As an aspiring writer of picture books (and kidlit more generally), I read books and articles about how to write these works. That’s why I picked up Davie Blaze’s 2020 paperback How I Sold 100,000 Children’s Books (and left my job to write full time).
As the title indicates, this book emphasizes selling, rather than writing, but I was still curious.
This brief book is a case study of how one man made a success through self-publishing children’s books. It is very specific and concrete: this is how Blaze did it, not necessarily how others could/might. Some of this is due to technological change (I’m not sure the critique sites mentioned still work that way, for example), and some because, though Blaze mentions doubting himself at times, he is apparently willing and able to completely commit in a way that few are.
He describes starting writing for adults originally–and essentially failing, selling only one copy of his first book–then shifting to writing for self-publishing that title electronically. Blaze then moved on to writing for kids, spent a short but intense time studying the market, and then diving into writing and rewriting his first title.
With the self-published book for adult readers, what seemed to define Blaze’s approach was try things, see what works, and keep track. This led him to list and relist his first book in different Amazon categories, design and redesign the cover, and so on, always aiming for sales and always paying attention to what worked.
When he changed to writing for kids, Blaze spent about a bunch diving into kids books, then started writing. And rewriting. Then self-published, and continued the practice of tinkering, testing, and tracking.
There’s almost no writing advice here, except, perhaps, study your market/genre, trust yourself, try things and pay attention, and learn from what you do. But Blaze’s success is impressive, and the book inspirational. (Did I mention that during this time Blaze was diagnosed with MS during this extended period?)
