Hello ,

I have 3 ideas in the work I am looking to get published childrens stories, poems and slipstream novel that is centred round my own life ( trust me its been quite strange - so I've been told )

Anyhows ..

I was hoping that others who have had some success might have some ideas for agents or publishers who would be good to deal with for a " first - timer " , esp in those areas I am focussing on.

thanks

balli

Balli, if you're still at the 'idea' stage, I would think it would be very hard - even impossible - to get an agent interested, and even more so a publisher, as most of them won't look at unsolicited submissions. Unless you have a track-record of other kinds of writing (i.e. journalism) or can say you've done a Masters' degree, you're unlikely to be taken on just on the quality of your ideas: they'll need to see finished, polished work. (This isn't so true of non-fiction, where a pitch and a writing sample can be enough. And if your life has been so weird, and you're very marketable in yourself, then a publisher might think in terms of getting your story ghosted. But you wouldn't be on WW, I guess, if you didn't want to write your own stuff.) If you want a horror story about what happened to someone who was commissioned when she wasn't up to writing her own story, have a look at this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1863424,00.html

There's nothing to stop you trying, of course, but you might want to bear in mind some of these conclusions that I've come to over the years:

agents aren't interested in poetry, nor are they interested in short fiction from unknowns.

children's books are a specialist area, so you may need to think in terms of different agents for different kinds of work.

you only get one crack at each agent with each work, so don't waste your chance with stuff that isn't as absolutely perfect as you're capable of making it.

generally speaking, there's no point in trying to get an agent interested in you personally as a writer, the way that a CW teacher would be. What they're interested in is your work. Only if it's good enough will they start looking at whether you are someone who will be able to produce more and even better work in the future

an alternative way of saving your script from being stuffed straight back into your SAE, if you can't say you've done a high-level writing course, is to be able to say that you've had the book professionally edited. People's experience of this varies, and the commercial orientation of those services can be a shock, but for others they've been the key to the castle. There's a lot on WW about it.

all agents are different, so have a look at the Directory on WW, and WAYB, and their own websites, and submit exactly what they want and how they want it. If you come across one who looks encouragingly eager to receive submissions, check them out on the Preditors and Editors website, as there are some pretty dubious operations out there.

Sorry to be depressing, but that's how it is, in my experience. Others on WW will have other ideas and opinions, but I don't think any of us would deny that it's infuriatingly difficult and dishearteningly random, so you may as well prepare yourself.

I haven't read it myself, but I know that many people highly recommend Carole Blake's 'From Pitch to Publication' as the best book about how to tackle the whole getting-published business.

Good luck
Emma