ShieldCrest Publishing Blog

 So the manuscript's finished. Edited, formatted, cover designed, and it's live on Amazon or sitting on a shelf in your local bookshop with your name on the spine. Now comes the bit nobody warns you about properly: getting anyone to actually buy the thing. It's easy to assume marketing belongs to publishers with six-figure budgets, but that's not really how it works these days. A bit of creativity, a willingness to show up consistently, and some solid guidance from one of the best self publishing companies in the UK can take you a surprisingly long way without draining your bank account. Give Readers Somewhere Proper to Land Before you spend anything, sort out the basics. A simple author website — even a single page built on a free tool — gives curious readers a place to find out who you are, what else you've written, and how to hear from you again. An Amazon author page and a Goodreads profile take about twenty minutes to set up and cost nothing. None of this ...

 So you've written a children's book and you're staring down the barrel of publishing costs. Illustrations alone can run into thousands of pounds, and that's before you've touched printing, editing or marketing. This is where crowdfunding comes in, and for a lot of first-time authors, it's turned out to be the difference between a manuscript gathering dust and a book sitting on a child's shelf. Before you go down that road, though, it's worth understanding what these campaigns actually involve, because they're not just a matter of posting a link and waiting for the money to roll in. Some writers do end up going down the traditional route instead, in which case looking into reputable publishers in the UK accepting submissions is a sensible parallel step to take while you weigh your options. Why Authors Turn to Crowdfunding Traditional publishing can feel like a locked door, particularly for children's authors, since picture books need illustrat...