Creating And Selling Books For Children With Daniel Miller

How can you write a book that children will love? How can you reach schools and libraries with your books? What might you be leaving on the table in terms of revenue in your author business? Daniel Miller shares his tips, and we also discuss the potential opportunities in his business model.

In the intro, I talk about London Book Fair 2022, petition against Amazon's ebook return policy [Change.org], Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives, and Other Introverts.

Plus, want to win 14 crime/thriller/mystery novels? Enter the Easter giveaway (8-18 April 2022)

Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, who I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 39,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries and more. It's your content – do more with it through IngramSpark.com.

Daniel Jude Miller is the author and illustrator of seven children's books.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

* From illustration to writing* Tips for authors who want to work with an illustrator* Why publishing independently is worth the ‘necessary evil' of the business side in order to retain creative control* Print runs vs print-on-demand for illustrated books — and are you leaving money on the table?* Selling children’s books direct through classroom visits, and on an author website

You can find Daniel Miller at djudemiller.com and on Twitter @djudemiller

Transcript of Interview with Daniel Miller

Joanna: Daniel Jude Miller is the author and illustrator of seven children's books. Welcome to the show, Daniel.

Daniel: Hello, and thank you for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today.

Tell us a little bit more about you, and how you got into writing books for children.

Daniel: Well, that's an interesting story because I did not want to write books for children. In fact, I didn't want to write books for anyone. I actually started out as an illustrator.

I was the kid that was drawing in school, I was the one who went to a special art high school, I went to art college, and I only wanted to be an illustrator. I had no plans on writing. I never actually even tried.

Growing up, when I was in school, it wasn't really a thing that they focused on, so I never even attempted it. When I was about 25, I got an idea for a story, and I had a problem because I had two choices, either I was going to let somebody else write it and just do the illustrations for my own idea, or I'd have to actually learn how to write.

So,