[ethan-james-2 Posts: 8 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hey everyone, when querying an agent for a chapter book series, do you pitch just the first book in the series (which is totally finished), or do you pitch the ongoing series (which is not finished)? A combination of the two?
Thanks!

[lauriew Posts: 153 Status: Offline WWW]

I don't have an answer to your question, but I have a terminology comment. Poets call a collection of poems a "chap book." To avoid confusion, you might not want to use that term in our kidlit context. Good luck with querying.

[carrots Posts: 551 Status: Offline]

The general thinking is to *not* mention series potential when querying.

This post from the "Editorial Anonymous" blog explains it:

http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/08/series-potential-seriously.html

(The comments beneath it are helpful, too.)

Best, best wishes, Ethan!!

 

[June Smalls Posts: 104 Status: Offline SHE LEADS: THE ELEPHANT MATRIARCH May, 2020 WWW]

I've submitted chapter book queries saying things along the lines of; Complete at X,XXX words this is the first in a potential series.
This lets them know the option is there without forcing it or using up precious word space in your query.

[ethan-james-2 Posts: 8 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thank you so much for the advice, everybody! Laurie, I'll avoid that from now on. Carrots, thank you for the link--that conversation gets really heated in the comment section! And June, thank you for the personal insight on the topic--I think that's what I'm going to do when the time comes. It seems like relevant info to include. A 5-10K book would be hard to sell alone, right??
Thanks again!
Ethan

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 6,871 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

Chapter book is the correct kidlit term. It implies a book for readers who are new to chapters (ages 5-7 or so). Chapbook is a correct term for a book of poems. No one in the publishing industry will confuse the two. Your query should show you know what your book is, so call it a chapter book. Good luck.

And yes, saying it has series potential is fine, especially in chapter books because they are most often published as series. Stand alones are far harder to sell.