But Matthew said he sent her a very descriptive brief of what he wanted from each image, and she pretty much got it right every time. The freelancer was in Indonesia and didn’t speak perfect English. When he found someone who was creating illustrations in the style he wanted, Matthew contacted the freelancer to produce a test illustration for him. He started looking on Fiverr, and with an idea of the style of illustrations he wanted Matthew browsed some profiles and portfolios for freelance illustrators. Matthew admits he’s not “artistically inclined” and knew he would need to find an illustrator to bring his story to life with images.
Illustrations are important when creating a children’s book. However, as soon as he realized self-publishing was an option, he knew that was what he wanted to do. He tried reaching out to publishers, as that’s the way most of the authors he’s aware of took their books to print.īut he didn’t get anywhere. Matthew did go down the traditional publishing route first. That’s when Matthew came across the idea of self-publishing.
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So, he started looking into how to get a children’s book published. He finished the book shortly after, but said he “had no idea what to do with it.” Those are the opening lines of the finished book, and Matthew actually wrote 60-70% of the book on his phone during that flight. Lives a curious creature most often asleep. In the rainforests of South America deep,
While on the plane, the idea for the first lines of the book flashed into Matthew’s mind:
Matthew said that for some reason, at that moment he thought it would be funny to write a children’s book about a speedy sloth. He was in an airport, and he saw a poster with a picture of a sloth on it. It was in 2017/18 when Matthew got the idea for his first book Sam The Speedy Sloth. When I was little, I was always writing stories and things like that,” Matthew told me. How’d You Get the Idea for Your First Book? Matthew’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation.Expanding the Portfolio and Branching Into Other Languages.Making the Leap From Full-Time Job to Children’s Author.Marketing Strategies to Promote Kindle Books.How to Design and Layout a Children’s Book for Kindle.How Much Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Children’s Book?.How’d You Get the Idea for Your First Book?.how he’s expanding his portfolio and entering different markets.the most effective ways he’s found to market his books.what the children’s book creation process is like.Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn: Matt has since added more books to his portfolio, while freelancing to help other self-publishing authors. The idea of which came to him while walking through an airport, and by the time his flight landed, the book was almost written. His bestselling work to date is Sam the Speedy Sloth. This week I connected with Matthew Ralph, a children’s book author from England, who recently quit his full-time marketing job to focus on his publishing and freelancing business. (Despite having the outlines of a couple kids books on my phone for the last two or three years!) Royalties from book sales is one of the most passive of all my income streams.Īfter you create a book, with print or digital distribution handled by Amazon, you can collect royalties for years.Īnd while I enjoy the writing process and have published several titles myself, I have yet to venture into the world of children’s books.