Children’s picture books can be serious and teach an important message or whimsical, tickling the reader’s imagination. Children’s picture books are where most children develop their love of reading. Creating a love of reading in the upcoming generation is vital to the success of writers everywhere. Still, children’s picture books have difficulties with writing, self-publishing, and marketing. Here are three tips to help authors succeed when self-publishing a children’s picture book.

1. Less is More

Children’s picture books should be easy for parents to read and engaging for children. Keeping words simple and understandable helps make them easy to digest and helps keep parents from being tongue-tied tripping over complex words as they read their child a bedtime story.

Children’s picture books can have complex ideas but must be delivered succinctly. The self-publishing author should let the illustrations do most of the description work and keep their focus on the plot and characters.

When book printing, the interior book design should consider the short attention span of early readers and should not be text dense. Most children’s books should have a few sentences per page matched with fun visuals.

2. Illustrations Matter

In children’s picture books, the pictures are as important, if not more important, than the words. Having engaging images is vital to a children’s picture book’s success. Young readers use pictures to understand what is happening in the story while learning language skills.

If an author isn’t also an expert illustrator, they should hire someone to create custom illustrations for them, and the books should almost always be printed in color. This is because children find black-and-white drawings less engaging.

3. Have a Marketing Plan

One of the biggest challenges for self-publishing authors of children’s picture books is that the buyer of the book isn’t the consumer of the book, and the author must appeal to both.

Books written to appeal to children still must attract that child’s grown-ups to purchase the book.

This means that the self-publishing author must keep the user and purchaser in mind while marketing their book.

Unlike adult books, children’s books must be, at least partially, sold in physical spaces. Craft fairs, bookstores, and library events are all great places to catch the eye of children. Unfortunately, adults in those spaces may see a children’s book and make an impulse buy, especially if it is near the holidays.

Digital printing services have their place in children’s book marketing. Grown-ups who have heard of a book and want to purchase it for the child in their lives will appreciate being able to order it online and have a copy easily accessible on their devices. However, most self-publishing authors should have a marketing plan that focuses on in-person sales for their children’s picture books.

Whatever custom printing services a self-publishing author needs, InstantPublisher is here to help. Visit our website today for more information on the services we offer.