Darcy Pattison is a children's book author and indie publisher with over seventy award-winning fiction and nonfiction titles to her name. Her books have earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and BCCB, and her honors include the Irma Black Honor Award, six NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book designations, two Junior Library Guild selections, a Green Earth Long List Book, and the Arkansas Governor's Arts Award for Individual Artist. Her work has been translated into ten languages. She writes not from theory, but from the daily reality of creating books that children love—and building a business that sustains that work year after year.

Picture Books: Write and Publish by Darcy Pattison

From the story in your heart to the book in a child's hands—start here.

How do you get that story into a book that can reach a child? Illustrated picture books are a specialized kind of writing. You must catch a kid's interest, complicate the story, and give a satisfying resolution in less than 500 words, while keeping the vocabulary simple and providing the illustrator with possibilities for the images. And once the manuscript is polished—then what? How do you actually get it printed, distributed, and into the hands of readers?

This omnibus edition, Picture Books: Write and Publish bridges that gap entirely. In an exclusive edition, this book combines two comprehensive titles, Write a Kid's Picture Book and Publish a Kid's Book in a single volume. Together, they provide a complete roadmap that takes you from the blank page all the way to your first sale and beyond.

CURATOR'S NOTE

I've been lucky enough to know Darcy Pattison for years. She's passionate about writing for children and equally passionate about writers' rights. She knows how to get children's books through the convoluted distribution system that still exists as well as how to find an audience for the same books in 2026. She's written seventy books and won a ton of awards. More important than that, kids love her work. With Picture Books: Write & Publish, she'll teach you how to write books kids will be able to find easily…and then will fall in love with them. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Write a Kid's Picture Book: Create Heartfelt Stories

Picture books look deceptively simple. Thirty-two pages, a handful of sentences per spread, big colorful illustrations—how hard can it be? As any published author will tell you: extraordinarily hard. The shorter the story, the harder it is to make sense. A picture book is closer to poetry than to prose. Every single word must earn its place. You're not just writing a short story; you're writing half of a collaboration with an illustrator, and the words you choose must leave room for the art to breathe, surprise, and deepen the narrative.

In the first half of this omnibus, award-winning author Darcy Pattison draws on decades of experience and dozens of published picture books to walk you through the specific skills the format demands. You'll learn how to develop characters who grow and change within the tight constraints of a picture book, how to structure a story that builds toward an emotionally satisfying ending, and how to write with the read-aloud experience always in mind—because a picture book that doesn't sound wonderful spoken aloud is a picture book that stays on the shelf.

By the time you finish reading this section, you won't just understand what makes a great picture book. You'll have the tools and the confidence to write one.

Publish a Kid's Book: Find Surprising Success Self-Publishing

A polished manuscript is only the beginning. The second half of this omnibus tackles the question most writing guides leave unanswered: now how do I get this into readers' hands?

Pattison doesn't deal in vague encouragement. She offers a clear-eyed, experience-tested blueprint for self-publishing children's books as a real business—one that can generate meaningful income. She covers every practical step: understanding your target audience, setting up your publishing company, navigating copyright, working with illustrators as an art director, and making smart decisions about formats, from hardcover and paperback to ebooks and audiobooks.

But she goes far beyond production. You'll find in-depth guidance on distribution, metadata strategies, building a loyal readership, email marketing, advertising, earning reviews, marketing to educators, and the often-overlooked world of school visits, licensing, and special sales channels. She walks you through pre-launch planning, launch-day tactics, and the long-tail post-publication strategies that keep books selling for years.

Perhaps most valuably, Pattison addresses the inner game of publishing. She writes honestly about the tension between creativity and professional despair, about learning to respect your own editorial judgment, and about building the patience and resilience that a sustainable publishing career demands. This isn't a get-rich-quick guide. It's a thoughtful, comprehensive manual for building a creative business that lasts.

The Complete Guide to Writing and Self-Publishing Children's Picture Books

Too many aspiring children's book authors learn the craft in isolation from the business—or learn the business without first mastering the craft. The result is either a beautifully written manuscript that never reaches readers, or a professionally produced book that doesn't hold a child's attention past the first page. This omnibus solves both problems at once.

Collected together, these two guides form a single, seamless journey. You'll move naturally from learning how to write a story that touches a child's heart to learning how to place that story in a child's hands. No gap. No guesswork. Just one experienced author and publisher walking beside you from the first sentence of your manuscript to your first royalty check—and well beyond.