The 2010 Edition of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market

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Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, also known as "CWIM," is one of the few essential books for a children's writer or illustrator. It includes an annually updated "yellow pages" of book, magazine, and other publishers, information about conferences and agents, basic how-to information, and interesting feature articles.

I've been reviewing this yearly for several years now: and have posted notes on past editions if you want to keep track of new features or articles from year to year.

Contents of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market: The core of CWIM is taken up by the Markets section. This provides information about publishers of books, magazines, agents, and artist representatives. There are several profiles of industry "insiders" in their own section for the first time this year (previously they had been scattered through the market listings), including editors and authors such as National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr; Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles); and Lisa Yee, Ellen Hopkins, and Mitali Perkins; this section also includes a few stories about "first books." The book publishers section has about 200 entries, and there is a small section of Canadian and international companies. The entries vary in length, but always include addresses and other basics; they may also include names and titles of editors and art directors, a brief description of a publisher's program, sample titles, award-winning books, and other information. Indexes help you find publishers by subject, a very useful feature, and a "Names Index" lists editors and agents--handy if you know someone's name but don't know where they work. New this year: "access to all Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market listings in a searchable online database." There is a code in the front of the book that gets you access to the children's section of the writersmarket.com web site, and to updates for the site as a whole. When I visited, there were some recent updates, though most of them had to do with magazines for adults.

In the first part of the book are a number of feature articles, starting with some basic information covered every year but mostly consisting of all-new material, on topics such as revision, naming characters, writing humor, the acquisitions process, writing GLBTQ books, and graphic novels. I wrote the article on The Acquisition Process, and have made it available here as an example of what you can find in CWIM.

Comments Since I wrote for this year's CWIM, I don't feel it would be appropriate to evaluate it in detail, though my opinion of it is pretty consistent from year to year. If you would like to see what I thought of CWIM last year, please see my review of the 2009 edition--and note that for this year, I really only see three significant changes: the access to the online database (from what I can see of it, this feature seems well worth the $2 added to the list price for CWIM since last year), the separate section for the profiles, and a further reduction in the number of publishers listed (650 this year, down 50 from last year and 150 from 2006). Since the editors of CWIM actively seek out information from all publishers listed every year, this reduction points to publishers closing, merging, or otherwise closing their doors. That's useful to know, since a guide that doesn't include closed publishers saves you from contacting them or submitting your work to them.

Who Needs Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market: Obviously, writers and illustrators need this, and should buy a new edition every year--because so much does change. But other people can use it too---teachers and librarians and others professionally involved with children's books will find this a useful reference, since it puts addresses and other contact information for children's publishers at your fingertips and also has some discussion of current trends. Publishing professionals looking for a handy and inexpensive alternative to the usual industry guides may also want this on the shelf.

Where and How to Purchase the 2010 Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market:

You can, of course, also purchase CWIM at any bookstore. If they don't have it, they can order it for you.

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