Welcome to episode 36 Children's book authorship is Not a Hobby, It's a Way of Life thanks for joining me today.

My goal, not only as a children's podcast host, is to give you a look behind the curtain as an indie book author.

As a children's book author, I'll take you behind the scenes where for most children's book authors it's not a hobby, it's a way of life.

As I pull back the curtain, you'll begin to realize you need to put your money where your words are.

Unless you go the traditional published children's book authorship route, you will invest or spend your funds going down the published book author's path.

It depends on how you define your outlay of funds.

There's a very good chance that as a children's book authority, it is not for fame or fortune, Author and playwright Julia Cameron said, no matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is a career or a hobby or your dream, it's not too late, not too egotistical, not too selfish, or not too silly to work on your creativity.

With nearly 40 children's book author interviews, I've noticed some trends in children's book authorship and publishing that I would love to share.

When I co wrote our first children's book, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear with my oldest granddaughter and published it, I thought of myself as a self published author only to discover I was an indie published book author.

What's the difference between an indie published or a self published book author?

There are multiple differences.

However, for the purpose of this podcast episode, I will focus on the most significant difference.

Publishing as an indie children's book author, you create a publishing company and publish under your own publishing brand.

As a self published children's book author, you use a hybrid publishing service.

How can you tell if a children's book is published by an indie book author or as a self published author?

If you've listened to our podcast show, you've heard multiple children's book author guests talk about Miriam Laundrie Publishing, Blue Balloon Publishing, and Fox Books to name a few.

These are all hybrid book publishers who do a good job.

The great news about using them is you retain all the rights to your content.

If you look on the back of the following self published books Chelsea the Carrot Bowls for the Salad Bowl, He Little Girls, the Firefighting Pilot and There's a Hubbard in My Cupboard, you will notice the Hybrids publishing company's name on the back of the books.

These hybrid book publishers take credit for for the publishing.

And of course their brand name is on the back of these books.

Why shouldn't they take credit for what they did?

Two great reasons to use these hybrid services.

You end up with a beautiful children's book and these companies most of the time hold you to a deadline.

For example, most children's book authors I've talked to have mentioned that Miriam Laundrie Publishing gives you a year to publish your book.

I love this accountability piece.

As an indie children's book author, having a little more accountability would have been nice as it took us 17 months to launch the second book in our book series, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

The name of our next book is Hijinks at the Big Head Folk Music Festival.

Our indie publishing company's name is Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear Publishing Den Inc.

Being an independent publisher was a matter of happenstance.

I wrote two business books and came across a person who is a graphic designer for websites and book covers as well as a book author.

This person's skills are diverse and I utilized them to help me create an indie publishing book company.

The reason being, if I couldn't find a traditional book publisher, then I thought self publishing was the only way.

I didn't know some companies specialized in hybrid publishing services.

By the time I learned of these hybrid services, I realized I could go it alone as a book publisher and hire my own dream team for book publishing.

Okay Rick, you might be asking what is the best way to go about publishing my children's book?

Great question.

I might have mentioned before.

As an indie book publisher, we need to sell a minimum of 1100 books to cover all our publishing costs from editing to illustrations to front and back cover design to book formatting, including front and back matter, ISBNs and help to upload the book files to Amazon, Ingramsparks and any other distribution services we may choose to use.

If you opt for the hybrid self publishing method, you can double or triple the number of books you need to sell, ranging from 2,200 to 3,300 books.

And this is all to do with costs.

The other thing to remember is in the cost that I just described, I'm not including paying yourself or investing any money in marketing or sales.

As I've mentioned before, indie or self published books typically sell between 100 to 500 copies over their lifetime.

You, as a children's book author must have deep pockets or be committed to children's book authorship as a way of life.

My preference is for you to take on more responsibility Learn to be the general manager of your own book publishing company and use the funds you saved by not using hybrid services so you can invest more money in marketing and selling of your book.

However, I'm not saying there's a right or a wrong way to publish your children's books.

You decide how you want to fund your your creativity.

If you have listened this far into the episode, you have an interest in children's books or children's book writing.

Our podcast, Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors has two primary goals for our listeners.

One, to increase readership for our featured children's book authors and secondly, to share content that helps aspiring book authors to become established book authors.

Learning from our guests who are published children's book authors again, you might say, Rick, what's in it for you?

I hope that my guests share our podcast with their readers and followers to help us sell our books.

Has that happened, you might ask?

It has been moderately successful, but certainly not large enough to cover our hours or monetary expenses for hosting our podcast show.

Why do it then, you might ask?

I have one underlying belief it takes 10 years to become an overnight success.

If people see I'm committed to helping the children's book author community, perhaps they will make a small investment, purchase our children's books and give us a five star review.

However, we can't rely solely on hope.

Please take action and purchase one of our children's books, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, or consider purchasing hijinks at the Big Head Folk Music Festival, our second book in our book series which launches the first week in August of 2025.

Your small investment will help us continue to bring more children's books in our book series, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, to life and support our podcast show that helps promote the children's book author community.

Please share this podcast episode with family and friends.

Your support means the world to us.

Please note the links to the books and hybrid publishers I've mentioned can be found in the show.

Notes as Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear loves to say adventure out.