The Question: Can an Unknown Author Succeed with Self-Publishing?

I wrote a children’s book. It’s a simple, light, amusing story about an accident-prone princess (because who needs another perfect Disney princess, am I right?), aimed at the 3-8 year old demographic. And if you google “publishing a children’s book”, it’s got a better chance of being the third monkey on Noah’s Ark than it does of ever being read by anyone other than my mom.

So this is my experiment: can I, an unknown, unpublished author, succeed where all signs point to success being impossible? And, what more can I do it without breaking the bank?

I have some obstacles: I work at least 40 hours a week and on my days off, I watch some pretty awesome little princesses, so my time is fairly limited. I work in public service, so my finances are not unlimited. Writing short, fun kids’ stories is my forte, but I’m a dismal artist, so I’d have to hire someone to illustrate for me. And that’s only the biggest issues I can see, from the starting line.  

Never one to let the obvious hurdles get in my way, I’m hopeful this can be done. With this blog, I hope to sketch out a rough map of what to do (or not to do) in this very unscientific experiment!