'Proper Pig'--How I self-published my first Children's book using Amazon Kindle and Google Docs.
Almost one year ago now I had a dream.
I was standing in an empty room with a spotlight on me, and as I stood there, I asked myself, "What am I supposed to do with a proper pig?!" In the background of the dream, a song was playing. The tune was 'Big Iron' by Marty Robins, but the words were all about a pig with a napkin at his hip.
...Needless to say, I woke up with quite a funny story to tell my grandmother, who laughed and suggested I turn it into a kid's book! I set to work right away, designing sketches, planning the story, and then deciding that Proper Pig would be a series.
--But you probably don't care about that stuff, so let me get down to the main subject here.
Do you have a children's book you want to publish? Not sure how? Then this post is for you!
First off, I am not an expert. I am a teen writer who is trying to get rich on a nonexistant budget with a cheap laptop and the support of her coffee machine. I repeat: I am not an expert.
If anyone is curious, I did everything using an Acer Google Chromebook, I illustrated my book using Ibis Paint X, and I published it all with Amazon.
After a year of creating ugly sketches (that I love and call my illustrations), I uploaded them in a google doc, then went to KDP (Here's a link to Amazon's indie publishing service, which is free to use) and uploaded the doc-turned-pdf to KDP. I spent three days fine-tuning everything, then three hours after it hit the market, I started writing this blog post at 3 AM ;D
Then I went to sleep. Like, as I wrote this line I was closing my laptop.
Skip to the next morning and my first children's book is available for purchase as an Ebook!! I'm still waiting on the paperback to get approved though.
I admit, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to publish it. Amazon kept saying I needed to use one of their programs (which is unconveniently unavailable for download in the Google playstore) to format my book. Google Docs worked perfectly fine though once I figured out what I was doing, which took me two days XD
So to anyone wanting to publish with a google device on Amazon, you can do it for free without using a Windows or Apple device. Take that, Amazon suggestions :P XD
If you want to look at *cough* or buy *cough* my new book, here's the link!! I'm running a sale for it in March if anyone wants to buy it then!
God bless!!
