Nothing like a failure or two to make success all the more sweet
For a long time, I’ve been keeping a word file called “Picture Book Concepts”. The file now has around 20 PB ideas - ranging from competitive swimming pigs, to cheeky possums, and rejected lunchboxes. Most of the ideas were just for me to play around with the short format of PB’s (usually in between writing longer, emotional middle grade and YA) and explore fun ideas that might appeal to younger kids. A couple of PB manuscripts I felt brave enough to send out to publishers, but they never quite got over the line. It became clear to me that a picture book has to be something very special to be acquired and published in Australia.
Still, I persisted … the ideas kept coming and the file kept growing. I signed up for Jen Storer’s excellent Girl & Duck Four Weeks to Write a Picture Book Course and had a blast learning more about the art form of writing PBs.
In mid 2022, I sent off another PB idea - it didn’t get over the line. Damn. That one stung a bit. I’d worked very hard on it. But it was closer this time.
I sent off another and this time, my delightful publisher at Hachette got back to me within minutes. She loved the manuscript. She could see it on the page. Would it be okay if she took it to acquisitions? Um ….YES! Within weeks, I’d signed my first picture book deal. It felt so hard and so easy all at once. The road to those magic 500 words was paved by near misses and hard work. Picking myself up and trying again.
I’ve since signed another PB deal with Walker Books (that’s TWO, OMG!!) and just sent another idea to my agent. I might be able to call myself a picture book author now.
I think the morale of this story is - don’t let the first, second, third or 14th rejection put you off. Keep submitting, keep trying, keep adding to your file of ideas. One day, the answer will be YES.