several choices). We were able to make multiple revisions to the illustrations until I felt they were right. Yes, I had to pay for the illustrator, so that was an added expense, but it was worth it.
I recently learned that the owner of Atlantic Publishing passed away in mid-December. His brother is working on making the company strong again. I have hopes they will do so, but I seemed to fall through the cracks when my editor left and covid hit. So, I am waiting to see what will happen with the re-launch as to whether or not I will go with them again.
Now, on to the next project. I am working on two more children’s books at this writing. They are both sequels, per se, although one will be a chapter book from the older brother’s perspective. They are going camping in an Airstream Travel Trailer with their grandparents, and oh, it’s lots of fun! The other book is another rhyming six-syllable book like Onomatopoeia. It will look like the first one in terms of colors and size with the same characters. It will be a picture book as well.
Where I publish these two books is still a bit of a mystery. Atlantic is still working on righting their ship, so I have lost a little confidence in them at this point. (If they offered me a contract, I would certainly take it.) I’m debating on using KDP, which is Amazon’s publisher, because it won’t cost me anything to publish and then I can put more of my emphasis on marketing.
If you have any suggestions, or opinions on where to publish, I’d love to hear your comments below!
—–
À la prochaine…see you next time.