Behind the Books

“The publishing industry is an odd mixture of commerce and culture.” — Jason Epstein I f you’re publishing through IngramSpark, returns are something you don’t really think about at the beginning aside from checking a few boxes when you upload your books. Then one day they show up in your report as a return and completel y change how you feel about your “sales.” What makes them especially frustrating is how random they seem. You can go months without seeing a single return, then suddenly they appear for books that were sold weeks or even months ago. There’s no warning, no clear trigger, and no way to predict when it’s coming. I talked about why IngramSpark is part of our global reach publishing plan here. Why Returns Show Up Months Later For me the confusion came from how book distribution actually works inside this system. When a retailer orders your book through IngramSpark, that isn’t always a final sale for you. Bookstores order on a returnable basis, which means they can send copi...

"Every translation is a reading..."  - Jacques Derrida As a publisher building French and other language editions of our children’s books, I’ve seen firsthand where today's automated translation tools fall short. Let's face it, AI translation tools are fast, accessible and they are increasingly sophisticated. For quick comparisons or basic checks, they can even be helpful. I use them as part of my toolbox in my workflow as a publisher, but not for the various language adaptations we have now or will be hiring people for in the future. Why we don't use AI translations for our books Publishing children’s books, especially books that deal with breastfeeding, bodies, and early childhood transitions, requires more than technical accuracy. It requires cultural fluency, tonal sensitivity, really it's that lived understanding and being able to share thoughts and feelings in a way that machines can't ever understand. That is where human translators remain essential...

“When the artist removes the text, they invite readers to decode the pictures for themselves.” — David Wiesner The term “picture book” gets used often, but it has a more specific meaning in children’s publishing than people sometimes expect.  At its core, a picture book tells a story through both images and text. The illustrations are not simply there to decorate the page, they carry part of the story themselves, adding information, emotion, and context that the words alone do not always explain. Shared Reading Time Picture books are also designed to be read aloud. The pacing, sentence structure, and overall flow are shaped by how the story sounds when spoken. This shared reading experience is a big part of what makes picture books feel engaging for both the child and the adult reading with them. These are often the books that are read during circle time at school or at the libraries. Length of Picture Books They are typically short and focused, often meant to be read in one sittin...

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” — Mark Twain One thing I did not expect when publishing my books was the number of unusual emails that would suddenly start appearing in my inbox.  They often arrive out of the blue, usually with a friendly message that says something like: “I recently came across your book and thought the concept was creative and helpful.” At first glance, it sounds flattering. Someone found the book and someone liked the idea. Maybe they want to help promote it.  But after receiving a few of these messages, it becomes clear that something else is going on. The Email Sounds Almost Professional Recently I received another email about one of our books -  Bye-Bye, Boobies: A Rhyming Story About Weaning from Nursing . The sender said they had discovered the book and wanted to share “two quick promotion ideas” that could improve visibility and reader engagement with families who are going through the weaning ...

  The Camel’s Nose is now available in hardcover and softcover! The Camel's Nose Book page . This classic picture book fable for children ages 4–8 is Book Two in the Monarch Tales collection, a growing series of traditional and original stories adapted for modern family and classroom reading. In The Camel’s Nose, a traveler settles into his tent for the night when a camel asks for a small kindness: just his nose inside to escape the cold. What follows is the steady unfolding of one of the most enduring cautionary tales in traditional storytelling. The simple premise makes it accessible for young readers, while the layered structure makes it ideal for read-aloud discussions at home and in early elementary classrooms. When I was researching this book, I found that while often attributed to Aesop, The Camel’s Nose is not one of Aesop’s original fables. Still, the story has appeared in classic fable collections for generations and remains widely referenced in literature and educa...

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” — Albert Einstein Marketing Kids Books Tips That's what I looked up and found the number one tip was free printable colouring pages. Free Printables When I first started researching how to expand and market children’s books, the advice was nearly universal: create a free printable page and offer it in exchange for email sign-ups. It was presented as the standard path. I did create some free printable pages, and added those to the Resources Page and think these are fun and will continue doing that here and there. At the time, I only had Bye-Bye, Boobies in progress, and I was not even sure whether there would be more books after that. Building an email funnel around a single title felt premature. I did not want to create something transactional. I wanted to build something sustainable, even if it grew slowly so I started talking to librarians, homeschooling moms and teachers as to what would be helpfu...