Cheers to 2014!

You know what? I had an amazing number of wonderful clients this year! I want to thank each and every one of you for sharing your work with me. It is so fantastic to see so many people taking on their dreams and working to create children's literature. I feel really honored to be a part of that.

And so many of you who have sent me kind notes about what helped you in a post or my blog in general. Thank you so much! You keep me going!

Here's to all of you! I wish we could get together for a New Years Party. One with a rejection pinata, great food and drinks, and lots of writing chit chat!

For me, 2014 has been a wonderfully busy year. I signed with agent Sean McCarthy. My family's garlic business more than doubled. And Sub It Club grew like wildfire. Yay yay and yay! It is really amazing for me to look back and see that I've actually accomplished some great things this year.

I resigned myself to the fact that success doesn't come quickly for me a long time ago. I've been working hard on my writing for so long that I can't even count how long it's been. My family has been growing garlic for quite a few years to build up our seed stock so we are just now beginning to find out if we can sell all that we grow. (Scary!) And well, Sub It Club, that's something I wanted to do for a long time but finally got the guts to do just about two years ago now and am amazed to see it take off like it has in 2014.

But if you want to hear the truth, I want to do more. I guess that's what keeps me going. I want write great stories and make Sean proud. I want to grow our family garlic business even more so we can hire employees and help give a few of the wonderful people in our community jobs. I want every writer and illustrator out there to find the support they need. So yup, there's more to do! But how am I going to do it? I'm just going to keep on keeping on!

As far as writing goes, I'm going to keep writing the best stories that I can. I'm going to keep learning from agent and editor notes, critique partners and books. I am going to work on learning to listen to myself better when I know something is working...and when it's not.

The garlic? Well, we planted twice as much garlic this year as we did last year so we should be harvesting twice as much come summer. (The weather has been a little wacky so I worry but there's nothing to do but wait!) I'm afraid I may get lost in the garlic abyss around August when there is harvesting, drying, cleaning, shipping, and planting to do, so I'm trying to get lots of writing things done this winter. I guess I'll see what happens!

And then there's Sub It Club. I love Sub It Club. Such a great group with so many amazing people. We just celebrated members' successes of 2014 and I couldn't be happier for each and every person! I hope we can keep bringing helpful information to writers and illustrators who need it, and keep fostering those helpful connections in our support and critique partner groups.

Cheers! To a wonderful 2015!

Monster List of Picture Book Agents - Janine Le, Sheldon Fogelman Agency

Janine Le has been an Assistant Agent at the well established Sheldon Fogelman Agency in New York since 2010. She started there as an intern in 2009. Janine is an agent building her list which is a good opportunity for those of you looking to connect with an agent.

Janine's bio says, "Janine is building her list of clients and is open to picture books through YA. She is most drawn to stories with a strong emotional core that influence the way readers view the world, themselves, and the people around them. She is also fond of complex characters and relationships, unique cultural perspectives, and stories with a touch of humor, romance, or both."

There isn't much extra online information on Janine, but Sheldon Fogelman Agency is a top notch agency that has some amazing clients. Agents such as Marcia Wernick and Linda Pratt established themselves as agents there as well as my great agent Sean McCarthy.

Some of Janine's information is posted as Janine Hauber or Janine Hauber Le.

You can find Janine on Twitter @LoveableLines.

Read first page critiques that Janine did on Kathy Teaman's blog. There's a picture book critique in there!

YA author Karen Denise posted about signing with Janine and talks a little bit about how the agency works.

You can read about Janine Le's background experience on Linkedin.

Janine is listed on the Sheldon Fogelman Agency website. Please see their submission guidelines. If you are submitting picture books you may include two manuscripts.

This post is part of the Monster List of Picture Book Agents. If you have any changes that you think should be made to this listing, please contact me or leave them in the comments. Thanks!

Get the Scoop!

When you're working towards your goal of publication it is good to keep up on the industry. That means news. You don't have to go searching all over for it. Lisha Cauthen puts together a great newsletter called the KidLit Scoop. I read it every week. As soon as I see it in my inbox I stop everything and open it. I'm not kidding.

Here's what Lisha says about the Scoop:

It's free, my darlings. a weekly newsletter about the children's publishing industry: personnel moves, mergers, new imprints, market trends, grants, interviews and such. Whatever is happening in the kidlit community this week is delivered in digested form to your inbox. IT IS FREE. Did I mention that? Be a sport, subscribe below.

What she fails to mention is that she strings a fun story throughout every issue. Nothing long. Just a sentence or two of funny asides at the beginning of each section. Okay I am going to admit it right now. Sometimes I read it just for the asides. They crack me up. Then I come back later for the news. True story.

Lisha has been putting out the Kidlit Scoop for a long time now. She's almost reached 100 issues! And the woman puts this thing together all by herself. She is a wonder. Help her celebrate and get the scoop on the news. Go subscribe! Then enter to win her fun giveaway. There are autographed books for goodness sake!