Seeking Publisher for me to Publish my foster care book

[Quinn]

I am in the midst of writinga book about my 16 year experience as a foster child and also the experience of losing both parents one year apart while in foster care. If you have any suggestions please get back to me. Thanks.

[Christine Mitchell]

Hi Quinn,

You want to get a reference book with info. about all the publishers. The one I used was the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Guide. So if your book is for adults, there is probably a different guide. But it lists all the publishers and tells you whether they will accept unsolicited manuscripts (not from a book angent), and whether they want to see the entire manuscript or just a query letter (the guide I used describesthe format of a query letter). The guide should tell you what type of material each publisher is seeking, as well as their contact information.

A couple of publishers liked my first book, but didn't think there was enough of a market for it (older child adoption theme). So I self-published it through a Print-On-Demand publisher called AuthorHouse. You can probably publish a book through them for a few hundred dollars. They got the book on Amazon, Borders.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Target.com, Walmart.com and a million other sites. I marketed my book by e-mailing adoption agencies, support groups, social workers and therapists. I got endorsements from other adoption authors, and sent out review copies. It sells about 100 copies a month on-line (not in any book stores except my local one). You can also take advantage of Amazon by entering tags and search terms for your book to help people find it. You also have to upload the book summary, endorsements, etc. onto Amazon. I am doing my next children's book through AuthorHouse (due out in a few weeks).

Another option is CreateSpace.com. This is a Print-on-Demand service offered by Amazon. There is no cost to the author, but the book is only listed on Amazon. You have to do all formatting and sent them a read-to-print file, so you are doing the layout and design work (whereas Authorhouse does this fo you). With either AuthorHouse or CreateSpace they don't print the books until they are ordered, (although Aazon now keeps mine in stock). You then get royalty checks quarterly. With both services you basically determine your royalty amount by setting the cover price. It is posible to have a lower cover price and get a higher royalty cost through CreateSpace, but it is more work and it is not distributed as widely. I am going to ty CreatSpace for another children's book that is more of a workbook to be used in therapy.

Best of luck to you! I look forward to hearing more about the book and your publishing journey.

Christine Mitchell