can anyone give me pointers on publishing a board book?

[brightonwoman]

I have this concept for a board book--or maybe a series of books. I have a toddler and keep noticing how none of the books show families that live the way we do, and i was thinking I wished I had an AP baby book---so one that showed the toddler nursing, maybe even tandem nursing, babywearing, co-sleeping, etc. It would be a simple book, with just one sentence per page/illustration. (I don't know if other toddlers 'read' books teh way mine does, but he flips open a page and random and wants me to read it ot him then picks another random page...not good if you're trying to follow a story!) I have even found an awesome artist that i'd like to hire to do the illustrations (she's another MDC mama!)...but now I have no idea where to go.
I know I need to pitch my idea to a publisher, but i don't even know where to start with that. I don't want to try to self-publish, particularly since I think this really needs to be a board book and I don't know how one could self-publish one of those.
Any help or pointers anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated!! ::

I have thought about making it a series--an AP baby, a green-living baby, maybe a vegan baby...I haven't put a lot of thought into the other books yet, but was just thinking about the other holes in what's currently available.

[Oriole]

I took a course from a published illustrator on creating picture books. Here is what I remember from the course.

* You need to have complete story first, picture books must be submitted as a completed manuscript (just like novels). The only time when publishers are willing to buy an idea, is for non-fiction (and you still need to have all chapters outlined, and at least first three chapters completed), or from well-established writers.

* You need to have at least 3-4 complete illustrations.

* You need to have the rest of the illustrations sketched out (maybe without color, but general outline of how pictures are supposed to look like on the page).

* The whole thing (the text and the illustrations) have to be put together into a mock book.

* There is a standard number of pages that is used by most publishers for picture books (I think it's about 32 for the picture books, or somewhere in that area). You have to aim to come out close to it.

* Publishers are not interested in series ideas from starting out authors. No matter how great your idea is (and I do think it's great!), they are not interested until you finished, sold and succeeded with your first book.

* You can go about submission in two ways..

1.Go to the library and find books that seem to be similar to what you are thinking about. Write down the publishers that seem to do produce books about families, and look up on their websites guidelines for submitting a manuscript.
OR
2. Look up an agent that works with similar books, and send your mock up to him/her.


Good Luck!