Publishing a children’s picture book
You may have already read my blog about writing a picture book, which is how Bob on the Road to Enlightenment came to be. Now the book is out in the world, I thought I’d share the next part of the process: publishing a children’s picture book.
Finalising the content
It’s so funny, as back in April, Ben and I thought the actual text part of the story was complete and there was nothing more that could be done, but it turns out the longer you spend analysing and reading something, the more ‘areas for development’ you notice. We also shared it with some more family members, and they gave some brilliant feedback on things we hadn’t even considered.
Without giving too many spoilers for the book, Bob is struck with rainbow magic at the start, which meddles with how his fuel tank works. As the book progresses, you realise that every time he says something unkind, his fuel tank empties a bit. Then towards the end, when he judders to a halt, he reflects on his behaviour and is much kinder, which fills his fuel tank bit by bit.
Amendments
From the beginning, we knew that the fuel gauge images were going to be central to the story, but we were going to have them quite small in the corner of each relevant page, so that the reader would eventually ‘discover’ what was happening. However, after trying this out on In Design, and showing friends and family, it became clear that we needed to make a bigger deal of the fuel gauges, considering it was the whole essence of the story. This then evolved, and we decided to colour-code the background blob of each fuel gauge so that it mirrored how full or low the fuel was.
Another very good point from my sister-in-law was that in our original manuscript, Bob leaves the factory for the first time and immediately drives to the supermarket. She questioned why this would happen, and got us to really think about how Bob might feel having just left the van factory for the first time. This led us to adding an additional double page to build up the story before he randomly started driving around.
Photoshoot
One of the most fun things in the wild journey of publishing a children’s picture book has to be the photoshoot! I booked in the amazing Claire, from Luna and Light, who did all the photos for my website. The day before the shoot, we hadn’t actually decided on where the shoot would be, and only figured this out the night before when a friend made the suggestion of Valley of the Rocks. I am so delighted we took this advice, as it actually inspired Hazel’s final double page spread in the book.
Uploading to KDP
After editing the book on In Design for the past 2 months, I was fairly sure we had reached the Point of Perfection. So I figured out how to upload it to KDP. This was certainly more challenging than I first envisaged! Particularly for our illustrator, Hazel, who had to remake the front and back cover in a very specific template (provided by KDP) that actually took us about five attempts to get right. Definitely blaming the template here! Once everything was uploaded and the KDP programme said it was all ok, I proceeded and ordered a couple of proof copies.
Proof copies
This is an amazing part of the KDP as you can get them at print cost, and they came within about 3 days! It totally blew my mind. It was such a surreal moment getting the first proof in the post. Despite me printing off about 7 copies prior to this, my pritt-sticked together drafts were incomparable to receiving a glossy-covered bound paperback. Unfortunately, there was quite a major trim error on all the full-colour pages, so I had to go back into In Design. After playing around with this, and uploading it 6 more times, I discovered I had to make the book 2mm bigger than the template, so there were no white borders. Then I ordered a second proof and Hey Presto, it worked! What a relief that was.
I thought at this point that it was practically there, except for a couple of tweaks Hazel wanted to make to the pattern page and the thought bubble illustrations. But the more I looked at the proof (I was absolutely obsessed haha) the more I became a perfectionist, moving text a couple of millimetres here, down a couple of millimetres there – triple checking that everything was slap bang in the centre…then I would re-word some text, take some out, make bits more concise! It’s funny that having the proof really made me see things more clearly then when staring at it on a screen, so I am soo happy that we didn’t rush this phase.
Going live with our children’s picture book
Once we were totally happy, it was time to go live on KDP! I was soooo nervous about this! In the end we decided not to go with Expanded Distribution, so instead I decided to upload it to Ingram Spark under a different ISBN as well as KDP. It was a bit of an anti-climax at this point, as I naively thought that when I pressed ‘publish’, the book would immediately be available, but instead a pop up appeared saying ‘your book will go live in up to 72 hours’. Being extremely impatient, this seemed like an awfully long time! But luckily, it was actually ready by the next morning! Once it was out in the world, I had this strange nervous excitement and couldn’t wait for my first ever proper copy to come through the door!
The published picture book
When the very first official copy came through the post, straight from the KDP press, it certainly didn’t disappoint! The print quality and colours looked even better than in the proofs. It was soo lovely over the next couple of days to receive customers’ photos and feedback!
Buy a copy today!
You can purchase a copy of our first ever picture book on Amazon, and Ingram Spark.
I hope you enjoyed reading my blog on publishing a children’s picture book
Reviews!
“This book is a ray of zingy sunshine that is sure to lift your spirits and will most definitely make you smile. Bob is such a lovable character who loses his way for a while. Follow him on his little journey of lessons. Will he arrive at the final destination, or will he be lost for ever? A hugely enjoyable read for the whole family. One which will ignite some life conversations in a gentle and accessible way.”
