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.