b5media.com

Advertise with us

Enjoying this blog? Check out the rest of the Business Channel Subscribe to this Feed

Home Biz Notes

Mary Emma Allen Publishes a Children’s Anthology

by Mary Emma Allen on July 29th, 2008

HomeBizNotes.com

Since I’ve had inquiries concerning how I self-published my children’s anthology, Tales of Adventure & Discovery, I’ll give a summary here and you can ask further questions in the comments.

Tales of Adventure & Discovery consists of 29 of my children’s stories and poems, most of which were previously published in children’s magazines. However, I retained the rights to my stories so could re-sell them and/or use them in a book.

From Story Compilation to Book

My daughter and I began compiling some of my previously published stories on computer, simply to have them collected for family, as my grandfather’s are. I received a call to teach at a three-day writing workshop for children and adults and mentioned this project. When the publicity came out about the event, it stated that I’d have my book for sale!

So we scurried around to get it done in six months. This also was before the prominence of POD (Publish on Demand) options.

Choosing a Printer

After Beth and I finished typing the stories into the computer and decided upon those for our book, we made a CD. (Nowadays, book manuscripts often are sent via attachment to the printer rather than CD.)

I chose a local printing firm that published books. I liked what I saw. (Some authors search online and get recommendations from other writers about printers. They often work successfully with printers at a distance.) However, I wanted the face-t0-face, hands-on approach with the project. I gave the owner of the printing establishment the max amount I could pay to have a book published. Then she took a look at the project and decided she could produce 500 books.

Since I didn’t have experience in graphics and book formatting, the graphic designer at the print shop did this. We discussed our ideas for the book and found we were in agreement.

Editing

I didn’t try to do all the editing and proof reading myself. Someone at the printer did a first proofing. Then a friend, who had worked as a proof reader and compositor for a newspaper, helped me with this when we got the proofs from the printer.

It’s true, you often don’t see your own mistakes, so it’s a good idea to have someone else edit and proof for your.

(I’ll continue tomorrow and let you know about illustrating and choosing a cover.)

If you have questions about the procedure so far, please leave them in the comments for me.

(Amazon image)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

Tags: book illustrating, children's author, children's book publishing, , , , , , self-publishing, Tales of Adventure & Discovery

Share This

Related Stories

POSTED IN: Books, Business Ideas, Entrepreneurship, Writing & Publishing

3 opinions for Mary Emma Allen Publishes a Children’s Anthology

Have an opinion? Leave a comment:

Sponsors

Poll

Now that gas prices are lower, how has this affected your home business?

Subscribe By Email