

- #Kindle textbook creator landscape format issues software#
- #Kindle textbook creator landscape format issues professional#
You don’t have a solid marketing strategy.

You first need to figure out why the manuscript was rejected, and fix the problem. Nor will it camouflage an ill-conceived story or writing that doesn’t appeal to the intended audience. Self-publishing won’t fix the flaws in a manuscript that had received nothing but form rejections from editors. Your book has been rejected 25 times and you’re tired of submitting. You want, and need, for your book to garner five-star reviews on Amazon, and not just from your mother.
#Kindle textbook creator landscape format issues professional#
Take classes in picture book writing and design, attend workshops, join a critique group, hire a professional editor.

The quality of your work will be compared to those authors and illustrators who appear on the bestseller lists, so it must stand up to the scrutiny. You have taken the time to study your craft. If you do these books well, and market them smartly, you can build a reputation that can lead to more opportunities and possibly traditional book deals. Getting two or three picture ebooks out now means you’re working on creating a name for yourself and building a platform. Waiting for an agent or editor to say yes can take months or years of submissions. You want to begin establishing yourself as a professional author or illustrator. Even if your blog is attracting the kind of people who would buy your picture book, you still have a potential customer base. These days, authors and illustrators reach readers directly via their blogs, Twitter feeds and YouTube channels. Naptime with Theo & Beau was published by Feiwel and Friends in February, with a huge social media campaign using the hashtag #theoandbeau.Ĭould Shyba have chosen to self-publish the book and do the same thing? Sure. Jessica Shyba’s popular blog Momma’s Gone City, featuring photographs of her toddler and puppy at naptime, prompted publisher Jean Feiwel to offer her a two-book deal. You already have a good online following. Many mommy bloggers welcome guest posts about all aspects of child care, and you can mention your book in your bio. If your story features a child with certain food allergies and how he must navigate snack time in preschool, you can write guest posts for parenting blogs that focus on these issues, or even blogs about nutrition and cooking. You’ll just have to make an effort to directly reach the consumers searching for the specific topic in your book. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the book shouldn’t exist. Often publishers reject a manuscript simply because there isn’t a big enough audience to justify their expense to bring it to fruition. You have a book that appeals to a niche market. Many will slip into oblivion as soon as they’re released. Not every self-published picture ebook will make it. With the release of the Kid’s Book Creator, as well as the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition tablet, Amazon is investing in illustrated ebooks.
#Kindle textbook creator landscape format issues software#
Just how much has Amazon’s new free software changed the game? Those of us who have worked in children’s publishing for years recognized this move for what it was: a game changer. While the KDP Kids’ Book Creator still has a few rough spots (which Amazon is presumably ironing out in response to user feedback), it’s a good start. You can choose from several royalty structures within that program, and also choose whether or not to be included in KDP Select, which gives Amazon exclusive distribution of your ebook for a certain time period in exchange for marketing perks. Side note: Using the KDP Kids’ Book Creator means you’re publishing through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. These books can be designed in the landscape format (to mimic the layout of print picture books) and can include text pop-ups that enlarge the text with a tap or a click, making it easier to read. Last September, Amazon released KDP Kids’ Book Creator, which allows the average Joe to create illustrated children’s books for the Kindle and upload them directly to Amazon. (That said, it was possible to find a few services targeted toward publishing books for kids on Apple devices, such as Book Creator.) If you wanted to self-publish a picture ebook, you either needed to be a whiz at writing code, or you paid an ebook creation service to do it for you. Until recently, creating ebook versions of children’s picture books was something publishers reserved for their best-selling authors and illustrators. Today’s guest post is by Laura Backes of Children’s Book Insider and Picture eBook Mastery.
