How to Get Your Children’s Book Published
Step #5: The Book Process
Congratulations! If you’ve read the first four articles in this series, you know WAY more about the publishing industry than many other potential authors going in (and buckets more than I did when I started)! That knowledge will serve you well once your story is on its way to becoming a book. So how does that happen, exactly? This article will focus on the publishing steps of a children’s book from the author’s perspective.
The only pre-step is to make sure you have read contemporary books in the genre that you intend to write. As an educator, you are probably well ahead in this department. I read hundreds of picture books before I started, you should at least go for a few dozen in the genre you intend to write. It’s difficult to create sellable work if you aren’t familiar with today’s books.

FIRST: AN IDEA
If you don’t have one already, one day you will get an idea for a children’s book. How? By listening to the way you (or the kids around you) think and where you (or they) stop to wonder. That idea can come from anywhere: the playground, an old photo, an internet article, conversation, eavesdropping, memories, a dream, your wild imagination. Some advice? 1) Consider whether young people will find your idea compelling. 2) Don’t fall in love with your idea yet.
Why not? Well, there are two schools of thought on ideas. One is that writers should run with any idea that pops in their head and just start creating. That’s a great strategy and can result in some truly wonderful work. If that seems like a good approach for you, then go ahead and work that way. Every writer is different and works according to their own heart and mind.
However, I am a proponent of the second strategy, which is to first make sure that idea doesn’t already exist as a children’s book. At this point in life, I am too aware that publishing is a business; I simply won’t waste writing time on ideas that are not sellable.
So, say you have an idea for a sci-fi middle grade novel about a young female reindeer herder in the 1980s who saves her Sámi people’s way of life when she meets a creature raised on another planet. Great. Cool. I know it seems unbelievable, but make sure no one has written it (or something very like it) recently. Hunt for books on that same idea/topics on Amazon; check the CLDC database at a library, sometimes I will even read through the past year’s recent sales in Publishers Weekly. Look for reindeer books, check the sci-fi and indigenous books, look for books on interplanetary friendships.
It is rare that editors will buy a very similar book even though your take on it will (of course) be different. This goes double for new-to-the-business authors. Your picture book about quitting crayons (for example) is unlikely to get much attention because The Day the Crayons Quit was such a hit. My own ratio of ideas to drafts is probably running around 10:1. I have ten ideas that don’t pan out for every one manuscript that I finish. On the other hand, the books I do write, are selling very close to 100%. But our reindeer herder idea still seems pretty great, so let’s move on.
RESEARCH
Whether writing nonfiction or fiction for kids, almost all writers do some research. That can range from teaching yourself about reindeer herders from scratch (rigorous travel!) to learning about space suits on the internet, to having a general handle on the times (1980s) by reading old newspapers in the library — that is unless you really were a 1980s reindeer herder who had an extraplanetary friendship. Research is its own weekend seminar topic, so the best I can do in this space is to share some articles to get you thinking: a general one for novels and one for nonfiction picture books.
Research goes hand in hand with drafting. You may start writing the manuscript and go on for a few pages or a few chapters, then realize what you don’t know, stop to do more research, and then go back to writing. You may also realize that if you are not part of an indigenous community, maybe this isn’t your story to tell. Or you may realize that the story would make a better picture book than a middle grade novel. Research is learning about the subject, but often results in knowing how to better tell the story.
DRAFTING
Drafting is probably the most important step in a “can’t win the lotto if you don’t buy a ticket” way. Drafting is getting your initial idea down on paper as a complete story. Drafting can take a long time, is often frustrating, also exciting, and in general feels like a big mess. The story in your head will most probably not be that great once you put it on paper for the first time. Do not worry. Just get it done. Anne Lamott calls initial drafts, “shitty first drafts.” And says, “All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.”
However, no one can make you take the time to write. No one else knows your other obligations in and out of the classroom. But, if you really want to write a children’s book, the best advice I can give you is to make yourself a schedule with goals. I will write 100 words a day toward this project; I will write 5 days a week between 8 and 10 pm; my first draft will be done by the end of the summer. Early on, I got up at 4:30 am (before my kids were up at 6:30) and those two hours were my writing time. I wrote at 4:30 every day of the week (and many weekends) until my first books like Fearless and The Camping Trip that Changed America (plus a few that didn’t pan out) were drafted, fitting in research during the day as best as I could.
You intend to write a children’s book, so format realistic, specific writing goals that fit your life.

REVISIONS
Now let’s say it’s six months later and you did it, you have a draft of the reindeer herder book. CELEBRATE! 81% of people want to write a book, only 3% do it. You are a writing hero! CELEBRATE MORE!
Then, give it to someone to read. This person should not be your spouse, your child, or your mother. Ideally you will share your draft with someone who is writing for children also, maybe a children’s writing group (see your local SCBWI), or any other person who knows children’s books and will tell you the truth. Then listen to their thoughts and opinion even if it’s very hard to hear. If they say, “it’s perfect,” they’re wrong, find someone else.
Because we all think (like our students do!) that our drafts make sense, don’t have gaps or leaps, are engaging and have relatable characters. We are wrong. If you want to publish a book, you must learn to ask for, listen to, and yes, even welcome, honest critical feedback. Though it’s always gratifying to hear what’s right about your story; you need honest readers to tell you what’s wrong.
And then you revise. Revision means changing your writing, often dramatically. Revision is not moving around a few sentences and fixing the punctuation. Revision is re-looking at the manuscript. Should it start where it starts and end where it ends? Why is this character friends with the other character? Can you see, smell, taste and feel the setting? Does the language sound real for the character’s ages and situations? Is there action? A LOT of action?
Revision is asking yourself questions of your own work over and over, week by week, until it’s as perfect as you know how to make it. Then reading it back and revising again. I have thirty-seven drafts of the manuscript that became The Camping Trip that Changed America, all written before I ever submitted it to a publisher. Is that a lot? Yes. Is it the most I ever heard of for a picture book? Not even close. Revision becomes the air a writer breathes. And even though the process is difficult, most of us learn to tolerate (if not love) it, because revision is how our stories blossom.
Until one day with consistent work your revised draft begins to gel. The story is logical, the writing is smooth, the action is clear, and any readers you’ve been lucky enough to find have way more positives to say and hardly any negatives. Congratulations! Your manuscript, Jupiter’s Reindeer, is ready to meet the world.
NEXT MONTH, THE REST OF THE PROCESS
We’ll publish the second part of Barb’s “The Book Process” next month, including “Submission,” “Editorial Comments,” “Art & Revisions,” and “Print Production.”
More from this series …
Before, Step #4, Main Characters in Publishing