Raising Money to Publish the First Children's Book on Mary Dyer

Please help me make my book Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom a reality. The book is written, edited and formatted, but I need your help setting up an author website, creating some marketing materials and covering a few publishing costs. Any amount you can contribute to Indiegogo will be greatly appreciated. And you'll get a copy of the book and more!

So thanks for your help in putting Mary Dyer's story into the hands of young readers everywhere. She is a forgotten hero, but your contribution can change that.

Thanks!

My Next Book: Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom

My next book is Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom. Mary was the first woman executed in America for her religious beliefs. Her death spurred a revolution in the colonies to enforce religious tolerance. Even King Charles II in England got involved.

The book will be published by Atombank Books, a new company set to launch late this summer. It looks like Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom will be their first book (Yay! -- Thank you Amy Tombank!). Unfortunately, I need help meeting some additional expenses, including setting up a full author website, creating marketing materials for schools and libraries, and some publishing costs. Right now, I'm trying to raise those funds through Indiegogo -- with your help.

Mary Dyer is a forgotten civil rights hero, and her death helped make many of our First Amendment freedoms possible. It still amazes me the amount of religious intolerance we see, and I'd love to put Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom into the hands of schoolchildren everywhere. I'd love to spread her message of religious tolerance for everyone. So if you can help me, please visit Indiegogo and contribute what you can. Trust me -- any amount will be greatly appreciated -- and you could easily get a free copy of the book and learn much more about this remarkable woman.

Thanks for your help!

Book Details: Middle-grade non-fiction for children 8-12 years old. Approximately 104 pages with illustrations, a timeline, and a glossary. Mary Dyer, Friend of Freedom is the first book for children about Mary Dyer, and will be marketed largely to schools and libraries to add to their collection of civil rights leaders.

How I Sold My First Children's Book

An unexpected way into children's literature.

There’s a saying in Hollywood: There’s the way you’re supposed to make it, and the way everybody actually made it.

The same could easily be true of kidlit. The way it’s supposed to work is you submit your work to an editor or agent, they call you back and your book is sold. That’s it – clean, simple, wipe your hands and start your next book.

But not so fast. Consider these three.

• Mo Willems went and won six Emmy’s as a writer for Sesame Street. That got him an agent. Two-and-a-half years later, he (and the Pigeon) had a book deal. That’s nearly two Emmy’s for every year he had to wait!
• Jon Sciezska got thirty rejections for his first picture book. Then he found out his wife worked with the wife of an illustrator – Lane Smith. Lane agreed to illustrate his book, and one of the editors he’d already sent it to now decided she liked it. I can’t tell you how many rules were broken here (resubmitting? Having your own illustrator? My God!), but that’s how The True Story of the Three Little Pigs found its way into print.
• Nick Bruel (Bad Kitty) was working in a bookstore when he noticed one woman always coming in and buying children’s books. When he asked her about it, she said she was a children’s literary agent. He said he had some illustrations he’d like to show her. That’s how he got his agent. No conferences, no referrals, no cold submissions. Just a book store and a lot of talent.

The story of how I got my first kidlit publishing contract isn’t so dramatic, but it does show there are other ways in the door. I answered an ad on a website. They said they were looking for writers to write children’s books about celebrities from the ‘40s and ‘50s. They already had Frank Sinatra, but were looking for others.

I thought about this for a while. I figured everyone would pitch Elvis or Marilyn, or maybe Deano to complement Frank. Maybe even the Duke. Who could I pitch that somebody else wouldn’t? Nat King Cole? Buffalo Bob? Trigger the Wonder Horse?

And that’s when it hit me – if there’s one celebrity from that era that children still know, it’s Judy Garland. Shirley Temple had faded, and so had Mickey Rooney. But The Wizard of Oz has kept Judy Garland in front of millions of kids, even today. And that’s how I pitched them.

Seven days later, I was asked to draw up an outline for the book based around the Frank Sinatra model. I did, and four days later, they hired me.

But here’s where it gets really interesting: they wanted three books at three different levels – K-1, 2-3, 4-5. The books were not going to be sold to the public, but were to be distributed to long-term care patients. And it was a flat-fee freelance job with no royalties or advances or future books.

Nothing glamorous. No pigeons driving buses; no wolves setting the record straight, or bad kitties flipping through the alphabet, just three biographies on Judy Garland. But it counts. That’s my entre into children’s publishing, and I’m thrilled to be there. It goes in every query letter I send out – you know, while I’m trying to land that editor or agent. 

Because that’s how you’re supposed to do it…

Even when you’re not.