Publishing books for children and YA’s is one thing, although my ultimate goal is to make enough money to throw in the towel on my day job. I enjoy working in finance, don’t get me wrong, but I have two children and simply not enough time to spend with them; so obviously I am well motivated to succeed in my writing career.
Last year was a busy year to say the least. In addition to publishing around seven English titles on Amazon, I also branched out into audiobooks’. Whilst seemingly higher royalties, my business knowledge tells me that strengthening the core sales (books) is very important and so I have also had some translations done. My titles are now available in several different languages all across the world and seem to be selling well so I must be doing something right.
I now publish on several platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Google, Audible & iTunes) although I know that there are more channels out there to explore. One of which, is the supply of books to libraries’ which I am currently awaiting a response on. I have yet to land a traditional publishing deal for any of my titles although this was probably due to the interior being solely text. The children’s book market is saturated with many illustrated titles and I know that it is these which I will need to compete with. For this I will need finances and therefore need to raise a little more capital before delving into publishing contracts.
Whilst I have partnered with a very talented artist, it seems unfair to ask her to illustrate my books when there is potentially very little chance of her receiving any real payment for it. Instead, I am happy for her to create my cover art at this time; although hopefully I will be able to pay her a sizeable sum to illustrate some of the titles’ in the near future.
