Finding Your Audience in Children’s Publishing
Taylor Beaulieu
We all know representation matters when it comes to children’s books, but how can you change hearts and minds when you first need to get past gatekeepers?
The publishing industry has been making strides for years now to propel greater diversity and representation across all types of genres through changing submissions policies, seeking out #ownvoices authors, and taking greater strides to ensure that all readers can find themselves in the stories they pick up. In my role as a Children’s Licensed & Packaging Editor at Sourcebooks, I feel an even greater responsibility to ensure diverse stories because we create them all in house. Whether we’re working with a big license or creating our own intellectual property, we have a lot of control over the stories we publish. Though one would think that would make a fully representative pipeline a piece of cake, it’s actually not so simple…
When it comes to publishing for children, your target readers are of course the kids you want to reach—to delight and make them laugh, to teach them something new, or to inspire them to love themselves for who they are. But at the end of the day, we cannot reach that audience without first passing the gatekeepers. Babies, toddlers and elementary-school kids are not finding these books without first the parents, grandparents, guardians, librarians, and teachers choosing them. And believe it or not, that could greatly alter the positioning of the book, from the illustration style inside, to the title and cover, or even to the story itself. Though we all have great intentions for our readers, we must constantly ask ourselves what is going to get a teacher to add this to a class list or compel Grandma to pick it up off a shelf in stores.
It doesn’t stop there. We can’t do anything or reach anyone unless we can get through the biggest gatekeepers of all—the retailers. Whether it’s a small independent book shop, library, or massive box store, our books need to sell into these channels first before they can go out to adults and eventually kids. At the biggest commercial chains, we’re talking about no-nonsense sales teams with decades of experience, bottom line thinkers of a mostly older generation with very specific ideas about what is and isn’t appropriate for their consumers. We have to be pragmatic about publishing the boldest story we can tell and still be a commercial success in order to reach the widest readership possible. If our ideal story only reaches a minimum of consumers—and more likely than not, the ones who are already seeking out this content don’t need it nearly as much as the masses—we’re not doing the other important part of our job: to expose audiences who would not otherwise be exposed. In Walmart for example, getting past both the buyer and shopper both necessitates a subtler approach than a more direct and progressive story. Perhaps this means including nonbinary characters in stories without mentioning it (because LGTBTQ+ experiences are normal and shouldn’t always have to be the main plot) or we’re gently confronting gender stereotypes within an otherwise straightforward book of encouragement. We understand we may not be able to get those more conservative gatekeepers to pick up all the books we’d want them to, but we’re still finding ways we can have a positive impact for all children.
The last level of gatekeeping of course is us. I’m a straight white woman in a mostly straight white woman team finding stories that have never been told and new opportunities to tell them. Books are often best and truest when told by someone who embodies that story with agency. So by making the book with our teams in house, we need a careful approach, more time and planning, more sensitivity readers, etc. We’re often struck with the question: Is it better to tell a story that hasn’t been told – knowing it may be flawed because the creators and authors are white and cisgender – or is it better not to tell the story at all unless it’s created by someone in the community – knowing that might mean a longer time until it’s published? Time and again editors are attempting to navigate their own biases while developing stories for a readership that is levels deep to get to.
So where does that leave us? Balance is key here: the practical with the ideal. It means we’re trying multiple approaches while understanding that mission-driven books may not have the widest readership. We want to change children’s lives, so finding our audience requires we publish a huge variety of stories, some more direct than others. It’s a narrow road to walk but always a worthy one.
