I was in a meeting with some people today and the subject of 'who is in the Sharing Books community' came up. It is a fascinating question. My answer at the time was 'the rejected'. Sharing Books is a lot like America at various points in history: give us your tired, your rejected, your unwanted. This isn't to say that the people we seek out or the books we publish are poor quality, far from it. Our authors and illustrators are proving to be far more talented and motivated then we ever expected.

When we started out we fully expected the need to deal with a serious quality problem. This is proving far from the truth. Our creators are putting together books that are full of fantastic illustrations and well crafted stories. We are seeing fewer and fewer books with technical problems, and in general as more creators get involved the knowledge base has steadily grown. We have a Facebook group for people looking for help, and it has been steadily growing as well.

All this leads to the point, and title, of this post. Sharing Books exists because there are tens of thousands of books that get rejected each and every year by mainstream publishers. These books are not rejected because they are poor quality. They are rejected because mainstream publishers have a huge production overhead and are afraid to take on the risk that a new author or illustrator represents.

So if you are a children's book author or illustrator, and you've been rejected, you have a home here at Sharing Books. We are happy to help get your work into the hands of children all over the world.

Labels: business philosophy, community, publishing