A Hacker Writes a Children's Book

Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by neovive on Friday December 08, 2017 @12:39PM (#15880373)

Great book and write-up. I self-published a children's book about two years ago and experienced the same challenges. I had many previously written manuscripts and decided to publish one at the urging of my kids. I used the editing and design packages offered by our illustrator and published via Amazon CreateSpace (which Amazon seems to be phasing out).

The final book was very nice. However, business-wise, it's not a good investment. It's a good thing I didn't go into the process with any major ambitions. I haven't checked in a while, but I earn a little less than $1 per sale through Amazon (due to fees and printing costs). Most sales were from friends and family and little else. I tried the Amazon promotions, giveaways on GoodReads, etc. It's very hard to sell as a self-published author, unless you already have a huge following.

The book is still a very nice keepsake and it's nice to give away copies to schools and get positive feedback.

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by rev_bird on Friday December 08, 2017 @09:19PM (#15883875)

>published via Amazon CreateSpace (which Amazon seems to be phasing out).

I just published my second book through CreateSpace, any phasing-out would be news to me, but I'm very curious what you mean. My experience the second time around seemed basically identical to the first—what's getting phased out?

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by neovive on Saturday December 09, 2017 @09:22PM (#15889460)

Since Amazon owns both CreateSpace and KDP, it does seem inevitable that they will eventually merge them under the KDP umbrella. Although there is no fixed timeline, the launch of KDP Paperback brings this one step closer. I like CreateSpace, so I hope it persists as long as possible. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201952960

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by rev_bird on Monday December 11, 2017 @10:46PM (#15902852)

Oh wow, I hadn't heard about KDP Paperback. They're literally telling people to start moving stuff over. Thanks for responding.

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by arthurjj on Friday December 08, 2017 @12:47PM (#15880429)

It's nice to hear someone else had a similar experience marketing their book. I didn't try GoodReads giveaway, did you see any increase in sales from it?

Also care to link to the book?

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by neovive on Friday December 08, 2017 @01:35PM (#15880763)

I didn't sell any directly from GoodReads (at least that I noticed), but received some very nice feedback from the giveaway winners after mailing them copies.

Sure. It's a rhyming picture book: "My Adventures in Sillyville"- https://www.amazon.com/dp/1512201200/.

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by stuaxo on Friday December 08, 2017 @01:58PM (#15880968)

This looks good, I could imagine buying one for my daughter, though we in the UK and this is in US English.

I'm guessing internationalised versions are not in the future - apart from "Behavior" are there many other US spellings in it ?

It took me quite a while to realise the picture of the cover was a link to Amazon, but maybe that is just me.

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Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book by arthurjj on Friday December 08, 2017 @03:48PM (#15881911)

You can buy in the UK from https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1548489778/

Thanks for letting me know that it was confusing that the picture was a link. I updated the page with a more obvious amazon.com and amazon.co.uk link.

I don't think there are too many US only spellings. Behaviour was the only one my (English) mother commented on...

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