2012 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market

I have been a reader of the CWIM for many years. It is one of the most useful guides on the market for the industry. However this year I must express a little discontent. If you are interested in writing for middle grade or YA authors the content is very much geared for you and you'll find abundant interesting articles to help you on your way. For established writers, interesting insights into the careers of peers. The market guide section and awards were up to date and relevant. The publisher's section shrinks yearly, for obvious reasons, and it hardly seems worth including publishers who no longer accept submissions. There are many publishers not included. Is this their choice or CWIM's I wonder?My concern is for the content directed at illustrators and author/illustrators. The PB market is not dead! The rise and rise of the app and ebook is with us! And yet not one full interview with anyone from the illustration industry. With all the fabulous talent in the USA that's amazing! How relevant it would have been to hear from an app company on the developments of ebook illustration. Or illustrators who do magazine work, or book covers or illustrated novels or chapter books! Aside from a short piece in the 'new books' section it was a poor showing for illustration. For new illustrators trying to break into the industry, who are most likely to buy the CWIM, I suggest they buy the book for the market guide and they can learn how the industry works from the articles. There IS a lot of good information, but if you want to know more about children's illustration - join the SCBWI, read The Horn Book and search out online blogs.Disappointed illustrator.

I just received "2012 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market", but the "Age Level Index" and "Photography Index" are missing. The chapters "How to use CWIM" and "Book Publishers" both refer to these indexes, but they do not appear in the table of contents and they do not seem to exist at the end of the book. There is a "Subject Index" and an "Editor Names Index" at the end of the book and both of these indexes appear in the table of contents as well.I am not a photographer, but the "Age Level Index" would have been of use to me (I eventually just compiled the list myself but it took some time).It is possible that this is just a problem in my copy, however because these indexes do not appear in the table of contents I do not think that this is the case. Has anyone else noticed the problem?The book is very useful otherwise although it seems like it is geared more towards YA novel writers with less content for picture book author/illustrators, like myself. That hardly comes a surprise, however as it seems the market trends in that direction.Best of luck to everybody!

For an aspiring YA author (or any person who is uncomfortable with internet research), I imagine this book would be very helpful. But for anyone interested in children's picture books, this book has very little to offer.I did a lot of research online before I ordered this book. I read publisher's websites and looked at book catalogs to get a feel for what they published; I made a list of mainstream publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts; I read author's blogs and interviews with editors; I browsed websites with articles and checklists for first-time children's authors. Many websites referenced this book, so I finally bought it. But I was severely disappointed.Overall, I feel that the book is very shallow and targeted towards those who know absolutely nothing about the publication process. All of the information about the publishers is available online from other websites for free. And there are some good publishers that are not listed in the book.

The 2012 Writer's and Illustrator's Market book is so VERY difficult to read and follow that it makes me want to give up writing all together! I bought this book in effort to try to find a publisher and am ASTOUNDED that this book was published at all! The editor must have been drunk when working on this!When I pick up a book like this I expect to be able to easily glance through it and find a list of publishers with their information and a list of publishing subjects preferably before the list of publishers, but no, it's completely opposite in this book with the list of publishers in the back, hidden beneath all these stupid interviews with these authors that no one has ever heard of or cares about and even if I did care about them, I could easily look them up on the internet! But instead I have to sift through their crap in order to find the reason that I bought the book in the first place!!!Ok, fine, I can appreciate a few pointers in the beginning of the book, but after that it needs to be just a list of publishers and their information. They could easily hack out 200 pgs of this book, no problem!Then there is all of the errors I keep finding. In the beginning there is a "key" to the symbols appearing in the back of the book in the actual publishers list (which I have NO idea why that key is in the beginning where the symbols are NOT) and half of the symbols that the book actually uses are not listed on the key!!! Sooo frustrating when you're trying to figure out what the heck they're talking about! Maybe I'm missing a "key" somewhere, but I shouldn't have to go looking for a symbol key!!! Not to mention that the key says there should be a symbol by all the publishers who are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts, I found four before I got too fed up to keep reading through them all!-there's my rant for the evening. I'm exhausted after trying to figure out how to use this book!

This book is essential if you're interested in writing or illustrating for children. That being said, I do think the book is slanted toward YA and middle grade authors. I am a beginning picture book illustrator so the articles in the book aren't that helpful to me. But if you're a YA or chapter book writer definitely get the book! Mainly I will be using it for the agent and publisher listings.With the purchase, you receive one year of online subscription to Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market.

Obv W and A Yearbook is necesssary for up to date listings of sgents etc, but this American book givs you articles on how to write synopsis, what agents are looking for etc.

This was very helpful as I prepared my manuscripts for sending out to publishers. I will buy the updated versions as time goes on.