Chapter 1: Adults Rule the World
This is a chapter from the virtual fourth edition of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books. Each chapter in the existing third edition will get my comments, updates, new material, or a combination of all of these.
C.I. Guide home page | The Purple Crayon home page
Fourth Edition Plan and TOC
Buy The C.I. Guide to Publishing Children's Books 3rd edition at AmazonOverview
This is an introductory chapter, and so it's not surprising that I don't see a need for many updates. In this chapter, I cover what to expect in the book, from guidance to getting started as a writer or illustrator, to information about how the children's publishing industry works. I preview the content and explain how to use it. I also give some very basic and still true rules about how things work in our business, such as the four things I list on page 4 as needed to get one's manuscript or illustration work noticed (in brief: working hard, always learning, being persistent, and having some luck).
Updates
I do have a few updates. One is just to make note of this page on the ALA website where one can find links to text and audio of Simms Taback's 2000 Caldecott Medal speech, in which he talks about feeling he has only just arrived, and which I quote on page 5.
Two others come up where I make some specific statements about events in publishing on page 6, which were accurate when I first wrote the book (in 2000) and even when it was last updated in 2008, but are now dated. One is a reference to many mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions are still happening, including the merger of Penguin and Random House in 2013. However, that capped off the trend of mergers within U.S. publishing. The current trend is acquisition of American companies by foreign media companies, such as the purchase of Candlewick/Walker by Trustbridge, announced on the day I write these comments.
The other big trend is the increasing dominance of Amazon in book retailing, driven by the success of the Kindle ebook format, by the bankruptcy of Borders in 2011, and the struggles of Barnes and Noble over the past several years. At least half of all U.S. book sales are now made through Amazon. A resurgence of independent booksellers and new management at Barnes and Noble offer hope that Amazon will not be able to establish a complete monopoly over the book trade.
On page 7, there's a sidebar that asks: "How big is children's publishing?" Interestingly enough, the sales and numbers of titles remain accurate, but I'd update my "Big Five" to be the "Big Six": Penguin Random House (or PRH), HarperCollins, Macmillan US, Simon and Schuster, Scholastic, and Hachette.
C.I. Guide home page | The Purple Crayon home page
Fourth Edition Plan and TOC
Buy The C.I. Guide to Publishing Children's Books 3rd edition at Amazon
Copyright © by Harold Underdown 2020. All rights reserved. One copy may be printed for personal use, but may not be otherwise reproduced, either on paper or electronically.