[jessie-raspbury Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hello All! 

I was wondering if anyone has heard of publishing with a company like Collisto, but for children's books.  Collisto basically does market analysis, finds out what is trending, then hires writers and produces the books.  They take all royalties, pay the writer a fee, (and sometimes small residuals) and then also gives them some free (or cheap) prints to sell. 

Collisto doesn't have a children's book market, but I wonder if anyone has had experience with this type of publishing?

[Vijaya Posts: 7,168 Status: Offline Encourage WWW]

Jessie. I'm not familiar with Collisto but I've done quite a bit of work-for-hire in the children's educational market but none of my contracts included purchasing copies to resell. Perhaps you can browse through our own Ev's list of educational publishers to see if any fit the Callisto model: http://evelynchristensen.com/markets.html  Good luck!

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I've had one work-for-hire with an opportunity for me to buy copies at a discount to sell, but that book isn't out yet. Lots of educational do books where you write to spec for a flat fee and they own all rights. I haven't seen one with a royalty though. And the publishers sometimes go through book packagers to hire the writers. Often the books fit into series that already exist, so there is no new market research. If the series is selling well, books will be added. In this case, the curriculum tie in may be all the market research you need.

[lauriew Posts: 154 Status: Offline WWW]

Callisto does lots of kids' books. I have a friend who has done several for them. Here are some of their kids' books:  https://www.target.com/c/kids-books-movies-music/callisto-media/-/N-5xsx6Zq643le1sy75.

[jessie-raspbury Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

So I’m not sure how to reply to each person individually, but thank you all for the comments! My friend had said Callisto doesn’t do children’s books (she writes for them) but clearly they do! And I’ll definitely be checking out the resources posted. Thank you!

[Ev Posts: 3,365 Status: Offline Making learning fun! WWW]

Yes, Callisto definitely does children's books under their Rockridge Press imprint. I've done one with them and was just zooming today with one of their editors about another possibility.

[dkshumaker Posts: 1,448 Status: Offline WWW]

I have had several friends work with Callisto and they said it was a positive experience.