Agent Query Update

Around the middle of June, I sent a query to Michael Bourret from the Dystel Agency thinking he would be a good fit to shop my series to Scholastic.  This week (Wednesday or Thursday) I got a form rejection email from him, stating the series would not be a good fit for their list.  My first rejection.

Around the first week of July, I submitted a query to NatGeo Kids and Schoolwide, Inc and have yet to hear back from either of them. 

NatGeo's site states that they are not taking unsolicited work so my query was mostly how one goes about submitting to them; what the process is and how long to wait for an answer.  Schoolwide's policy states that if nothing is heard back within 6 months to assume that the work was not accepted. 

Since it has been about 6 weeks now, I am planning on submitting to several other places to include Young Palmetto Books (A University of South Carolina Press subdivision geared for young readers); Edupress (this one reaches both homeschooling and regular school systems, which would be perfect for me since my books fit both a homeschooling curriculum as well as supplement a regular social studies curriculum); Creative Learning Press (now Prufrock Press); State Standards Publishing (this is based in Georgia and they are looking for authors to present work about the state they live in but since I'm doing all 50 states, can't possibly live in all of them but I'll do a query/proposal for them and see what happens with them; I also believe I talked with this group when I did the school librarian conference a couple of years ago in Macon, GA); School Zone Publishing; PowerKids Press; and Barron's Educational Series.

All these were found in the Book Markets for Children's Writers 2014 book with over 650 listings.  I went to the index and went through the geography/travel listings and probably some of the regular educational listings to try to find the best fit for my series.  So tomorrow, I'll be delving into making more inquiries and seeing who is willing to pick up the series and publish it so that it gets out there to the schools and homeschooling sector (sounds like Edupress may be my best bet right now for that), but I will do my research and pose my queries/proposals and go from there. 

I keep hoping to hear from NatGeo saying they are definitely interested and offer me a very nice deal for the series but for now, instead of just waiting around, I must persevere and move forward and keep sending out to other possible publishers.  I will keep you updated as soon as I hear more on what happens.