How To Publish A Childrens Book

How To Publish A Childrens Book?

 Why Publish A Childrens Book? It is the dissemination of knowledge, it is the link to the next generation, it is your legacy, your mark. You may think, I can't write; I can't do this, it's too hard, it's too much work. Don't be overwhelmed by the idea of submitting a manuscript. Publishing is not always research. How to publish a children's book? Certainly, not for the money (of which there is very little in scholarly writing) or because seeing your name in print, especially for the first time, is one of the most exhilarating experiences (because it is!). You should publish because you have a professional responsibility to your peers and especially to the generations that come after you.

 Who is to say that what one of you writes and publishes will not be quoted as frequently as an article written so many years ago by Mendelson. Each and every one of you is capable of publishing an article, a chapter, a book. You have received those tools in your educational What about you? Will you accept the responsibility to publish a childrens book, your work, your dreams? After all, that is what great professions like ours are made of.

 In the fall of 2009, James Danky, codirector, Alternative Acquisitions Project, and the newspapers and periodicals librarian of the State Historical Society in Wisconsin, asked the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) to prepare a presentation about alternative press books for children for the "Alternative Literature in Libraries" conference sponsored by the Society, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library School, and the Alternative Acquisitions Project of Temple University Libraries. It was to be held in Madison the following May.

 Conference speakers discussed the increasing numbers of independent publishers of childrens book and affirmed alternative press publications as sources of information and innovation not found elsewhere in publishing. Subsequent disussion by CCBC staff with public, school, and academic librarians who attended the conference confirmed that the nonstandard distribution methods of some of the presses and the lack of reviews of alternative press books in professional library review media were often obstacles to library acquisition of alternative press materials about how to publish a childrens book.

 

 Preparation for that conference indicated that interesting and important children's books were being published for children by a considerable number of alternative presses. Librarians were both eager to make alternative press books available in their collections and concerned about the difficulty in obtaining them. This eagerness and concern had been expressed by several Wisconsin librarians over the years. These factors reinforced the decision to try more systematically than before to provide Wisconsin librarians with examination copies of alternative press children's books through CCBC.