Own web page on book

Sorry for the non-sequitor. My previous post belonged in a different thread.

My thought is that most Children's publishers don't want your artwork, but prefer to contract the art themselves. If you flout their preferences, you're not going to improve your chances at publication. I'd try sending out to more publishers.

Hi Sparkle!

Sparkle said:

I have been told it should be in every children's hospital across the country.

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Who told you it should be in every children's hospital? And is "it" your book or the webpage?

It's difficult to sell a book to commercial publishers after the books been self-published. In order to garner interest from a large publisher you'd have to show lots (thousands +) sales.

Have you received any other feed back from submissions or just the one? I agree that you need to keep subbing it to agents/publishers. Maybe you'll get more feedback and that will help you understand why it's not being accepted. On the other hand, maybe it will be accepted.

I don't see how a website and your own artwork is going to help.

Good luck.

Be careful with the website. If you're just creating pages to advertise the book, you'll be okay. If, however, you put the entire manuscript up, it'll be considered "published" and you'll all but ruin any chances of it getting picked up by a big house.

Hi Sparkle,

I moved your thread to "Children's Writing" because it's not a Bewares & Background Checks topic.

I am a little puzzled at your way of going about this. You want it published by a traditional publisher, right? So why are you not following the rules? What you have done already suggests that the book will be self-published. I can imagine that publishers might well back off because you have such a fixed idea of what the book should be and do.

One doctor told you that your book should be in all hospitals - well, that's lovely (and well done) but he is not the best person to judge the state of the children's book market. One psychologist told me that all self-harmers should read my book - but I didn't assume that the book was perfect and take him at his word. On the contrary, it went through quite a bit of editing with the publisher.

I would suggest that since you have done so much work already, you would be better off self-publishing this through www.lulu.com or something like that.

If you want to get it published the traditional way, take out all the illustrations and start submitting it the proper way. Publishers don't have time to read your market proposal from the slush pile, and they'll simply send it straight back if it's not following the accepted guidelines. How many publishers did you send it to?

Sparkle,

Part of the skepticism here is because we've seen this "new way of doing things" proposed over and over. So far, no one has made it work.

I hope you'll let us know how it turns out.

But Sparkle, you can't prove that a book has good market value. Market value is only finally proven when the book is published and selling. How can you guarantee that the people who sign for a copy before it's published will then cough up the money? You'd need a couple of thousand signatures before a publisher would take notice - and if that's the case, why not simply publish it yourself? You do know you'll only get 7.5-10% royalty of the retail price if you go through a traditional publisher, right?

Besides, book publishing is very different from other businesses, and market value is FAR harder to assess because it's completely subjective.

Please don't misunderstand me - if you pull it off I shall be the first to applaud you. But having seen how publishers work, and having heard of others' attempts to try new things, I have to believe that your chances of finding a publisher this way are very slim.

Sparkle said:

I am not talking about getting signatures. The web page will have a counter for the number of people who are interested. How many of you who have responded have a web site trying to sell something whether books, information, and etc? Evidently it wasn't a bad idea when it seemed to assist the items you want to promote. By the way, the horse who is in this book is always mobbed by children when he is out in public. He has traveled accross the country and some newspapers put his picture in their paper to let the people know he is in town. I am only trying to think outside the box and not follow a path others have traveled. This book will stand by itself and either by published or not. I will not sit and say what if.

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Naturally, I wish you the best of luck; but I feel like it ought to be pointed out that someone visiting a webpage doesn't automatically mean that he/she would be interested in buying a book - famous horse or not. For that reason, hits on a webpage wouldn't mean anything to me in a case like this if I were a publisher. It's also very different to use a website to sell a product that already exists and use one to drum up interest in a product that won't exist for several years.

As I said though, I do wish you the best and hope you manage to beat the odds.

Here's a really dumb question. Is there such as thing as copyright on a horse? That is to say, if this is a really famous horse, do you have to have permission to write about it? Genuine question here.

Oh then it is totally okay! lol, I had no idea he was yours! Well congrats, he sounds lovely!