How to find a PB author

If you haven't already done so, you should seriously consider joining the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and post on their forum as well.

I strongly suggest that you learn how publishing works before you go ahead with this. You have to have a good understanding of the whole publishing process, the supply chain, and book marketing and promotion if you want to even not lose much money. If you want to publish books well, you're going to need a lot of expertise and quite a lot of money: to publish print editions well you're going to need a good few thousand pounds per title, and you won't see any sort of return on any of the money you invest for a year or eighteen months, because of the way books are sold.

Best case scenario is you do really well and have a lot of fun. Worst case is that you lose all your money, the writers you sign up lose the rights to their books and end up bitter and unhappy, and you get a really bad reputation in the writing and publishing world. Sadly, most of the people I've seen start up new publishers have ended up in the latter category and not the former, mostly because they didn't realise how little they knew about publishing. Please don't be one of them.

edwords said:

Hi Old Hack, thanks very much for the words of caution. I am doing a tremendous amount of research into the field and this is one part of that research. I'm getting all my ducks in a row before I embark on the project for real and the hunt for authors is a piece of the puzzle I'm trying to figure out. As an established publisher, it's obvious that the writers come to you. As someone starting out, what's the best method to attract the authors.

As to the risks involved, I'm acutely aware of this. I have founded and sold two successful businesses in a non-publishing sector over the last ten years, so I know what it takes to run a successful business. I'm interested in seeing if I can try my hand at something very different but much closer to my heart.

So, in a purely hypothetical world where every other aspect is in place and funding secure, what would be the best way to go about my author hunt?

Thanks again, I really appreciate you looking out for the Newbies.

Ed

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I'm glad you have your funding secure. That's a big deal. Just make sure you have enough--you're going to have to pay bills for a long time before any cash starts to return to you, and printing, etc is expensive. We're talking hundreds of thousands rather than tens.

The best thing you could do to find the writers you're after is to employ very experienced staff. First, a good editorial director; then a production manager, a sales manager, and a marketing and publicity person. You'll want people who have proven experience in the field, working for one of the Big Five publishers. They'll make sure you do things right, and they'll know how to find the best writers for your books. You'll need these staff anyway, if you're going to do this right. Get the editor first.

I second Old Hack. There are a heck of a lot of authors out there, that should actually be the least of your concern to find. If you have a quality publishing house with people who really know what they are doing, if you have solid library connections, are hitting various trade shows, and basically demonstrating that you are a publisher that knows what it is doing, the authors will come. Get your team together. And when you do, your team will know the next step to take.

From an author's perspective, what I'd want to know is how having you publish my book is better than doing it myself. That's the lowest benchmark. At the most, why should I come to you instead of trying to get my book out with someone who has good distribution, a marketing department, and a sales record?

Small presses come and go. How will you benefit my career over all of the other options out there?

From your perspective: How will you judge quality, potential readership, etc, so you know you're putting out good books. You'll need to have your finger on the pulse of the market. That's why you need folks with experience. And even then, it's not predictable.

edwords said:

Hello everyone,

P.S. I don't think it's against the rules, but I don't want this to be seen as solicitation in any way. I won't accept any applications unless submitted via our applications page, which doesn't exist yet, this just just a request for advice about the best way to go about it

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In that case I'll put forward a book I haven't written yet for your consideration. The Monster Princess' Train Ride To Dinosaurland. Should cater for most markets.



I don't think getting people to send whole manuscripts will be a problem. I've spent the last year sending stuff to anybody even vaguely interested. One issue I've found with the current system is agents and publishers writing back to say it's not the sort of story they're interested in at the moment. If they had written down exactly what they were looking for if would have made things a lot simpler! Why don't they?!!! Try asking for things like:

-Exciting non-rhyming stories with lots of action.
-Animal based books about feelings.
-Mock factual books.

Tiggy said:

One issue I've found with the current system is agents and publishers writing back to say it's not the sort of story they're interested in at the moment. If they had written down exactly what they were looking for if would have made things a lot simpler! Why don't they?!!!

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It might be just a polite way of saying "Your book's not ready for publication yet".

t0dd said:

It might be just a polite way of saying "Your book's not ready for publication yet".

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Which would be just as annoyingly unhelpful. The best way of saying "Your book's not ready for publication yet" is to say "Your book's not ready for publication yet".

Tiggy said:

One issue I've found with the current system is agents and publishers writing back to say it's not the sort of story they're interested in at the moment. If they had written down exactly what they were looking for if would have made things a lot simpler! Why don't they?!!!

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The publishers which are open to submissions direct from writers do make it clear what they're after. They have submissions guidelines; and you can look at the books they already publish, which will give you a good idea of the quality, style and genre they're after.

Tiggy said:

Which would be just as annoyingly unhelpful. The best way of saying "Your book's not ready for publication yet" is to say "Your book's not ready for publication yet".

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There are a few reasons for publishers and agents not making this clear in their rejections. The first is that they are responsible to the writers they already have signed. Those writers are their priority and if agents and editors spent time giving reasons for all the rejections they send each week, they wouldn't have time to do the rest of their work. The second is that there's an increasing tendency for rejected writers to demand more information from them when they receive a personalised rejection, or to become abusive or threatening. The easiest way to avoid this is to send generic rejections, or no rejections at all. If you want to see a very mild example of how many writers respond to rejection look at this article from the late and very great Carole Blake. Scroll down to the picture at the end. Letters like that are common, and after a while it gets wearing and upsetting to receive them. Easier to tell writers, "Sorry, this isn't what we're looking for at this time."

Maybe it's because I'm an actor, and when you don't get a role you don't actually hear anything (you aren't even told no. You audition and then if you never hear anything, you assume you didn't land it [or you see the commercial on TV you auditioned for and think, "Guess I didn't get it then . . ."]) but I always am surprised that people feel they are owed a reason for a rejection. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't think you get a reason when you are applying for a more regular job either. To me I just always felt that it is not a publisher's job to help me. To offer any insights into my work, to reject me in any way that is helpful to me. Their job is to publish books and focus on their authors. So if an agent or a publisher DOES offer some insights, then that's going beyond their job description and I am extra grateful and think it's so wonderful they took that time. But I certainly have never expected it.

And while I do understand why it would be nice to get feedback so we could fix our work accordingly, I just can't think of it as something I'm owed. It's a nice special bonus.

Also I mean, there are so many resources now these days, blogs, forums (like AW!), twitter etc, where such information is readily available. Imagine doing this before we had so much information accessible at our fingertips? Heck back when I was querying only around 12 years ago, I had to go to a bookstore and buy a physical book with addresses of agents and what they were looking for in it. So we're pretty lucky these days .

Tiggy, most markets in children's would include kids from the age of two to thirteen. There is very little that appeals to both ends of that. This gives me the sense that you don't really know the kidlit marketplace and where your book would be positioned on the shelves of a bookstore or library. It's like saying I can work in most jobs in your company. So you'd be as good at custodial work as you would at upper management, the sales floor, and web development? This may be why you're getting form rejections.

The info you need to target agents and editors is out there. There are writer's guidelines on websites, interviews with editors and agents, sites like query tracker and Publisher's market place and MSWL and Casey McCormick's site, which I can never remember the name of, and Twitter feeds and other personal but sometimes public sites of the individuals. The info on what they want is out there, but also they don't know until they see it. After all, they may get 1000 submissions a week that meet what they've said in those places. They can only publish a few, a very few, so you need to be sending the best damned thing within that guideline that they've ever seen. (By best I mean unique, polished, and marketable.)