My hubby and I love to read to our sons. Son #1 especially loves it. He'll turn the pages (sometimes before we're finished reading it). There are times he'll sit with a book and flip through it while babbling. It's so precious. And I love that he loves to 'read.' He just turned 2 a few days ago and he's already a reader.
So this of course, makes me want to write books for him, stories that he would like read to him. So a light bulb went off. Picture books! I could write a picture book!
Well, writing one isn't hard. I wrote one, a cute little story about a baby brown bear who loves Christmas. The only problem - I know nothing about picture books. I don't know the market, how to write a query letter for it, anything really. Are any of you picture book writers? Have any pointers for me? Any suggestions? If you aren't a picture book writer, would you ever consider writing one?
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I'm sort of in the same position ^.^ One of my three year old twins loooves books (the other one just likes them) and I have several picture books in mind. Only I'm going to write them in Icelandic (and then maybe translate later) and self publish them. I got in contact with a popular self-published PB writer in Iceland, and he told me that he just searched the web for artists (because Icelandic book artists are always so "arty" that the pictures usually don't look cartoon-y, like I want them) and contacted the ones he liked.
I might already know of an Icelander who can draw and pain amazing cartoon pictures, and she's a mom of two young boys too, so she might be up for it :)
Ahem, sorry for the long post! From what I've heard, there are only a handful of agents who represent PB's. Or at least, who are accepting new ones now. There were some mentioned at WriteOnCon, but I wasn't paying attention to PB's at the time.
I recommend you speak to Ishta Mercurio about it. I see that she's already following you: http://www.ishtamercurio.blogspot.com/ She knows a lot about PB writing/market.
A brown bear, brown bear Christmas book is such a neat idea. I hope you can sell it.
My eight-month old daughter is just learning how to turn pictures on her boardbook. Of course, sometimes she's sitting on the book when she tries and she can't figure out why the page won't turn!
I just did a webinar with kidlit agent Mary Kole and she talked a little about it.
For starters:PB shouldn't be more than 500 words in length. They're character driven and must have a beginning, middle, and ending plotline.Don't worry about illustrations, you can submit entire story alone and publishers prefer to match you with illustrators.
Hope that's helpful. Best of luck!
Check out this blog http://taralazar.wordpress.com/ it's all about writing for kids. She has interview with PB writers and some advice.
Know nothing about how that's done. I illustrated a picture book for a writer a few years ago but nothing has come of it so far. I know you can find anything about it online though. You should totally try!
Not my genre. I do know you won't be required to supply illustrations, as publishers use their own artists.
Thanks so much for the links and suggestions, everyone. I'll definitely have to do some research.
How cool!!! I'm not one to be able to write picture books, so I'll leave it to the pros (you and other picture book writers)! Sounds like a cute book though!
You might check out the Writers Market for writing children's books. I'm sure you'd find publishers and guidelines in there.
Good luck!
I'm not well-versed in the field of picture books, but I think this sounds like a great idea and wish you luck!
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