Publishers Can Market Children's Books
And YOU are the Publisher
You are the publisher. When you self-publish a children’s book, you are a publisher. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you have taken on the role of publisher.
An author writes books. An illustrator creates story art. A publisher puts the text and art together in a format we call a book and brings it to market.
They are different roles. I recently helped a friend bring her out-of-print book back to life. Then she received communication from Ingram and worried that it was asking her to pay a bill. It clearly said the publisher’s share was a certain amount. But she clearly didn’t acknowledge and accept that role: publisher. She’s still thinking like an author.
This is a crucial mindset shift that you must make when you self-publish. You may be both the author and the publisher, and both roles are important. But you need to acknowledge and accept the publisher role and understand what it means.
Publishers and Printers
One obvious result of understanding the publisher role is when we talk about selling books on Amazon or through IngramSpark. You are the publisher; Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon) and IngramSpark are merely the POD printers-distribution companies you choose to work with. That means at any point, you can change printers and/or distributors. You are in control of the book, not KDP or IngramSpark.
Publishers decide when and how to distribute a book. You may decide that for the launch of the book, you’ll use an offset printer for 3000 copies, and you’ll ship from your own warehouse. But two years from now (or any time in between), when those 3000 are sold, you can switch to anything you like. Switching to a print-on-demand for ongoing book sales you might choose to use KDP, Ingram, and Lulu Printing for your Shopify store.
You are the publisher. KDP, IngramSpark, and Lulu are merely the POD printer-distributors you choose to work with.
The idea that you are the Publisher becomes vitally important when we turn to marketing. For paid subscribers, let’s talk about what a publisher can do to help find readers for your book that authors can’t do.
Publishers Market Books
What it means for marketing is that your company presents books to the marketplace. Not you.