How To Become A Writer- The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook

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HOW I SELF-PUBLISHED MY CHILDREN’S BOOK AS A PAPERBACK

After I wrote my children’s book Sophie and Crystal Carter and The Unexpected Secret and got nowhere with the traditional publishing route, I decided to take the plunge and self publish.  A lot of Authors such as Beatrix Potter,Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and William Blake have all at some point in their writing career, self-published their work. So if you have written a book and haven’t gotten anywhere with the traditional route, maybe self publishing is for you. My personal experience of self-publishing happened in 2005 when I was 21. I loved Art, Design and I’d written a book so I began to do my research using a book called The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This book had pretty much everything in it that I needed to know about self-publishing a book. At the time I was studying English at college so the only money I was getting was the money I was getting for attending college. Once I’d worked out the cheapest way to publish it, saved up my money, and done my research, I began the self-publishing process. I designed, drew and painted the front and back cover of the book and also designed the spine. I went through my manuscript several times, checking for spelling mistakes, making sure the page margins were the correct size and writing up all the relevant pages such as the copyright page. Once I’d finished editing the book I bought the ink and the paper and began to print it. I used my printer at home and sat in my bedroom for hours, printing out every single page of my book. Once I‘d done this and I had a few hundred copies of my book printed out, I then took it to the local printers. They scanned my front and back cover, added the spine and printed the covers out. They then glued a cover onto each book until all of the books were ready.  When I picked up the books from the printers I was quite excited and proud once I saw the end results. I had two hundred physically copies of my book in front of me and my next job was to sell them. I’d done research on how and where to sell them and gave some copies to the local book shop on sale or return. This meant that I would give them copies of my book that they would display in their shop and they would only pay me for each book if and when they sold. I also sold copies to family, friends and local people that I knew. I contacted the local newspapers and they wrote an article about my book and I also went on local radio. I spent some time at local Primary schools, reading it to children. The whole process was really enjoyable and a learning curve for me. My main aim was not to expect to print and sell hundreds or even thousands of copies of my book, but to simply see what kind of feedback
I would get. All the feedback was positive and I was happy that people were able to enjoy reading my book as much as I’d enjoyed writing it. In the end I sold about 400 copies but didn’t have the funds to continue with the process, but some years later my book had a second chance when I was able to publish it on Amazon as an e-book and paperback. I am currently writing the follow up to Sophie and Crystal Carter and the Unexpected Secret, which I’m hoping will be enjoyed by people as much as the first one was.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E9EV34U