I’ve got this cute children’s book idea, but now what? I did a lot of research into how to get published, but as this is not my main career, and I had no clue what I was doing. I submitted my work to a few publishing companies and was SHOCKED to hear they were interested. I was so proud of myself. I mean, I’ve never written anything and here I am sending my work in, and TWO publishing companies want it??? Amazing. I was also shocked to hear they wanted money from ME in order to publish. In fact, all the money would come from me and none from them. I soon found out these are called hybrid publishing companies. Potentially a valid option for some, but I postponed signing on the dotted line until I could do some online detective work and talk with someone in the field.
Annie, owner of Mountain Mindset Counseling, encouraged me to self publish. Not only did she encourage me to self publish, but offered to do it with me, while she worked on the illustrations! (That, my friends, is what I call “win, win”!) Annie isn’t an illustrator and I’m not an author, how bad could this be?!
Still one problem, two great minds together still didn’t have the answers needed! So, we set out to find someone who could help. Through the incredible network of business owners and coaches that we work with, we were introduced to Danise DiStasi, an amazing business woman turned children’s book author. She has a great message about love that she spreads in each of her books, and she so kindly sat down and spoke to us about what she did to get published. What struck us most about Danise’s book was how mature they were. For a children’s book, she made concepts like love, kindness and patience understandable for young readers. That kind of approach was inspiring to us.
She gave us some action items that would help us get through the steps to publish this dream of ours. First, we needed a rough illustration for what the book would look like and how it would read. Then, we needed to get an editor. Then bada bing bada boom we get published! Just kidding. What we did learn from Danise was some great life advice that will serve us far beyond this book. She said when you’re feeling overwhelmed, just focus on the very next step. And that’s just what we are doing.
So, if you’re looking for us, you’ll find us hard at work storyboarding our book! Stay tuned for some cute sketches of our creepy sheepy.
Be sure to check out Danise’s work here, purchase her books here!
Mountain Mindset Counseling 