Lots of people tell me they’ve got an idea for a children’s book, and ask me about how they can “get” it published.
A friend just asked about this on Facebook, so — based on what I know and have heard — this was my answer:
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I think it’s important to make a distinction here between self-publishing and “getting published”. In the former case, you do everything and pick up the costs, in the latter, once you’ve finished the book, everything else is up to other people.
I self-published my first book in the sense that I wrote it, did all the layout design, then got a press in Toronto to do the production work.
For the next three novels, I did everything myself — writing, layout, printing, and binding.
Kids’ books are a funny thing. A lot of people think they’d be easier to get published because they’re ‘lighter’ (not so serious, so subject to critical analysis, or whatever), but in fact they’re far, far harder to get a publisher to commit to, partly because of competition, partly because the production costs of making a full-colour, hardcover book are so much higher.
So that’s my wet-blanket view of the industry, which is that it is really, really difficult — especially now — to get a publisher to buy a children’s book.
…BUT…
If you’re talking about self-publishing a children’s book, that’s something completely different. The only restriction you have here is what you’re willing to pay.
I produce all my own books, so I couldn’t tell you who could do this for you locally in Ontario. But this is the next question to ask: what kind of book run are you looking at?
Here your choices are either traditional offset, where you pay a lot up front and then receive boxes and boxes of finished books, and you can do whatever you like with those. Or you can take advantage of “print-on-demand”, where the books are produced as you need them. The unit cost is much higher, but your initial outlay of cash is considerably reduced.
Search around for “PoD” or “print-on-demand” and you’ll find lots of people offering these services. Lulu.com is the most well-known, and is generally well respected.
Beware the “authors’ services” companies — or “vanity presses”, as they used to be called — who will make it sound like they’ll do everything for you in exchange for cash. Some of them are downright predatory, and will charge you way over the industry norms, and never deliver on their half-promises of “getting into every bookstore”.
LightningSource is the company that Lulu and similar services generally use to do their production, but to approach them you have to have your manuscript completely ready to be printed. No hand-holding there. But a much lower price.
From there, you move on to issues like distribution (making the book available for bookstores to buy; you need a distributor because most aren’t equipped to deal with individuals) and marketing (letting people know this book is there to buy, and what’s special about it).
I hope that gives you something to go on for starters.
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