great-value Gomez

"We lay, my love and I, beneath the weeping willow. But now, alone I lie..

1. Please read some picture books. Many people write books for kids cause they think it’s easy. It’s not. They never get the voice. They think they can tell a bland story and bludgeon the audience with morals but that’s not compelling. Just because your book has pictures does not mean a 3 year old will want to sit through 10 sentence paragraphs every page. Go look at Eric Carle, Janell Cannon, Matthew Cherry, James Dean, etc. See how they do it. Kids can tell, man.

2. Do not get mad when you try to bring your book to your local library and they don’t want to add it to the collection. Libraries have collections policies you should be aware of before trying to pawn off your work. Some libraries have dedicated local author sections. Others don’t accept any self published material because they receive literally hundreds of submissions a month. Shelf space is limited. Time to review and order material is limited.

2a. Do not submit AI generated spam. Goes without saying.

3. PAY AN ARTIST! Seriously, I’ve gotten books that look like someone took the clip art from Canva and threw them together into a book. Sometimes it is actual clip art. Sometimes, this is by very serious artists who are probably not being paid much if anything to do the work and sometimes it’s by the author themselves. The art is the biggest selling point of a picture book. Do not skimp because you think your story/message is SOOO powerful it can overcome looking dull and like it was made with the cast of bitmojis.

4. Do not put fake awards on the cover. It just makes the book look faker than it already is.

Lord knows he tried 🙌

amor amor

amor amor

amor