Okay, aspiring children’s books publishers, I’m here for you. As self-publishers, we have the amazing opportunity to create books for all ages, so if you want to publish childrens books, you can!
Not only are children’s books a lucrative niche, but you get to influence the hearts and minds of kids across the world!
Think about what it would be like to relive and realize some of your childhood again through the world of self publishing.
It’s not too far-fetched, you know, and that’s what I want to share with you in this article. I’m going to show you how to publish a childrens book on Amazon Kindle in a simple step-by-step tutorial.
Now let’s fire up your imagination and bring out the kid in you.
Have you ever wanted to publish a children’s book before?
If so, what has been holding you back?
If you have published a children’s book, how did you do it?
I’m genuinely curious. I’d love to see a conversation get started in the comments.
Table of Contents
A Little Backstory
Ever since I was a little boy, I have been passionate about reading. It all began when my mother read me Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. The combination of cartoon pictures and words enthralled me for thousands of reads until I’m sure I’d worn out the book binding.
Now that I’m an experienced self publisher, I’m happy to share I’ve crossed one item off my life goals list: publishing a children’s picture book.
Admittedly, it didn’t come easy and I haven’t realized a ton of success; however, I can safely say I’ve produced something I’m proud of and I’m happy to share with you how I did it.
How To Publish Childrens Books for Kindle
1. Write and Develop Your Story
This was possibly the hardest task of all and if you can get past this step, then it’s smooth sailing. I had to think about my audience and the message I wanted to deliver to them. I knew I wanted some kind of rhyming or alliteration and I definitely wanted to include my slight obsession with monkeys.
2. Create the Art Work
It is entirely possible for you to skip this step for publishing childrens books. In fact, actor BJ Novak wrote A Book with No Pictures which is exactly as its title implies. And, the book has been a smashing success.
If you want to produce a children’s book without pictures, then follow the same steps you would for publishing any normal Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing eBook.
To create the artwork, you can always do one of these things:
- Draw them yourself
- Hire a freelance artist
- Purchase vector image licensing and alter the images to fit your story
- Use Canva
- Use AI
If you hire a freelancer or purchases licensing, make sure you have the full right you need to publish the works as a part of your book. Sometimes you have to read the fine print to make sure.
This is also true with Canva.
AI is still so new. Even though the results I’m seeing coming out of platforms like Midjourney are amazing, there’s a lot of unknowns as far as using AI artwork in your book. At this time, you definitely can’t copyright AI art.
If you opt to use AI, I would suggest that you use it as an idea and concept engine only. The work generated by AI would make a great starting point for you or a freelance artist.
When I created my children’s books, I purchased vector art licenses and spent many hours in GIMP altering them to create a small world for my monkey story. I was able to produce two characters in a variety of poses that I could use for my book.
3. Compile Your Work into One PDF File
If you hired out for the last step, then you can probably skip this step by having your artist convert the book to PDF. It’s important that you have the book ready to go in PDF to finish your book. I used Keynote to put together the entire book after completing the art work. However, you can use any software that will allow for saving to PDF such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, LibreOffice, Google Docs, etc.
I prefer using the slideshow style software because it’s much easier to manipulate the elements. You choose what is easiest for you, just remember to save to PDF.
4. Download & Install Kindle Kids Book Creator
Simply search up Amazon Kindle Kids’ Book Creator software and download a copy from Amazon only. There’s no need to go to third party sites for this software.
5. Upload & Convert Your PDF on Kindle Kids’ Book Creator
This is a fairly intuitive process and I believe you can take it from here. In the event you get lost, then feel free to drop Amazon KDP a line or use the Help menu tab at the top of the window. Once you save the eBook, you’ll be ready to upload it to KDP.
6. Publish it to KDP
Publish your book like you normally would on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The only difference is you’ll have to upload the file
that Amazon Kindle Kids’ Book Creator saves to your computer.
My first children’s book Grumpy Gus Beats the Blues became a number one bestseller in its category the first week it was released. The book took me about twelve hours to produce, including the time it took to write, develop art, and figure out how to use Kindle Kids’ Book Creator.
I’ve since produced two more titles related to the Grumpy Gus world and plan to eventually expand the brand.
What About Print?
You certainly don’t want to leave print options on the table because it can mean extra profits, but print formatting is a lot more complicated than Kindle. There’s no Kindle Kid’s Book Creator for print, unfortunately. You’ll probably need to hire a professional.