Advice from a Literary Agent

In this intriguing and fun interview Stephen Fraser talks about his love for children's books, his careers as editor at HarperCollins Children's Books and as executive agent at the Jennifer de Chiara Literary Agency, and his premise that "Joy should drive the publishing industry." Along the way, he shares great advice to aspiring picture book authors: Picture book manuscripts are a 'launch pad for the illustrations.' Write out of joy and passion (not towards a trend), make every word count, have your manuscripts read to you aloud, make room (lots of room) for the role of the illustrator, concentrate more on the manuscript (and less on the query letter), avoid art notes, be theatrical and love what you're doing. And, towards the end, there is even a musical surprise!!! Enjoy!

Mel Rosenberg is a professor emeritus of microbiology (Tel Aviv University, emeritus) who fell in love with children's books as a small child and now writes his own. He is co-founder of Ourboox, a web platform with some 240,000 ebooks that allows anyone to create and share flipbooks comprising text, pictures and videos.

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