How do my pals and I get a book we wrote published?

That's a tough one, actually, because most publishers want to work through agents, people that represent your work and get paid a percentage of any money you make. If you sold your book to a publisher for $1000, for example, the agent would keep $100 of that money, or possibly even more.

You can find an agent who works with children's literature through a magazine called Writer's Digest, or you can go to the public library and ask one of the librarians to help you look through a book called the Writer's Marketplace to find agents.

While you're there, you can also look for publishers who work with books written by kids: there are definitely some! You can also go to the bookstore and see if you can figure out a half-dozen books written by kids (like the popular book Eragon). Figure out what companies published those books and then contact those publishers too.

When you contact a publisher, you want to talk with their acquisitions editor, the person who receives proposals for books and decides whether the company might be interested in actually publishing the book or not.

Be aware that most acquisitions editors want a 3-5 page proposal + one chapter, rather than the entire manuscript, so, again, you want to read through Writer's Digest or similar to learn how to write a basic proposal which details who the book is written for, books similar to your own, and so on.

Hope that helps you and your friends out. Good luck!!

Also, perhaps a few people who read this blog entry can add their own experiences trying to get their own books published, especially if you were under 18 at the time.