Publishing Decisions Are Marketing Decisions – Here’s What That Means for Your Book
The KidLit Creator’s Chronicle #52
A little while ago, I ran a free training on self-publishing for children’s book authors. I wasn’t sure how much interest there would be, but there was loads! Many authors showed up and there were many questions that came up live and lightbulb moments. I could see this is something that authors really do need help with.
So I wanted to bring some of what we covered into this week’s Chronicle, because not everyone could make the training, and because some of this is important enough to be worth saying twice.
In the training, I covered five of the most common self-publishing mistakes children’s book authors make. Today I’m going to go deeper on three of them. And if you want to see all five, I’ve made the training available to watch for free for a limited time.
(Actually, if you’d like to go watch it now, you can access it here. It’s about an hour, and it’s specific to children’s book authors. No generic self-publishing advice that doesn’t apply to picture books. If you come back and read the rest of this after, even better.)
Let’s get into it.
Publishing Decisions are Marketing Decisions
Before we get to the mistakes, I want to share the single most important thing I said in that training, because everything else flows from it.
Most authors think of publishing as an admin task, or a series of technical steps to get through so you can get to the other side and start thinking about selling your book.
But publishing is not separate from marketing. It is marketing.
Every decision you make during the publishing process—your keywords, categories, book description, and pricing—determines whether readers ever find your book at all. Get those decisions right, and your book shows up when a potential book buyer searches for what you’ve written. Get them wrong, and even a beautifully written, beautifully illustrated book can sit undiscovered on Amazon indefinitely.
I’ve seen it happen over and over again, and it’s sad and avoidable.
With that in mind, let’s look at the three mistakes.
Three Publishing Mistakes
Mistake One: Treating Your Metadata Like Admin
First, let me quickly explain what metadata is. Metadata is simply all the information you enter about your book when you publish: your title, description, keywords, categories, pricing, age range (and more). It’s how the platforms and the algorithms understand what your book is and who it’s for.
The mistake most authors make is treating these fields like a form to get through. They type something into the description box, guess at a few keywords, pick a couple of categories, and hit publish.
And then they wonder why nobody is finding their book.
First, keywords.
Keywords are so crucial to get your book found by potential buyers.
You get seven keywords on KDP, each up to 50 characters. Most authors either leave some blank, input very little, repeat words from their title, or type in things like “children’s book” or “picture book”. These phrases are so broad and competitive that their book has zero chance of ranking for them.
You need to think like the person purchasing a picture book (usually a parent, a teacher, a librarian, or a grandparent). People search in phrases like “picture book for first day of school” or “funny books for five year olds about feelings” or “bedtime story about a new baby.” Those specific kinds of phrases are exactly what your keyword slots should contain.
Book description
Most authors write a summary for their book description. They introduce the character and describe the plot. But a summary doesn’t sell.
A book description should be an advertisement.
It needs to hook the reader, create desire, and leave enough mystery that they buy.
When your description starts with “This is a story about a little bear named Theo,” you’ve already lost a bunch of people. When it starts with something that creates curiosity, tension, or an emotional reaction, people keep reading.
Every field on your publishing dashboard is a marketing decision. The authors who understand that are the ones whose books get found.
Mistake Two: Getting Your ISBNs and Platform Setup Wrong
The most common version of this mistake goes like this: An author publishes on KDP, uses the free KDP ISBN because it’s right there and it’s free, gets their book live on Amazon, and thinks they’re done. Then they go to set up on IngramSpark (the world’s largest book distributor that gets books into libraries, school libraries, and bookstores) and they discover that the free KDP ISBN cannot be used on IngramSpark.
IngramSpark is important. School and library sales can be a significant revenue stream, and they order through Ingram, not through Amazon. If your book isn’t on IngramSpark, it effectively doesn’t exist for a huge portion of your potential buyers.
Get your own ISBNs. You need one per format: paperback, hardcover, and ebook. In the US that’s through Bowker, in the UK through Nielsen, and in Canada it’s free through Library and Archives Canada. This gives you full control, lists your own imprint as the publisher, and works across every platform.
The other part of this mistake is publishing on only one platform and assuming that’s enough. KDP covers Amazon, which is huge (for ebooks especially). But it doesn’t cover Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, OverDrive, Hoopla, or the library networks. Draft2Digital fills that gap for ebooks, and IngramSpark fills it for print. Together, they give your book worldwide reach.
Getting the foundation right at the start costs a little more time and a little money upfront, but getting it wrong costs you sales forever if you don’t fix it.
Mistake Three: Publishing and Doing Nothing
This mistake breaks my heart a little, because it happens to authors who have written a wonderful book with beautiful illustrations, but then they hit publish, and… wait.
No launch plan… just a book going live on Amazon and an author hoping something happens.
Amazon pays close attention to early sales and reviews, and when it sees them, it starts promoting your book organically. When it doesn’t see them, your book gets no push, and it disappears into a catalogue of millions.
Reviews matter a lot, because social proof sells books. A book with no reviews is a much harder sell than one with even five or ten honest reviews.
Approach your launch with a clear plan, well before your publish date. That means lining up advance readers (teachers, librarians, book and parent bloggers, fellow children’s book authors) who will read your book and post an honest review during your launch. Build awareness in the weeks before you publish, and have a launch period where you’re actively promoting, emailing, and driving people to your book page. Around 5-7 days is good.
You also need to set up your Amazon book page to get people to want to buy your book. Most authors publish and never touch it again. But your book page is your storefront, and it deserves attention. A+ Content (visual content that appears below your description) is free to create through KDP and incredibly powerful for picture books. You can show interior spreads, introduce your characters, and show the book being read to/by a child. Many authors don’t use it at all. The ones who do stand out immediately.
Publishing is not the end. It’s really just the start of your book being out in the world. And what you do in the first few weeks can make a huge difference.
What Happens When You Get It Right
The authors I’ve worked with through my publishing programs don’t have big budgets or marketing teams. Many of them had never published a book before. But when they followed a clear, strategic publishing process, when they got their metadata right, set up their platforms correctly, and launched with intention, the results were great.
Authors hitting number one in their Amazon category and getting into school libraries and bookstores.
That’s what’s possible when you treat every publishing decision as a marketing decision, and you can do it too!
Want to See All Five Mistakes?
I’ve covered three of the most common mistakes here, but in the free training I ran recently, I covered five, including two more that trip up a lot of authors, one around pricing and one around the long-term health of your book after it’s live.
If you’d like to watch it, you can access it here.
And as always, if anything raised a question, hit reply and let me know.
Publishing your book is one of the most exciting things you’ll do as an author. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right decisions made in the right order, it can be exciting, and your book can reach the readers it’s meant for.
