Children's Books

          I saw an advert today for a competition for children's book writers. None of the submissions are to be from an agent, so they're looking for fresh talent. The winner will get published, get an agent, and get £10,000. Hurrah! I'm going to be rich! I'm going to be rich!

          I've written two suitable books. I am a school librarian. You't think I might know something about books for schoolchildren, so I wrote two books for ten to fourteen years olds back to back when I found myself unwillingly in full time employment.

          When I finished each of the books, I gave them out to schoolchildren, telling them they were written by someone else, and handed out questionnaires. This was most satisfying thing that ever happened to me through the wonderful writings. Kids can love books. Much more than adults. So all these kids are coming up to me and handing back these folders with the questionnaires, and giving me the big, beaming smiles. The kids, by and large, really loved these books. I thought they would and was much chuffed really.

           As a boost for this children's book competition, Michele Paver writes of competitions when she was unpublished. "The also gave me the assurance that one of those godlike beings in the 'publishing world' would actually read what I've written.'

           I was hustling the children's books for over two years. I sent letters out to all the appropriate publishers and almost all of them  told me to send in three chapters. So I did that along with photocopies of the reader reports .... and not one of the publishers asked to read either of the books.

           I found out after all this palaver that no one had ever heard of anyone getting published in this area without an agent. So sending three chapters to publishers is a complete waste of time. Why they pretend they're going to look at these three chapters ....

           I finally got an email from Nicky Singer and she said that there was no chance of getting anything read without an agent and you probably wouldn't get published unless you were with one of the six "killer" agents.

           So I sent submissions to all of the agents in Britain and managed to get two of them to read it. At least, they wanted me to send in full manuscripts. Whether anyone got round to reading them is another matter.

            I met someone a couple of weeks ago who'd just had a book published in this field, her first. No advance. I'd never heard of gettting published without getting an advance. I thought that was all the money you'd ever see. Not only was she given no advance, she only got seven and a half percent off sales. I'd never heard of anyone getting under ten percent.

           So it looks as if getting into a competition might be the only chance you've got of getting a book published in this field unless you are .... very fortunate indeed!

            But you've got to pay them to read your book. They're charging £15 to enter. So they'll read your book for £15. Or at least the first couple of pages. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folk will send in stuff. The publishers will make a fortune!!

            Roz McKenzie  is preparing the covers for the two children's books I've written. They be on Kindle within the next couple of weeks, I hope!