Self-Publishing Your Children’s Book

by Sharon Pelletier, Editor

It’s a cherished bedtime routine—bathtime, teeth brushing, cozy pajamas, then parents and children curl up together for a bedtime story. Turning the bright pages together, reading the familiar words, laughing at the adventures of adorable characters and enjoying the favorite rhymes… but what about the stories that aren’t in books? The ones that live only as storytelling tradition passed down for years? Is it possible for you to self-publish the tale in your imagination, so that it comes to life as a book you hold in your lap? What follows will give you an idea of the behind-the-scenes action involved in self-publishing a children’s book with Vantage.

Children’s books come with a unique set of questions: What age is your story intended for? Is your story a read-aloud, or for children learning to read on their own? Does it address a common childhood fear, or help prepare children for a milestone experience? Your editor works with you to answer these questions, suggesting the best format for your story and working with you to perfect your manuscript, from each word to overall storyline. With industry expertise, a keen sense of children’s cognitive development and literacy levels, and an ongoing focus on your own vision for your work, your editor is a most important partner.

The next step is one that authors of books for adults seldom get to enjoy: planning the illustrations! You and your editor will have a lot of fun determining the right style of art for your story and discussing which scenes should be brought to life on the page. Because this is self-publishing, you get to be fully involved in this process, reviewing the illustrator’s sample sketches, approving final illustrations, even collaborating on how the text flows with the art as the pages are laid out.

Once the illustrations are perfect and every word has been proofread, your book goes to print! You will wait eagerly to see that first copy of your own story as a published book, and everyone in our office is just as excited when a beautiful new children’s title rolls off the delivery truck and into our hands.

Then it’s on to the publicity department, where children’s books again have special privileges of their own, thanks to storytimes and other outreach events at local bookstores, libraries, and schools. Your publicist will work with you to identify the best opportunities in your community where you can share your new book with children and their parents. Soon families in your neighborhood—and beyond—will be able to turn the pages of the story that once lived in your imagination alone.

Putting Authors First

by Laura Ross, Managing Editor

“Laura, these covers are all beautiful! I’m awestruck. I’m over the moon! Thank you so much!”

Do you wonder why I love my job?

I quote a happy author here at the risk of sounding immodest. (In fact, the credit for all of this delight belongs to Sheila Hart, one of our talented designers.) But, oh, how I love to help writers realize their personal visions—to bring their books to life in a way that exceeds their expectations. It is something we are uniquely positioned to do at Vantage. Don’t laugh, but I think of this as the “Vantage advantage.”

I know what I’m talking about. Over the course of thirty years in publishing, I’ve worked at corporate giants and scrappy independents—all successful, competitive, and staffed with smart, creative, and passionate professionals. But I can honestly say that I’ve never before worked at a publisher that wholeheartedly makes the author’s vision its top priority.

For a lot of good reasons, an editor at a conventional publishing house serves many masters. She answers to marketing gurus, sales teams, CEOs, and consultants. She is expected to protect the company’s investment in a project by putting the company’s needs first—sometimes at the expense of the author. And when it is finally time to market and sell the book she believed in and acquired, the overworked editor has already moved on to new projects and challenges.

At Vantage, our authors are our partners from beginning to end, and we do all we can to polish, perfect, and build upon what they’ve created to make the best and most beautiful books possible.

When I take on a new Vantage project, the first thing I do is have a heart-to-heart talk with the author about his or her artistic journey. Some of the questions I ask are, how long have you been writing? What inspired you to write this particular book, in this particular category? When you close your eyes and imagine holding the finished book in your hands, what does it look and feel like? What other books and writers do you admire? Who do you think of as your ideal reader?

Writing can be a very solitary pursuit. Believe it or not, some of the writers I work with have never talked frankly and in detail about their work with anyone, until I ask them these questions. I wonder if they realize how valuable these conversations can be, and that I enjoy them as much as they do?

The next step is to make every aspect of the book live up to the vision we’ve laid out together—from the prose style and illustrations to the cover design, flap copy, and marketing plans. No editor can do all of that alone—so we put together just the right creative team for each project. At Vantage, we draw upon the talents of some of the best and most experienced text editors, illustrators, designers, and other professionals in the business. And I’m pretty sure that each of them feels just as I do—that it is uniquely gratifying to be working unambiguously toward fulfilling an author’s vision.

The author is an active participant at each stage of a Vantage book’s development—and if everything goes smoothly (as it usually does) I have the pleasure of delivering the book that my author has been dreaming of from the start. Or maybe something even better—the book he or she never dreamed possible. That’s when I get the e-mails and letters with the exclamation points and smiley faces. That’s when I think about how much I love my job.

Vantage Point Authors Share NaNoWriMo Tips and Advice!

Since 1999, the masterminds behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) have been challenging avid wordsmiths and aspiring authors to write a 50,000 word (approximately 175 page) novel from scratch–without ever stopping to revise or edit–in the short amount of time between Nov 1st-30th. Realizing that this may seem like an unattainable pipe-dream to many writers, Vantage Point Books queried a varied cross-section of our authors for any helpful tips and advice that they have to help motivate NaNoWriMo participants towards their goal. We will be posting continuously throughout the rest of the month of November, yet these diverse tips from our uniquely talented author’s will prove to be timeless for writers. Lets get started–we know time is of the essence!

Michael Musto, author of FORK ON THE LEFT, KNIFE IN THE BACK (Out Now) and writer of the popular entertainment column “La Dolce Musto” in the Village Voice and the breathlessly opinionated blog La Daily Musto on villagevoice.com:

The sharp-tongued writer's new book is dedicated to "everyone who is still speaking to me"

•   The hardest part of writing is getting started. The first sentence is always the most difficult one to generate–sometimes it can seem like some ungraspable, impossible dream–but usually once that’s out of your system, the rest can flow with relative ease. So it’s a good idea to just force something out of you–anything that’s on topic and makes reasonable sense–as an opening line rather than sit and stew about it for hours. Just type out any opener without obsessing over it! You can always rewrite that line 100 times later, but this way, getting a beginning out there will allow you to start the whole piece and even eventually get to an ending.

• Find your voice. You do that by writing as much as humanly possible, at every chance you get. Even if you’re just writing a diary for yourself or commenting on a Facebook page all day, you’ll be experimenting and learning en route to nabbing the tone and approach you will take as a writer. While you’re doing so, make sure to be bold and take chances. Don’t give us the same points of view everyone else is offering. Just today [Nov. 4] I wrote that Kim Kardashian doesn’t destroy the culture–after all, “15-minute” celebrities are a guilty pleasure that don’t detract from the more worthy stars, they just provide some fun watercooler bonding–and people were outraged. Get people outraged! Speak the truth!

 

Charles Philipp Martin, author of thrilling debut NEON PANIC: A Novel of Suspense (Out Now):

Charles Philipp Martin, earlier this Fall, posing with NEON PANIC at his debut Bouchercon World Mystery Conference

I do not know you. But if you’re attempting to write a novel in 30 days, I know a couple of things about you. One is, you’re insane. The other is you love books, writing, and words. And for this I think you’re a good person, and worth a bit of my time.

But I won’t kid you. What you’re trying to do is very difficult. Especially if you want to create something good. Perhaps these few hints of mine will help.

• First, writing is a job, like emptying Honey Buckets. This means you won’t like it every minute, but after it’s done, you’ll have something to show for it. Unlike the aforementioned job, this one probably won’t pay you, but will have other compensations. If it didn’t, this might as well be National Honey Bucket Emptying Week.

•  You probably know your daily goal – 2500 words or whatever. If you don’t have one, don’t bother reading any further, because without a daily goal you just won’t make it. You’ll start to fall behind as it gets more difficult, and you’ll end up with a chunk of a book at the end of the month. What fun is that? Chunks of books are kicking around everywhere, in drawers, attics, and on hard disks in folders marked “The Further Adventures of Moby Dick – Chapters 1-6.”

•  A time to write is important. If it’s every evening from five to eight, then it’s every evening from five to eight. For this month, cancel your Brazilian Butt Lift workout and postpone your dialysis.

•  You’re allowed a day off, but it must be a designated day off. The Honey Bucket guy doesn’t get to stop work when the inspiration isn’t there.

•  A place to write is also a big help – one without distractions such as phones, Internet connections, humanity. Writing is not for the gregarious. Sorry, you didn’t know that? You’re probably confusing the writer who’s chatting with Jon Stewart with the writer who’s sitting in a quiet room banging his head against his Ikea desk until those crappy screw fasteners come loose. The former is an off-duty writer. The latter is, sad to say, your role model for the month.

•  Finally, write as if the earth is about to fall from its orbit and fly into the sun, where it will vaporize in an immense fireball, erasing all of human civilization and achievement, and the only thing that is keeping the earth on course is your writing routine and the promise of the words “The End” at the close of a 50,000 word novel.

•  Because that is the truth.

Sure, it’s a big responsibility. But if you’re not up to it, the Honey Buckets are filling up fast.