Children are bundles of joy, curiosity and wonder, they have very beautiful imaginations and the ability to see magic in every thing. They laugh easily, dream big, and believe in the impossible. Their hearts are so innocent and their minds are very eager to explore. Writing and illustrating for children means creating stories that evoke a pure sense of wonder and fun. In this article, I have provided a step-by-step guide on how to write, illustrate, and publish a children's book.
Understanding Your Audience
This is the first step in writing a book for children, you have to ensure that you know the exact age group you are writing to, and know what the purpose of your book is, it can be educational, informational, fun, or even instructional. Here are some children's book genre's to consider:
Colouring Books
Adventure Books
Activity Books
Poetry Books
Science Books
Crafting Your Story
This is the only article you ever need to read in order to publish a best-selling children book as a beginner. So, the first thing you need to do after you have determined the purpose of your book is research the demand on the book. You need to do this to ensure you already have an audience, this will help increase your profit margin. The tool I use for this is Publisher rocket, you search using the key search for kids story book or children's story book. Publisher rocket will provide you with the information of the competition around the book, and the one that has a high demand. This information will guide you in making a favourable decision of the niche to write on.
Generating Your Ideas
After you have decided on the exact book to write on, you can begin to write your story, but if you are a beginner with no idea about how to start, you can head over to Chat GPT to write your story. Give it a prompt to create five titles for a children's book story with whatever theme you decide on. After the titles have been given, pick the one you like best, then request for an outline for your story and ask Chat GPT to draft a story using the outline. Read you story and make any necessary changes, make sure the AI written story is customised to meet you taste and your style. Then ask Chat GPT to give you prompts to illustrate your story with AI. The next thing you have to do is to check for AI dictation on Scale AI Dictator, this is important because although Amazon might not be detecting AI content right now, they might be in the future and your account might be closed. Once this is done, the next thing is a plagiarism check using Grammarly plagiarism checker. You can also use this to ensure correct sentences and punctuation.
Illustrating Your Ideas
The next step is for us to create our illustrations and we will use Mid-Journey for our illustration. To use Mid-Journey commercially you need to at least buy their basic plan which is ten dollars per month or the annual plan which is eight dollars. Using a paid plan is worth it because illustrating a single page with a freelance illustrator could be quite expensive. The next thing is to create images for your story, copy and paste your story prompts from Chat GPT to Mid-Journey. After your images are created, follow this process to have a consistent character in your illustrations.
Working on Layout and Design
The next thing we have to do is head over to (Canva) to design our book, customize the size of your book and then create. Create trim sizes for the designs, you can use the 8.5 by 8.5 size and it is no bleed (add free trim sizes here). The next thing is to upload our images for our story, we just go ahead and copy our story, then go back to Canva and follow the prompts to work on your layout and design. Take your time, adjust your story and make sure everything looks good, when you are certain it is perfect, download and make sure that it is on PDF print.
Create Book Cover
After downloading, the next thing that we have to do is to create a cover , we must ensure we select a premium colour because it's a children's book and then download, make sure it is in PDF print.
Publishing Our Book
After downloading, the next step is to upload our book to Amazon KDP. First of all we create a paperback and put in the title of our book, so if you're using a pen name you make sure you fill in your pen name, a description for your book, and confirm the copyright for your book. Put all the keyword that you had gotten from Publisher Rocket when you did your research. When you are done with everything, save and continue, follow the prompt for Amazon to give you a free ISBN if you do not have your own ISBN. Choose premium, so it has colour because it is a children's book, choose the size, which is 8.5 by 8.5 and then use no bleed. Upload your manuscript, and ensure everything looks good. Save the actions, like printing, pricing, and requesting a print copy. After this, click on publish, this should take like 24 to 72 hours, sometimes earlier and then your book will become available on Amazon. You can request a copy from Amazon, pay for it and then Amazon is going to ship it to you.
Writing a children’s book is a richly rewarding process that involves understanding your audience, crafting your story, generating your ideas, illustrating your ideas, working on the design, create book cover and publishing your book. By following these steps, you can bring your story to life and create a book that excites and inspires young readers.
Comments