Self-Publishing Picture Books Webinar by Sherryl Clark

Self-Publishing Picture Books Webinar  

This was put on by SCBWI Tasmania branch in Australia, and was a great example of how easy it is for our SCBWI members to make the most of all that is on offer via our organization.

The main speaker was Frances Mackay, who told us she started a small publishing company in the UK originally, and then continued with the publishing when she moved to Tassie. Her website is at https://www.francesmackay.com/ 

You will see that she does very colourful books, quite a few activity books and some picture books. It was really interesting to see her comparison of the costings of two picture books, one where she paid a professional illustrator who was also able to do all the design of her book (that was about $10,000) and the other was a shorter simple counting book where she bought illustrations from an online site and then negotiated with the American illustrator for a few more. She then also had to pay for page design and to create print-ready files.

The bought illustrations and paid design worked out cheaper, but as she said, our illustrators are so good and deserve to be paid for what is months of work. She talked a little about the various print options as well, and mentioned that KDP (Amazon) had just opened a new printing plant in Sydney, and the quality of their books had improved a lot. Other printers were mentioned, including some in China (because there are currently no printers in Australia that do hardcover picture books at an affordable price).

Two other speakers – one who had self-published a non-fiction picture book and one who was doing well going around to schools and kindergartens and door-knocking – rounded out a good, informative session.

You can check out Frances Mackay's website here


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