I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a New York Times best-selling author. But being an author certainly has changed my life for the better. Here’s how.

Your children’s book has been illustrated, laid out with the text, and formatted for printing. You’re so close to having an actual copy in your hands! Congratulations for getting this far. But the work isn’t done yet. Before your printer prints hundreds or thousands of your books, they should be sending you a soft proof (a.k.a. digital proof), and hard