To ask if it's a realistic hope to get my books published? Any tips from people who've done it?

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

Just that really

I sat down last week with an idea, and up to now I've written 3 children's books.

They're bed time stories/picture books so not like I've come up with the new war and peace, but it's been the most uplifting, fulfilling thing I've done in a long time.

They're all in a first draft form right now, but once I've polished the up is there any reason o shouldn't pursue trying to get one published?

Has anyone done it, any advice?

It’s not staggeringly likely but some people do manage it. There are plenty of books on how to get published, start by having a look at some of them.

My friend is a children's author and it took him a long time and a lot of persistence.

His experience was that publishers rarely accept unsolicited work. You need to get a literary agent who has relationships with publishing houses already and can 'sell' you to them. Good luck!

Hullo! I’m a children’s author, and I’m writing this message from my shed while trying to avoid working. I actually can’t work at the moment anyway, because I have a couple of different books out on submission to publishers and I’m waiting to hear back whether they want them or not. It’s quite tricky to concentrate on something new when I don’t have definite answers for those yet!

My simple answer is, well somebody’s got to be published, so why not you?

My longer answer is, for the love of god get out now! I’m with a top agency and have been published by a mainstream publisher (I’m changing age group, which is why I’m not going with them for these ones). My pay is not awesome. Unless you’re absolutely at the top you’re not going to make loads of money, and it’s not reliable.

I don’t know the picture book market- and I hear it’s even worse paid. I think another problem is that people think it’s quite easy to do- so there is a lot of competition. You can’t bash out a YA novel in less than around 3 months (and that’s good going)- but you could potentially do a PB in your lunch hour.

If you’ve got something good, then keep going. Particularly if you’ve enjoyed it! You will need an agent- so perhaps look at their requirements for submission. You might also like to join SCWBI.

Oh, and my agency represents around 30 children’s authors. A couple of them were celebrities first (but the type of celebrity whose career requires them to write stuff for their television roles), but everyone else is a completely normal person who submitted in normal ways. I think my agent met a few of them at events and ‘encouraged’ them to send their work to her.

A common theme is dedication and hard work.

Why not you?

You can try, however I think (no knowledge here) that picture books tend to be written in house as it were.

There are some knowledgeable people on the creative writing topic who may be able to help.

Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to publish them yourself?
I have a publishing contract (adult historical fiction so neither use nor ornament to you ) but I have an even more niche series than the one that has a publisher, which I publish myself through Amazon. And I do all right with it, actually!

A friend (who is a graphic designer by trade) and his co-author wrote a series of childrens' books set in the Lake District which sold very well in the places where they were set. I think if you have a "hook" or a local connection in your books you can often find local shops are keen to stock them.

Just a note - picture books should be 32 pages. Useful to know at this early stage I think! Good luck.

Join SCBWI. There’s a lot more to picture books than people think. But your ideas might be amazing and you might have the ability to turn them into saleable books, who knows?

I have some very talented, committed friends who have failed to break into the market, but I also know people who have done it.

You can self publish via Amazon. It's not too tricky once your manuscript is ready. Very popular option these days. You can set it up to sell as an e-boook and you can do print on demand too.

@ouch321 is there a large fee to pay Amazon when self publishing?

@Curioushorse how do you go about approaching agents in the first place?

Trying to think back.

Did it last year for my boss.

I don't recall there being any upfront fee. They just take a cut on your sales. There were two different leaves of royalties with different Ts and Cs.

35% or 70%

Search up KDP - Kindle Direct Publushing.

Watching with interest

A former colleague of mine has done very well out of Kindle Direct Publishing.

I don’t know about children’s books. I imagine lots of people try but that shouldn’t put you off. Some people manage it, clearly.

My experience is about work related books. I have a publishing contract to deliver a four book series by the end of July - so it’s a bit time consuming at the moment. I’m on the last one now.

Nobody could be more surprised than me that a publisher said yes. I approached two others but, whilst positive generally, my books weren’t in their field.
The second advised me to get a copy of the writers and artists handbook. It listed every publisher and what the specialised in. It also gave good tips about how to approach publisher. The third one I contacted asked to meet then said yes. I’d got one book in mind and he said let’s expand and go with four initially and a guaranteed contract for two more next year, if I want it. It’s quite surreal as I approach the final steps. It’s certainly filled lockdown. I thought I’d be excited at the ‘press send’ stage but it was a bit scary. It came home to me that my work would be judged, which feels a bit uncomfortable.
I’m not expecting to make more than a few thousand. It’s more about it being a useful business card.

I’d say go for it. If you don’t try you can never be successful.

I don’t have an agent. I went direct to the publisher.

Good luck op. Go for it

[quote MinnieJackson]@ouch321 is there a large fee to pay Amazon when self publishing?

@Curioushorse how do you go about approaching agents in the first place?[/quote]
So I actually fall into the slightly weird camp. There are several high-profile children’s book competitions for unpublished authors: SCWBI’s one, Bath Novel, and The Times/ChickenHouse. I entered one of those and was approached by an agent when I did well in the competition. A lot of agencies/ publishers do look out for people that way. Actually when she offered to represent me I looked at her list and didn’t recognise some of the authors’ names. So I chose some of my favourite authors, looked up who represented them, then sent their agent an email saying what had happened. That agent offered me representation the next day and I went with her. It has the bonus that I’ve subsequently met some of my heroines. Honestly, I was never that dedicated to the publishing industry. I just like writing stuff. I doubt I’d Be published now if I’d gone down the traditional route- because I’d never have bothered writing all those slightly different application letters.

However, most people in my agency just sent their books in following the detailed process on the website. I’ve met the readers (manuscripts are not read by the agents unless they show promise) and they are lovely. They are genuinely looking for new talent, and they take their jobs seriously.

One person I met was rejected by my agent three times, with three different books. But she really liked that he kept trying and was nice (not everyone is nice). She took him on before he had something decent, because she could see he worked hard and had the potential to improve. He’s had his first book published this year.

It is my view that if your work is good enough and you’re persistent, then you will be published eventually.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone some really helpful advice there.

Sounds like the first step is to approach agents. Oh and thanks for the 32 pages advice that's really very helpful!

I would say an earlier step is learning about the market and what sells, what the no-no’s are when writing for children, and making contact with some fellow aspiring writers who you can share critiques with. Approaching agents is quite a long way down the line from ‘finding out how long a book needs to be for the target age group’.

I'm reading this with interest. I'm looking at writing on a very different subject, a technical book on programming for a piece of software that lockdown has made popular (no, not Zoom!!! But a little similar), reading replies from people that have been there and done it is very interesting.

I'm pretty sure I've got the writing skill as I've had quite a few articles published and well received. I know I have the programming skills, but writing a book is a different level.

I'm thinking I may write a couple of chapters to just see if what I write looks good and I can really do this and then go from there.

Having researched the market, there is no book on this subject as yet and trying to get accurate information from the internet would take someone weeks, so I'm convinced that done well, it would sell.

I just hope I've got the ability.

PhilCornwall1 Mine is probably more like yours than children ps books. Different publishers want different things.
Mine needed a form filling in, with a couple of chapters plus a synopsis laying out the intended structure and probable word count - although were quite happy for me not to know the count.

They also wanted a couple of names for peer review, a market oversight re size of audience, details of other works in same field, my cv and a timescale.
They’ve been very flexible and one book has changed to something completely different.

You can’t self-publish a children’s picture book on Amazon. Highly illustrated books don’t work as ebooks or print on demand. Not to mention actually needing an illustrator to create them in the first place.

Approach agents.

It is possible to self publish children's picture books, a friend has just done this very successfully. She did have illustrators and uploaded the PDF to KDP. It's possible in an ebook but much more difficult to make it work with illustrations due to the complexities of coding an ebook so I'd stick to a paperback if self publishing. It can look really good if you get a good illustrator and someone with knowhow in formatting etc. I'm published traditionally but also have a couple on KDP and they were really easy to upload and keep track of on the dashboard, no fee to publish - I designed my own covers and formatted my own interiors and they're fine and do ok for the market they're for. I'm publishing another one later this year and also writing one for traditional publishing for next year and think it's fine to have a mixture, I like the immediacy of self publishing and the control you have over it, and the royalties are far better than trad publishing but obviously it doesn't have the reach and you need to be prepared to do a whole load of marketing to get it seen at all - it's a lot of hard work but if you're up for it it can pay off, if your book is good and looks good.

I'd search for an agent but do get to know the market first to specify anything distinctive about it, who it's aimed at and any competition etc. Also worth getting an illustrator although an agent might prefer to use a professional they know, and many authors do their own.

Good luck - it's a tough world and the pay is terrible, but it's so worth it for the beauty of writing.

Thanks @Curioushorse and @ouch321 you've given me a boost!

@CherryPavlova thanks for the info, very useful to know. I've dithered about doing this over the last few weeks, but I'm going to give it a good try.

As well as "writing the words", there is also all the program code I have to write too. It feels like it's going to be a hell of a task, but I've decided now, I'm going for it.