Okay, I’m going to get back to my train of thought before all the sickies commenced! *;^D*
To recap… You’ve:
- written a ms
- let it sit, to cool your brain off
- reread your ms, and revised as needed
- had it critiqued
- revised and sat ms as need
Now what??? Well, you’re ready to get that dear ms that you’ve nurtured out the door! Ta-DAH!!!!!!! But where to send it???? I cannot put into words the importance of research here. There are tons of publishing houses and tons of magazines out there. But not all of them will make a good fit with you ms. What I do is quite simple I research them!
You can do a lot of research with a few things… Books, Newsletters, and the Internet!
Here are three books I recommend:
Children’s Writers & Illustrators Market
Children’s Book Market
Children’s Magazine Market
All three of these are updated each year with a new publication.
Newsletters… well there are a TON of these out there. Some I’ve found the most helpful are:
SCBWI <both national & regional)
The Book Insider (write 4 kids newsletter)
Children’s Writer (ICL)
Now with these you need to pay a subscription to receive them. But it’s worth it. Newsletter are updated monthly and can keep you up to date with most information.
The internet. *sigh* How did we ever get along with out it????????? I have too many websites to list. But some of the most helpful I’ve found are:
Predators & Editors
CWIM
The Purple Crayon -Who’s Moving Where Page
My critique groups
KidMagWriters.com
I cannot express how much helpful word of mouth is. On top of these there’s conferences, meetings, writing forums, and so many more to look at and catch up on current information.
The reason I’m stressing all this is that you’ve GOT to get your ‘ideal’ publisher in mind. If you write fiction, don’t send it to someone who only prints non-fiction. If you write ya, don’t send it to someone who is currently open only to pbs. That kind of thing. It waste your time and money and theirs.
There’s a reason why so my publishers are closing there doors. They are overwhelmed and can’t see out their office doors for all the submissions. ***Okay, I’m probably exaggerating here. Or at least I hope I am. YIKES!***
By doing good research, you’ll narrow your publishers down and have a better chance of getting accepted. While I can’t guarantee acceptance, ***but, boy I wish I could*** I think you’ll have a better opportunity to make a connection with an editor and hopefully get your foot in the door and be on your way to seeing your writing goals acheived.
