Self Publish children's books

Writing wasn't paying the bills, and I had two young children to provide for. I'd read a bunch of Jim Cramer books on options trading after which I convinced myself I could figure it out. I wasn't terrible at it, but I wasn't that good either. I'd managed to skim a bit of a profit trading stock on Marvel Studios when it announced it would create an Iron Man movie.

One day my wife read an article in a local paper about a writer who'd self-published a book using a print on demand service. She convinced me it was time to stop investing in stock options based on comic book character movie hunches and start investing in my writing. I took my Iron Man money and invested it in self-publishing. As usual, my wife was right.

When my book, Sweet Farts (don't judge, kids love it), released in November 2008, my wife and I crossed our fingers and hoped we'd be lucky enough to make our money back some day. We never dreamed that Sweet Farts would hit the Amazon Humorous Bestsellers list by February 2009 and stay there for four years running! At the time, I couldn't have imagined that in only four year's time I'd have eight titles out in the U.S., half a dozen foreign deals, and film offers for my books.

Last year, I launched my new series, School Is A Nightmare. I wanted to write a fun series for kids and bring titles to market quickly. Partnering with Createspace for the book creation services and KDP to reach my readers digitally has been the perfect combination. I've utilized free promotions, participated in the lending library and released an omnibus edition called Quadzilla to help expand the reader base for the series. I'll release several more titles in the series this fall.

I've found that more and more kids are reading digitally on Kindle and Kindle apps. Self-publishing the series allows me to provide content to readers when I want and without delays. The ease of working with Createspace and KDP helps me experiment with new ideas and keep up with a rapidly changing market.

Going forward, I see myself self-publishing some titles and traditionally publishing others. The next installment of my School Is A Nightmare series is in edits right now at Createspace, I just signed a deal for a fun new series with a traditional publisher, and I have several titles completed and ready to go. The most exciting thing about right now is that when I'm writing a book, I know it will be released. I no longer have the dread that the work may never see the light of day.

The days of crossing my fingers and toes are over. I've also given up trading stock options. Self-publishing proved to be a better investment offering very low risk and extraordinarily high reward. I guess those Jim Cramer books paid off after all.