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<channel><title><![CDATA[Heartstone House - Blog]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.heart-stone-house.co.uk/blog]]></link><description><![CDATA[Blog]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2025 18:56:02 +0100</pubDate><generator>Weebly</generator><item><title><![CDATA[Introduction to self-publishing]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.heart-stone-house.co.uk/blog/introduction-to-self-publishing]]></link><comments><![CDATA[http://www.heart-stone-house.co.uk/blog/introduction-to-self-publishing#comments]]></comments><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:19:14 GMT</pubDate><category><![CDATA[Self-Publishing]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heart-stone-house.co.uk/blog/introduction-to-self-publishing</guid><description><![CDATA[There is a big misconception that writing children&rsquo;s books is an easy, quick way to make money. It&rsquo;s not easy, for a start. Firstly, because the market is saturated. The dawn of the self-publishing age has flooded the market. Your book has to be a cut above the rest to stand out. Secondly, children aren&rsquo;t stupid - and many things compete for their time. They&rsquo;ll quickly pick up if your heart wasn&rsquo;t in it.I believe that one can make money by writing and publishing chi [...] ]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="paragraph">There is a big misconception that writing children&rsquo;s books is an easy, quick way to make money. It&rsquo;s not easy, for a start. Firstly, because the market is saturated. The dawn of the self-publishing age has flooded the market. Your book has to be a cut above the rest to stand out. Secondly, children aren&rsquo;t stupid - and many things compete for their time. They&rsquo;ll quickly pick up if your heart wasn&rsquo;t in it.<br /><br />I believe that one can make money by writing and publishing children&rsquo;s books. But only if your motivation is something other than money.<br /><br /><strong>You must:</strong><ul><li>Believe in your story and characters.</li><li>Be prepared to invest in professionals to edit, illustrate and design your book</li><li>Prepare yourself for a marketing phase. Making a good book simply isn&rsquo;t enough. You need to create a brilliant book and put it in front of readers in innovative and clever ways.</li></ul><br />Making a book should be a fun process. But it often isn&rsquo;t because authors, like yourself, often have to wade through a nightmare of conflicting information and spend hours surfing the web, and don&rsquo;t often get advice from the people who actually do the work.<br /><br /><strong>Who I am</strong><br /><br />My name is Bryony van der Merwe, and I&rsquo;ve been making children&rsquo;s books for a long time. Many books I have worked on have won awards (see complete list here).<br /><br />I have helped hundreds of authors reach their goals. In 2022 alone, I edited over XXXX children&rsquo;s stories, designed over XXX children&rsquo;s books and oversaw the illustration of a further XXXX books.<br /><br /><strong>Who is this course for</strong><br /><br />This is for everyone who wants to write and publish a children&rsquo;s book. It&rsquo;s aimed at the complete novice but also contains valuable tips for the more experienced.<br /><br />If you&rsquo;re writing a children&rsquo;s book, I hope to help make this process easy for you with the step-by-step process for writing, printing and publishing outlined in this book.</div>  ]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>