Yet another PB question

Hopefully you guys can help me with this. I've been lurking in the children's book forum for a bit, and have learned a lot, but I think I'm in kind of an odd situation. About a year ago, I wrote a book for my son--actually, I made the book, it's a hand-sewn, tactile/engaging book for a baby/toddler. It was designed to keep him 1) occupied at church and 2) teach him about religion for at-home teaching before he starts CCD, in a few years. I've had a lot of people ask me where I got it, wanting a copy, and are crestfallen/impressed when I tell them that I made it. So, I decided to bite the bullet and mention it to my agent and told him the background story. He said to send him the mss and he'd see what he could do, b/c while kid-lit isn't his usual schtick, he has placed some children's books well. I know that getting an interractive, cloth book out is probably a long-shot and potentially cost prohibitive from the publisher's pov, so I can deal with it being turned into a board book if any publisher even bites.

Here's the dilemma:

1) I know that the pub decides on the illustrator, but there are handful of images that I'm pretty set on being a certain way (or at least conforming closely to my orignal illustrations). So, given that, when sending him the mss, should I also send my agent copies of what the exisiting book looks like just as an idea/reference point? Or is that a huge no-no?
2) If that is a huge no-no, can I make suggestions in my mss. I've seen in some places where it is okay to do that, others, where it's taboo. So what's the concensus around here?

3) If a pub accepts it, how closely is the author involved in the illustration process?

4) Is there anything else I need to know before sending the mss off to my agent?

The book is religious/spiritual, unrhymed and introduces very basic concepts, and (b/c of the illustrations) is multicultural, if that info helps anyone.

TIA!

moondance said:

Is there a reason why you're not putting yourself forward as the illustrator as well?

In normal pb situations, you wouldn't get much of a say over the pictures or layout - you might be asked if you liked the designs, but that would probably be as far as it went. However, this book doesn't sound like a normal picture book - and your reference to board books suggests that it doesn't really fall into the pb category anyway.

Can you not ask your agent all these questions? I would think he would be in a better position to answer them.

Click to expand...

Well, I originally made the book for my son, as I said, and while I can do more than just stick figures, I'm not an artist by trade, so I figured it'd probably make more sense to have a "real" artist do the illustrations if we got that far.

As for asking my agent, I do intend to, but I wanted the sage advice of the AW community first. How do board books not fall into the picture book category (or do I have my abbreviations confused)? Thanks

Thanks Torgo for the suggestion/explanation. The illustrations that I did, really are not professional material...cute & charming, yes, but more from the standpoint of "hey, I drew these for my kid," so I'd definetely want a professional artist (of the publisher's/editor's choosing) to supply the images. Right now, I have the mss laid out with suggested imagery below each set of corresponding text. I'll prob. post in SYW later, but I've got a couple of big deadlines looming at this moment.