Should I Pitch This Kidlit Project?

On my way home from vacation at the lake, my wife and I listened to an interview Matthew Winner conducted with my literary agent, Jen Rofé. It’s a good quick listen with 20 years of agenting and publishing tales woven throughout. And Jen is a delight, of course!

One of the things she mentioned made me think about writing this “should I pitch this kidlit project” checklist post (despite my lake-induced epic sunburn.) When asked what she’s learned about agenting, she said that she doesn’t need to love the project to pitch the project to publishers — but she does need to understand what the client (an author or author-illustrator) is trying to do with it.

I nodded in agreement, winced in pain (this sunburn is not for the timid), and then thought of how I could turn that into a reminder for the next time I was excited about a story idea. A kind of warning light that says — “wait! hold up, will your agent understand what your trying to do here? Is it clear?” If it’s an “um, not sure” then it needs more work or maybe a trip to the kidlit idea second-hand store to be broken down for parts.

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The truth is there are a lot of these kind of checklist items that are super-helpful in knowing if your project is both ready and worthy of an agent or editors time. If you’re thinking about querying an agent or have a book idea you think is ready to go this will be helpful! Here’s my list: