Lots of Publishers Are New-Author Friendly...

As I've been going over my possible First Books candidates for the 2009 CWIM, I've been keeping a list of the publishers producing all the debut books I've been reading about and mulling over. Today I will share:

Here are publishers with multiple books in my stack:

• 6 books from HarperCollins or HC imprints (Greenwillow, Tegen)
• 3 books from Scholastic or Scholastic imprints (Levine, PUSH)
• 3 from Random House or RH imprint (Wendy Lamb)
  
• 3 from Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
• 3 from Dutton
• 2 from Henry Holt
  
• 2 from Simon & Schuster (1 S&S, 1 Atheneum)
• 2 from Penguin Group (1 Putman, 1 Razorbill)
  
• 2 from Sylvan Dell
• 2 from Onstage
• 2 from newcomer Gumboot

Here are publishers with just one book in my stack (in alphabetical order. I had to sing the alphabet song several time to accomplish this):

• Abrams
• Concordia
• Delacorte
• Flux
• Front Street
• Holiday House
• Lobster Press
• Red Deer
• Sterling
• Tilbury
• Tricycle Press
• Whitman

So this year HarperCollins is gets the gold star for most debut authors who happened to contact me. (Last year it was a tie between Delacorte and Sylvan Dell.)

Also of interest--I had at least three authors tell me they were plucked from the slush pile! Lots of authors who contacted me do not have agents. And I have the exact same number of picture books as young adult novels--that never happens! I always hear from far more novelists than picture book writers and illustrators. Who says the picture book market is flat? Apparently publishers on the above list are buying them.