OUR TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE CHILDREN'S BOOKS Up-to-date tips on how to get your manuscript ready for publishing, how to find the right publisher, and how to craft your proposal to get to the top of the pile on the desk of that poor, over-worked acquisitions editor. New sections every two months.

OUR TIPS ON HOW TO ILLUSTRATE CHILDREN'S BOOKS Illustrations form the core of many children's books, but it's a touch world in the publishing industry. Learn how it all works, how to submit your art, and the nuts and bolts of getting your illustrations off the board and into a book!

How to Use This Website

            Six times each year, we'll add a new installment to our "How to Write" or "How to Illustrate" sections (or, if we get really ambitious, we'll add to both). Just scroll down until you come to the section you want.
            Why are we doing this? After years of teaching our class "Writing and Illustrating Children's Books" at Arapahoe Community College, we've come to realize how many great ideas there are out there. But as published authors, we know how difficult it is to get a manuscript through the door of a publishing house, let alone to see one become a book.
We want you to have the best chance you can to become a successful author. We also want you to share the morsels of wisdom on our site with your writer and illustrator friends.
            What's in it for us? We hope that as your manuscript progresses, you'll avail yourself of our services.
COMING SOON: E-CHAPTERS!!! We also plan to turn the contents of this site into spiffy e-chapters with more tidbits and a few examples and exercises. We hope you will purchase what you need—at incredibly reasonable prices—as these chapters unfold. In the meantime, happy writing!