Getting a kid's book published

[trooper 940]

Just looking for a bit of advice I've been writing a few poems I started during the summer. I've about 17/18 at the minute I'm thinking of writing a few more about 25 in total. This would be a book aimed at kids various titles of the poems are Space Race, (about the race to the moon) School Dinners, Top Of The Pops, Live Aid etc. Now i know ive not got a best seller on my hands & if I only had enough copies for the grandkids i'd be quite happy. But how do you go about getting these poems made into book form any ideas gratefully appreciated cheers Trooper.

 

Here's an example 

 

Top Of The Pops

 

T.Rex with Elton even The Sweet
Slade & Mud with their Tiger Feet
There was Pans People but they didn't sing 
Chuck Berry number 1 with his My Ding a Ling

 

Bowie & Alice came on with a bang 
The Bay City Rollers they sang Shang a Lang
The Osmonds The Jackson's were always a lure
Then David Cassidy sang How Can I be sure

 

If you were busy 
Or down at the shop's 
On a Thursday you'd hurry home
To watch Top Of The Pops 

☆☆☆ Trooper ☆☆☆

Sorry just realised can this be placed in the General Forum thanks Troops

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by trooper

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3894]

It is incredibly difficult to get things published, you need an agent first, look for a literary agent who covers your genre and take it from there.

[trooper 940]

41 minutes ago, Kevin Carr's Gloves said:

It is incredibly difficult to get things published, you need an agent first, look for a literary agent who covers your genre and take it from there.

Cheers mate 

[Gemmill 44872]

Don't get suckered in by these characters that tell you they're interested but want money up front to do an edit. It's basically a scam.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3894]

25 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

Don't get suckered in by these characters that tell you they're interested but want money up front to do an edit. It's basically a scam.

QFT!!

[Rayvin 5222]

There are different kinds of publisher you can look at. Vanity publishing is what Gemmill describes - you pay them up front and they publish the work, edit it, get an ISBN etc. It's not a scam IMO, it just does what it says on the tin. They won't market the book though so ultimately you'll be left to do that yourself.

 

Conventional publishers, realistically, are unlikely to take on the book. They assess everything based on the profit making potential of the work and would be more inclined to publish if you can demonstrate a large potential market for it, maybe preorders already made, or if you have books published with successful sales numbers in the past. I wouldn't even waste your time looking into these.

 

By far and away the best bet for getting started is Amazon. Publish through them as an ebook. They won't market it but at least they won't charge you up front for any costs. They take 30% of the sales price as long as you keep it under a tenner, and i think 50% if you go higher. If you need them to print physical books for the sales it'll cost more again.

 

It's worth keeping in mind that non-academic publishers are being squeezed really hard these days. For a fiction book that is priced at £10, retailers will take 60%, producing the book itself will be about £2, and then the publisher has to cover all of its overheads and editorial work for that particular book in the remaining £2. And make a profit. So believe me when i say that they will only take on books that are basically guaranteed to sell thousands of copies.

[Rayvin 5222]

Just re-reading your post, the bit about enough copies for grandkids - is the book formatted and basically print ready or do you need it to go through editorial too? If its just print you can probably get 10 copies made for about 50 quid at a printer. If it needs editing you're up into the hundreds depending on the length.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Rayvin

[trooper 940]

At the moment ive just got them all on my tablet. I was thinking of adding a simple pencil drawing to keep things simple rather than grabbing pictures of the net that are probably copywriten. I honestly have no idea what to do I wrote them when I was feeling a bit down then started thinking about my childhood in the 60s & 70s I then showed them to Mrs T. She showed them to our kids who said I should see about a book. Miss T is a reception teacher now at a local first school they have a partnership with 5 other schools in the area so my idea would be to initially get a batch of 10 printed off the Miss T show her boss & see if she thought other schools maybe interested. I don't even know if that's away to go 

[ewerk 30609]

Don't forget to factor in a time machine so the kids will get those references.  

One of the keys to kids' books is good illustrations, that where you will need to pay someone.

[trooper 940]

Wor young 'uns an artist so he'll probably help me out there.

[Dr Gloom 21921]

1 hour ago, Rayvin said:

There are different kinds of publisher you can look at. Vanity publishing is what Gemmill describes - you pay them up front and they publish the work, edit it, get an ISBN etc. It's not a scam IMO, it just does what it says on the tin. They won't market the book though so ultimately you'll be left to do that yourself.

 

Conventional publishers, realistically, are unlikely to take on the book. They assess everything based on the profit making potential of the work and would be more inclined to publish if you can demonstrate a large potential market for it, maybe preorders already made, or if you have books published with successful sales numbers in the past. I wouldn't even waste your time looking into these.

 

By far and away the best bet for getting started is Amazon. Publish through them as an ebook. They won't market it but at least they won't charge you up front for any costs. They take 30% of the sales price as long as you keep it under a tenner, and i think 50% if you go higher. If you need them to print physical books for the sales it'll cost more again.

 

It's worth keeping in mind that non-academic publishers are being squeezed really hard these days. For a fiction book that is priced at £10, retailers will take 60%, producing the book itself will be about £2, and then the publisher has to cover all of its overheads and editorial work for that particular book in the remaining £2. And make a profit. So believe me when i say that they will only take on books that are basically guaranteed to sell thousands of copies.

You sound like you’re talking from experience? 

[trooper 940]

As i say lads im not looking at making my fortune with this even if the grandkids get a book out of this i'd be happy i'vs 10 grandkids. 

[ewerk 30609]

Do you know anyone who could do the digital design for you? You can print your own book online but obviously it'll need to be in an acceptable format to do that.

[trooper 940]

2 minutes ago, ewerk said:

Do you know anyone who could do the digital design for you? You can print your own book online but obviously it'll need to be in an acceptable format to do that.

It's all starting to get very complicated I might just buy some A4 files & print them out for the grandkids 

[Rayvin 5222]

1 hour ago, Dr Gloom said:

You sound like you’re talking from experience? 

 

I'm a publisher by trade. I basically ran an academic publisher up until the summer, all aspects of production, editorial, sales etc. Turned over about 5m a year so big enough to really know the industry but small enough that i had to understand every part of the process.

[Rayvin 5222]

1 hour ago, trooper said:

It's all starting to get very complicated I might just buy some A4 files & print them out for the grandkids 

 

You can get a service to do what you're talking about to a professional standard - that's why vanity publishing exists. But it'll cost a few hundred easily.

 

Just getting them printed and bound - for 10 copies - isn't going to break the bank. But as ewerk says you need the format to be right. It can be a bit of a ballache to be quite honest. Check out a company called lightningsource. They print books for big publishers on demand, but i think their model goes all the way down to a few copies for the individual buyer. They should have info on what the files need to look like, as well as an online quoting tool.

[trooper 940]

5 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

You can get a service to do what you're talking about to a professional standard - that's why vanity publishing exists. But it'll cost a few hundred easily.

 

Just getting them printed and bound - for 10 copies - isn't going to break the bank. But as ewerk says you need the format to be right. It can be a bit of a ballache to be quite honest. Check out a company called lightningsource. They print books for big publishers on demand, but i think their model goes all the way down to a few copies for the individual buyer. They should have info on what the files need to look like, as well as an online quoting tool.

Cheers Ray

[Dr Gloom 21921]

57 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

I'm a publisher by trade. I basically ran an academic publisher up until the summer, all aspects of production, editorial, sales etc. Turned over about 5m a year so big enough to really know the industry but small enough that i had to understand every part of the process.

Ah - I figured you were an aspiring novelist. That sounds like an interesting role. Must keep you busy. 

[Tom 14011]

With all those obscure 70s references, I highly doubt anyone younger than 45 wrote that poem.

Nice try.

[ewerk 30609]

40 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

Ah - I figured you were an aspiring novelist. That sounds like an interesting role. Must keep you busy. 

He's a tree murderer.

[trooper 940]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

With all those obscure 70s references, I highly doubt anyone younger than 45 wrote that poem.

Nice try.

I'm 59 thanks 

[Rayvin 5222]

1 hour ago, Ant said:

@Rayvin just you do it for him sure  

 

I actually would have offered the printing bit at least but as I said, i left the business over the summer. Plenty of other printers around though.

 

[Gemmill 44872]

Sounds like you owe Troops an apology to me.

[Kid Dynamite 7026]

On 11/5/2018 at 10:13, ewerk said:

Don't forget to factor in a time machine so the kids will get those references.  

One of the keys to kids' books is good illustrations, that where you will need to pay someone.

 

Genuinely LOLd at that