Self-Publish a Children’s Book (Take a Publishing Course)
If you have a children’s book you’d like to bring to life, a publishing course will help make the dream reality!
In our Certificate of Publishing – Writing for Children, you’ll explore the process of publishing children’s books and young adult fiction.
You’ll learn about developmental landmarks, reading level assessments and their relationship to children’s publishing. You’ll also learn about publishing procedures and techniques, desktop publishing, illustrations, research, marketing and ethics and law for children’s book publishing.
Learning Outcomes
Outcomes achieved by undertaking our children’s book publishing course include:
- Children’s book genres
- Picture books
- Non-fiction for children
- Self-publishing and the educational market
- Developmental landmarks in children’s books
- How reading level is assessed
- Reading schemes – levelled readers in action
- Finalising a manuscript
- Alpha readers and beta readers
- Developmental editing
- Copyediting
- Proofreading
- Illustrations
- Working with an illustrator
- Page design
- Picture book design
- Design-templates
- Layout and typography
- Typography in children’s books
- Different software and settings
- Desktop publishing
- eBooks and publishing
- Audiobooks
- Introduction to illustration and graphics
- What is the purpose of the illustration or graphic?
- Child-like design or adult appeal?
- Graphic novels
- Advertising
- Preparing a brief
- Researching for fiction
- Marketing toward retailers
- Sensitivity, cultural and linguistic diversity
- Censorship and book banning
- Copyright laws and ethics
- Gaining copyright
- Copyright notice
- Codes of ethics
And more!
7 Trending Types of Children’s Books
A publishing course will open up the many possibilities of children’s writing, but check out what’s currently trending if you’re stuck for inspiration.
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Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are a format rather than a genre. Quite simply, they are stories written and illustrated like a comic book. They have few words accompanied by vivid illustrations that capture the reader’s attention. Also, attention-grabbing is a graphic novel’s reliance on action-packed (or drama-filled) comedy. Unlike comics, they involve complex plots and are standalone stories.
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Twisted Fairy Tales
Twisted tales have become famous for their ability to reimagine classic tales. The novels always come up with what is known as a ‘twisted tale’ – retellings that follow a familiar narrative but that have an exciting twist or that turn the plot and characters on their heads.
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Interactive Books
Interactive books help children develop the habit of reading and learning new things. These books are engaging and capture a young reader’s interest. There are many types of interactive books, including those with moving parts, pull tabs, die-cut pages and lift the flap board books!
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Rhyming Books
Exposure to rhyme helps young children develop phonemic awareness, listening and thinking skills, and vocabulary and comprehension skills! Despite the literacy learning potential, rhyming picture books are also great fun to read!
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Ghosts, Monsters & Scares
Children’s books about months, witches and ghosts can help flip fear on its head by making the entertaining fun! They’re also a way to acknowledge that life has scary situations and provide ways to cope with them. It’s fear with a safety net in the form of fiction!
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Mysteries
Reading mystery books isn’t just entertaining. They also encourage children to think! This popular genre is adored for a reason – they’re captivating. Mystery books also encourage deductive reasoning, observation and inference to figure out ‘who dunnit’ before the end of the story!
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Empowered Females
Girl power is alive and well in popular children’s literature. Gone are the days of pink, glittery ballerinas adorning book covers. These depictions are now replaced with strong, sporty, feisty young girls on a mission. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a great example and celebrates the achievement of real women.
6 Inspiring Australian Children’s Authors
A publishing course will give you all the tips, techniques and advice you need to conquer the world of children’s publishing! Here are a few famous Australian authors who have already taken the path to publication and have succeeded!
In 1983, Mem Fox became Australia’s best-selling author. And Fox has remained the foremost writer for young children for a generation. Possum Magic, her first book, is still available in hardback after 39 years and has become a beacon of children’s literature for millions of Australians.
Alison’s picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate their differences. The most important themes in Lester’s work are family and nature-loving and caring for the world and its people!
Graeme Rowland Base is a British-Australian author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, Animalia, published in 1986, and his third book, The Eleventh Hour, was released in 1989.
Jacqueline Harvey is the author of the Alice-Miranda and Clementine Rose series. Her first picture book, The Sound of the Sea, was awarded Honour Book in the 2006 CBC Awards.
Allison Tait (A.L. Tait) is the internationally published bestselling author of the middle-grade adventure series The Mapmaker Chronicles, the Ateban Cipher novels, and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries. Her latest book, THE WOLF’S HOWL (A Maven & Reeve Mystery #2), is out now!
Kate Forsyth wrote her first novel, aged seven, and has sold more than a million books worldwide. She is a direct descendant of Charlotte Waring Atkinson, the author of the first book for children ever published in Australia. Kate’s books for children include the collection of fairy-tale retellings Vasilisa the Wise & Other Tales of Brave Young Women, illustrated by Lorena Carrington
Passionate about publishing a children’s book or working in publishing? Discover our publishing course, the Certificate of Publishing – Writing for Children.
