How To Get Published

A friend of a friend asked for some publishing advice recently, and I put together a little something that I thought might help others as well. Here you go:

Most of the big publishers require an agent, so if you have a finished manuscript or a solid proposal for a longer work (usually that means a few sample chapters and a well-developed outline), you can start there. Editor Brooke Vitale has an excellent list of agents who take children’s and YA literature.

Smaller and local presses don’t always require an agent, so you can also can start there if you like. In Maine, Islandport and Downeast Books do books with Maine/New England themes.

When it comes to looking for editors, assistant editors and associate editors can be the best targets. They are still building a list of writers and illustrators. Full editors and senior editors often have well-established relationships with creative types and not as much room on their lists for new people.

One thing that can help is to go to bookstores and libraries and look for books that you like or that seem similar to what you’ve written and see who the publisher is. Do check pub dates, too, because it’s not that helpful to see what a publisher was putting out a decade ago….you want current stuff.

Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators both have classes and workshops that can be helpful. And it can just be encouraging to get together with other people who are starting out and gather tips that way.

It’s a long slow process to get published! While you have one book out there looking for a home, continue working on new ideas and developing more manuscripts. It’s good for your mental health and for your career to have more than one (or two, or three) projects to show.

A friend of mine says, “It is the ground state of a manuscript to be rejected.” Most manuscripts are rejected most of the time. Prepare yourself, allow yourself to be sad for a few days when you get your first (second, third, seventeenth…) rejection, and keep going. Chocolate helps.