I would like to get into writing seriously, but have little experience. I heard that you could make a comfortable income writing childrens books, and think it would give me an idea of the industry. I would like to test the waters before I change my career and go off to study writing in another city! I'm confident of my story ideas, but don't have any illustrative skill. I'm in a financial crunch, and also have to admit that I'm curious about the renumiration I have heard is possible. Although I will pursue this interest regardless of financial viability, I would like to know weather or not I should have my hopes up.

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I illustrate....@@ but if your looking for someone more affordable there are always young students that are willing to collaborate on your effort...do you know anyone with children? use your stories on them..if they don't respond pursue a different venue or rewrite. I have read to a backpack group at an after school center...they loved it so I NEW THAT it was a great idea...take your ideas and read them to a live group of kids at a community or local reading session in a library but be careful and get your stuff protected by an attorney before you become to liberal with it...

I can't speak to the chances of having success in writing children's books, but as far as illustration goes, I'd recommend looking into using Corel Painter IX with a Wacom Tablet. It's a little expensive initially (you can find the software for anywhere between $150-$450), but you won't have to mess with an unending supply of necessary materials and you won't have to worry about mistakes, because it's all on the computer and it has an "undo" button. There's a link to a free (no strings) trial pasted below.

Please do not quit your day job if you're planning on working with children's books. It is much harder than it looks. Don't think that you can just "test the waters" there, it is an industry full of professionals who take what they do very, very seriously and is not a place to make some quick cash. Most publishers do not want illustrations to accompany picture book manuscripts. They prefer to hire illustrators separately. So if you are serious about writing for children, don't worry about artistic abilities unless that is something you feel called to do. If you DO NOT want to write children's books as a profession, however, please go into whatever kind of writing you are actually interested in. You will believe more in what you are writing and be more interested in it and that will show through your work.

Testing the waters is very important! Are your books for the child to read? Or is it for the parent/etc. to read to the child? I suggest keeping it simple and explore ways of having it read by your friends and family that meet the above criteria. Publishing and printing are now quite easy with Print-On-Demand. Instabook.net and Lulu.com seem to be the best. Get a few copies and pass them around. Get feed back and then decide whether to pursue that book, revise it or start something new. With POD, revising is as simple as sending in a new file. I go with InstaBook because there is no cost to upload anything; just the cost of buying the copy I need to see. I get 30 % of that back at the end of the month in Royalty through their online bookstore. I make changes and re-upload. (If you have an InstaBook agent nearby, then you can have them print the copy [galley] more reasonably). There are quite a few InstaBook agents in North America, Europe and Australasia. They print your book right there on the premises, so you can walk out with your book in hand. Putting the book in front of the audience seems to be the 21 centuries replacement for the editors in high towers of old. Just look at all the Blogging that is going on. And no one is saying that it is not real, not legitimate, not literature. Somewhere on the Net I read this (and I wish I could fine the author) - "Gutenberg gave reading to the people; the Internet gave writing to the people". That's my two cents. Go for it! Gordon Hill