Monster List of Picture Books Publishers Update!

Have you gone the agent submission route with your picture book, found no takers, and still want to give your manuscript a chance at publication? Do you have a niche picture book and submitting straight to publishers seems to be the best course of action? Do you just like submitting your work yourself? Or do you simply want to learn about picture book publishers and what they are looking for? Then I have some good news! I've finally completed a full update of the Monster List of Picture Book Publishers. Of course, this is thanks to the time off I've had from work because of the quarantine but we've gotta take positivity where we can I suppose.

Publishing is in an uncertain place, just as pretty much everything else is in the world right now. But, books are still being made. Picture books take an average of like 2 years to be published so publishers still need to look toward their future lists. (No I did not look up this statistic, it just seems to be an average from what I've seen.) There may very well be changes along the way as publishers figure out how to make things work during this epidemic. I'd be surprised if there wasn't. But putting our work out there is what writers do, so I for one am not going to let that uncertainty stop me. Kids need books, maybe now more than ever.

Monster List logo by Dana Carey 

I am very excited to have gotten this Monster List updated. All the links have been checked and are working and go straight to submission guidelines. I removed quite a few publishers who were no longer accepting submissions but did leave some on the list that I am hoping may be open once again and want to keep an eye on. I also put in pertinent information on what the publisher is looking for in parenthesis where I found that info. And guess what? The list is looking quite monstrous and has 100 publishers on it! I hope that you'll find it helpful whether you are wanting to study up on publishers of picture books or are ready to start submitting a manuscript to.

As always, a monstrous THANK YOU to my friend Dana Carey for the amazing Monster List logos. I can't help but wish that image could be used to create an entire book, I just love it!

Are you ready to check it out? Go to the Monster List of Picture Book Publishers page now. Have fun and good luck!

Unicorn Day Quarantine Activities

Illustration by the amazing Hazel Quintanilla!

Did you know that there is an International Unicorn Day? Isn't that fabulous?! Hearing about Unicorn Day gave me that fun, sparkly feeling and I was inspired to come up with some activities for kids to do during the quarantine. Yes, Unicorn Day has passed (It's on April 9th) but it seems to me that every day is Unicorn Day! And why not? Having fun and being kind is something we can do anytime!

My amazing webmaster (and daughter) put together a fun Unicorn Day page for my website. Kids can find inspiration to get creative with Unicorn and Yeti: make a fancy hat, be a unicorn, write a letter to Unicorn and Yeti, and more! I hope that if you have children or students and are looking for some book-related or Unicorn and Yeti related activities to do, that you will find something they'll like. Just go to https://www.heatherayrisburnell.com/unicorn-day and check it out!

And if you have access to the Unicorn and Yeti books don't forget about the fun writing and drawing prompts at the ends of the books. Hazel shows step by step how to draw Unicorn in book 1, Yeti in book 2, and their bowl of ice cream and peaches in book 3. It's amazing what you can draw when you follow the steps! And educators, Scholastic has given permission to read their books online. That includes Unicorn and Yeti. See the Scholastic Digital Read Aloud Guidelines for details.

Of course, if anyone wants to share what they've done I'd love to see it! You can post in the comments here or I give other options on the Unicorn Day page. Most of all, I hope you have fun!

Hang in there and find your sparkle where you can.

xoxo
-Heather