Hello and welcome!
Welcome to I Self Published That! I created this site to serve as a source of information for those of us that are into DIY by any means necessary…and we will dive into what that means. But first, intros…
I’m Markita, self published children's book author, illustrator, owner of Curly Crew Books. I started this journey of writing books in 2019 when I was pregnant with my second daughter and wanted a specific book for my daughter that didn’t exist - so I decided to write it. It has been such a fun journey! It has also been an insane learning curve. One thing about me, for better or for worse, is that I am a DIYer and pride myself on autonomy. I often feel that I can do things on my own and I love the control that it provides. Admittedly, I often go too far and do the absolutele most! But in most cases, the extra productiveity results in extra success. So that part makes it worth it.
I also pride myself on not being afraid to take a shot at new things. I have found that it is both fulfilling and lucrative, and also gives me more control when I really want to get things done. So I plan to use this website as a place to tell you exactly how I have done the things that I have done and help you on your journey to make amazing things happen for you on your self-publishing journey.
For all the topics that I cover, expect for me to tell you how it can be done in a way that provides you with the most value, with as little money as possible, in a way that uses your time wisely.
For example, say you want your book illustrated, formatted, and ready to go on Amazon so that you can just hit publish. You can have an illustrator that can do it all. Ok awesome. However, not everyone knows that illustration and graphic design are two different things. Your illustrator may provide some bomb pictures but the text is super basic, and the layout isn’t great. So you end up pairing these beautiful illustrations with some basic text. Meh.
One of my favoite books, “I Can Do It Too”. It has the best pictures and the text layout takes it even further. I love how the words on the right side of this spread are on a music staff…that’s graphic design at it’s finest.
We are above basic, y’all. This can all work, but could you have made the end result even better if you thought to divide the tasks of illustration and graphic design?
We won’t always know it all, but let’s be as informed as possible.
In a perfect world, when we go from one step to the next, we know what’s involved. We understand the pieces involved with creating the story, to developing illustrations, to laying out the book, to editing, and everything that comes after the book is published - marketing, PR, operational stuff. The list goes on. We have an idea of what the costs will be and the level of effort so that we budget appropriately, and we can make a determination on what we are going to do versus have someone else.
So that's my goal with I Self Published That! I look forward to sharing more information and to empowering others to do so much of this amazing work of writing and publishing books.