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How We Published Our Books (For Free!)

At The Fox & the Pen, we believe great stories shouldn’t be locked behind big budgets. Our family set out to prove that kids can become real, published authors without spending money upfront—and we did it!

This page shares exactly how we published our books for free, step by step, so other young writers and homeschool families can do it too.

Tools We Used (All Free)

✏️ Google Docs / Word – writing
🎨 Canva – cover design
📚 Amazon KDP – publishing & printing
🌐 Google Sites – this website

Step 1: Writing the Book

Every book started with:

An idea we loved
Lots of drafts and edits
Help from parents for spelling, grammar, and polishing

We wrote our stories using:

Google Docs / Word
Or simple writing notebooks first, then typing them
We used voice-to-text

Think outside the box, we wrote in line at Disney, on walks, and driving!

The most important part: finish the story. Perfection comes later!

Step 2: Editing & Proofreading

Before publishing, we:

Read the book out loud
Fixed spelling and grammar
Made sure the story made sense
Had a parent review everything
Then we utilized Grammarly to do the final editing

This step makes a huge difference in how professional your book feels.

Step 3: Cover Design (Free!)

We created our book covers using Canva (free version).

In Canva, you can:

Choose a book cover template
Add your title and name
Upload your own artwork or photos
Pick colors and fonts you like

A good cover helps your book look real and exciting!

Step 4: Formatting the Book

We formatted our books for publishing by:

Using simple chapter headings
Making sure the text was easy to read
Setting margins and spacing correctly
We used Reedsy to typeset and create the export-ready version, for PDF and EPUB ready for Kindle Publishing

Publishing on Amazon (For Free!)

We used Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

The best part?
✅ It’s free to upload
✅ No upfront costs
✅ Your book becomes a real Amazon book
✅ You can order author copies at low cost

The process:

Create a free KDP account (parent account)
Upload the book file
Upload the cover
Add the description and author name
Click Publish!

After review, the book goes live on Amazon.

Get in touch @ thepenandthefox@gmail.com

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