I registered my own little publishing label, Rabbit Books, a few years ago when I decided to enter my story Fish into the CBCA awards myself after getting rejected regularly to have it published by many children's book publishers. I couldn't afford to have it printed up properly so I printed the story up on postcards at Vistaprint and stuck them together with glue and washi tape myself. I thought there was very little hope of it even being looked at in that format but then it's always good to hope when you are the little guy [like the penguin in Fish]. And the lovely judges did look and awarded me a 'notable book' despite the obvious very limited shelf life of the glued/taped story.

 

So I do make postcard books. Twenty-five dollars each may seem outrageous when you can buy a properly bound book from Big W for five dollars but I don't make any money on them- materials and post cover half the production costs and labour way more than half. They are on Kindle but I am not sure if anyone pays for picture books on Kindle even though I picked the minimum amount I was allowed to charge and to tell the truth, I often can't even find my own books on kindle even when I type in specific keywords such as my name...maybe that's the way it is when millions of people whack their own stories up on the net ...and, I do think real paper/card is much nicer to read from anyway.

 

Nevertheless, they do exist in the world and my stories make me happy - my dream job would be creating picture books -of my work and others- in a Wonker-like factory where life is sweet and full of heart. If there are any cashed-up individuals out there wanting to invest a fortune in something like that, let me know because my current finances mostly go on my rent, leaving zip for pipe dreams.

 

My colouring book, The Three Goats, which has the worst pictures aesthetically of my books and is my very favourite one of all, is available for download if you email me and I will send you a pdf to print it up in your own printer and colour it in at home or kindy/school in a one-off sort of thing [not for commercial use]. It's basically a version of the Three Billy Goats Gruff story. All others are available to buy through paypal. If you want your local library to have one of the stories, let me know and I'll post it.