How I Got Published: Karen Schwabach

Today Karen Schwaback explains how a combination of her membership of a professional writers' association and a very sensible sister led to her eventual publication despite her efforts to scupper her own success.

My middle-grades historical fiction manuscript, A Pickpocket's Tale, won the Sydney Taylor Manuscript contest, which is open only to unpublished writers and is free to enter. There's a nice prize, but it doesn't include publication.

Then I joined SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). They have a bimonthly journal which lists market updates at the end—often the contact information for editors who are reading. In one 2002 issue, a young editor at Random House was listed as interested in middle-grades historical fiction, so I sent her Pickpocket.

It was a year before she contacted me—via my yahoo email address, because by that time I'd moved from Alaska to North Carolina and had completely forgotten having submitted to her. She said she liked the story but wanted to see revisions. When I sent those, she sent them back with what I now recognize was an editorial letter (a detailed request for revisions)—but at the time I thought it was a rejection. Now I wonder how many writers receive such letters and go off in a huff as I almost did.

Fortunately my sister talked sense into me, I did the revisions, and they made an offer for A Pickpocket's Tale, which was published in 2006, and was followed by The Hope Chest two years later. I definitely had no connections, but did have two important assets that I recommend to anyone trying to break in:

1. Join your genre's professional organization if there is one, so that you can get constant market updates

2. Enter contests, including those open only to unpublished writers, so that you can get credentials

Good luck!