So you're interested in writing and/or illustrating children's books. Read on! I hope you find the following information helpful.

• The Purple Crayon. This web site from the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children’s Books is a good place to start, even if you're not an idiot. Basic Information about the field is here. Answers to questions about agents — how to find one, and whether you need one — are here.

• Writing With Pictures, by Uri Shulevitz, is the best book I know on making picture books, by a long shot. Buy it from your local bookseller here, or from Amazon here. See also David Macaulay's Building the Book Cathedral, available from your local bookseller here or from Amazon here.

• Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. SCBWI publishes a newsletter, holds conferences, and conducts guest speaker/panel discussion series.

• Your local library. So obvious that it might not seem worth mentioning — but I mention it. Visit and look over the children’s collection with an author’s and artist’s and reader’s eye. Which books do you find most successful? Ask yourself why.

• Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market. Edited by Alice Pope. Published by Writers Digest Books. A good guide to the hows and wheres of submitting work.

• For an unvarnished editor's perspective on the field, there's the blog Editorial Anonymous. It can be insider baseball and it can be harsh, but I mention it because it shows certain unsentimental realities of writing and publishing.

• Finally, a note to authors about illustrations: It's a common and understandable idea that picture book manuscripts should be submitted with illustrations. This, however, is not the case. Unless you yourself are author and illustrator, editors prefer to receive manuscripts without art attached. It's the job of editors and art directors to know the work of illustrators, established and new, and they prefer to match artist to story themselves. (Otherwise, they'd have to rely on which author and illustrator just happen to know each other, which would be hit and miss, at best. Things are hit and miss enough as is.) There are happy exceptions, but they are exceptions. If you're waiting to find an illustrator before submitting your picture book manuscript, wait no more!

I hope this information helps!

Best,
Brian Floca