An honest dialogue about the harm of racial appropriation in children’s picture books.

The choice to pursue representation is an entirely personal decision based on factors such as but not limited to:

• Do you want your work to be traditionally published or would you rather go directly to market?

• Are you comfortable giving up a percentage of your potential contract advance and book sale royalties (in perpetuity)?

• Are you willing to wait 4-12+ weeks while agents review your polished submission materials to see if they’re the right agent to represent your work?

If you do decide you’d like to try your hand querying a picture book agent, it helps to know which agents (and agencies) are winning the most deals for the artists they represent!

So, without further ado, here are the top 20 literary agents in order by number of deals made:

Literary agents and editors complain most of the stories they review get “lost in the middle”.

Today, we’ll explore three simple strategies for organizing and fleshing out our story concepts to help them become well-developed finished products.

There’s a big difference between story-telling and story-selling. Yet, to touch the most people with our work, we should strive to be effective in each.

Even if you’re seeking or have secured traditional publishing, the cycle of actively, passionately and thoughtfully sharing your creation ought to be in constant animation…and here's why:

Publishers only have so much money budgeted for marketing talent.

Timing is everything. Finding a publisher who publishes the kind of stories you’re looking to sell and catching them during their window of acceptance can be a mixture of research, persistence and chance. 

To help you identify a publisher that’s fitting for the story you’re looking to sell and submit to them in a way that gives your picture book script a winning chance - we’ll do a checklist of 5 quick things.

As a storyteller hired by public figures and big businesses, I identify with the artist’s plight because…I am the artist’s plight. But, as a creator who needs to partner with and hire other creatives, I very much understand that resources for any given project are not limitless.

When it comes to identifying & onboarding the right illustrator to help transform your children’s book story into a professional-grade product there are four simple things you can do to demystify the vague and sometimes scary question of “Urrmm…how much is this going to cost me?”

Presenting any narrative theme without considering how enjoyable the journey is, at every turn, for our audience is writing for ourselves first, instead of our audience.

Consistent engagement is an easily overlooked ingredient of irresistible writing. Sometimes, the value of what we’re trying to say can seem paramount to what could be seen as cheap thrills and sensationalism.

Guaranteeing your content is as electric as possible isn’t to cheapen a heartfelt tale with meaningless moments of action and base drama.

The brow-beating work of creating story is in blending substance AND entertainment. In its best iteration, storytelling is a service.

Not emptily “people pleasing” but engineering experiences that feel engaging end-to-end, value-added and leave our audiences with meaningful, lasting impressions.