A New Arrival

Expectation v’s Reality?

No matter what kind of creative baby you’re expecting, no one actually sets off to make a bad one. As creative people, we can be exhausted by the love, time, and emotion that we’ve invested in our finished pieces. We can also be very excited and impatient and I was both!

Of course, I wanted my book baby to be beautiful. I wanted it to be glossy and magnificent. I wanted its colours to shine and its story to be read, to be heard and to be loved.

As I may have mentioned, I am not the most patient of people and the waiting, oh the waiting……. Repeatedly checking the delivery date didn’t make it magically speed up either, quite the opposite in fact.

In the meantime, I carried on with illustrating another page of the next book but was still thinking about the arrival of my precious proof copy. I’d selected the premium grade paper. I was very aware that there are so many colour images in the book and the last thing that I wanted were pages that resembled tracing paper. I had also selected the glossy cover, rather than the matt finish. Children like shiny and colourful and Bear was most definitely a beautiful, shiny and colourful character, so it seemed fitting to choose the gloss finish.

Finally, the day arrived, my eagerly anticipated bundle of book-joy landed on the doorstep [literally…. the delivery chap couldn’t be bothered to knock and wait]

I’ll admit, I did stand there for a few moments, staring at the unopened envelope in my hand rather than ripping it open. I think part of me dreaded it being a mess for all of the reasons mentioned above! But open it I did.

And there it was. All of that hard work, all of the emotions, the tears and memories that had gone into Bear’s book and I was holding it! I just hoped beyond hope, that I had done my boy justice.

First impressions…. Visually, the cover had come out just as I wanted it to, bright and cheery. The text and images on the inside pages were where I needed them to be [huzzah for page-breaks] However, there were a couple of problems and if I’m honest, my heart sank a bit, and the chin wobbled a little.

The cover card thickness was a little disappointing. I’d expected it to be a slightly sturdier, this is after all a children’s book and children are not gentle with their belongings. I worried that a few times of being retrieved and replaced on a bookshelf might shred it.

There was no option to have the card any thicker and since my book is under 77 pages, it was not eligible to be converted to a hardback. So, I did the only thing I could, I got my children to put it on and take it off the bookcase numerous times. Obviously, they thought their mothership had lost the plot, but they did it anyway. Miraculously, the cover survived its heavy-handed ordeal and there was no option to upgrade, so that was all I could do.

The second thing that disappointed me was that for some reason, there were 4 blank pages at the back of the book. So, I added some additional material that I’d originally thought there was not room for, the pages of ‘Bear’s favourite things’ were now in! I removed any effort by the template to add ‘back matter’ [a phrase that still makes me cringe!]

There were, as far as I could see, no glaring typo’s. My super star review panel had sifted through the draft with a fine-toothed comb before the first submission, so I was satisfied that I hadn’t created a monster faux pas.

Given my feelings about the cover card, I knew that I needed to reconsider the price of my book. In the initial stages I’d looked at various types of children’s books for pricing range. I know as a parent how much I want to spend on a book and how much I can spend on a book is not always the same amount!  Purely based on the cover quality I decided to knock the price down by one whole English pound.

Revisions made, I resubmitted for publishing, confident that I had done everything I could. Then came the wait for it to go live.

The KDP website states that it will be reviewed by a real human being within 72 hours, any issues and they will be in touch, otherwise it goes live and becomes available for purchase.

I must admit, I half expected an email pointing out I had done something wrong but that didn’t happen. Of course, impatient me checked the progress of my submission quite obsessively, 48 hours later, it was still noted as ‘in progress’.

Having checked with my new on/off best friend…..Google, it seemed that some people had not heard within the specified 72 hours. These people had problems trying to reach that real human being to chase their submission, but I decided to wait it out.

True to their advertisement, within the 72 hours the status went from ‘in progress’ to very much ‘Frankenstein, it’s alive!’.

To say I was chuffed is an understatement!

I confidently ordered my ‘author copies’. These are copies that are exactly the same as the copies ordered by anyone through Amazon. You only pay the print fee rather than the full price, so these are ideal for giveaways as part of any promotions or marketing you are doing.

I then decided that I would also submit an eBook, probably for no other reason than I could! It’s another option for readers and it doesn’t cost to set it up. The archivist in me prefers to hold a physical book rather than a tablet to read but if there is one thing I have learnt throughout my career, it’s not to presume what a customer [or researcher] wants.

As a parent, I have also learnt to avoid the mistake of presuming what a child wants! And some children prefer learning through digitally.

So, I set up the eBook and let me tell you, that was really easy by comparison to the paperback. Having gone through the struggle of the paperback, everything was already tweaked, the mistakes had already been rectified. I was quite impressed with my techno-numpty self!

About 36 hours after that, both version of the book were live.

And that’s when the hard work really begins. If you search which books sell well, children’s books and poetry books rate the lowest of all genres. There is a marketing tool on Amazon KDP that you can buy into, likewise, there are loads of companies that offer marketing advice and support…. For a price of course. Well, that’s great if you have the financials spare to entice and hunt down the potential buyer.

However, most of us have to be our own book warriors, we have to shout from the roof tops ‘Children! Parents! Come and see this, you are going to love it!’

The proof of how well your book is doing, I think, comes after you’ve exhausted the enthusiasm of your immediate family and friends……… More on that soon.