At the January 2018 SCBWI Florida regional conference in Miami, Chronicle Children’s Book Editor Melissa Manlove said that her press—which she noted isn’t all that large—receives maybe 10,000 kidlit submissions per year, and about 75% of those are PBs. And from those 7,500 PB submissions, they only accept a few dozen.
The editors at Peachtree Publishing—an indie publisher based in Atlanta—say “of the 20,000 manuscripts we receive each year, we can only publish about 30 titles.”
Oof. Those are tough odds, no matter how you look at it.
This means that plenty of well-written, kinda-good-to-very-good PB manuscripts (as well as lots of poorly-written and merely average ones) are regularly rejected at Chronicle and Peachtree and elsewhere every single day.
The challenge: So how does an aspiring PB author buck those odds and earn the sale?
The answer: Send out a manuscript that’s undeniably great. Something that sings right off the page. Something that insists on being reread. Something that’s harder to say “No” to than “Yes, yes, yes!” Something others will pay $20 for.
Let’s be honest—that’s a tall order. If it were easy, everyone would be writing the next Owl Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, and Last Stop on Market Street all the time.
(Don’t know these OMG books? Click on the covers below to get your own copy today!)
Do you need some writing/editing help with your own PB manuscript(s)?
I offer picture book critiques designed to help push your stories to the next level. Hop over to my main website for details and pricing.