I just finished an email to the niece of a friend of a friend who wrote and illustrated her own children’s book. She’s ready to send it out into the world. Like the rest of us, she doesn’t know how. And like a lot of people before her, she’s been sent to me, someone who’s done it and might have some advice. I try to take each of these people as seriously as I wanted to be taken. Every pearl of wisdom someone shared with me along the way remains incredibly valuable. As I was writing this it occurred to me that this happens so much I should post the email I wrote to her here, where it might be helpful for some of you too.
Hello fellow dreamer!
Yes! I am a published children’s book author (Big & Little Meet in the Middle, Princeton Architectural Press, 2022) No, that doesn’t mean I’ll be getting anything published again anytime soon.
Welcome to the world of publishing! I just took a look at a preview of your book and it was extremely charming. You should certainly pursue getting your book published by a proper publisher (no knock against self publishing, but established publishers have distribution networks that self-published authors can’t even dream of having.)
You can go about doing this by doing a few things:
• Find an agent. Agents are the best way to get past what I think of as “the gates” of the publishing world. They are your ambassadors to these fortified citadels. Publishers rely on agents to filter out most of the requests they would otherwise receive. Getting an agent is (clears throat) hard.
• Storm the gates yourself. You can send your manuscript directly to publishers too. Google something like, “which children's book publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts” and you’ll come up with a few. Research the ones you find, see what else they’ve published and if your book might be a good fit. Note that the big publishers ONLY accept submission through an agent.
• Research. Sadly, half of this industry is seeing what the other half of the industry is doing. Publishers (and agents) are in the business to sell books. See what is selling well, and who is selling it. Spend time at the library reading kids books and check who published them. Sadly this is the part I’m worst at. I just want to write and illustrate books, not research them. But selling books is a business in and of itself (see: agents)
• Self promotion. Make some cards, send them out! Put your work on the socials and spread the word. Publishers and agents will look to see if you have an online presence so that you can help promote your book.
• Get ready for rejection. Most manuscripts are rejected. The vast majority of them. Sometimes it’s because they aren’t ready yet and don’t strike the agent or publisher as sellable. Sometimes it’s because last year was a big year for say, polar bears, and now the industry is excited about ladybugs. It’s really hard to say sometimes.
As for your book, it’s super cute—my advice though, before you really get into selling it to the big time, is to get it critiqued by some folks in the business. Feedback on your work is the hardest part of this whole process. It can be brutal. This is, by definition, a labor of love. Having people tell you it isn’t the best thing they’ve ever read ever can be brutal. This is not a business for people with thin skin (note: we ALL have thin skin.) One way I’ve learned to accept criticism is to see patterns in reviews. One nitpick isn’t necessarily valid. But if several people say the same thing, then they all probably have a point. I get five or six people I know and trust to give me feedback, and it’s almost always a roller coaster. Some have no notes. Some have lots of notes. Some notes undercut the entire concept for the book. But all feedback is subjective and personal and extremely useful when taken as a whole. Find the patterns before doing anything drastic.
(Note to those of you who continue to give me feedback, I appreciate the heck out of you. It’s not at all easy to give honest feedback to your friends.)
I advise going to SCBWI.org – they are a massive resources for children’s book authors and illustrators. They have local chapters that can be a community sounding board for you. It can be a little daunting there, because there are so many people trying to get published, but it’s a great place to see and learn what works and what doesn’t.
I hope this all helps. I know it’s a lot. I know better than most. After my first book came out I thought I was part of the cool kid crowd and could publish whatever I wanted. My follow up to Big and Little was a very dramatic story about a refugee girl. It was rejected by my publisher right away, as were all the other manuscripts I’ve sent them since. Now I’m not even sure they’d publish Big and Little again if they had the chance since they’ve severely cut back the number of picture books they publish per year. So even I, who has had his dream of getting published fulfilled, am somewhat, sort of, back to square one. As I write this advice to you I’m thinking, I should probably do some of these things myself again…
I hope this all helps, and is not too much. Feel free to reach out again with any other questions!
Warm regards, Ian
Note that I didn’t offer to critique her book myself. I thought at this point writing this email to her would be of more use. She’s a senior in high school, a truly honest critique might have bummed her out and discouraged her. But she clearly has what it takes to get better and better and that is, drive and courage. She finished her book. She has started the process of learning more about getting it out there. She reached out beyond her comfort zone. She deserves a chance to improve before some idiot like me throws a cold bucket of water on her dreams.
Nice of you to respond in a real sincere, realistic way. Will be great for her to have heard from you!