Welcome, everyone, to this month’s edition of Submissions on Show, the series in which I dive into all of my submissions since December 2019, and share:
the titles (and often manuscripts) submitted
the number of publishers submitted to
(paraphrased) feedback from the publishers that responded
the number of offers and rejections I received
and a ‘silence rate’ % for each submission based upon the proportion of publishers that never responded.
In case you missed them, here’s a summary of the previous posts in this series:
December 2019 UK picture book submission: 6 texts, 14 publishers, 5 rejections, 1 2-book offer, and 8 silences – a 57% silence rate.
December 2019 USA picture book submission: 4 texts, 15 publishers, 6 rejections, 0 offers, and 9 silences – a 60% silence rate.
August 2020 UK chapter book submission: 1 text, 16 publishers, 9 rejections, 0 offers, and 7 silences – a 44% silence rate
October 2020 UK picture book submission: 10 texts, 15 publishers, 9 rejections, no offers, and 6 silences – a 40% silence rate.
April 2021 UK picture book submission: 7 texts, 11 publishers, 5 rejections, 5 silences – a 45% silence rate – and 1 offer, for two books.
December 2021 USA picture book submission: 3 texts, 7 publishers, 5 rejections, no offers, and 2 silences – a 29% silence rate
March 2022 UK chapter book submission: 1 text, 13 publishers, 7 rejections, no offers, and 6 silences – a 46% silence rate
Now, on to the eighth submission…
June 2022 UK non-fiction picture book submission
If you were to ask me why I decided to have a go at writing a non-fiction picture book, I’d be unable to give a definitive answer, as I can’t really remember the reason.
I suspect I was motivated by a combination of things: non-fiction appearing on editors’ wishlists; wanting a new challenge, and some variety across my writing projects; reading some brilliant non-fiction picture books, and consequently being inspired to tackle the genre myself.
But if you were to ask me when I decided to have a go at writing non-fiction, I’d be able to tell you the exact date, so here it is: Tuesday 14th December 2021.
I’m not sure what you were doing on that day – putting up your Christmas tree, possibly, or, more likely, trying to rid your mind of Bublé- and/or Noddy Holder-sired earworms – but I spent it reading about big monkeys being paid bananas by the Indian government to scare off the smaller monkeys that were repeatedly stealing or destroying government equipment and property. Festive!
How do I know that? Because I searched through my emails to my agent and found this:
Agreeing that this avenue was worth exploring, Sallyanne encouraged me to think about the age I’d write for, to look at the non-fiction books in my local bookshop, to think of a great title, and to put together a proposal and some sample material for a pitch to publishers.
Buoyed, I attacked researching the topic with gusto. I soon had an extensive list of animals with ‘jobs’ – enough, I thought, to warrant a series of books.
As for a title, I settled on Amazing Animals with Astonishing Jobs, and envisaged each book in the series having a particular theme or focus, conveyed by a subtitle.
It took me several attempts to write a proposal that Sallyanne and I were both happy with, but in June 2022, she submitted the following proposal:
etc etc
Sallyanne submitted Amazing Animals with Astonishing Jobs to 10 publishers.
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