I am in the early stages of writing and illustrating my own children's book - which I would like to see about the possibilities of it being published. Can anyone offer advice on where I can start, or if I can start sending some of my work to some publishers?
Hi Frankie!
So far, everybody seems to have concentrated on your last question and nobody has dealt with the first one, viz "Can anyone offer advice on where I can start [...]?" I started off this process, so I'll now make amends:
My advice is to write the whole book, do all the illustrations [in whichever order suits you best: illustrations first, words later; vice versa; or a bit of each at a time]; then edit it until you THINK that you've got it right. Then hand it over to very good friends - those who REALLY want you to make it as a writer - and ask them to be as CRUEL and VICIOUS as possible in searching out flaws: "iffy" wording, boring pages, lacklustre illustrations, whatever... A good idea is for one to read it to another, so the other can concentrate on whether it sounds right. If it passes this adult muster, it's ready for the acid test: reading and looking at it with children of your intended age-group target. If these walk away or yawn, DO NOT submit it. Either work on it again or give up your dreams of writing for children.
Once you're CONVINCED that you can't get it any better, you may send it to as many agents as you wish. But do some research and don't send a 3-6-year-olds' picture book about whales to an agent that only deals with ghost stories for 10-15 year-olds. You may also try sending it to the few publishers who consider work that hasn't been sent from an agency... including (only if it's VERY good) La Gr@not@ http://la-granota.com/
p.s. If you're an Alice fan, while you're honing your own book, you could send us something for ours: Alice And I (see web-site for competition conditions).
Good luck!
Hello Frankie
It'll be interesting to hear how it all goes for you. I'm in a similar situation. Definitely don't send anything anywhere until it's finished and you're happy with it. Do all the creative stuff first, then look into the submission process later.
I wrote a children's story which was placed in a competition a few years ago. After rewriting/tweaking/editing, I think I'm at a stage where I'm ready to submit. Against most advice, I'm creating a "dummy book" to go with the manuscript. When it's all ready, I'll be contacting agents to see about representation. Even though the story is complete, I think I've still got a long journey ahead.
Lorraine Swoboda 11 hours ago: "[...] You can't put illustrated work up here - or at least, no-one ever has, so I'm assuming that's the case. [...]"
+++
In fact, there IS a way. You can't upload graphics onto this site, but if you have your own web-site, you could upload your whole work onto a page of that (WITHOUT providing a link from your homepage, so that it stays RELATIVELY hidden from the general public), then publish that hidden page's URL here on "shared work". That way you might get comment/advice/feedback on the combination of text and illustration.
Mind you, I tried this dodge: https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/profile/jimmy-hollis-i-dickson/work and got exactly ZERO feedback...