Self-Publishing Children’s Books

Mrs Kangaroo's New BabyIn honor of the International Children’s Book Day, I thought I would talk about publishing children’s books via CreateSpace. My particular experience started after my parents passed away and I was going through their files. My father was an artist and my mother was a teacher, actually almost direct opposites in temperament, so I was surprised and excited to find the layout of a children’s book written by my mother and illustrated by my father. It was very obvious the little project had never seen a publisher, so I determined to publish it for them.

Because the story was short and simple, appealing to younger children, I chose an 8”x10” paperback format for it — easier for small hands to hold, and the layout my parents had designed fit perfectly. Since the original work was done back in the 1950s, my parents had done a literal cut and paste — typing up the text on a typewriter, cutting the lines out with scissors and pasting or taping them onto the board mats where my dad had drawn the illustrations. Lucky for me, the glue and tape held on after all these years, so it was easy for me to see exactly how they envisioned the set-up of the book. Continue reading “Self-Publishing Children’s Books”

Featured Author: Al Holtz

Al Holtz is the married father of three girls and lives in Northern Virginia. He has been a fan of superheroes all his life, and a fan of children’s books since he started reading to his kids over a decade ago. Holiday Heroes League is the joining of those two passions, and was over three years in the making.

Al’s ongoing projects include a series of board books for toddlers and a science fiction short story.

In addition to writing, Al works as an IT professional, is a huge football fan, and spends much of his other spare time coaching his daughters in soccer and basketball. Continue reading “Featured Author: Al Holtz”