​Why Are You Making a Children's Book? 

​Money or pleasure? Most people create children’s books for fun and to have a sense of accomplishment. Some people do find it lucrative and can make several books cheaply with the only goal of making money.

Style

What type of children’s book are you writing? Are you doing a board book, a picture book, or a young reader, targeted at ages 6-7 year olds? Board books are very short easy reading books for ages 0-5 with less than 250 words on average. A good example of a board book is Goodnight Moon. Picture books are longer at around 500 to 1000 words and typically contain images on every page. A Good example of a picture book is The Gruffalo. Then you have early readers books that range from 1000 to 3000 words. These have less imagery and more text to transition children into reading longer books and to not rely on seeing images to help them understand the story. You need to decide what demographic you are targeting by how long your book is going to be. You should also try to keep the book to a set number of pages. Typical children’s books are around 32 pages long. Try to have a good number of characters. You will see a lot of famous books use the rule of 3. Where the main character meets 3 people throughout the story. You don’t have to choose 3 but you can try to stay in some type of format to make the book flow smoother. Publishers like to see a clean format laid out and not have the story go all over the place.

Theme

What is your book going to be about? A lot of people pull stories from real life experiences. Some just like to make up totally random stories that are fun and enjoyable.  One thing I can’t stress enough is that you need to make sure your story has a fluid beginning, middle and end. I have seen some really great books that have a great beginning, middle, and then just fall off a cliff. Make sure it's not confusing. A lot of the time people think because they are writing for children, that they can just make the book kind of silly. But if something doesn't make sense and it's very confusing, people aren’t going to like the story. Remember, the parents are the ones buying the book and usually writing the reviews, not the kids. Avoid a slow start. Start your children’s book off with something exciting and suspenseful. Kids can lose interest if your story is slow, so be sure to hook your little reader from the very beginning. A good rule is to make sure you jump right into the story within the first 1 to 3 pages. You should do some research into what types of books are being marketed and sold the most to see if it is something you might want to target. In recent years, books about diversity, inclusion, and anti-bullying have skyrocketed. I have seen several social media influencers who will only look at books that fall into these categories. 

To Rhyme Or Not To Rhyme

So many people want to be Julia Donaldson and write the next Gruffalo or Room On A Broom. I see many cases where the rhyming is so forced that it just doesn't sound right. If you are dead set on making a children's book that rhymes, make sure it is flawless. Do not make up words and do not completely change sentences of your story just to fit in the rhyme. This ruins the quality of the story. Rhyming books are a great type of children’s book. Parents and kids seem to enjoy them better because their brain finds it easier to read along when you know what sounding word is about to come next. 

Write Write Write

​When you first get that feeling like you might want to write a children’s book, just do it. Write anything and everything down so that you have it. If you get an idea, write it down. If you don’t have paper, text yourself a reminder for later. Just start putting everything down, don’t worry about grammar. Just get ideas for your story and the characters. Everything can be sorted out later and edited. Some people don’t realize the time it takes to make a children’s book. You should expect it to take on average, about 1 year to go from first ideas, to fully published and book in hand. The time frame can be longer or shorter depending on many factors. If it is your 5th book, you will know much more about the process. But first books will take so much time. There is so much brainstorming, editing, several rounds of illustrations and just fine tuning everything. It's not uncommon that even after you publish a book, that you find a mistake and need to rework something. 

Name of the Book

You might fall in love with a name you come up with in your head, but do some Googling and make sure someone else doesn’t have the exact same name already. This can make it harder to market your book and be found. With an already established book with that name, they will often dominate the search engine results and people won’t be able to find your book easily. 

Cover

Covers can be done separate from illustrations. But they should be the most important illustration of the book. This is the page that grabs everyone's attention. People will judge a children's book by its cover. I have heard so many people say, “I bought this book just because I liked the cover so much.” So make sure yours stands out. Do some research. Walk into a few book stores and browse books. Which covers stand out to you. Which ones make you want to pick it up. Is it the illustrations, the color, the wording? Get more than one cover made. You can hire more than one person to do your cover. You are spending hundreds of hours creating this special book (if you’re doing it right). You should get variations of art made and then choose which one you like the best. Don’t settle. Make sure this cover is perfect to you.

Research Children’s Book Dimensions

Look at several different books you like and see what dimensions they use. Some publishing platforms only allow certain dimensions. Know these dimensions before you have an illustrator create illustrations. They should know the dimensions of the book so that the drawings match up perfectly to that size. KEEP TRIM SIZE IN MIND. When you get a book published, they will trim up to ¼ inch off the top and sides. If you have some detail you want people to see in your book, do not have it close to the top and sides of the page. Most children’s books sold are close to a square dimension. People don’t realize this but the size and shape of your book can have an affect on sales. Larger or tall children’s book dimensions tend not to sell as well. Paperbacks tend to sell much more than hardcovers.

Below are the most common sizes for children’s book images:

8.5” x 8.5”
6” x 9”
6.14 x 9.21”
7” x 10”
8” x 10”
8.5” x 11”

Book Contents

​Make sure your book is set up properly with a copyright page, a dedication page, if you have one. Include a title page. If you are self publishing yourself through something like Amazon KDP or IngramSpark, make sure you understand how your pages are set up. I have seen people not set up the layout correctly and when they printed their book, the illustration was on the right page, then you had to turn the page to see the text for it. It’s a good idea to have a professional help format your book into the proper file format so that you can just upload it. Oftentimes the type of file needed for uploading is not a common file type people use. You can even find people on fiverr for cheap to convert your PDF book file into the correct file type for uploading to KDP.

Don’t Skimp On The Illustrations 

This is where many aspiring children’s authors struggle. You don’t have to spend a fortune, but because illustrations play such a big part in children’s books, it’s important to use high-quality work. Younger children need to see vibrant colorful pictures on every page to hold their attention. Make your children's book stand out. Make the pictures look so unique that people are drawn to it. One of the biggest problems I see with self published books is that it looks like everyone is hiring the same exact illustrator because it is the cheapest option. The problem is that many well known children's book illustrators cost a fortune. Some charge upwards of $10,000 for one book. What most people run into is self publishing companies online that outsource all their illustrations to people who do them cheaply or authors hire people they meet in their DM’s or on a Facebook post that offer the same cheap illustrations. There are illustrator software programs out there that are templated so that each character looks the same and the backgrounds all look the same. It's very easy for them to pump out tons of these styles to many authors. Do lots of research and even post questions online. There are tons of community pages on Facebook for self publishing authors. Someone is always willing to share their experience and if they liked an illustrator. My advice would be to find an illustrator who actually hand draws all of their illustrations. This doesn’t necessarily mean drawing onto paper. They have digital drawing pads hooked up to computers. These types of illustrations tend to stand out more and look very professional. 

Create a Storyboard

Creating a storyboard will help you decide what to include in each illustration and how the text will match up with the images. When you speak with your illustrator, you should have a clearly laid out plan of what is in the illustration for that page. This will help you clearly explain what should be in the illustration. I have seen an author request illustrations for a child playing football (American football). But because most of the world outside of the U.S. calls soccer, football, the illustration was not what the author wanted. So make sure you clearly identify exactly what it is that you want in your illustrations. 

Obtain the Illustrations

​Once you have chosen an illustrator and completed the work, you need to obtain the illustrations.

You want high-resolution images (300 dpi) with the proper sizing and the raw files of all images. This will enable you to make changes directly to your illustrations if need be.

A signed art release form is relevant if you decide to hire an illustrator directly. Any art attained via outsourcing sites should automatically make the illustrations your intellectual property.

What Font Should I Use in My Children’s Book

Pick something that is easily read. Stay away from fonts such as Comic Sans. Don’t try to make your book so unique that the font looks terrible. Have one font throughout the entire book. The only other font you have that would be different is the title of the book and the author and illustrator on the cover. 

Edit Edit Edit

Edit and revise your children's book over and over. Do it yourself at least 10 times (not kidding). Have your spouse do it several times. Have other people read over it looking for mistakes. Hire a professional editor. This is the #1 thing self published authors have told me, “I wish I would have hired an editor.” I have seen countless books submitted to me that had grammar issues. Even books that were published by an online publishing company. Trust me, the feeling you get in your stomach when you open up a box of your newly printed books, to later find out you have a mistake on hundreds of copies, is awful. Also, make sure you do research on the editing company. There are scam companies out there and many authors do not have great experiences with editors. I would suggest ordering only one copy at first of your newly published book to make sure everything from the text to the illustrations look perfect before you start ordering in bulk. You should see how the finished book looks. Maybe text needs to be adjusted, maybe the illustrations need to be shifted slightly so that it looks right with the final trim. I know there can be some issues with ordering single copies with online publishers. They tend to only offer bulk orders. 

How do I write a children’s book description?

Look at similar children’s book descriptions. Pay special attention to length, word choice, and the style they are written in. That’s usually a great way to see what your audience expects and is used to. While your book cover and title help with your book’s discoverability and grabbing a potential buyer’s attention, your description is often the reason a reader decides to buy (or not to buy) your book.

Listen To Others, But Also Don’t

You can get a lot of great feedback from others in author communities online such as Facebook groups. This can help you tremendously. Hear it first from people who have been there and already gone through the publishing process. I’ve seen a bunch of times where someone asks questions and wants opinions on what they should do with their book. Please take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Don’t just change your book because someone in a Facebook comment said so. I’ve seen people completely change their cover because a few people told them to, as if that was the only thing holding them back from buying the book. If you ask 100 people for their opinion, you will get 100 different responses. You won’t please everyone. At the end of the day this is your book, your baby, you make the decisions that make you happy with the book. 

Self Publishing Companies vs. Real Publishing Companies vs. Fully Self Published

​Real publishing companies are like your Scholastic and Harper Collins. These are the holy grail of publishing as they not only publish your book, but they distribute your book as well to stores and online retail.  These types of companies are next to impossible to get into. Less than 1% of people can get their books in front of one of these kinds of publishers. There are over 750,000 self published books each year, so you see how there is a lot of competition. You can do tons of research on different companies like these to see if they accept book submissions but most don’t accept them or they require you to have a literary agent which is just as hard to get as a publisher is.  Self publishing companies are smaller publishing companies mainly found online with different packages you can purchase. They offer everything from writing, editing, illustrations, and printing. What I don’t like about self publishing companies is that the majority of them are kind of spammy. By that I mean the author believes they are getting the same types of services as a big publishing company, when in reality these companies just outsource all of their work for cheap which leaves you with a poor product. Self publishing companies' big claim is that they can print and distribute your book for you. When in reality what it really is, is the same exact thing you can do yourself through an aggregator company like IngramSpark or Smashwords. These self publishing companies just upload your book file to these aggregator companies which then post your book to be available online. You can just do all of this yourself and it's fairly easy. It's also a better idea for you to just do this yourself as a lot of self publishing companies keep the account under their name, which is not in your control. I’ve seen so many times where an author says they hired a self publishing company and are waiting weeks and weeks for their shipment of books to arrive in the mail. That is because these companies are not actually printing the books themselves. They are taking advantage of you. They have you pay a fee for printing the books. Then they are creating an Amazon KDP account in their name and requesting the maximum amount of author copies at a discounted price. The reason why it takes so long for the books to arrive is because Amazon puts less priority on author copies. So, you are not really getting anything from these self publishing companies that you cannot do yourself. Another reason I don’t like self publishing companies is because they are difficult to work with sometimes. I have had several authors say they could not send me a pdf copy of their book because the company puts their watermark on all of the illustrations. The illustrations you paid for, should be 100% owned by you and you should be able to distribute them how you choose. Any kind of control a company has over your own book is very sketchy. Self publishing fully yourself has become pretty easy with Amazon KDP and other sites like Smashwords and IngramSpark. You can just signup and upload the correct information and file to something like Amazon KDP and you have a print on demand paperback and/or ebook for sale. The aggregators such as IngramSpark, you just pay a small fee when you upload your book file and information and then they distribute/list your book for sale on 100s of websites such as Barnes & Noble. Your commissions on sales would appear in the dashboard for either KDP or Whichever aggregator you signed up with. The nice thing is you just enter in your banking information and all the money you make on sales just gets deposited right into your bank account. My suggestion is to just stick to self publishing all by yourself if you think you are savvy enough. If you feel better paying someone to do it all for you, then go with a self publishing company. 

fiverr

Fiverr has become a great and cheap place for self publishing authors to get help with illustrations, editing, and book formatting. The great thing about fiverr is that you can search through hundreds of people to find the service you need, read reviews and ask for several quotes and ask questions so that you can decide who you’d like to go with. Another great thing is that if you are not satisfied with the work you receive, you can select that after they send you the work and fiverr will not finalize the deal until you are happy. The person must do revisions and send you the work again. Once you are completely happy with the work, you let fiverr know and then the gig/service is completed. Illustrators will show examples of their work on their profile page, so you can see if their work matches up with what you envisioned. I have seen some amazing quality work done for only $20-30 per illustrated page. I have heard authors paying only $10 to send their pdf version of the book and have it reformatted for them so that they can upload the book to Amazon KDP or an aggregator. 

Look Out for Scam Artists

I am sure that you have seen the DM’s in your Facebook or Instagram account from random people saying they can help you with your book. Or you might find the same people copying and pasting the same lines in every Facebook group for children’s books hoping to catch someone. Try to avoid these people. They typically just ask you to pay a fee and then just outsource it themselves on fiverr or somewhere else. You want to do your research and ask other people in the book community who they used and if they had a good experience. Something you can do is just find a children’s bookstagram account and look through the books. Find illustrations you like and then try to reach out to that illustrator. 

Pricing Your Children’s Book

There is a lot to touch on this subject so I will just leave this link here for Amazon Pricing. My tip is that you make sure you don’t price your book too low or too high. If you list your book as low as you can in hopes that more people will buy it, you can actually do the opposite. Books listed as the cheapest appear as not good enough to warrant a normal price. The same can be said for pricing your book too expensive. You don’t want to ask people to pay upwards of $17 or more for a paperback book. The normal range for paperbacks is between $7.99 and $14.99. A normal range for ebooks are anywhere from $1.99 to $5.99. Make sure you are not choosing random pricing. Choose prices that end in either .00, .95 or .99. Royalties play a factor into deciding book price. You might have a price in your head but then when you upload your book you discover that your print cost is already several dollars over the price you wanted to sell for. 

Marketing Your Children’s Book

Always be marketing. Unless you have a major publishing company backing you, you will be doing all of the marketing yourself. Find events you can go to with your books. Post in group forums, find people to do read-alouds of your book and post them to YouTube. Get your book as much exposure as you can. Build a website, make a page on every social media platform. I have seen the most benefit from Instagram with children’s books. 

Get Reviews

The easiest place to start is with family members. They can help get the ball rolling. But be careful with Amazon. Amazon has ways to track you. They can and will remove your book from the site if they see that you have all of your friends and family buying your book and leaving reviews. Have people post reviews on Goodreads, Google Books, Barnes & Noble. But the main one for selling is Amazon. To get reviews on here, you can sign up for KDP Select which allows you to offer your ebook for free up to 5 days in your 90 day program. I would plan everything out and post everywhere you can on social media asking people to buy (for free) on Amazon and then leave a review. There are lots of communities on Facebook dedicated to helping self publishing authors with reviews. Reviews are extremely important when trying to sell your book. People tend to not even consider buying a book unless there are several good reviews. The reviews should be very in depth and describe the book and give people a sense of what they are buying. Do not get people to post reviews that are basic 5-star reviews that just say “I loved this book. I highly recommend it.” People don’t want to see that. They want to know more about the book. 

KU (Kindle Unlimited) Review Trains

This has become an increasingly common way for self publishers to gain reviews. Just start joining any Facebook group you can that promotes authors, publishers and illustrators. You will see posts where someone will mention they are starting a KU Train. This means they will share their self published book link. The next person posts their book to the thread and they are responsible for reviewing the person listed above them in the thread. You must acquire their book on Amazon Kindle Unlimited and post a review. Then take a screenshot of the review and paste it under your thread to show proof that you reviewed it. These happen every single day. If you spend the time you can do several reviews per day which in turn will get you several reviews per day. Amazon reviews are the KING of reviews because these help the most with sales. I have seen books that were terrible, but because they kept doing these review trains, they had over 300, 5 star reviews on Amazon. I guarantee they are getting real book sales because of it. Yes, these are not legit reviews. But to unsuspecting buyers, they think this book is really good due to all these amazing 5 star reviews.

Children’s Book Influencers

Try to find influencers on social media, mainly instagram. Bookstagramers can be a great way to spread the word about your new children’s book. They already have a following of loyal fans who pay attention to their latest posts. When they make a post about your book, people will see it. If they like it they may buy it. Try to find influencers that share across several platforms. Look for ones that have a decent following on Instagram and also a website. Getting a post on a website is beneficial because it can be indexed by search engines. This way someone searching on Google might be able to come across your book. YouTube read aloud influencers are another great way to spread your book. Popular YouTube channels can have your book seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Apply For Book Awards

Have you ever seen those books at the store with that award seal on them? Don’t they stand out and make you want to at least pick up the book for a look? There are hundreds of awards these days. Just do a quick Google search and you can find some to submit to. Keep in mind that almost all of the awards do cost a fee to submit to. Apply to as many as you want. This will increase your odds of winning one. Having that seal on your book will increase your sales. We are affiliated with Readers' Favorite Book Award Contest if you want to check out their website and see if it’s something you might want to do. 

Should I Copyright My Children’s Book?

That is entirely up to you. Just know that under U.S. copyright law, you already own your work the instant you write it down. However, you can protect your copyright further by registering it with the US Copyright Office.

Using Media Mail

​Many authors will send copies of their books out to people for one reason or another. Make sure you learn about media mail offered by USPS. This can save you significant money on shipping costs. Media Mail® is a cost-effective way to send media and educational materials. This service has restrictions on the type of media that can be sent. Prices start at $2.89 at a Post Office.

Read some more tips on our blog post - ​16 Tips for Writing Your First Children's Book

Read some marketing tips on our post - How To Market Your Children’s Book: A Complete Guide