Writing Children’s Books

Writing children’s books is not for everyone, but I have met a lot of people who have voiced their desire to write a book.  I decided that I need to start keeping track of my experience entering the world of children’s literature and becoming a published author.

I graduated with my master’s degree in education, in December of 2011, and told my husband I wanted to take a year to write a book and see what happened.  My sweet husband was totally game and I started planning my process.  All of 2012 I was seriously planning my book-which turned into a ten book series-and started writing.  I attended an enormous writing seminar in New York City with my best friend, to get a feeling for the culture of the publishing world, and what I found was totally astonishing.  I was doing EVERYTHING wrong.

I was told that I should not try to enter the world of publishing with a series of children’s picture books.  I was also informed that trying to present a morals based message is a really hard sell.  And by the way, I should not come to the table with an illustrator already on-board.  Well, this went against everything I had been working towards for the last year, and it was a bit disheartening.  I was completely committed to the series I had been working on and believed wholeheartedly in the morals based or character building messages of my series.  I also had a New York Times best selling illustrator on board, because he completely believed in the series too.  I was a little discouraged, but not defeated. I plodded on.

I think I probably received about 15 rejection letters before I finally got a glimmer of hope.  My first positive feedback was from an agent who said that I needed to keep trying because the voice and message was strong, but that I would have to find just the right agent to pitch this series.  He then rejected me…  I got another 30 or more rejection letters and the next ray of hope showed up.  I received an email from a small publishing house stating that they were interested in the entire series.  I was beyond excited, but I still didn’t have a literary agent.  I am a firm believer in working with professionals in all my life’s endeavors.

I called up the agent I really wanted to work with and told her I had a contract on my desk and no agent.  It took her a day to read through everything and get back to me.  Her response was  “we can do better”.  The strangest email I ever sent was the one declining the first offer on my children’s picture book series.  My agent sent out queries to the top editors in the industry.  We got some really great feedback and an offer from a publishing house that was as excited about the series as I was.  I signed the contract about a month ago, and we are starting the process of going to print.  It is amazing… I seriously can’t believe that I broke all the rules and still got in.  I guess the moral of the story is trust your instincts and stick to your plan.  Anything is possible if you really believe in yourself.