*STOP PRESS* The new second edition of How to Self-publish and Market a Children’s Book is available from Amazon from 21st May 2021, as both an eBook and print book, and is on a time limited offer for seven days.
The blog post below pertains to the first edition
Hello fellow children’s authors and blog followers! I am thrilled to announce that my non-fiction book How to Self-publish and Market a Children’s Book is now available both in print and as an eBook. 🙂
Coming in at 296 pages, this is a comprehensive guide that’s aimed at both beginners and more experienced self-publishers. It covers everything from planning and producing your picture book, chapter book or middle grade novel, through to first marketing, school visits, getting into bookshops, online marketing and more. It also includes recommendations for the best tools (free or paid-for) and freelance resources and experts to help you with your self-publishing journey.
Suitable for beginners or experienced self-publishers. I use graphics to help illustrate key points.
The eBook is available on all the main stores – see links below. The print book is available on Amazon as I write (a day earlier than expected) and should be in wider online stores later this week via the Ingram Spark feed. I will put up a brief post when those wider store links go live.
- View or buy How to Self-publish and Market a Children’s Book in print on Amazon
- View or buy the eBook in the Kindle Store, Kobo Store, iBooks Store and Barnes & Noble Nook Store
A quick note about the table of contents
There is a top level Table of Contents with 30 chapters spread over two parts:
- Part 1: Self-publishing
- Part 2: Marketing
You will also have access to a hidden, password-protected resources folder with a more detailed Table of Contents showing sub-sections within those 30 chapters. This will be especially useful to print off to help you keep track of where you are if you have the Kindle/eBook version of this very long book. The resources folder also brings together useful links and example downloads that are included or referenced in the book – and I will be adding to it over time.
Below is the back cover, which I hope gives you a flavour of what to expect.
Including last-minute updates…
As many of you will recall, I had hoped to get the book out by late June. However, a few things changed in the lead-up to the expected launch that I didn’t want to go to press without including. These are/were:
- changes to the rules on posting Amazon reviews
- a new UK site that will soon accept self-published children’s books for review
- a new marketing feature from BookFunnel that I think will work well for children’s authors
- a new personalisation feature from Ingram Spark (I shall be expanding on this further in the resources folder this week)
- confirmation of the move from CreateSpace to KDP Print; I had already future-proofed for this, however I took the opportunity to add in some final tweaks when that news firmed up recently
- upcoming updates to an Amazon Ads keyword search tool KDP Rocket* which will give better results for children’s authors
In addition, my time travel adventure The Secret Lake has continued on the Amazon UK bestseller lists since May and I wanted to make adjustments to include insights from this. 
(It hit 75 in the whole of the UK Amazon print store at one point in early July, which was possibly the nicest shock of the year and has been hovering between 200 and 400 in the whole store since.) 🙂 If you have an 8-11 year-old who loves adventure, mystery, time travel and/or historical fiction do check it out!
With the above changes it became clear that reformatting for print would lead to delays (adjusting the eBook was much simpler!). Still, I’m relieved and delighted that it’s finally out and hope it will help you on your self-publishing journey.
It goes without saying that I would hugely appreciate an honest review on Amazon (and Goodreads if you’re there) if you find it useful. 🙂
Keeping up to date with changes in the resources folder
Be sure to sign up to my newsletter if you want to receive updates when I make changes or add new content in the resources folder.
That’s it for now. I hope you had a wonderful summer (or winter depending where you are). And please do share news of the book release with any children’s authors you know!
Happy writing and publishing!
Karen
PS If you’ve already bought the eBook, it would mean a lot to me if you could leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Thank you!
*Disclosure: this is an affiliate link which means I will earn a referral fee if you go on to buy KDP Rocket. However, there is no extra cost to you.
Self-publishing adventures 