A friend of a friend has asked me to help develop his idea for a series of picture books for what I think is probably 3-6 or 7 year olds. I think I can help him with the writing, and the relationship of words and pictures, but I know nothing about the right way to pitch it to agents and publishers. Can anyone help with questions like these, so I can pass on the answers?

What should you tell the agent? Age range, plot, characters? I know that saying his kids loved it is not a good idea!

Do you need a synopsis (seems a bit daft) or would the text for one book and outlines of the others work?

At the moment it's laid out in Powerpoint, page by page. Is this the right way?

I know publishers normally like to supply their own illustrator, but he's got a very professional illustrator who's worked for Disney to do a couple of sketches, and written what the other pictures should be on the right page. Is this an okay way to go about it? I was going to suggest that he makes it clear that the illustrations are only a guide, not that the illustrator's expecting to be commissioned. Would that be right?

I was going to tell him to get hold of the Children's WAYB. Is there something better or other I should suggest?

God, it's another world! Any guides out there?

Emma

Emma I have sent you a wwmail on this. S

Hi Emma,

I started out with a very brief email enquiry, which I sent to two agencies, just to their 'general' email, but mentioning the agent I was interested in approaching. The email contained my writing career in a nutshell (it fits into one) and two or three sentences to sum up each of the three picture books I was proposing. Both agents invited me to send the mss.

I just sent Word documents (hard copies I mean), with the only guides being spread numbers (ie. 12 double spreads and one single). I didn't send illustration guides because I felt the text spoke for itself and I wanted to leave the rest to their imagination. However, the other school of thought says you should give a sentence or two on each spread to describe the illustrations. Actually, yet another school of thought says you should provide two documents: one just the straight text and one with the illustration guides on it. If he's used Powerpoint, is that because he's done the basic text layout with spaces for the illustrations? It sounds a bit 'advanced' in the first instance, but if the pictures are REALLY good, I don't see why not...the absolute worst thing he could do would be to send pictures that aren't completely brilliant. It's such a turn-off. My agent is sending out my picture books to publishers with no illustration guides, by the way - just text, split into spreads.

As for what else to include... Age range, definitely. It sounds rather broad and he may be better of narrowing the target. For example there are pre-school books for 3/4 year olds, and then there's a more involved pb aimed at 5-8 year olds (and then there's the really young stuff of course, which would be 0-3). It may well be that his series has a wider appeal, but it sounds a bit vague to say 3-7.

If it's a series with a main character, definitely include a punchy summary. Might be wise to show market awareness...ie. what gap in the market does his series fill... But as you say, full text for one book plus brief outlines of the others is right.

I don't have a Children's WAYB, I just use what's on the Net. The Booktrust site has a list of children's agents as I recall. I'll try to find it.

Umm, that's all the submission advice I can think of... The hard part is over to you!

Myrtle

<Added>

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/factsheets/getpubchildren.html

The list at the bottom might come in handy.

Thank you so much, Myrtle and Shika, that's a huge help; it really is another world. I'll pass the info on, and the links.

Emma