Starting Your Home School Adventurers Book

This blog is an open invitation for writers to add to a series of adventure books about home schooled children. The target audience is young readers and families that like to read books out loud.  In the year 2013, I recommend going the self published route, at least to begin with. Finding a traditional publisher is becoming less and less relevant. Here are some of the problems you will have to deal with to get a traditional publisher to consider your work.

1. You will need a literary agent. Without a literary agent, it is very hard for your book to get the attention of a publisher. Finding a literary agent that is in tune with the home school culture is just as hard. If you read the education background and past clients of most agents, you will most likely find her (or less likely him) to be a liberal progressive.  Liberal progressive and home schooling are usually not closely associated. Most agents just don't get home schooling and don't see it worth the time to promote such books to equally liberal publishers.

2. Publishers are not likely to sign first time authors. Unless you are already a successful author, it is hard to get your book published.  We have all read the stories of successful authors who had their work rejected dozens of  times before finally breaking through. Going this route has a low chance of success.

3. Traditional publishing royalties are 5-10%, so if they sell your book for $10.00, you won't make much more than $0.50. You even have to buy your own book if you want extra copies.

Here are the reasons to go the self publishing route.

1. You keep control of your story and get it to market faster. Instead of spending months or years trying to find a literary agent and publisher, you can get your story to an audience as soon as your story is ready.

2. Self publishing is easy. This a growing and user friendly industry. You will be surprised to learn how easy it is to get your book edited and ready for publication, either in a print version or ebook.

3. Self publishing means you keep 70% of sales revenue, not 5%. Amazon and other ebook channels offer authors ~70% of the revenue.  There are number of ebook millionaires out there. While I am not there yet, my books resulted in a four figure income last year with growth every month.

Home schooling is not cheap. You may not become the home school equivalent of J.K. Rowling, but if you write and publish your home school story, don't be surprised that it will bring you some extra money every month.