DO IT YOURSELF

Self-publishing can be a rewarding and exciting way of getting your story into the hands of readers but for children’s books it has its own challenges. Three authors share their experiences and advice.

Dan Metcalf

I had been writing traditionally published books such as The Lottie Lipton Adventures and I wrote a book called Paw Prints in the Somme, about a young farm cat who is transported into the madness of World War One. I wanted to get it published for the centenary of the end of the war in 2018. Unfortunately, the publishers I pitched to already had their slates full. Determined not to let the moment pass, I decided to self-publish. I arranged lots of school visits around Remembrance Day time and sold signed books to the pupils.

It sold very well, and when I got the rights back from my publishers for my middle-grade adventure series Dino Wars, I didn’t hesitate to self-publish them.

I uploaded my books to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) which