How To Get A
Children's Book Published?
The Center applied for grant funds to enable
comprehensive acquisition of alternative press children's books
and to develop resources about alternative press publishing for
children. In the fall of 1980, CCBC received a Library Services
& Construction Act Grant approved by the Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction, Division for Library Services
to assist Wisconsin public librarians in collection development
of alternative press children's books. And how to get a
children's book published? The one-year project also provided
for assembling both a circulating examination collection and a
noncircuiating research collection of alternative press
children's titles, and the development of information files and
other resources about alternative press publishers and
publishing. It also made provision for holding several
continuing-education programs about alternative press
publishing and for the evaluation and acquisition of
alternative press books for children.
- Literature about alternative presses
published in professional library information sources and
alternative media was consulted in defining an alternative
press. During the year, as information was gathered, the
limits of the definition changed. The most clear and
workable definition was decided upon by the staff after
continuing discussion about the nature of alternative press
and about the purposes of the project. For our purposes, an
alternative press was defined as an independent publisher
(one which is unaffiliated with national or multinational
corporations or organizations) with a major function of
book publication, some or all of which are children's
books.
- Questions regarding the scope of the examination and
research collections arose in spite of this working
definition. What is the difference between a self-published
children's book and one published by a vanity press? Should
books published under a person's name, as opposed to a
press name, be included in the collections? How "old" are
children and how to get a chidren's book publish? Would
books published primarily as instrucional materials be
included in the collections?
Distinctions between alternative
presses, self-publishers children's book, and vanity publishers
were made based on information in an article. "Independent
Publishing: Today and Yesterday," by Bill Henderson:
- An independent press is a small
press, lacking substantial capital, that specializes in the
publication of materials which commercial publishers
reject... Self-publishing is similar to independent or
small press publication. Essentially, self-publication
means an author writes, edits, sometimes prints but more
often hires a printer, procures reviews and finally,
distributes his own work. As is the case with the small
press, material that is self-published has often
been rejected by commercial publishers. Again, like the
small press, self-publication provides a means for an
author who is convinced of the merit and saleabililv of his
work to reach the public. The difference between
self-publishing children's book and small press publishing
is that when a work is self-published, the author invests
his own capital and assumes the complete risk of success or
failure that is usually distributed among a handful of
persons in the case of a small or independent press. How to
get a children's book published? The vanity
press.. publishes anything
for which an author will pay, and usually at a loss
to the author... The author who has paid for
publication receives a small number of copies for
himself; the vanity publisher childrens book owns the
rest... With a vanity press publication, the author
spends his money with little hope of return..'
- Given this analysis, alternative press books and
self-published works were included in both collections.
Vanity press books were excluded.
The age limits for books in the collections, birth to age
14, were set in order to be consistent with the existing
CCBC selection policy. Childrens book published as
instructional materials were excluded for the same reason.
The circulating collection developed by the project for use
within Wisconsin contains a selection of titles and
reference materials designed to be used as aids in the book
evaluation and selection process: the titles are in print
and available for purchase by public libraries. The
research collection includes all in-print and out-of-print
titles identified by the project staff.
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