Industry Insider Interviews: Tips, Advice, and More from 18 Editors & Agents

Instead of having a regular one-​subject interview, I’m going to share 18 interesting, surprising, and/​or useful things said by literary agents or editor in interviews I’ve read this past year. For those of you who care about such things, none of these interviews were at OPB. But maybe down the road I’ll do some a roundup post or two that’s only from OPB, kind of an OPB Greatest Hits! Does that sound like a good idea to you?

I’ll see you back here next week for the final OPB picture book review of 2023.


Anjanette Barr, Dunham Literary

from PBS Spotlight

I always ask myself whether this is something children actually WANT to read about. If you have a great story idea, but it’s on a topic the typical 4–8‑year-old crowd doesn’t care about, then you may need to choose a different format for your book. It’s easy to forget what that age group is interested in if you aren’t spending a lot of time with them, and this is often a glaring problem in manuscripts from new picture book authors. Remember that even though we want adults to enjoy reading our books aloud, it’s always the kids that matter most.


Sheila Barry, Kids Can Press

from cynsations

The hardest part of my job is having to say “no” so many times in a day or week. We turn down far more manuscripts than we publish (we probably reject 100 manuscripts for every one we accept), and I write more rejection letters than I can count.

Many of the projects we turn down are perfectly publishable, but they just aren’t exactly right at this particular moment for Kids Can Press, and it can be hard to keep finding ways to say: “We like your work, but we don’t like it quite enough to contract.” I’m almost always impressed by the graciousness of the people I turn down. But I still don’t enjoy doing it.


Savannah Brooks, kt literary

from Literary Rambles

I’m open [to self-​published or indie authors] so long as the project they’re querying hasn’t already been published. Those I won’t take on because the project really needs to be an Indie bestseller in order for editors to consider it. Otherwise it doesn’t really matter to me unless those projects are problematic/​poorly written. My general advice is don’t try to use self-​publishing as a way to launch yourself into traditional publishing. It backfires more often than it works.


Julia Churchill, AM Heath

from Words & Pictures

Every author is different, every book is different and every campaign is different. Publishers bring expertise, creativity and investment to the marketing of a book and an author. I will look through each campaign and ask questions. If I think it looks basic, I’ll ask for more. If I think they should be using the author more, I’ll ask why they aren’t. If the author and I have any other ideas ourselves, we will bring them to the publisher and talk about how we can make them work. If I see something that has fallen flat on one campaign with another publisher, then I will share my experience and ask why that happened, and if maybe we should re-​route the budget into a different area, or if they still think it’s worthwhile. I ask questions, I make suggestions, I voice my concerns.

What I want for every author is the premium big-​budget campaign, the diamond standard, but very few get that. You can imagine marketing and PR campaigns to be on a sliding scale. Some campaigns are on the more basic end of the scale. If that’s where your author is in this moment, it’s important to know that, so you can deal with it. I can brainstorm with the author what they can do under their own steam, dovetailing with publisher’s efforts, and also ask the publisher to bring in their expertise and some budget in order to help support the author. Everyone wants the book to be successful.

Not all authors want to be in a room presenting to a hundred people, they want to sit in their shed and write – and why shouldn’t they? Some authors do — and love being on panels or at festivals – it’s about knowing the author, and building the campaign around them and the book.


Mary Cummings, Great River Literary

from PBS Spotlight

If I’m intrigued, I send insights about areas to revise. I don’t want to hear back in, like, two hours because I don’t believe the writer will have really pondered and had opportunity to decide whether the revisions seem like a direction that feels right. But I also want to hear back in some reasonable amount of time (a few months would be really long for a picture book, unless my thoughts for revision would have major impact on illustrations for an author/​illustrator).


Adria Goetz, kt literary

from Johnell Dewitt

I particularly love what I call “historical footnote” picture books, that build a story around lesser known bits from history. I’m also looking for picture books that capture ordinary or natural moments that feel like they’re magical—moments like capturing fireflies, bread dough rising, watching a bird murmuration, the Northern Lights, planting a seed and having it grow into a living plant, and so on. We’re surrounded by ordinary magic, and I want to celebrate it! I’m also particularly looking for picture books that explore something peculiar that happens in nature.


Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

from liveabout dotcom

One interesting thing is that independent booksellers have been compelled to be so much more nimble and creative to stay competitive and so many of them have gotten really good at selling picture books and middle-​grade books.

There would sometimes be a situation when I’d hear that Barnes & Noble “passed” on an author’s book and it used to be devastating—devastating. I would have an inconsolable author and have nothing to really to be able to tell him or her. That’s become less and less the case.

Of course, it’s great if the book is at Barnes & Noble, but it doesn’t need to be there. If they pass —while it’s not ideal—between school, library, and the indies, now we’re able to say, “That’s OK. There are other ways to sell the book.”


Susan Hawk, Upstart Crow Literary

from Writer’s Digest

Keeping texts concise is key – take a look at newly published picture books to see approximately how long they are. Editors aren’t looking for a lengthy text. I often receive rhyming picture books and these can also be a tough sell. Ask yourself if your story must rhyme; sometimes it can open up possibilities if you aren’t bound to a rhyme scheme.

I also avoid texts that teach a lesson. I find that a story that’s in service of a lesson can obscure the star of the story – the characters I want to fall in love with.


Carol Hinz, Millbrook/​Carolrhoda Books

from Picture Book Builders

I regularly see picture book biography texts that are well done but just don’t completely grab me. A common problem with these is pacing. Everything in the subject’s life is given equal weight, so the highs don’t feel all that high nor do the lows feel all that low.

In expository picture books, giving each scene its own spread may still apply, but depending on the approach the author uses, the pagination may be pre-​determined by the structure of the text.

Whether a book’s text is narrative or expository, I firmly believe that a page break has to mean something. The turn of a page should reveal something interesting, different, or new. And when I’m reading picture book submissions, I am looking for a reason for readers to keep on turning the pages.


Christa Heschke, McIntosh and Otis

from Justin Colon Books

Communication is key!!! It’s so important to me that my clients feel comfortable talking to me about any concerns they have throughout the process. I am always here! Most authors will feel a range of emotions throughout the submission process and beyond. Are you feeling disheartened? Would you like to talk strategy? Do you have editors you’d like me to submit to? Are you confused about contract language or what something means? I am always open to suggestions as well. It’s a partnership! Every author is different as far as how often they want to communicate and in what way (phone, email, etc.) and how involved they want to be in particular aspects of the process. So, I always like to be as clear on those details as possible. I want everyone I work with to be happy, know that I have their back, and be comfortable talking through things with me.

It’s also important to understand what each author’s goals are career-​wise and beyond so I can do my best to meet them.


Allyn Johnston, Beech Lane Books

from Picture Book Builders

A picture book is more than anything else a piece of theater, with pictures and words unfolding together as the pages turn and turn and turn all the way to that most important and satisfying one—the final turn from pages 30–31 to page 32.

A picture book is not a static piece of double-​spaced writing on several sheets of 8½ x 11 paper. It’s also not a chunk of writing that sounds like part of a young middle-​grade novel. The text of a picture book is more like poetry than prose. It needs rhythm and succinctness and not a bunch of description and dialog. To steal from Mem, it needs “perfect words in perfect places.” And not too many of them.

If you are a writer but not an illustrator, you of course must leave room for the artist to tell the picture story. But you also must let go of the notion that it is in any way your job to control what happens in the pictures. (No art notes! None. You may think I’m joking! But I’m not.) Your job is to write the best story you can possibly write, one that is so deliciously gorgeous and unexpected and fun in the way it unfolds, and in its emotional power, that no one who reads it can get it out of their heads.

As author/​illustrator Marla Frazee has said so beautifully, “It’s the text and the art that are collaborating in a picture book.” It’s words and pictures together that make the whole. Trust each of them to tell its part.


Naomi Kirsten, Chronicle Books

from Children’s Illustrators

It depends on the project since I work on a variety of formats, from original picture books to novelty books, board books, puzzles, and games. Regardless of the project, though, I typically seek out a style that can be best described as eye-​catching, soulful, and enduring. I also gravitate toward illustration styles that resonate with readers all over the world. I’m committed to reaching all readers, regardless of geography, so an illustration style often needs to have universal appeal.

Another quality that I look for is flexibility. It’s great to see a signature approach or aesthetic in a portfolio, but knowing that an illustrator is willing to step outside of their comfort zone to meet the needs of a potential project is ideal.

Finally, what typically sets an illustrator apart for me is their visual voice: That often comes through in a strong sense of color and line. If an illustrator is comfortable working in a limited palette, I like to see variations on that sensibility. I tend to gravitate toward illustrators who have a style that appeals to children all while speaking to an adult’s sense of artfulness. Since adults are the ones buying books for kids, they are always part of the equation for me—adults are also the ones who will likely be reading the picture book again (and again) to the youngest of readers, so it’s important to have a kid-​friendly style that adults can appreciate, too.


Emma Ledbetter, Abrams

from cynsations

Three hundred and fifty words is definitely on the short end of the picture books we publish! Word counts can vary greatly depending on things like the age group they’re targeting, and whether they’re fiction or nonfiction.

But yes, in general, there has been a trend towards brevity in recent years. I see this not as brevity for brevity’s sake, but because often, a manuscript reads as “too long” because it would simply be a stronger story if it were shorter.

When I edit a picture book text, sometimes I’ll encourage an author to condense when I find that there’s excessive description; too many different plotlines going on at once; or too much information incorporated (this can be a particular issue with nonfiction).

Every word is important in a picture book, where space is precious and limited—so every story needs focus and intent.


Steven Malk, Writers House

from Publisher’s Weekly

The most exciting thing for me has always been reading a voice I’ve never read before, coming across a perspective, point of view, or experience that’s different and new. The advice I always give is just to communicate what it is that makes you unique.

And there’s the really basic stuff of just being professional. You want to come across as really serious about what you’re doing. You don’’ want to come across as someone who’s just dabbling or who doesn’t take the business particularly seriously as a potential career. It is a career. You should demonstrate that, just like with any job.

***

I love coming across a voice I haven’t read before. I love books that open windows into a wide range of experiences. Not many people know it, but I’m a huge fan of mysteries and read them in my spare time whenever I can. I’d love to find a great mystery, especially a mystery with real emotional stakes and a setting we haven’t seen before. I’ve always been a big fan of flawed or unreliable narrators as protagonists. I love music, history, and sports, so I’m always receptive to books that touch on those subjects as well.


Wendy McClure, Albert Whitman & Co

from nancychurnin.com

In terms of process, it’s [writing a picture book] sort of a cross between composing a poem and writing a short essay. For many years I did a column for BUST magazine, and my word count was around 800 words, and once I got used to that limit, it sort of changed the way I wrote those pieces: I’d know, after a couple of paragraphs, whether my pacing and structure was tight enough to work with that word count. If it wasn’t, I’d start over. I find now that I do the same thing with picture books, because working with those texts as an editor has given me a feel for that length. It’s funny, because I still believe in writing first drafts without worrying about word count, and that sometimes you need too much story at first to have enough in the end. But it’s also useful to understand the sense of scale a picture book has. It’s like figuring out what size paintbrush you need. As an editor of picture books, I’m always in that world to some extent! But it’s a little different when it’s your own manuscript. I liked letting my editor (Christina Pulles) make decisions about page breaks and jacket copy, and I was able to sit back more and watch the magic happen, which was fun.


Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties, Inc.

from Cynsations

I often find that our very most successful clients need a gatekeeper—there can come a point when there’s nobody left who will tell an author to “shelve it” or that the author “can do better.” We are the keepers of the castle, the ones you can trust to tell you the truth about the work as we see it.


Maria Modugno, Random House Studio

from Robsanders.com

If I knew the formula for making a finished book irresistible, I would be a millionaire. Even after years of experience, I find it hard to anticipate which titles will really take off. I always pause when I have the first bound book in my hands and celebrate that achievement. What the market thinks is out of our control. Nevertheless, most bookstores use the top seasonal holidays as a hook for a display. Back to school is another important season for picture books. It goes without saying, that the publisher has priced the book competitively and the trim size is right for the story, i.e. some books are “lap books” that can be spread across the laps of two readers; some illustrations call for vertical size and others for landscape.

***

The overwhelming reason that manuscripts are declined is because they just don’t have that extra spark, something that makes them irresistible. And that quality is the most difficult to define.

There are some things you can check—does the story have a distinctive voice? Does the plot work without relying on coincidence? Does it end with a surprise [such as a] birthday party? How does it sound when you read it aloud, or better yet have someone read it to you. Take care that you are not convincing yourself that it’s a good text.

***

I’m a saver of scraps. I have a jar of mismatched buttons that I keep on hand just in case. Don’t ever give your manuscript a funeral. Set it aside for a while first underlining the parts you love the best.

Something that isn’t working completely will still have a number of gems you can use somewhere else.


Brooke Vitale, freelance editor

from Brookevitale.com

So what does it mean to have a book for kids aged 3–7? It means that you need to focus on things these children can understand and can relate to. Keep in mind what a young kids’ experience with the world is and what is interesting to them. A four-​year-​old isn’t going to want to read a book about a ten-​year-​old. They can’t relate to what that character is going through and probably won’t understand the book. Young children are still learning how the world works and wont usually comprehend more complex emotional stories. That’s why most picture books tend to be simplified. A book about bullying, for example, would likely focus on a protagonist stepping up to stop the bullying, not the actual physical and emotional abuse the bullied child experiences.

But more than being something they can understand, books for kids this age need to be compelling. They need to keep a child engaged and actively hold their interest.

If you’ve ever read to a kid, you know that they have notoriously short attention spans. If you don’t have a story that keeps their attention, they’re not going to want to read your book. Find a way to engage them, and keep them engaged.

Freelance Editor Interview: Brooke Vitale

To understand why Brooke Vitale has been on the OPB Must-​Interview list for some time, one need only look at three numbers.

  • 100+ books written
  • 750+ self-​published books edited
  • 1,500+ traditionally published books edited

If you want a bonus number, try this:

  • 350+ of the books she’s been involved with have earned 5‑star ratings

Or look at a few of her own recent picture books!

So, yeah, she knows her stuff as both an editor and author. That’s why I let this interview run a bit longer than the norm–she has SO MUCH to offer. See for yourself!


RVC: When did you first realize you were a writer?

BV: Honestly, I didn’t realize I was a writer until my job threw me into having no choice but to write. One of the things that I think a lot of people don’t know about publishing companies is that lots of the books are written in-​house by the editors because the publishing company can’t necessarily afford to hire an author to write something that’s going to sell for $7.99. So, it falls on the editors to go ahead and write it. And also to come up with the idea for the book, to look at the list, and say I don’t have anything for Valentine’s Day—I’d better write it and hire an illustrator quickly, then rush it out the door.

Actually, that’s how some of my favorite books came about. For example, when I was at Penguin, my designer happened to be a paper engineer. We did a book called Everyone Says I Love You, which was about the words “I love you” in different countries. I wrote it, and he did the pops, and it was gorgeous.

It was when I really started doing all of that that I learned I could write. And of course, the more you do, the better you get at it.

RVC: When you’re an editor who’s also authoring books for the publisher, do you get treated like an author?

BV: Not only do you not get treated like an author, chances are good that you don’t even get to put your name on the book. It’s just “We need to have books on our list. I will do better if I can keep the list going and keep sales up. I will get a promotion if I can bring in X amount of dollars. So, let me write this book and move it along.”

RVC: Let’s leap back to the beginning of your career. What was your pathway to becoming an editor?

BV: This probably wouldn’t surprise anybody given that I work in books, but I was that kid who was happiest being in my room. Reading. Even in college, I did a lot of reading.

RVC: You and me both!

BV: I went into school thinking I was going to be a physical therapist, and then I took chemistry and that idea went away. Then I went into psychology and really didn’t like it, so I ended up an English major with a focus in children’s books because I could graduate and figure it out later. I remember talking to a friend one night during my junior year of college, trying to figure out what am I going to do with myself. I asked, “Why can’t I just have a job where I read all day?” And my friend said to me, “You know, there’s a whole industry around that, right?”

Honestly, no—the fact that there were people who put the books together had never occurred to me as a career path. I was lucky enough that this friend actually worked at the university press, and she was able to help me get an interview there. I interned for one semester at the University Press of Florida and realized that I liked it. Afterward, I applied to graduate school at NYU, where I got my Master’s in publishing. And while I was there, I managed to land a general internship at Sterling Publishing, which is a company owned by Barnes and Noble.

RVC: What was it like at Sterling?

BV: Sterling did a lot of DIY books. That was what they had done for years. I walked into the office my first day, and they showed me this stack of paste-​ups for books. Literally, what that means is that the pictures used to be glued to a board, and the text used to be typed up and pasted to the board, and then they would scan it that way. So I got there and they said, “We need you to take all the pictures off and find the author. Hopefully, the author is still alive! And we need you to mail everything back.” This was how I started my career in publishing—pulling 30-​year-​old pictures off of paste-​ups in a dusty room.

After I’d been there about six months, a position opened in the children’s department. I had gotten to know the editorial director there, Frances Gilbert—who is now over at Random House—and she hired me on. That was how I got my start. She taught me everything. I learned so much working from her. And some of my favorite books I ever worked on were done there. Like Who’s Haunting the White House, which was a nonfiction about all the ghosts in the White House. It was such a fun book, and she really helped me shape it!

That’s the thing about publishing—it’s a mentorship business. You really have to find somebody who can teach you how to do the job, because you can’t teach it to yourself. You need someone who will sit and do an edit with you and teach you why they’re making those decisions. And what’s going to make a good book, as well as what’s not going to make a good book.

RVC: Let’s talk Disney. You worked there for seven years. What kind of hurdles did you face as an editor there?

BV: Working with the studio was one of the bigger challenges. They have really specific things that they’re okay with, and really specific things that they’re not okay with. The thing is, as an editor, you’re always getting on calls with the movie producers—both from current movies and ones that are years old! They’re looking at everything. They’re approving everything to make sure that it’s on brand, because the goal is always that they’re going to put out more movies, more shorts, whatever it is. And you, as the publishing arm, have become the storytelling arm of extending their brands. They need to know that you’re not doing anything that will then be at odds with their plans. Which means that sometimes you have to make changes you don’t expect.

RVC: Got an example?

BV: Sure. I remember working on this one book, A Frozen Heart, which was basically a retelling from the dual perspective of Anna and Hans. And they said, “You cannot say at any point in this book that Anna wants to find love.”

I said, “She sings an entire song about that.” And they said, “Yes. But you can’t do it.”

Whatever the reasons were, they had them, so we worked around it. But that was always the biggest hurdle—managing the needs of the studio, because everything we did ultimately came from them. They had to be happy with the end product and managing the needs of a good book.

The two aren’t always the same thing.

RVC: Here’s the question every writer wants me to ask. What’s the secret to getting to write a book for Disney?

BV: Know somebody. Honestly, that’s the secret. Most of the people who are hired to write a Disney book are industry insiders. We tend to turn to writers and editors that we know. We KNOW that they know the license and can knock it out of the park.

There will be other opportunities occasionally because things have changed in the last few years for Disney and the world as a whole because of the need for diversity and inclusiveness. For example, when Disney put out Moana, we weren’t allowed to bring on a single person to write or illustrate unless they had a Pacific Islander background. The same happened when they put out Coco.

I know somebody who just wrote a book for Luca, but she’d never done anything for them before. But she knew somebody who knew somebody, and they said, “We need someone who fits this mold, because we want to make sure that what we’re writing is true to the culture.” So, there’s always the chance that somebody’s going to find you and ask you to come in and do something. But unfortunately, it really is who you know.

RVC: Wow.

BV: There’s probably only 100 freelance writers out there who are doing all of the writing for every licensed product across publishing.

RVC: Does that feel like a lot to you? Or does that feel like a small number in your perspective?

BV: It’s probably about right. When I worked at Disney, I had about 12 to 15 authors that I went to every single time. Across our entire group at Disney, we had maybe 25 authors that we were turning to, but a lot of those are the same authors I was turning to when I was at Penguin. You take who you know, you take who you trust, you take somebody who’s maybe been at that company before and understands how it works.

Licensed publishing is its own unique piece, again, because of all the approvals processes, and that an author doesn’t necessarily have the freedom they would have if they were writing something for themselves. There are a lot of rules around what story they need to tell. There are a lot of rules around how a character can develop, and you need somebody who isn’t going to pitch a fit if you come back after you told them the manuscript is perfect and then, suddenly, the whole thing has to change.

RVC: I’m sensing that this has happened to you a few times.

BV: It’s happened to me as an editor and an author. A few years ago, I was writing a book for Scholastic around Disney’s Kingdom Hearts. We were under the impression that we could do one thing. My editor asked me to write the first three chapters, which I did. And then when it went off to all of the licensors—there are several tied to that franchise—they came back and said, “We’re not actually comfortable with this after all. Start from scratch.”

It’s one of those things where you go, “Okay, that’s the business.” You can’t mess with future plans.

RVC: Let’s talk a bit more about editors. Is it accurate to say that there is more than one type of editor at a traditional publishing company?

BV: That’s right. You have editors who are acquiring and editing books, and then you have the editors who are coming up with their lists, writing them, and getting them out the door.

So, for a traditional picture book, you’re going to have an editor who is getting all of the manuscripts in from agents. They’re looking at everything, they’re finding what they love, and they’re picking out the few that they really, really love, because the publishing house can only publish so many books in any one year.

A house might have an imprint that has five editors who are acquiring manuscripts. For any given season—which is how scheduling is broken out for publishers, with two or three seasons per year—you might have only four or five books each of them is working on. So, they’re finding the ones that they really love. They’re bringing them to the editorial group and the rest of their team, saying, “Do you love it as much as I love it?” Then they’re bringing it to a sales and marketing team and asking, “I love this, but can we sell it?”

As an editor, you need to have a sense of the market. You need to know that this really is something that can be sold, but it’s still going to come down to a sales and marketing thing. They might say, “It’s great, but I think I can only do 600 copies,” or they might say, “I think I can do 10,000 copies.” That input is going to make a big difference. But once an editor gets that yes, an editor’s job is to shape the story. That means working with the words, but also commenting on art and design, shepherding the book through the whole publishing process. A book’s success reflects on the editor, so it’s their baby to oversee from start to finish.

RVC: What do most people not appreciate or understand about an editor?

BV: I hear from a lot of people who say, “A publisher is just going to tear my book to shreds. It’s not going to be my book when they’re done with it.” I think the most important thing for anybody to understand about an editor or acquiring a book at a publishing house is all of the hoops that an editor has to jump through to be able to acquire your book. It’s not just one person saying, “I love it, and I’m taking it.” It’s also that editorial group, the sales and marketing group, and it might even be taken to Barnes and Noble and Amazon to see if they think that they can sell it.

Any book that’s coming from agents is going to be in a good place to begin with. It should be something that has enough promise that an editor feels they can get it where it needs to go. The editorial process is about going back and forth with the author, finding the things that can change as well as the things that NEED to change. And sometimes there really are things that NEED to change. For example, is this a book that Scholastic would take? They only take clean books. They don’t want anything that’s going to cause a parent to say, “Wait a minute, I’m not sure about this.” So, sometimes an editor has to go back to the author and say, “I know you love this part, but we need to change it.” Or, “I know you love this, but we’re talking about the difference between 2,000 units and 20,000 units.”

But here’s the thing. At the end of the day, an editor’s not acquiring anything they don’t love already. They don’t want to tear it to shreds—they want to make it as good as it can be.

RVC: In 2017, you shifted your career to freelancing. As a freelance editor, what’s the process you use when someone hires you to work on their picture book manuscript?

BV: I always break the manuscript down into two different pieces. I start with what I call an assessment, and that’s when I’m looking for all of the big problems. It’s pretty rare that I get a manuscript that doesn’t have at least a few big problems, like you’re telling me what’s happening instead of showing me what’s happening. Or there’s not enough emotion here—that happens a lot.

I’m also looking for potholes. I’m looking for places where something doesn’t make sense or is handled ineffectively. I had one manuscript come to me about a year ago, and I said to the author, “You’re going to hate me, but you’ve written this entire book from the wrong character’s point of view. This isn’t their story.” He looked at it and said, “Okay, I’m going to try.” He rewrote it. He later told me that he thinks it’s now 1,000 times better.

And of course I’m looking at word count. For a picture book, you can’t have 45 words telling me what somebody looks like when I can look across the page and see that for myself. All of those things need to go. A story needs to move along at a fast clip. It needs to keep a child’s attention. There are just so many stories that get bogged down in details that aren’t necessary. Sometimes details do matter. But it’s not necessary most of the time. Remember—a picture book audience is three to seven. They have no attention span. If you’re not moving the story along, and if with every page turn, you’re not shifting scenes or shifting emotional moments, you’ve lost your reader. They have gotten up and walked away to go find toys to play with, or different books to read or whatever it might be.

After handling a large-​scale assessment on the manuscript, I perform my developmental edit, which is really just finessing it, bringing it all together, figuring out the actual words, determining where page turns will go, and offering up art notes for the illustrator.

RVC: Where does rhyme fit in here?

BV: There are two ways of writing a picture book. Either you write it in rhyme—which so many love to do—or you write it in prose.

With prose, it’s really easy for a reader to stop and say, “What does that mean?” and not lose the thread of the story. It’s a lot easier to use big words in prose. But when you’re rhyming, if a kid stops because they don’t understand that word, you’ve not only stopped the story, you’re asking the kid to reset their head back to the meter of the rhyme. That’s a big part of editing rhyme—looking at your meter. If you’re rhyming, are the beats hitting exactly where they need to hit? If a reader’s stumbling over the words, it ruins the whole reading experience. It’s got to be seamless.

All of that is what goes into making a manuscript sing—making sure the kid stays engaged and wants to turn the next page.

RVC: What tips do you have for taking rhyming that’s draft-​good and making it publishing-​quality good?

BV: There are two big problems with rhyme. Like I said before, one is not understanding meter.

The most common kinds of meter used in picture books are an iambic meter, which is stressing every other beat, and an anapestic meter, which is stressing every third beat. I recommend that writers literally stand there and clap out what they’ve written—clap hard for a stressed, and give a little clap for non-​stressed beat.

For visual people, I color code everything. For iambic meter, my stressed beat is red, and my downbeat is black. Like this:

For anapestic, I do it a bit different. I keep my stressed beats red. My first downbeat is blue and my second downbeat is green. Then I’m back to my next red stressed beat. If the line isn’t following that pattern—if I have red, blue, green, red, blue, green … uh-​oh, there’s an extra thing there—something’s not right.

Those are my top two ways to nail meter. As far as the rhyme itself, the biggest problem I see is either using words that don’t rhyme at all, or using words that are a near rhyme. It’s just so important with a rhyming book to make sure that the words you’re choosing to go with the end of the line ACTUALLY RHYME. “Talk” and “walks” don’t rhyme because the S at the end of “walks” throws it off. Yet I see things like that all the time. I always recommend people go to the website, Rhyme Zone, where you can type in a word, and it’ll tell you what actually rhymes. I use it myself all the time just because sometimes you get stuck.

If you can come up with true rhyme and use meter well, you’ll be in a good place most of the time.

RVC: Any warnings about rhyme?

BV: Rhyme doesn’t work well with heavy topics. It’s really hard to have an emotional punch in a picture book when you’re trying to use small rhyming words. When something’s especially dark or deep, I usually suggest taking it out of rhyme.

RVC: What type of clients do you get for your freelance services?

BV: Many of the authors that I work with are actually looking to self publish at this point. They’re looking at the difficulty of getting into a traditional publishing company. And they’re looking at the royalty structure of a publishing company and knowing that, unfortunately, publishers have maybe 10 lead titles out of the year. That’s where they’re putting their marketing dollars. So, all of the marketing efforts still has to go to the author. At a publishing company, they’re also only getting 10% of the profits instead of 100%.

While there absolutely are benefits to publishing companies—and don’t get me wrong, distribution is one of the huge ones—a lot of my authors want more creative control. They’d like to be the ones who are benefiting from their own work.

RVC: You’re still doing a lot of picture book writing, and many of those are with existing franchises. How are those happening?

BV: Like I said, it’s who you know. My colleagues from Disney and Penguin are at all the big companies now. One of my bosses at Disney is now the editorial director for Lucasfilm. So, the first season of The Mandalorian came out and they needed books. I got an email and he said, “I need three books, and I need them in seven days.”

So, I got them to him in four days.

RVC: I’ve said it before, but here it comes again: Wow.

BV: Yeah, that one was fun. Lots of hours on the couch watching TV! But really, it’s those existing relationships. Children’s book publishing is a really small world—there are very few people that you don’t know, or know in passing. Licensed publishing is an even smaller world, because each company is going to have one imprint that’s going to be doing it. Penguin has Penguin Workshop. Simon and Schuster has the Simon Says imprint, etc. All of the editors are moving around within a circle, and they’ve got their go-​to people.

RVC: Do you ever get hired as an editor on a project-​by-​project basis with traditional publishers?

BV: I still do a lot with publishers. I was just hired by a publisher to work on all of their readers. I do a lot with Sourcebooks as well because my former boss is now their custom sales person. She’ll call me and say, “I need you to just take over this project because I know that you know their requirements and know you know how it has to go together—your understand the format.”

RVC: And custom sales are … ?

BV: Nonreturnable books created specifically for a particular store like Costco or Target.

RVC: Gotcha. What role does your family play in your writing or editing process?

BV: Not so much in the editing process. That tends to happen when I’m by myself, because the only role that my children play is being very loud, and it’s hard to edit when they’re screaming behind me.

But in the writing process, they actually do play a big role. And it’s funny, several of the books that I’ve written at this point have come about out of conversations with my husband. He used to say to me, “Why are you editing other people’s books? You should be writing your own book.” And I always said, “I don’t have anything original to say.”

Then he started throwing ideas out. “Well, why don’t you write about this?” I thought, “Okay, well, that sounds kind of fun. Let me noodle around with it for a while.”

And then the next thing you know, I’ve got six books sitting on the back burner, ready to do something with them. Because we do a lot together, there’s a big collaborative process around ideation. And because he’s a very critical person—not in a bad way—he will read something and tell me if it’s garbage. I know that if he’s not laughing at it, if he’s not smiling, I have to go back to the drawing board. If I get a chuckle out of him, I’m probably onto something.

RVC: What’s his background?

BV: He’s in real estate.

RVC: Sometimes non-​writers are the best beta readers.

BV: Totally. I read all my books to my kids. If they like them, I know I’m doing well. If they tell me it’s boring and they walk away, then I’ve got to make changes. They’re the target audience.

RVC: Before we end this first part of the interview, I have to ask—what is Charge Mommy Books?

BV: When we were stuck at home last year because of COVID-​19, I played out in the backyard a lot with my almost four year old and almost six year old. They started this game where they would literally pick up a baseball bat and run at me with it. They called it Charge Mommy. What I had to do was grab the bat in my hand and send them around in a circle, and then let go. They’d fall back on the ground and crack up, laughing, then they’d say, “Let’s do it again!” This became a common game in my house—Charge Mommy!

During that time, I started jotting down ideas for books. And because I actually had some time on my hands, I was able to start thinking about writing them and thinking about what it is that I like about books that I want to put out in the world. So, Charge Mommy Books is an independent publisher. And our focus is twofold. One is on publishing books that children can enjoy reading and want to read again and again—they’re just good, whimsical fun, and aren’t meant to teach about an issue or not meant to cover a problem in any way but just be something that you can enjoy. And the other piece of it is that we strongly support literacy, because it’s really important to us that children do learn how to read.

We’re starting with a handful of early readers that we’re dropping on Instagram right now, one page at a time, with a literacy activity that goes with each individual page. And we’re working with a literacy specialist to make sure that those are actually geared toward the right age range. What we really want and the reason we’re doing it on Instagram is because we know how much time parents spend on their phone. We want to give them a moment to engage with their children. Let’s look at this together. Let’s make this a useful technology moment.

We’re also planning to donate a portion of all of our proceeds to literacy foundations. I’m based in Connecticut, and there are certain areas here that don’t have the support they need, though there are obviously areas in New York City that could use our support, too.

RVC: Last question for this part of the interview. When will the first Charge Mommy Books be available?

BV: We’re looking at doing a pre-​order on our first round of books, probably in December, with books to be available in the spring. Our list will be a mix of books written by me and books that we are republishing by authors whose rights have reverted back to them.

RVC: Okay, it’s time for the Lightning Round. Zippy zappy Qs and As please. Are you ready?

BV: Absolutely!

RVC: Your favorite eat-​out place in Connecticut?

BV: Garden Catering is a little place here that has turned into a chain. They have the best chicken nuggets and French fries, plus these things called cones that are like tater tots, but puffier.

RVC: Your favorite Disney villain?

BV: Maleficent.

RVC: Biggest time waster?

BV: Internet—Instagram, Facebook, social media.

RVC: A recent picture book that really got your attention.

BV: One of my favorites is Calvin Gets the Last Word, which is from the perspective of a dictionary that has a boy who carries it everywhere to look up words. And it’s one of those stories that uses words that are well outside of the child’s understanding but still uses them properly. The end sheets actually give the kid version of the definition of those words. I think it’s so well done. Brilliant. It actually opens up conversation about bigger words, the importance of words. I’m loving it.

RVC: What’s the most important trait you bring to the keyboard?

BV: It’s my problem solving. There are a lot of veterans out there who will say to somebody, “It’s not working!” But “It’s not working!” doesn’t get you very far. It has to be, “It’s not working. And here’s how we fix it.”

So, what I bring to the keyboard is the “Here’s how we fix it.”

RVC: Your proudest moment as a writer?

BV: I think my proudest moment as a writer is probably still coming. Though I have a picture book retelling of The Goonies coming out next month that I’m quite proud of.

RVC: Thanks so much for this, Brooke. You were terrific!