In Which the Cockles of My Heart Are Reasonably Tepid

I've noticed that most MGs that have sold recently have NOT been 'school stories'. (At least what's listed at Pub. Lunch) Does that mean 'school stories' are history? Or maybe they are being bought but not reported? Any ideas?

I don't know what you mean by "school stories". A story in which the characters are in school? But that's... most of them. I'm confused.

Normally, if I get a rejection, I put it in my pile and go on, but I received one recently that makes me wonder. If an editor takes the time to point out exactly what does and doesn't work for her in a picture book, and says that it's close, but "not quite there yet", does that mean that she would be open to considering a revised version with those changes implemented? I know "no means no" is the general rule, but it seems like an awful lot of time on the editor's part if she doesn't want to see it again. And if she doesn't want to see it again, I don't want to come across as overly aggressive by sending a revision or emailing her to ask.

No means no. Invitations to resubmit are always explicit. You should take this as encouragement, though-- your manuscript clearly warmed the cockles of the editor's heart enough for her to want to take the time to give you feedback. Most of the time, speaking personally, my cockles are not that warm.

As a children's book illustrator with an agent, what should I be expecting from the relationship? I recently accepted representation with a great agency, but I'm not sure what I should be expecting as I don't currently have ambitions with submitting my own projects. Is she involved in my self promotion to help me get new work, or does she just help me with the issues that come up (contract, negotiation, etc) after I bring in projects on my own? As an editor, does it make a difference to you if an illustrator is agented or not?

This varies from agent to agent, and you should be asking your agent these questions. You should really have asked before you signed with her.
As an editor, no.

I was interested in your explanation of the fact that the author of a picture book manuscript should not expect to have any say in the illustration of their book. My question, then, is how an author/illustrator gets a book published. Is that situation always one where the person has an established presence as an illustrator? Do they submit the manuscript and not mention their hope to illustrate until after they have a publisher? Or maybe they're always established authors, and have a relationship with their publisher that allows them to present the idea? I can think of a lot of ways for such a deal to come about, but what's the typical scenario?

They submit illustrated manuscripts, and the editor doesn't look at them and think, "Well, we'll get that illustrated by someone better." She thinks, "This is essentially done! Awesome!"

Definitions for the Perplexed: Self Publishing

Janet Reid has done a fine job of covering the Harlequin brouhaha, so I needn't go over it again here.
And the SFWA has helpfully delineated the differences between vanity, subsidy, and self-publishing.

Let me just get this out of the way: There's nothing wrong with self-publishing. Not intrinsically. And a very small and extremely lucky and persistent percentage of self-publishers manage to sell their self-published works in enough quantity to make a profit. In a few extremely rare instances they sell well enough to be picked up by a trade publisher.

But there IS something wrong with self-publishing presses: They're shitheads.

Self-publishing presses reliably tell their marks ahem, clients all the things that will happen: their book will have an ISBN. It will be available through Amazon. It will have "distribution".

What they do not tell their clients are all the things that won't happen: It won't be available at both national wholesalers. Even if it is, it won't be available on a returnable basis to bookstores. It won't be available at a normal trade discount to bookstores. It won't have been edited, designed, or illustrated in a professional manner, which is what the book-buying public expects.

Which means it won't have a snowball's chance in hell of placement in bookstores, and 999 times out of 1,000 it won't have a snowball's chance in hell of selling. Period.

If self-publishing presses were educating their clients about all of that, I would have nothing at all against them. But education would cut into their profits. So they won't.

Look, Jane, look! Look at my book!

I have written a caption picture book (no illustrations) and was curious if I should use the word "caption" in my queries to identify it as such. Also, should I mention the word length (under 500 words)?

As the term "caption book" is more common among educators than other people, I would only recommend using it only if you are submitting to an educational publisher. Otherwise, call it a 'leveled reader' or a 'beginning reader'.

There are very specific guidelines for vocabulary, line length, sentence length, etc. in leveled readers, so I hope you know what you're doing. I'm sure beginning readers of every kind look very easy to people unfamiliar with them, but creating an honestly entertaining text for children who are still sounding out words is HARD. Current favorite: The Cat On the Mat Is Flat

Yes, do include the word count.

Shnookiedoodlepoo and the Diaper

I'm wondering if it's important to have a super great title for my manuscript when I submit it to the slush pile. Should I spend a great deal of time and energy to get it just right, or do the majority of titles get changed along the way anyway?

Great title:
Ooo, that's catchy. Maybe the editor will take a little peek right now, instead of days or weeks from now.

Ok title:
Manuscript gets in line. No special treatment.

Bad/cliched title:
Without realizing it, the editor keeps sifting manuscript to the bottom of the pile. Months go by. Eventually, editor reads it and maybe realizes it's great! It just needs a new title. No problem.

Horrifying title: No answer because the editor didn't want to touch the manuscript long enough to reject it.


If you can come up with a super title, then do-- it can encourage prompt responses.

But do not overthink this, and if you aren't good at recognizing the difference between an awkwardly overwrought title and something that sparks reader interest (and many writers are not!), go ahead and give your MS a blah, vanilla-flavored title that can be easily changed and that at least won't hurt it during submission.

Go To Your Happy Place: Your Writing Desk

I’m an aspiring author with one magazine credit and a fabulous agent. I’ve recently had some good news, an editor from a major publishing house is interested in my manuscript (the joy, the terror). She’s currently circulating copies to her colleagues and I’m waiting for news and trying not to hold my breath. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from other editors (via said fabulous agent); however, the outstanding concern is that the manuscript might not be long enough for the age group (I aimed it at 8-12, though some publishers felt it would be better as a 9+). The manuscript is 32,000 words long. I do know this is short, however it felt like the natural length for this specific story. It’s a long preamble, but I would love an editor’s honest take on this situation. Is a short story just too costly to print? are they unpopular/unsaleable? or are they trying to let me down easy? I’ve indicated that I’d be more than happy to write more (provided it was more that added to the story, not just more words to bulk out each chapter), and that I would be thrilled to have an editor’s opinion/brainstorming power to help me with some ideas. Besides that, is there anything I can do?

No, that's the right approach to take. In your position, I would assume that those editors who simply rejected it on the grounds that it's too short didn't have any particular ideas (or at least, ones they wanted to share) for how it might be longer.

It's possible you will find an editor who will be willing to publish this at its current length (it's on the short side, but I can think of shorter things published for middle school), or you will find an editor who's interested in brainstorming ways to make it longer.

If I were you, I would be thinking hard now about how you might make it longer (in a way that, as you say, serves the story rather than just padding it). If you're feeling stuck, ask your agent what she feels are the primary strengths of the manuscript and then concentrate on what you could do to develop those more.

Waiting and worrying are probably the couple of worst things for authors, but the good news is you have something to do that prevents both of them! That is: writing.

November Love/Hate

Know what I love? The way when a lot of people donate a leeetle money to a good cause, it becomes a LOT of money for the cause.

Know what I hate? Adam Rex's moustache.


HERE, the fantabulous Bridget Zinn auction is going on. Bridget, you'll recall, got a book deal and a cancer diagnosis in the same month. She's doing ok, but her treatment is hellishly expensive. Happily, she has lots of fellow children's book people who don't know her and yet who care about her.


HERE, Adam Rex is raising money for schoolchildren. Last year he raised a bunch of funds for Philadelphia schools; this year it's Tucson schools. (And you have the option of donating to schools in YOUR immediate area.) Please, donate some money and help us make him shave.


(What I love most: that the community of children's book people is so generous. You, my readers and your friends and colleagues: you're awesome.)

Suggestions Are Welcome! Demands... Not So Much.

I have a quick formatting question. If I want to set something off in my manuscript with a different font, how do I indicate that in my manuscript? I am going to have as part of my manuscript pages from another book and letters from characters in between chapters (not unlike Sarah Prineas did with THE MAGIC THIEF). Should I add something (a footnote? a note in brackets?) to indicate that this should be formatted differently?

A note in brackets phrased as a suggestion is acceptable. That's the designer's job, you know.

And out of curiosity--how would an author format a manuscript that needed some form of special illustration, like the comic book inset in Markus Zusak's THE BOOK THIEF or the ink blots and scribblings MT Anderson's OCTAVIAN NOTHING?

As a suggestion, again. That's money the publisher would have to spend on illustration.

You Promoted Your Book and I Don't Bitterly Regret Coming! Win/Win.

The trend to over-share might be in part because for authors there can be quite a bit of fear-driven pressure [from peers and self] to be doing what the most visible authors are doing. And as many commenters have pointed out, some very visible authors fall into the category of internet over-share in terms of anything goes personal information. Some put out a lot of information very naturally, and some really very entertainingly - but others I suspect may be acting somewhat out of character in order to try to meet a perceived expectation [besides maintaining blog posting volume]. These can be our most prominent examples.

Actually, all of the examples I've witnessed were in person, at publisher-organized events. AND several of the worst offenders were very established writers who could easily have refused to do events. I think some people just have no damn filter.

In terms of the dangers of speaking over-share, when people ask authors to speak they often don't have any kind of request for a particular topic or theme, and we are just expected to do 'our talk'. I've seen authors talk about all sorts of things, more and less successfully. So besides what not to say [which IS helpful!!], what would you give as advice for an author wondering what exactly to really focus on when asked to give a general talk?

Well, the reason authors usually aren't given a topic or theme is because nobody else but you knows what you can speak entertainingly about. You could speak about eggplants and how they were clearly never meant for consumption. You could speak about your first meaningful experience of the power of storytelling (as long as you aren't breaking any of the rules). You could speak about publishing's pitfalls or writing's ecstasies or vice versa. You could even speak about your book, if you really want to.

The trick is just to find something that you want to talk about and other people want to hear. Still, if all you can manage is to avoid speaking about something your audience finds uncomfortable, disgusting, inappropriate, weepingly dull, or nightmare-inducing, I say: that's a job well done.