Learn more about the business of children's publishing in my book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books.

The Purple Crayon Blog Questions about Children's Publishing Answered by a Children's Book Editor, and Current Children's Publishing Links This is a blog (what a blog is) in which I post interesting questions from visitors and give my answers; occasionally comment on an issue; and post links of interest. These materials are posted on this site for free individual and non-commercial use. They are provided as a public service. Please follow our copyright policy. Sponsored links

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Installments available and notes on topics covered: February 2013: Twitter folks helped me name many great things about children's publishing today. April 2012: Do "traditional" publishers market books? Yes, actually. August 2011: YA books are booming, but not as much as the Atlantic Monthly thinks. June 2010: A book is not a CD, or why the publishing industry is not the music industry. May 2010: Why the odds of getting published shouldn't matter to you. April 2010: BookExpo America compared to the ALA Convention. March 2010: Conference handout recommending pages on The Purple Crayon, books, and websites. January 2010: Social networking: what a children's publisher expects of authors and illustrators. December 2009: How the site was hacked, and fixed. January 2009: Children's publishing and the recession. July 2008: Manuscript submissions--a selection of Q&As from my email March 2008: The Bank Street Children's Books Committee Children's Book Awards February 2008: Notes from a visit to BookExpo America November 2007: The Jessica Seinfeld Cookbook Controversy May 2007: Blog special: Observations from the SCBW-I Portfolio Review April 2007: Blog special: Manuscripts without cover letters March 2007: Blog special: Editors' names on manuscript submissions January 2007: Numbers of manuscripts publishers receive, pages in a picture book dummy, book advances November 2006: Current trends, blogs I like, agent and publisher, outline vs. synopsis, plagiarism October 2006: NBA nominees, writing nonfiction for the library market, publishers interested in new authors September 2006: CBC Annual Meeting, Crocket Johnson event, translating, YA novels and illustrations, Highlights and copyright, storytellers and editors August 2006: Publishers' contests, breaking the rules for picture book manuscripts, copyright and the bible, remaindered books, and a teen writing novels July 2006: Collecting folktales, finding an agent, an author approaching an illustrator, two questions about researching publishers June 2006: Foreign rights response, what an editorial assistant is, getting started as an illustrator, five quick questions March 2006: Book club edition, what a synopsis is, some links, revising/resubmitting/reselling, illustration suggestions February 2006: Handling foreign rights, the cost of hardcover books, two tricky situations with agents December, 2005: Rejection databases, submissions strategies/choosing publishers, photos as illustrations, P.O.D reviews, foreign subject November, 2005: Letting go of copyright, defining "picture book," finding the editor of a book, working in publishing, ghostwriting October #2, 2005: Manuscript with illustrations, some links, definition of historical fiction, illustration and the computer, current events October 2005: Copyright and the Internet, ICL vs. MFA, chapter length, manuscript format May 2005: Re-submitting a manuscript, citing sources, Lane Smith's $600,000 book, non-profit and grant-supported publishers, responding to personal rejections, picture book length April 2005: Submitting a self-published book, more on printings, other writing experience, school program as book, more on board books March #3, 2005: money, children's ebooks, length of a novel, 3-D illustrations, researching publishers, illustrator working with author March #2, 2005: color POD, fantasy links, MFA programs in children's writing, author/illustrator submissions, idea theft March 2005: permissions for illustrations, printing sequence numbers, writing YA fantasy novels, missing manuscripts, getting started as an illustrator January 2005: Writing about cancer, finding an illustrator, finding a printer, a comment December 2004: (Self) publishing poetry, confusion over positive rejections, magazine illustration rates November 2004: Submissions procedures, finding a publisher, self-publishing, author/illustrator, length and format I hope you have found this page and this site useful. Please visit The Purple Crayon Bookstores page to find some recommended bookstores and to learn how to support this site while doing your usual online shopping. Thank you

What this is: Blog, as you probably know, is short for "web log," and is used to describe a web site or part of a site that essentially consists of a regularly updated and personal running account of something--someone's life,comments on the news, an event. In this case, I've decided to take some of the questions I receive from visitors, add my answers, and post them for anyone who is interested. I'm selecting those most likely to interest the most people, and editing them only to remove names and other identifying information, and to fix obvious typos. I'm also posting articles here that are more current event-related than usual, or putting up some of the links I may at some time paste in on my site more permanently, but feel are of interest now.

The newest material is listed at the top here. You can find each blog installment listed on this page, and you can also page through them, as they have "previous" and "next" links on each page. Each installment has from 3 to 6 questions on it, depending on their length. Items in each installment that I think are most likely to be of general interest have links directly to them.

Once you go to a specific blog page, you will find that there is a short header before each item on a page, so you can just scroll down to find what interests you. Alternatively, you can use the search feature for the site to search across the site, or the "Find" feature in your browser to look for specific terms--though of course you can only do this one page at a time (Look in the "Edit" menu on the top of your browser to find this feature).

This page and the content linked to from it were created by Harold Underdown ( Google + Profile ).