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ILLUSTRATION + INSPIRATION |
I became an author because the Holy Spirit lead me to do so. I still seek God's guidance on my journey and have learned so much about the publishing industry in past 2 years. It has been an eye opening experience to say the least. Here are some insider secrets and tips on how to make the most of your time and budget as a self published children's book author. ![]() Find a mentor. It's not as difficult as you may think. Head over to your child's bookshelf and pull some of your favorites. Do a little recon work about the authors. Do they offer mentorship services? My mentor is Marianne Richmond who has written over 50 books and has sold over 6 million copies. Over the years we have become dear friends and even teamed up to do a live event entitled The Art of Bravery in the winter of 2020. She is a wonderful human. Here is information on her rates and availability. Find a local printer. When I published my first book, Your Angel Army I utilized a giant self-publishing service called IngramSpark. They seemed like a good fit for a first-time author and they were able to get the ball rolling for my career. However, there are major downsides to utilizing services like IngramSpark. First of all, they print your books "on demand". At first I loved this feature because I there was little financial risk (meaning you don't need to obtain a huge inventory of books). It costs the same amount to print 1 book or 50,000 books. And to be totally transparent, when I printed Your Angel Army I was paying nearly $10 a copy! I'm here to tell you that you cannot make a living on selling books if your cost is $10/book. The other major flaw is that IngramSpark does not offer an account manager. You do not have a point of contact to ask questions or to check on the status of your books. When you need help, you are basically directed to a FAQ page. That was very, very frustrating. When I was preparing to launch my second book, Sunshine, I received a solid piece of advice from Kevin Lovegreen. Kevin is a very successful self-published author who takes inspiration from his personal hunting journals to write juvenile fiction. After meeting Kevin at my son's school, he agreed to meet me for a cup of coffee. During our visit, he taught me the importance of keeping control over your own products. He even shared his vendor list with me and connected me with Corporate Graphics, a Minnesota-based printing company. Through CG, I am able to print my books at a fraction of the price of IngramSpark and the quality is even better. I have worked directly with Mike Schmitt (Sales Executive) and Annette Boeck (Account Manager) to find the best solutions for printing my children's books. Find a book distributor. After my books are printed by Corporate Graphics they are shipped to Itasca Books. This is where my inventory is kept. When an order comes through my online store, I pay a small fee for Itasca to pull the books and ship them directly to my customers. It is worth every penny. When I launched Your Angel Army, I set up an account with stamps.com and basically turned my living room into a post office. Let me just tell you that shipping out thousands of books from your living room is not ideal. It was time consuming, messy, and not exactly sustainable. Using a distributor/fulfillment center has been a game changer for the sale of Sunshine. If you are looking for more on how this process works, contact Mark Jung at Itasca Books. He is kind, patient, and a wealth of information. Talk about your book. Unfortunately, even the best books will not sell themselves. You are going to need to put yourself out there and tell the world about the book you've created. Utilize social media, contact schools about visiting classrooms, connect with the local library to set-up readings, reach out to your favorite nonprofits to see if you are able to team-up in someway, the possibilities are endless. Networking has led me to unforgettable classroom visits, incredible speaking engagements and fundraising for Metavivor, teaching art lessons to grieving parents at Faith's Lodge, collaborations with Brave Soul's Photography, and so much more. Ditch the big box stores. I was so incredibly proud to see Your Angel Army on the shelves of Barnes & Noble. That was an unforgettable moment of validation for me. But here's the deal, big box stores take between 40-55% of your profit margin! It is insane. You need to sell A LOT of books to make an income if your vendors are taking half of your profits. Retailers like Target or Barnes & Noble can order as many books as they please with the option of returning them at any time. So let's say Target decides they'd like to carry your book on their shelves and they order 10,000 copies to disperse around their stores. But unfortunately, after a few months sales are not doing what they had hoped so they ship all of them back. You are then stuck with the cost of thousands of books! Don't even get me started on Amazon. They can take your books and decide to sell them for whatever price they'd like. They can drop the price so low that no one would ever be inclined to purchase directly from the author or from a little local book shop. Free 2-day shipping on Amazon will eventually be the end of nearly all small business owners. I know it is convenient for customers to open the app, click "order now", and the product magically shows up 2 days later. I get it. I've done it for years but I'm over it. Here's the harsh truth: You are never fully financially stable with the current book industry. It is designed to protect corporate America not the creatives. Here's the hopeful truth: I currently sell all my books directly from my website and and have total control of their pricing, distribution, and content. Your Angel Army will continue to circulate via IngramSpark to major book retailers simply because I am gaining exposure on their shelves and I am all tied up in contracts with them. I hope you are able to learn from my journey and are feeling empowered to publish your work! Blessings, Kate
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Kate FischerAuthor/Artist Archives
March 2022
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Delivering creative work with integrity since 2009.
Little Fisch specializes in collaborating with fellow small businesses. Through logo design, packaging, websites and marketing material, the goal is to create brand identities that capture the attention of audiences on all platforms. VIEW FEATURED WORK |