[hue Posts: 46 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hi my friends,

When I browse books in library, I found a lot of early reader books come in series. I wonder how the submission processes work in such cases. Do people submit 2 or even more manuscripts at one time (which involves a large amount of work/time) , or it is the publisher that decides. For example, if they found one book is particularly interesting, they then make it into a series.

 A second question , the proportion of book series in this category is much higher than that in other PBs.  Is it because a series of books is easier to sell than one book in education market? 

Thank you in advance!     

[kwlarson Posts: 258 Status: Offline Books for curious kids WWW]

Hi Hue,

There are at least a couple of different ways this could work.

If you are looking at books from school and library publishers, they are likely work for hire projects. For example, I just wrote four books in an eight-book robots series for Amicus. They came up with the series. They had guidelines for what each book in the series should contain, how many words, what reading level, how many chapters, Q&A, etc. To write these books, you send the publisher a resume, cover letter and clips (writing samples). Then they hire you to write a specific series and provide the guidelines that you write to.

Many of the early readers you see on spinner racks at B&N or in the library are developed this way, especially if they involve licensed characters. Other single titles may be a direct submission, but you would have to really understand the reading levels and requirements for that particular publisher, which is difficult to do by just studying the book versus reading the guidelines.

Hope this helps!

Kirsten

[Vijaya Posts: 8,460 Status: Offline LISTEN. Let all mortal flesh keep silence ... WWW]

Kirsten has given you great advice. I've also heard of PB submissions turn into a CB series.

[Schriscoe Posts: 2,736 Status: Offline www.sharonchriscoebooks.com WWW]

Yes, to everything Kirsten and V. have said.

My agent just recently submitted my early reader and she sent it out as a solo. But she did mention the series potential to the story since most early readers are done as a series. She also said there aren't nearly as many editors who accept Early Readers as there are with other genres, but there was enough for a nice list of submissions.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 6,322 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

The key to early readers is understanding each publisher's leveling system and style. They all level slightly differently and different publishers have different styles for their readers. Most are written by packagers or editors in house. But one or two are done by old fashioned submissions. You'll have to look carefully to find someplace that isn't agent submission only though. Start by Googling whichever publisher feels like the best style fit for your work.

[hue Posts: 46 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thank you all! for the very helpful information and advice ! There is definitely a lot of homework for me to do  now