Seasonal stories

No, I don't think publishers and agents dislike seasonal stories at all. The problem with them is that they have to be published at that particular time of year, and there is only a small space for them within a publishing programme. I believe that you have to do seasonal stories exceptionally well because the market window for them is tiny - for example, people don't generally buy a Christmas book in March. So whereas a non-seasonal book can be sold all year round, seasonal ones can't. For that reason alone I should imagine publishers are extremely cautious about which books they accept. Plus of course publishers fill up their schedule in advance (often with in-house or authors they have already worked with) for Christmas, so I should imagine that the gap available to new authors is negligible.

Although of course you never know until you try!

Children's magazines, on the other hand, are always looking for seasonal material.

Have you thought about that?

I second Jimmer. As sson as I saw seasonal stories, I thought magazine. They buy quite a few of those.

That's an excellent suggestion, I write a lot about Halloween and hadn't thought of submitting those to magazines instead. Thanks!

Here is a link for some listings. Also try Duotrope and put juvenile in the genre category.

http://kidmagwriters.com

Thank you!

As usual, I forget both title and author, but there was a rather good book written in the 1950s or 60s based around all the Jewish Festivals throughout the year, as experienced by one American Jewish family.

Mark, I am from Austin too. Are you a member of SCBWI? Austin Writer's League? They are a tremendous source for advice/markets, etc.