Share Stories
After children have gone through the Develop Stories section of the STORYMAKING HUB, they will likely want to show their work to family and friends. You can help them share their stories via e-mail, snail mail, and live video in social media. .
Traditional Publishing
As children work on writing projects, you can display their work-in-progress or send copies to family and friends. This can reinforce that you'e committed to story-making. The closet door in my office reminds me to continue to engage with my grandkids!
If your child decides to more formally share a completed project—whether picture, chapter, short, or long-form—you can try to publish it via the traditional route.
I was fortunate that my scholarly American history books were handled by Savas Beatie, a privately held specialty company, and The University of North Carolina Press.
Yet it was more difficult than I expected to get traditional publishers interested in my classic children’s fantasy books. Sadly, one wonders if books like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time, or Gregor the Overlander (Suzanne Collins’ pre-Hunger Games books for midgrade readers) could get traditionally published today.
Indie Publishing
After pitching at four online traditional-publishing conferences in 2021—and speaking with more than 25 literary agents from top firms—I decided to learn how to self-publish based on the principles taught by Joanna Penn on The Creative Penn website. She has written more than fifteen nonfiction how-to books, which I’ve extensively listened to and studied.
As JF Penn, she has also self-published twenty thriller novels and short fiction.
With her 700+ podcasts, Joanna has introduced her followers to hundreds of indie authors and deconstructs and forecasts industry trends, e.g., she was one of the first experts to embrace AI for writing enhancement.
Joanna’s August 2021 podcast with Karen Inglis, a British children’s author, was a game changer for me. During that session, Karen openly shared how she made The Secret Lake into a global success.
By the end of 2021, I had studied that podcast and Karen’s how-to nonfiction book and was ready to embark on my own journey to become an indy Kid-Lit author.
I got to see Karen on a recent webinar for children’s authors, and she also shared about the launch of her follow up book called The Return to Secret Lake.
Craig Martelle is another successful indie author whose work has guided development of my book projects and Write with Your Kids platform. In less than a decade of full-time writing, he has self-published more than 100 books either on his own, in collaborations, or as an editor of anthologies—plus how-to books for indie authors. Along with Michael Anderle, he gives back to the indie community via the 20Booksto50K Facebook page and preeminent 20BooksVegas conference.
The good news today is that, unlike Leonard and Virginia Woolf, I didn’t have to set up a printing press in my house!
Private Publishing
In 2019, I gained experience with self-publishing by using an inexpensive, “pre-formatted,” end-to-end program (Blurb) to create a family biography honoring my mentor, Dr. Richard Cox, and his wife Betty, who passed away after being happily married for 70 years. Richard surmounted physical and family impediments, becoming a minister/theologian, top PhD psychologist, and physician. (He went to medical school at the age of 46!) After raising their little children, Betty also became a leading psychologist and the Dean of Education at an accrediting institute for psychologists.
“No matter where your adventures take you, creating a book keeps the journey alive.”
A quintessential Renaissance Man, Richard became a noted author, concert musician, and artist. Now he's almost 95, and he's played a pivotal role in guiding my fourth-quarter Kid-Lit journey after I retired from being a biotech executive.
Dr. Richard Cox playing piano at age 93 during a Danube Cruise in 2022.
As a Fifty-Year Entrepreneur, I set up a small publishing company, Legacy KidLit Press, to make Star Life Keepers available to readers around the world. Besides the initial epic fantasy book with my oldest grandson Brady, I’m also working on additional book projects—for elementary and middle school readers—with four other grandchildren.
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“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”
Anne Frank
young writers
around the world
In 1942, Anne Frank received a blank journal for her thirteenth birthday, which she used to cope with World War II. Two years later, the Nazis imprisoned her family in the Bergen-Belson concentration camp. Anne died from typhus in 1945.
Young Writers
Besides Mary Shelley and Frankenstein (written at age 19), Jane Austin was another young trailblazing author in the early 19th century. She wrote and published Lady Susan by age 21.
We’ve identified additional Young Writers, which are shown by age group.
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Kid Writers: 4-12 years old
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Teen Writers: 13-19 years old
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Young Adult Writers: 20-25 years old
Self Publishing
The launch of Amazon shopping, handheld devices, print-on-demand, rapid worldwide logistics, etc. are fostering a paradigm shift from traditional Big Publishing to Independent Publishing.
There are also a plethora of global freelancers and service providers to help indie authors, many of whom once worked at publishing corporations.
Self Publishing Made Simple
In the past five years, April Cox and her global team of experts have helped writers to develop and publish more than 400 children’s books, some of which Amazon designated as best sellers.
More than a dozen of April’s debut authors have been Young Writers, either working alone or with parental support. She has interviewed six of them in the Rise of the Kid Authors series on her YouTube Channel:
Zahra Brown
Black Girl Magic: A Book about Loving Yourself Just the Way You Are
Tanmoy and Rudra Chakrabarti
Moonstruck Dad series, e.g., Monster Hunting, The Chocolate Monster, and Monster at the Cemetery
Michelle and Laiya Davey
My Voice Is My Superpower
Adam Musselmani
VIP Fruits and a Beautiful Christmas
Reya and Ari Halper
Feliz Navidog: The Story of How Santa’s Pet Saved Christmas
Annabelle and Krystal Wallick
My Feelings Are a Hurricane
Marz Starchild is the latest book in The Rise of Kid-Authors series. This illustrated short novel is close to my heart. Besides being an excellent debut book by Sofia Segarra-Orenstein, a sixteen-year-old author from Puerta Rico, I had the honor of being in the same Self-Publishing Made Simple class with her mother, Aida, in the summer of 2022. I am happy to see someone else’s indie book progress from story development to commercialization. Also, Aida used the same illustrator—Prayan Animation—that worked on Star Life Keepers. Another stellar effort by our Indian artist collaborators!
I enjoyed reading Marz Starchild, a fun “magical sci-fi realism book” for midgrade readers. Here’s an excerpt from Sofia’s Amazon description:
In this mesmerizing debut chapter book, Marz Starchild, an intrepid-science-minded teen, becomes the key to bridging two worlds when she is contacted by an alien civilization. As their fates hang in the balance, Marz must navigate the cosmic unknown and discover the power within herself.
Like our Dragon & Dinosaur Chronicles series, Sophia combines star-traveling adventures with the same “importance-of-family-and-close-friends” theme.
