How to self-publish a children’s picture book
I know a thing or two about self publishing books. What that statement REALLY means is that I screwed up more times than I care to count, shed a lot of tears, did quite a few happy dances, and lived to tell about it.
(Read: I made lots of mistakes so you don’t have to.)
My first self published book was about how to follow your intuition and leave an abusive relationship. No pictures other than the cover, and a VERY different vibe than my second book. After lots of healing, soul searching, and finally settling into an art career and discovering the joy of painting with my inner child, I published my second book SHINE. For the full story on how SHINE came to be, check out my YouTube video HERE, and the illustrations HERE.
In this article, I’m going to share the top key takeaways that I think are vital to getting your book out into the world while maintaining your sanity. You CAN do it, it is not as complicated as it may seem, and the world needs your gifts. Here are my top five tips on how to publish your children’s picture book without breaking your wallet or your brain.
Tip #1: before you begin creating the illustrations, decide what size book you want to publish.
I did not do this. I just started painting on whatever canvases I had laying around. Ultimately it all worked out, however if I had to do it all over again I would have chosen my book size first and then chosen canvas sizes that were proportionate to the book. For example, if you want to publish a book that is 11 x 8.5” (which is a landscape layout, not a portrait layout), you will want to create your art in landscape at a size that easily reduces to around 11 x 8.5”. A vertical, portrait painting will look wonky when you go to place it on a horizontal, landscape page. I use this proportion calculator for sizing my glicleé prints, and it works great for figuring out your book layout, too. Every self-publishing platform will have a list of sizes from which you can choose. More on that below in tip #5.
Tip #2: Digitalize your artwork.
This is actually a requirement, not a tip. But here’s the HOT TAKE I have on this… you don’t have to spend ANYTHING to do this! When I first started painting the aliens, I thought I was going to have to have each one professionally photographed in order to put them in my book. I have an incredible friend who does this (shout out to Ron Perrin!), however there are 17 some-odd aliens in SHINE and at some point it was going to be cost prohibitive. So instead, I digitalized the first three with Ron and then did the rest on my own with my iPhone. Yes, my iPhone. I used the RAW setting for taking the pics, then I adjusted the color, brightness, etc. with the iPhone image editor. I was a little terrified, if I’m being honest, that my images would be grainy and crappy. They were not. The average person reading your book is not going to be standing next to your art and comparing the color match and crispness.
If you are a watercolor artist or create works on paper, you can scan your images (if they will fit on your printer/scanner) and it works great. I have done this for other projects with good results, and edited the scanned images with my iPhone editor. Just make sure the DPI is set to 300 or higher when scanning for the size you want your book pages to be.
Of course, if you are creating digital art, then you will want to make sure that the size of the digital images you create is proportional to the size of your book, and that the image is at least 300dpi.
Tip #3: Find someone to format your book for you.
This saved me a BOATLOAD of time and mental health. I used Hill Harcourt, a dear friend who owns Ashton Advertising. He is savvy on getting the margins correct, color matching, and creating a final PDF that you can seamlessly upload to the chosen self-publishing platform. Yes, this will cost you money. This was the only money I spent to publish my book, and it was WORTH IT’S WEIGHT IN GOLD. If you are comfortable with Adobe products (I am not), you can probably do this on your own. But don’t. Get a professional. It’s worth it.
(Update… I learned how to do this myself and although the learning curve was kinda steep, I now feel so FREEEEEEEEE! I use Affinity Publisher, it’s way cheaper than Adobe products and the iPad app is even cheaper than the desktop version.)
Tip #3: Get someone to edit your manuscript.
For my first book, which was not a picture book, I hired an editor. For SHINE, I did not. I should have. I sold a limited edition first run of 50 books, and every book had an obvious typo that I missed. So, now it’s a collector’s item…😂. But seriously, this is a step you don’t want to skip, and you don’t need to spend money. If you have friends, mentors, or teachers in your life, you can ask them to proofread your manuscript. In exchange, you can give them a shout out on the credit page of the book, or offer them an original painting or print as a thank you.
Tip #4: Let go of your expectations for super stardom.
I cannot stress this enough… self-publishing your work is AMAZING, in and of itself. I spent HOURS trying to figure out the algorithm for Amazon, as I was convinced that I would be on the bestseller list if I used the appropriate categories and keywords. This is an entire business unto itself. When you see folks shooting up to the top of bestseller lists, they did not do that alone. There is big money in making it up that list. This is not to discredit the amazing authors who hold that title (I know some of them and they are gifts to humanity). They had a team. You may not.
Getting your work out into the world is an incredible feat of perseverance, talent, vulnerability, and courage. And that is enough. Let go of the need for it to be anything else.
And lastly…
Tip #5: choose a platform that will work for you and align with your values.
I first published both of my books on Amazon with their KDP platform. My experience was that they are great with soft cover books, mediocre with hard cover books, and TERRIBLE with Kindle iBooks. I found IngramSparks to be cumbersome and incredibly frustrating, although the print quality for SHINE was pretty good. Ultimately, Amazon/KDP did not align with my values, so I pulled my books from their platform and went with Lulu Direct. The print quality has been great, although the pricing is not so great (their print cost per book is almost twice that of Amazon). That being said, with print-on-demand, you do not pay anything upfront when someone buys your book, so the pricing only matters when considering what to charge for your book and if you want to order author copies. This is honestly an entire topic on it’s own, just suffice it to say that I have been mostly happy with the quality and customer service from Lulu, as well as the ease of using their online platform.
(Update: I am waiting on a proof from a company called Bookvault! Originally based in the UK, they finally opened a US branch. They use the same formatting as Amazon KDP, and their prices are comparable to Amazon as well. Subscribe and stay tuned for more updates!)
There are a ton of other aspects to self-publishing a picture book, but these are by far the five biggest tips that I can offer you based on my personal experience. I hope that this creates some clarity and encouragement! Just know that it is really not that complicated in spite of the multitude of choices you will have to make, and that if I can do it, so can you.
If your dream is publishing and illustrating your own children’s picture book, hit me up. I’m happy to chat and at this point I can even format, edit, illustrate, and publish it for you! Feel free to email me at peyton@peytonturnerart.com. Let’s make that dream a joyful, colorful reality!
With love,
Peyton
