How to Become a Freelance Children’s Author

Similar to any writing career you could work in house or freelance. More commonly as a Child’s author you would be a freelancer, as you’d be working from a remote location and sending your manuscript to potential clients. In house children’s author positions are scarce and they may only be a handful that comes up throughout the year, so competition is extremely rift for these positions. Many copywriters start off doing a little freelance work in their spare time whilst still holding onto a full time job. If you’re doing this or thinking of doing this it’s probably a good idea to have a chat with an accountant as there may be tax implications you should be considering and maybe also allowances you aren’t taking advantage of.

There are numerous benefits to freelancing for example the freedom and flexibility to work for as many different types of client as you like as well as the obvious benefit of increasing your take home pay. In fact our freelancer take home calculatorshows you how much you can expect to take home as a freelancer.

Where to start as a Children’s writer

Firstly you need to learn all about the ins and outs of writing fiction for children. This genre is often perceived to be easier to get into, whereas it is actually just as difficult as writing an Adults novel.  Just because they are short, full of pretty pictures doesn’t make it any easier to write and by no means are children’s writers any less skilled than an adult novelist.

"A Child’s author requires unique talents and often referred to as a specialised art form."

You need to be able to put yourself into your audience mind whether they are two, six, eight or twelve. To do this requires the writer to think back both emotionally and mentally to their childhood. Remember events like their first day of school, their first trip to the dentist etc. Sometimes these memories can be triggered from going through old memory books, watching children’s cartoons. It’s not a bad thing to get carried away in your childhood memories, in fact the more you find yourself daydreaming the better!As the ideas start coming to you, now you need to think like an adult! You need to analyse and strategise every idea. Some ideas will be better than others and it’s important not to get carried away on just one. It would be an idea at this stage to sit in a library and research what children’s books are already there and where there is gaps. You might even be able to persuade a librarian to tell you what books have the highest rentals. Successful books tend to have a reason why and if you can find out why you’re on the right track.You should now be able to sieve through your ideas with a better insight and disregard the ideas that clearly won’t work or are too similar to other books on the market. You may want to work on a couple ideas to start with and narrow them down to one as you discover they won’t work.Before you start writing you need to decide who you are writing for. Are you targeting eight year old girls or six year old boys, you get the drift! It’s important to understand your audience’s literature skills. You need a clear understanding of what language they use and what words you can introduce to them without overwhelming them.It’s a good idea to start with a plan for example ‘My book is...’ including an outline, character names, setting and a rough plot.

This outline will be key when pitching your ideas to publishers. Don’t worry if at this stage your plot is very vague. You could just have just the beginning, middle or end. Often successful authors will tell you this is the case when you start planning and the book only takes shape as you write it.Just remember as you write to keep the book simple, avoid big words your audience will be confused by and keep it short. Generally if you’re aiming for eight to twelve year olds no more than 150 pages is recommended.Proof reading is fundamental, your book must be free of typos, and majority of manuscripts are disregarded because of typos.You should have a written book by this stage proof read it and be happy to send to publishers, as a first-time author you may find this the hardest and most frustrating part. Some publishing houses don’t take children’s books, so firstly you need to sieve these out.

Places like http://www.writersmarket.com/ may be a good starting point to find publishers. Writers Market gives you access to contact details for publishing houses, literary agents and editors, as well as guidelines and regulations to follow. The more you can learn about each publishing house the stronger more targeted your pitch can be. When sending out your manuscript it may be an idea to target smaller publishing houses as they are more likely to accept first time authors, these generally are regional or local and one golden rule never to forget is to send your manuscript with a self address envelope with paid postage. Little things will go a long way in making you stand out from the crowd and lastly be patient.

Publishing houses receive hundreds of manuscripts and if they do feel it will be successful you will hear back.So you’ve finally got published and the money is starting to flow in, you’ll probably now find you’re going to need a wide range of tax and accountancy advice and support in the early dayswhen setting up as freelancer.

The most daunting thing about going freelancing for most people is the thought of having to engage with an accountant. At first glance it’s easy; you go down to your local high street accountant who quotes you anything from £250 - £600 plus VAT to do your end of year accounts for you.

This sounds great, however what happens if you want to speak to your accountant for advice throughout the year on things like

• Expenses
• Tax allowances
• Take home pay
• How much you should put aside for your tax bill
• Should you register for the Flat Rate VAT scheme
• Would going limited be beneficial
• Can I do work other than copywriting through my business
• If you have a life plan and wish to go travelling what’s the most tax efficient way to run your business.

Each time you pick up the phone it is likely you will get charged, in fact every time your accountant sends you a letter you may charged and you may even get charged if you call to query your invoice! So by the end of the year you could easily be looking at a bill of over £1,000.