Publishing a book has been on my bucket list (my life to-do list) ever since I was a sophomore in high school. At the time I had no idea what I wanted to write. I just thought publishing a book sounded cool. I had no idea how much work and persistence went into publishing a children’s book, but I’d do the whole journey all over again. Here’s the story of my publishing journey. . . .
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My Inspiration
Almost four years ago when my daughter, Charlie Marie, was only 2 weeks old. I was nursing her in the rocking chair looking down at her, and I had this strong feeling like I was holding something divine. I knew she was from heaven and that she has Heavenly Parents who love her.
Later that day, I was reading the scriptures and came across a story with a male protagonist. I had this feeling that my daughter needed stories of scripture women she could look up to and that I should write them into stories she could relate to and that would inspire her even while she is young. Many of the scripture stories I grew up hearing had men as the main characters. I longed for scripture stories to share with my daughter that highlighted and celebrated women.
I called Aubri (my twin sister), who had an infant baby girl of her own, and told her the idea. We immediately got to work.
The Writing Process
We poured through the scriptures and were shocked to discover dozens of women with incredible stories. Some of these women I had never heard of before or at least didn’t remember.
We drafted their stories specifically writing them in easy-to-read language. We also wanted the woman to shine as the heroine of her own story. After looking at our collection, we whittled it down to the 34 stories we felt were the strongest. Then we edited them again and again. We finally had a book.
Dear Divine Daughter: Inspiring Stories of Bible Women is a children’s book that features 34 inspiring stories of Bible women, 34 beautiful illustrations created by several female artists, and 34 unique adjectives: just, brave, caring, confident, faithful, and much more. Each story ends with a prompt encouraging the reader to think about how she too can develop that characteristic. This book celebrates women and highlights the beauty of unique strengths. Your daughter and girls everywhere can study the stories of these inspiring Bible women, work on developing her own divine characteristics, and understand her value as daughters of God.
Finally we felt ready to submit our manuscript to multiple publishers. We pushed a few submit buttons and crossed our fingers. After months of waiting to hear back the responses rolled in. . . .
No. With rejections from every publisher we submitted to, we were disappointed but not deflated. Determined to give these stories to our daughters, we pursued the daunting self-publishing route.
Preparing for Self- Publishing a Children’s Book
Self-publishing a children’s book brought a long list of to-do’s and we wore many hats. We were writers, editors, project managers, accountants, graphic designers, publishers, fulfillment managers, legal aides, marketing managers, filmmaker/editors, photographers, etc. Really our responsibilities broke down into three main purposes:
Managing the Book Project
After writing and editing our book there was still a ton of work to be done on it, so we continued to manage the project. We found and secured our eight illustrators, managed communication and the project timeline with the illustrators, hired a professional editor, created a mood board and style guide for the book, figured out the front- and back matter, designed the cover and interior pages including layout and fonts and design elements, found a printer, researched packaging and shipping methods, etc.
Doing the Boring Work
We also did a lot of un-fun business and legal stuff. Things like creating illustrator contracts, setting up a business LLC, setting up a business bank account, paying illustrators and the editor, etc. This stuff was by far our least favorite part of the entire process.
Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
The marketing responsibilities were vital to the success of our book. We did things like setting up social media accounts and an email account, creating posts and content for social media, creating a website, getting bios and headshots of us and our illustrators, creating mockups of our book for sharing, reaching out to influencers, doing giveaways, etc. The Kickstarter was a huge project in itself but a necessary step for our book. For this we prepared a Kickstarter campaign page by filming and editing a Kickstarter marketing video, making Kickstarter infographics, creating Kickstarter rewards, figuring out pricing, etc.
For those looking to self-publish, I’m not trying to scare you away! More like give you a list of things you could do to publish a book. The reality is it takes a lot of work to make a successful book. To organize ourselves and keep track of all of our to-do’s, we used a google spreadsheet. Then it was just checking off the task and moving onto the next.
The Kickstarter Launch
After doing everything we could to prepare, the day came for our Kickstarter launch. We really had no idea if we would hit our funding goal or not. With Kickstarter, it’s all or nothing. If you don’t hit your funding goal then you don’t get any of the pledges. The funding benchmark was important though because it was going to help us know if people were actually interested in our project. We were passionate about our book, but were other people?
My sister and I talked about what we would do if we didn’t get funded on Kickstarter. We decided we were going to print a couple dozen copies of our book to give to our daughters and save a few for posterity. Basically, we were going to call it a very expensive passion project haha.
Our Kickstarter went live on September 29 2020, and by October 1 2020 we were fully funded! We were floored! People wanted our book! People were passionate about sharing the stories of Bible women with their daughters and learning about the women themselves!
Getting Picked Up By a Publisher
We had been rejected by publishers, but we now knew we had a strong market and passionate readers. With Kickstarter backers to back us up, we again reached out to the publishers. This time, one of the publishers said yes!
We knew we were leaving money on the table by going with a publisher but decided to go with one for two main reasons:
1) Less work and less headache. My husband and I are no strangers to fulfilling and shipping our own products, and we knew having a publisher take care of the fulfillment side of things was a huge burden off of our shoulders. 2) More importantly, they could get our book to more people. Our goal isn’t money, it’s getting our book into the hands of more girls. Aubri and I wrote the book for our own daughters, but we wanted other girls to grow up knowing these inspiring stories of Bible women. We knew our hustle could only take our book so far and that we needed a publisher to break into bookstores. With that decided, we signed the contract!
Getting a Publisher was Just the Beginning
Getting a publisher was only the beginning of publishing a children’s book! We’ve continued to hustle and work hard. Our book officially launched in September 2021. We’ve thrown a launch party, been interviewed on podcasts, hosted giveaways, and even did a TV interview. In October 2021 we saw our book in Deseret Book, Costco, and on various online marketplaces (like Amazon). Our book has sold out of almost everywhere so a second batch has been ordered.
We feel very humbled to know Dear Divine Daughter: Inspiring Stories of Bible Women is in thousands of households. It’s incredible knowing it is being read by thousands of people eager to learn more about Bible women. (None of this could be possible without our incredible supporters, readers, and reviewers!) We can’t wait to see what happens next!
P.S. Book number 2 is under way!