Hey everyone, this is Anoop Pillai – the author of ‘Pinky-Boo and Gumberstonz’ children’s story series. Today I want to take some time and write about publishing and why I chose self-publishing over traditional publishing.
Internet is a wonderful tool and it opened up opportunities in many areas. One of the opportunities it presented was the ability to publish a book without the support of well-known traditional publishers like Penguin, Random House, and HarperCollins, etc. The Internet has opened the floodgates, the volume of books especially in the Children’s book genre has quadrupled.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind traditional publishing at all. The amount of scrutiny the material undergoes would (probably) ensure that the content is up to par. It should ideally reduce the noise and clutter, paving way for better books.
Then why did I not even try Traditional Publishing?
The reason was simple. I wanted full creative control over the material. Over the last 7 years, I had created several stories, plotted and planned the characters and it didn’t seem fair for me to give that control away. ‘Pinky-Boo and Gumz’ was a collection and not just 1 or 2 stories; in 2020, I counted around 120 + stories that I had written in 5 different long notebooks, along with ideas of publishing other contents like Comic Reels.
Also, by the time I decided to start publishing these stories as books – it already felt like I was 5 years late to the party. The next best thing to do was to be able to share these wonderful stories with the world without any further ado. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of finding an agent or pitching to a traditional publisher and waiting for another couple of years.
So it became clear at that point, self-publishing was the way forward for these stories. I already had the storyboards, character sketches, draft manuscripts, and I also took some time to talk to a few folks in the industry. I got a couple of good children’s book publishing and editing professionals to read through the Volume 1 stories, and based on their feedback, the stories were further tweaked.
The Greatest Panda in All of Muffin Town was the first children’s picture book of Pinky-Boo and Gumz story collections, published in May 2021. It was a lot of hard work by a team but finally, I was quite pleased with the outcome. From the time I decided and started working on bringing this project to life, it took me almost a year to get through the entire process. While the royalty for an author for a traditionally published book is considered less, if you are new to this business of authoring and producing books, you will somewhat face the same challenges. Recouping the money that was invested in self-publishing the first book would also seem a little difficult. Pricing, remuneration, and printing methods are something that needs a separate post. Once again, it’s a vast area.
For now, the interweb is a great place to start your research. There are a lot of articles and how-tos online which will give you a fairly good idea of what, who, and how of self-publishing. Also, if you’re patient (unlike me) and wouldn’t mind working with Traditional Publishers, I would suggest you try that avenue as well. With a reputed publisher, your book can get much more exposure as compared to a first-time self-publishing author. I do not mean to say that as a self-publishing author you won’t be successful, it takes time and some planning.
If you are still on the fence about whether to approach a traditional publisher or self-publish, here are a couple of articles to read:
https://www.thecreativepenn.com/self-publishing-vs-traditional/
https://www.janefriedman.com/key-book-publishing-path/
Got questions? I’m not an expert but I will most definitely be happy to chat. Hit me up. All the best with whatever you choose!