October 2003

Do Children's Magazines Buy All Rights?

I was a newspaper reporter for six years and now I'm at home raising my two children. I would like to freelance for children's magazines but I've been warned that Highlights and Cricket buy all rights. Is this typical? Do all children's magazines buy all rights?

While it's true that many children's magazines buy all rights, many don't. Each magazine listing in the Children's Writers and Illustrator's Market includes information about rights in the "Terms" section.

Even though Highlights does buy all rights, they have very specific needs outlined in their guidelines. Therefore if you submit a story to them, there probably isn't a market for the work elsewhere anyway. For example, if you send them a rebus story, there aren't many markets for those so in selling all rights you aren't giving up the prospect of future sales. I usually advise writers who want to sell to Highlights that they write specifically for the magazine and if their work is accepted they use the sale as a publication credit on their resume.

Cricket is just one of fifteen children's magazines published by Carus Publishing. They don't necessarily buy all rights. Each of their magazines has separate guidelines and rights policies. In some cases, as with fiction, writers are reporting that some rights are negotiable.

In my experience writing nonfiction for children's magazine, the subject and style of the article are usually so specific to the magazine that there's no market for the work elsewhere, so it doesn't matter if they buy all rights to that particular story. You always have the option of re-writing the material into an article with a different slant for another publication.

How Can I Submit Illustrations With My Manuscript?

I illustrated my own picture book. I'm not a professional artist but some of my drawings have been published locally. In your column you say that writers should not submit illustrations with their manuscripts. But I put a lot of time and effort into my dummy, it looks like a finished picture book. I can't imagine not submitting this. Are there any publishers out there that will look at a dummy?

Finding publishers who will look at your picture book dummy is difficult but not impossible. It does narrow the field of prospective publishers to choose from. Workman Publishing, Bollix Playhouse, and Lee & Low Books will look at text with illustrations.

However, before you submit you need to make copies of your original dummy. Never send the original. And since you will want to simultaneously submit your work, you should make as many copies as financially possible. If you used your own scanner, computer, and printer to create your dummy, you should be able to reproduce the original quite easily. If your dummy consists of original artwork, such as drawings or paintings, then you will need to take your dummy to a local printer to have copies made for you.

You should also make a PDF of your original dummy. Handprints is a new publisher that will look at picture book text with illustrations, but they will only consider email submissions. In her article, "From A to E-Book: Creating a Children's Picture E-book," children's author Sharon Martini offers a step-by-step approach to creating a professional-looking, illustrated ebook.

Having said all that, according to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books, Lynne Rominger and Harold Underdown, the best way to go about breaking in as a children's writer/illustrator is to submit your work separately to publishers. Their advice is based on how the children's book publishing industry works. At most publishing houses, the editorial department chooses the stories to be published and the art department chooses the illustrators for those projects. Since the editors don't actually hire the illustrators, if you submit your dummy to an editor, your artwork probably won't be seen by anyone in the art department. Therefore, you should submit text only in manuscript format to the editor, or editorial department. And you should submit a copy of your dummy to the art department. You might not get a contract for your story right away, but you might be hired to illustrate another author's work.

Ideas For School Fundraisers

I'm not sure if you're the right person to ask, but I'm looking for ideas for school fund raisers. I was just elected President of the PTA at my kids' elementary school. So now it's up to me to find ways to raise money. I'd like to do something different than selling gift wrapping, candles, candy bars, and stuff like that. I was thinking of a book fair but I don't know how to go about it. Any suggestions?

The most popular are the Scholastic Book Fairs. Their web site offers lots of helpful information on how to organize a fundraising book fair at your school.

In her recent Bookselling This Week article, "With School Book Fairs Hobbit Halls 'Steps Out of the Box'" Nomi Schwartz features a Georgia independent bookstore that regularly puts on book fairs. Check with the managers at your local bookstores. They might be willing to work with you to organize a school book fair.

Don't overlook your local authors. Another way to conduct a book fair is to contact authors in your area to see if they would be interested participating in a children's writing and reading workshop. Events could include talks by the authors, book signings, plus a book fair featuring their books.

For more information:

Highlights submission guidelines

Carus Publishing submission guidelines

http://www.cricketmag.com/pages_content.asp?page_id=6

Workman Publishing

http://www.workman.com/content/pagemaker.cgi?1005854822.txt

Bollix Playhouse submission guidelines

http://www.write4kids.com/wmarket/march.html

Lee & Low Books

http://www.leeandlow.com/editorial/wguidenonfic.html

Handprint Books

http://www.handprintbooks.com/contacts.html

From A to E-Book: Creating a Children's Picture E-book, by Sharon Martini

http://www.writing-world.com/children/ebook.shtml

Scholastic Books Fairs

http://www.scholastic.com/bookfairs/

With School Book Fairs Hobbit Halls "Steps Out of the Box"

http://news.bookweb.org/news/1710.html

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