@taylorclogston I’m taking notes. That’s definitely good stuff for Amazon publishing that I appreciated reading.
Mostly the approach I’ve been taking is to build my social media platform and website before publishing any books, because that’s the approach that I feel comfortable with – I want to publish my books to an audience.
But it is a LOT of hard work and heavy lifting – and to be honest I think it only works for adults. Kids are largely barred from social media by law for some very good reasons, and kids’ forums have provisions banning advertising as spam, I think.
For a kids’ book, the common advice is that you still need to traditionally publish. That’s because you need to get your book into libraries and school libraries and do those readings where you read to the kids sitting on the floor. This is because kids have no money and usually only read library books and books given away for free as promotions. You’re basically selling to libraries and parents instead of your real readers, for better or worse.
So I would go the trad pub route for this book. Working with an agent and editor will help you with some of the culture problems in your book as well. In addition, the royalty advance might give you some needed breathing room financially which you seem to need here. Just remember that it’s a loan and you will need to market your book after publication to repay the publishing company.
But there is no need to be afraid – getting traditionally published will likely take 6 months with all of the editing. Hopefully by then the schools will have reopened and you can visit the libraries to do marketing. In the end, this mistake might be a saving grace of sorts – if you had released it traditionally earlier, it could have flopped due to everything being closed and left a bad taste in the publishers’ mouths. Better to be patient in this climate and to jump on it when business is good.
Sarah, Miss S, Sierepica_Fuzzywalker