The Ultimate Guide to Self-Publishing

You’ve finished writing your children’s book!

Awesome!

Unsure of what to do next?

I know what that’s like.

When I was first starting out, I looked everywhere for a single source that would tell me everything I needed to know to create and self-publish a professional quality illustrated children’s book.�

I couldn’t find anything to seamlessly guide me through the process.

The majority of the sources of information I found online were trying to sell me their printing, layout, design, or distribution services.

I worried about being taken advantage of.

Therefore, I asked tough questions of the self-publishing companies who made big promises, read the fine print, and conducted extensive research regarding what my editing, printing, and distribution options were.

In this course, in under two hours, you can learn information that took me over a year to research, collate, verify, and test.

I’ve sorted through the mountains of information developed by leading publishing experts, designers, and commercial printers and I’ve pinpointed exactly what you need to know know to self-publish like a pro.

Most self-publishing blogs, books, and courses focus primarily on how to work with only one self-publishing company. In this course, I teach you the foundational knowledge you need to know to work with any printer and book distributor you choose, whether that’s Amazon, IngramSpark, BookBaby, Lulu, or somewhere else.

By the end of this course, you will know exactly what you need to do to self-publish a professional quality children’s book.

This course is for you if you want to:

• Increase the marketability of your book by choosing the right title, book categories and keywords and by writing compelling book descriptions.
• Speak the language of children’s books designers and printers. I tell you what you need to know about margins, bleeds, digital artwork, scanned in artwork, hue, saturation, PNG, JPG, print ready PDFs, and more.
• Produce a professional quality book by learning about ISBN numbers, book industry print standards and the Library of Congress PCN program.
• Save money by understanding your printing options, including the difference between offset printing and digital (POD) printing.
• Learn how to use Amazon Createspace, KDP, or IngramSpark (or all three in combination!) to widen your books reach and distribution.
• Learn how the publishing industry works and speak the language. Self-publishing is a rapidly developing market. The printers and distributors that are the industry leaders today, may not be around tomorrow. While I discuss both IngramSpark and Amazon in this course because they are the current industry leaders, I also teach the core foundations of the publishing industry so that you can switch printers and distributors as you see fit to maximize your distribution and profit.

In this course, I will teach you how to self-publish your book, but more importantly, I will teach you how to protect your wallet along the way. According to The Independent Publishing Magazine, there are over 80 author services companies vying for your business. Some are great, while others are charge huge fees to handle things you can easily do yourself for free. When you are finished with this course, you will know what is worth paying for and what isn’t.

Are you in the right place?

These classes are NOT for you if you want to create a book for family and friends and you have no intention of selling your books commercially.

In these classes, I cover topics like how the self-publishing industry works, book marketing, and how to prepare digital files for commercial printers.

If you plan to only create a few books to share with family and friends, I recommend using a company like Shutterfly or Blurb. These companies offer easy drag and drop templates and they handle the details for you. However, if you plan to sell your book commercially, these companies aren’t very practical because their print costs are so high (the average is $20 per book or more,) so you’d have to price your book cost unattractively high to make a profit if you tried to resell these books. However, these companies are a great solution if you only want a few copies made.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have access to the course materials?

You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.

Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?

Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!