We were lucky to catch up with Zane Carson Carruth recently and have shared our conversation below.

Zane, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I am a self-published author. I wrote a children’s book and did not have a clue how to get it published. A teacher I knew wrote a book and after she told me she self-published, that’s all I needed to get motivated.

I researched everything online. I interviewed artists, layout people, and editors then built a team that I have worked with for seven years.

I learned from my mistakes (sometimes twice!) and finally built a level of confidence in myself to trust my own judgment. Had I listened to myself from the very beginning, I would have saved thousands of dollars in re-writing and printing books.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The love of writing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I went from writing in a diary when I was very young to writing in a journal every day as an adult. Writing thank-you notes, letters to my grandmother, and overseas pen pals were a big part of my life experiences growing up. It is easy to understand how that passion for writing morphed into writing books. Throw in an active imagination and the love of all things magical and viola, and the book The World’s First Tooth Fairy was written.

I have published four books in the trademarked series about the fairies Abella and her best friend, Darcie. The common thread throughout the books is the love the two friends have for one another. Sometimes, mistakes are made, but Abella and Darcie support each other and work through them.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My route to getting my children’s book published was to self-publish. I will be the first to say that self-publishing is not for the faint of heart or anyone who shies away from a challenge. I knew nothing about the self-publishing world and was a total blank slate. My only resource was Google. My good ‘ole best friend Google, as I came to refer it. I gathered up commercially published fiction books and studied them for all the criteria I had and needed to look like and be considered professional.

I googled where to purchase an ISBN, Library of Congress number, bar code, and PCIP wording. I wish I could say it went smoothly, and I only had to make a few corrections. But, like most people in life, I had numerous projects and events going on simultaneously and struggled with keeping everything organized.

I did not realize word count is significant in children’s books. I was doing a book reading of my first book and thought to myself, “will this book ever end?” I understood then why it needed to be well under 900 words.
I had to re-write and print my first book three times to get it to an acceptable length to read out loud and sell. Writers typically have a lot to say …on any given subject. A children’s book author needs to keep it as short as possible while maintaining the story’s integrity. I learned a precious lesson on word count that day. Books have to have an even number of pages to print property. I had to re-work the book layout because I removed a page and changed illustrations. And all that increases the cost of publishing.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

After I self-published my third book, I was introduced to an invaluable resource. Ingram Spark. I had looked into IngramSpark before and knew about the company. but, it requires a lot of tedious work getting it set up in their system. I am not a detailed type of person and I had no interest in doing so.

However, I found a person who does that for a living and I hired him immediately. I still had to deal with the illustrator, editor and proof reader, but, he was an extra set of eyes and made the entire process much easier. The print on demand feature saves you the money of printing hundreds of books, avoids storage issues but still allows you to sell your book online. Another advantage of using IngramSpark is all of the national chains order their books from them. My books are now sold worldwide and in national chains like Walmart, Barnes & Noble, Target, etc.
It is very hard for self-publishers to get in the big stores because they want to make certain they can get a large volume of books when they need them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.worldsfirsttoothfairy.com
• Instagram: zcarruth
• Facebook: Zane Carruth
• Linkedin: Zane Carruth
• Youtube: Worlds First Tooth Fairy

Image Credits
Wilson Parish