My Mother and Dad have been working on a series of books of stories for children, and last week they sent them off to the publishers, fully expecting them to be rejected and have to try with someone else. However, the publishers have written back and said they want to publish the books, they feel they will take off really well, and are sending a contract through.

Now, we are being offered two options: to half market the book ourselves as well as the publishers, and pay half the production costs and get full price of books sold; or to leave everything up to the publishers and receive the royalties off every single copy of the book sold.

Mother and Dad are leaning towards the second option, however they asked me to 'ask the people on Holy Worlds what their advice would be', as we have never done anything like this before, so we're not sure what route is normally taken?

Thank you so much! We are very excited about this.

Wow! It's awesome that your parents are getting published!

I don't know much about such things, but it seems like the second option would be easier. *shrug* Congratulations!

Thank you, Aemi!

I've never contracted with a publishing house before, my gut reaction would be to not pay anything up front. Whether or not the profit would ultimately be less I don't know, but having the publisher pay all the expenses is less risk. I should note, though, that you'll probably want to do a lot of marketing of your book regardless.

However, I hesitate to give too much advice, because I do not know your family's financial situation or your goals for the book. Both of those are huge factors in deciding.

Regardless, CONGRATULATIONS!

Thank you, Aubrey! We are leaning towards the second because of the less risk etc, yes.

Mother has always done plenty of art work, and they saw her drawings and asked her if she'd like to do the illustrations herself for the book. So that's what she's been doing all week, it's really exciting.

They have said if it takes off well, they want her to write it as a series of childrens books. But we'll see, that may not happen.

It's an opportunity. Run with the current book and see where it goes! I'm quite excited for y'all.

Me, too!

Keep us updated on how it goes.

Will do!

They asked for two more chapters and illustrations, and said they'll send the contract through. So at the moment we are waiting for Mother to finish the illustrations and for the contract to come though.

How thrilling. It is hard to get accepted the first time by a publisher.

I know, we certainly think it is. That's why we were so surprised!

Mother's just doing all the art work at the moment. She's written the other chapters they wanted. We have heard back from the publishers again, they say they are terribly busy at the moment, but they haven't forgotten about us. We should have the contract soon. It's fine anyway as Mother is working on the art work.

Sounds good.

You'll have to forgive me if I repeated myself some there. We're rather excited about this, haha!

That is just fine. It's something worth being excited over.

I agree.

Oh, absolutely!

*Grins* Okay then.

That's awesome, Elanor! Definitely something to be super excited about.

It's been awhile since you first posted this topic, so you probably already decided which one to go with... but I'd pick the second one. It sounds like there's a lot less risk involved.

Thanks, Abigail.

Yes, we decided to go for the second option. Thanks.

Well! After a long wait, the proof copy of Tales of a Farmer has arrived! Very exciting. When it's all ready on the market, I'll post a link. I'll see if I can take a photo to post here of the proof copy.

Great. I hope you can get a picture.

Oh I'm so excited for you!!!!!

Here is a photo of the front cover.

Neat.

The art is cute!

Here are the links to the book! They are children's stories.

True Tales of a Farmer - Ambassador Books.

True Tales of a Farmer - Amazon.

Here is Mother and Dad's website, Bridges to Bethel. You can see some of the illustrations Mother has done for the book on the website. Oh, and Mother has a blog on the website as well.

The website looks nice.

It's lovely, Elanor.

Thanks!

Very excited for my Mother. We were given 50 copies of the book ourselves as books we could sell from the Publishers. Mother has sold every one, some into schools etc and others at book signings and so on. The publishers says it's a really good sign that they've all gone already, and that's before we have the 6 month stats from the publishers to tell us how many they have sold.

They have also put Mother on a new contract and told her she can write books and illustrate them, and they will publish them for her seeing as her first book is doing well. So it's kind of at a stage where she can just write and illustrate and they will publish them. She's so excited!

That's great!

Woah! Awesome!

I'm glad for her.

That is fantastic! God is good!

Thank you!
He is indeed!

We are having some edits done to the book, and then it is going to be available in America in the New Year.

That'll be good.

True Tales of a Farmer

Mother and Dad's book is now available in America.

Nice! That must be exciting for them.