The Current Market for Children's Books: A Complete Survey...

Monday morning the conference started off bright and early with Connie Epstein giving her annual commentary on her Market Survey for this year, which contains 79 book publishers whom she contacted for updated information. (I feel her pain.) Being cognizant of not giving away the store, I'll offer a few highlights here:

• She reported no corporate mergers this year, but a number of high level position shifts and staff changes. Of her 79 entries, 32 are entirely open to unsolicited submissions, 19 are entirely closed, 4 are partially open (perhaps they take picture book submissions but not novels, for example), 24 are open to queries only. (I check the math--it adds up.)
• Response time given in her listing remained pretty much unchanged. (I think, however, that these can be often be best-case-scenario or in-a-perfect-world-ish date ranges.)
• Deborah Brodie, formerly editor with Roaring Brook Press, is now freelancing as a book doctor for publishers, agents and writers. You can contact her at manuscripthelp@aol.com.
  
• Connie noted that more publishers are now discarding unsolicited manuscript that don't interest them in instead of returning them in SASEs. She sited Philomel as an example. Here's the information as stated in their listing in the 2008 CWIM:

"As of January 1, 2007, Philomel will no longer respond to your unsolicited submission unless interested in publishing it. Rejected submissions postmarked January 1, 2007, or later will be recycled. Please do not include a self-addressed stamped envelope with your submission. You will not hear from Philomel regarding the status of your submission unless we are interested in publishing it, in which case you can expect a reply from us within approximately four months. We regret that we cannot respond personally to each submission, but rest assured that we do make every effort to consider each and every one we receive."

The Market Survey of Publishers of Books for Young People, August 2007 is now available to members on SCBWI's website.