Coloring Book Publishing Selling
Congrats, you are almost there in this part four of my series; Coloring Book Publishing Selling. Your pages are nearly published. Here I will cover how to get your coloring pages into the hands of your fans (and just maybe earn a buck or two doing so). Being published feels great. Weather you publish just one page or a whole book, it is fantastic. For this part I will go over a few methods of publication and hopefully help you decide which way is best for you. It is hard to put a time-table on this step as there are many ways to do it.
In case you missed them: part one, part two, part three.
WooCommerce and Gumroad
These are the two I use. WooCommerce is a free no-fees plug-in you can use on your WordPress website, and GumRoad is a free platform for creators to sell what they create. Both have so many neat features to offer.
Neat Things About WooCommerce
I use WooCommerce here on my website. I can sell digital downloads, and physical objects that I’d need to ship. Store owners control everything and don’t have to pay fees to a third-party. Everything you’d want in an on-line store is easy with this tool.
Neat Things About Gumroad
With Gumroad you can have an affiliate send buyers to you. Affiliates will earn whatever percentage you want them to if a buyer they send over ends up buying from you. You can sell digital downloads or physical objects that you will ship. People can pay what they want with Gumroad; you set the lowest price, and buyers can pay you more as a tip if they like. Or, you can charge $0 and they can still choose to pay more. I like this feature to give free samples of my work. I have not figured out a way to give free samples through my woocommerce store.
Lulu Self Publishing
For a long time, Lulu was one of the only ways I knew to self-publish. Founded in 2002, it has been around for 15 years and still offers a great service. You can upload your coloring pages digitally, choose the paper quality, type of binding, and so on. You can sell on Lulu or apply a free ISBN number and sell through distributors. Authors earn 80% of sales from printed books and 90% of sales through ebooks. Authors also keep their copyright.
The one thing they don’t do for authors is advertise. If you have a large following of fans, sending them here to buy quality printed coloring books will be easy. For the artist struggling with gaining traction in the realm of a large fan base, selling here may prove difficult. Still, it is free so even if you’re not making a living on the few you do sell, it is worth it.
Amazon’s CreateSpace Publishing
Founded in 2002, but not yet selling print on demand until 2009, CreateSpace has become the go-to for many coloring book authors. Like Lulu, you can apply a free ISBN number. Unlike Lulu, Amazon will not sell through distributors (including their own stores on their main site) unless you have purchased an ISBN number.
ISBN numbers are expensive. Bowker is the only way to buy these numbers. Occasionally they run specials, like 1,000 numbers for $500. It might be worth waiting for such a deal since just one number at normal price is over $120. This is the unfortunate thing about Amazon’s CreateSpace, though plenty of artists still making good money on their free numbers.
Etsy and Others
These all have their pros and cons and if you already own such a market place space then you already know how to sell on it. I could never keep up with Etsy’s fees as I wasn’t selling enough to cover them. There are alternatives to Etsy and some do not have any fees to list; you only pay a fee when something sells. Other still are 100% free to use! It is worth investing some time to research these if you wish to go with a third-party online marketplace to sell your coloring pages.
Next Time on Coloring Book Publishing
Just one more step and you can call it a day! For our next, and last, part I will cover the finishing touches to being a published coloring page author: coloring your own work and using your art in other ways. Come again!
Call to Action
I hope you are finding value in this ongoing series. If you are, please consider purchasing a coloring page from our store here, or our redbubble here, or our gumroad here. As well, you can get a monthly subscription support on our patreon here. Your support in any way means we can keep creating works and blogs to bring to you right here on Root Inspirations.
