21/08/2024
Publishing with Limited Financial Resources
One of the biggest hurdles for many new self publishing authors is the financial resources to self publish a children’s book. There are several approaches a person can take, though they might not like all their options.
1. Forgo self publishing and seek the traditional publishing route. This route can be slower, but it does not require up front money.
2. Avoid all paid publishing providers or terms they go by; such as vanity, hybrid, indie, or boutique publishers. They provide full publishing services, but often at a premium rate and by providing an ISBN, they become publisher of record.
3. Avoid or carefully manage any publishing connected services you require to publish your book, a manage-it-yourself approach. You become the project manager to publish your book and this includes ancillary items necessary to publish your book. This requires more up front planning and resource collecting, such as buying ISBNs in largest bulk your goals and finances will allow. This can include seeking lowest cost alternatives, such as working with less skilled college students seeking to build out portfolios. It might be a cost-quality tradoff for the first edition, but that’s not always a good thing either.
4. Pursue the do-it-yourself path. Much like managing it yourself, the do-it-yourself paths is an even more hands on approach. This too includes ancillary items and buying ISBNs in bulk as goals and finances allow.
5. Avoid picture books and focus on chapter books. Picture books are a much higher investment requirement that chapter books are because of the cost of obtaining all the necessary illustrations. A chapter book primarily requires the front and back cover for possible illustrations or it can be created with stock imagery at a lower cost.
6. If you’re dead set on self publishing a picture book, be sure to plan out the budget you’ll need and start saving. While you’re saving, you can also be writing as many stories as come to mind.
7. If you’re dead set on self publishing a picture book and you don’t want to wait while you raise a few thousand dollars, you can learn how to run a crowdfunding campaign for advance sales, using sites like kickstarter, gofundme, or others. Do your research because they have different requirements. Like kickstarter is an all or nothing campaign and if not successful, you won’t have to fill advance sales orders. Gofundme, I believe is not an all or nothing campaign and if you don’t reach your goal, you’ll still have to fill those advance sales orders.
8. Do not publish. Save up. This may seem like a goal killer, but for many it’s better to not publish than to get thousands of dollars into debt. The alternative is to keep writing and working the traditional publishing path. Otherwise, consider side hustles and other options to build up your savings so you can self publish without creating loads of debt.
Anyone wanting to self publish a children’s book, especially a picture book would be helped by doing a fair amount of upfront planning. Hone writing skills in the meantime, learn all they can about publishing, get aware of what they can do themselves and what skills they’ll need to pay for. Explore different alternatives to obtain those services as low cost-high quality as possible, learn what the scammers are doing so they can be avoided. Then make it happen.
In my opinion, the worst approach a self publishing author can take is to rush in blindly due to their enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is great for driving a person forward, but not without some kind of bridle or training to keep it in check with the financial challenges a person might face. It can be used as a motivator to overcome those financial barriers.
