The world of children’s publishing is tough. Publishing houses are consolidating, print sales are struggling, and profit margins are narrow. Because of this economic reality, many publishers lean heavily into “sure things”—like celebrity books, sequels or series, and popular IP projects.
Even for those publishers that are deeply committed to increasing diversity and elevating unheard voices in children’s literature, the bottom line still dictates that they produce books that appeal to the widest audience possible.
Luckily, the explosion of self-publishing has opened the door for unknown authors to create books that fill those gaps in the market that traditional publishers can’t or won’t fill. And perhaps not surprisingly, many of those authors are the very people who discovered those gaps
