One thing the world keeps making more of is children. For any business-minded person that makes them and their parents a good target audience. Children’s education is one of the most important journeys that parents undertake and it is a vital part of their growth. Those with the ability to communicate effectively while fostering development can look into the idea of children’s books.

Children

I would not want to limit your possibilities here, while most of the examples I will use relate to small children you can widen your horizons there. Many needs can be addressed through children’s books. Language, history, heritage, culture are just a few examples of where the opportunities are. The important thing about children’s books is that they teach and impart information that helps with understanding or development. The children are your consumers but the parents are your customers and as such you need to appeal to both.

Children’s books

Let’s delve a little bit deeper into the different areas that children’s books can focus on.

Language

One area which certainly requires children’s books is in the passing on of our traditional languages. This also applies to the lesser-known languages and the dialects of those languages. Zimbabwe in particular has a rich heritage with languages

History

Another thing Zimbabwe, like any other nation I suppose has a lot of is history. And while we are used to our history being intertwined with politics it doesn’t have to be so. Whichever way you look at it children’s book can be used to, for example, tell the sporting history of Zimbabwe.

Heritage

Heritage is somewhat tied to history but I believe we can draw a clear distinction. Imagine a children’s book that has facts and information about Zimbabwe in a way that children are both interested in and understand.

Nature

Zimbabwe also happens to have a large complement of natural attractions. A children’s book of animals, you know you could make a whole encyclopaedia with issues depending on how deep the information you provide is. The same can be said of plants and fruits in particular. There is a lot that could be done here.

Food

Food is a big area in books in general. There’s no reason we can’t have a children’s book about food in Zimbabwe. You can look at traditional food and naturally occurring food.

Tales and stories

We all grew up on some form of folk-tales and stories. They are used worldwide in teaching young children. There are many storybooks of Zimbabwean origin but there is absolutely nothing to say there are too many. You can combine any of the other areas mentioned here with stories or tales for the best effect

Formats

Children’s books, depending on the age of the target market require some heavy thought about the format. Ideally for young children the more interactive the book format the better. So you will find the use of pictures, if not the dominance of them, will characterise most if not all books for young children. While there is a strong argument for print books, e-books also make a lit of sense, if not a lit more. While older generations may consider printed books the real books that is only because that is what we experienced first. Audio is also a great format for children’s books. You may need to make quite a production of it if you go this route.

Publishing

Writing or creating a book is one thing. There is a separate challenge that comes with publishing the book. When looking for a publisher you will have to consider their reach and how that will impact your reach. If you’re looking for worldwide reach and are open to both e-books and paper books a program like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing can work for you. Other publishers like Kobo books facilitate self-publishing for e-books. You can also consider local or offshore publishers and you would be surprised just how easy it has become to publish a book. You need to be aware of the publishing agreement you get yourself into and what it means for your books going forward.