The best reference you can buy on the subject of publishing children’s books is the Writer’s Digest publication, 2012 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, edited by Chuck Sambuchino. For the best publishing tips, the first 175 pages are a gold mine.
In the 2012 edition of CWIM (the acronym used for this desk reference for the past 20 years), Sambuchino added lots of new instructional materials for authors. You’ll find interviews with best-selling authors, the basics for business, agent Do and Don’t tips, and insights into the way agents and editors think and what they want to read.
It’s a writer’s clinic in a book. How-to sections cover writing a query letter and synopsis, creating likeable characters, developing voice, and following the path of revision to the road of publishing success. The directory of publishers, agents, contests, awards and grants is comprehensive and up to date.
With purchase of the book you are provided with a 1 year online subscription to the 2012 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market (dotcom). Click on “Sign Up Now” and you enter the scratch-off code on the inside page of your paper edition.
Another bonus to buying the book is a free one hour webinar with Chuck Sambuchino that teaches you how to use the book and see your work in print. It’s a tool-kit and workshop in one.
One of the best pieces of advice given in several places in the book is the importance of participating in local chapters of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. The first Monday evening of every month in Ithaca at Buffalo Street Books, our local chapter meets. Contact Jim Radke for information about joining the Ithaca chapter. His email is jmradke@wordpharm.com or call him at 607/379-6024.
I’ve been invited to meet with members and do some “shoptalking.” If you’re in the area, please stop by and join us.
WHEN: Monday, April 2, 2012
WHERE: Buffalo Street Books
WHAT: How to Get Your Children’s Book Published
WHY: Find out why the current marketplace for children’s books is different from getting other types of books published, and how different it is than just three years ago. Learn more about how to prepare a query, proposal, and manuscript for submission to agents and editors. Explore additional avenues to write professionally for children and Young Adults. Gain access to new resources for writing and selling your children’s book. Explore the importance of new social media to reach young e-readers.
WHO: Swenson Book Development, LLC works with authors and publishers to bring quality books to life and into the hands of readers everywhere. From concept to document, proposal to publication, release to reprint, Jill Swenson, Ph.D., and a small dedicated team of professionals help your book take flight. www.swensonbookdevelopment.com
Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel
As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…