Also, try to find an agent who works well with you. Make sure you do some research on him/her, though, because not all agents are equal.

Good luck!

For a list of children’s book publishers, you can go to this website: http://www.cbcbooks.org/about/memberslistA-G.html
This is a list of publishers who are members of the Children’s Book Council. (There are heaps more, but it’s a place to start!)The ones that say they DON’T take unsolicited manuscripts – that means you would need an agent if you wanted to submit to them. The ones that take unsolicited manuscripts generally require you to send a query and proposal or the entire manuscript if it’s a pre-K book.

Waiting time for a response can be anywhere from 3 months to a year, and they frown upon simultaneous submissions (meaning you send the same manuscript out to different publishers at the same time). For the traditional publishing route, you must have incredible patience – and even then you may not hear back from the publisher unless they are interested.

To find a good agent, you would want to find books that are similar to what you have written, contact those authors and ask them about their agents. You want to find an agent with a good reputation. You never should be paying anything upfront.

Good luck!! I’m a certified professional nanny, and I’ll be submitting several different manuscripts this year, too.