Welcome to Words and Pictures
Where we demystify children's publishing for you
Hello and welcome to Words and Pictures.
We know the world of children’s publishing can be tricky to break into so we’re here to help.
We’re an award winning author and illustrator team who have 35 years experience between us in the publishing industry.
Join us as we demystify the world of children’s publishing to help make it more accessible for everyone.
Why subscribe?
We’ll share everything we know about making children’s books and how the industry works in a new post each Monday.
Every month we’ll hold a live session for community members to ask us anything and everything they want to know about writing, illustrating and getting published.
There will also be interviews every Friday with authors, illustrators and publishing professionals as they spill the ink about life behind the scenes making books.
Every month we’ll also highlight submission opportunities and exciting new releases in the world of children’s books.
Words and Pictures is for you if…
You want to make your own children’s books whether it’s picture books or fiction.
You want to learn how to find an agent and get a book deal.
You want to understand the business of publishing and how the industry actually works.
You love children’s books and are curious to discover how they’re made.
You want to join a community of like minded individuals from all over the world.
You want an affordable way of doing all of the above from not just one but two industry experts.
Join our community
To get the most from words and pictures, we’d love you to join our community.
For just £5 a month or £50 a year you can become a paid subscriber and get access to all of our posts, threads in chats and you’ll be able to join us for a live session once a month to ask us questions about making books, the publishing industry and what it really takes to get a book deal.
Founding members can also send us a manuscript or their art portfolio for a one off 30 minute one on one zoom call with Naomi or James where we’ll offer feedback and guidance.
Free subscribers will have access to one Monday post a month, our monthly round up and all of the interviews on a Friday.
We want to help make information about the publishing industry more accessible so if you can’t afford to subscribe right now, please drop us a message and we’ll comp you a free subscription, no questions asked.
More about us:
We’re an award winning author and illustrator team who met when we both worked in publishing in London. We now live with our two boys and our dog by the sea in Cornwall. We’re passionate about words and pictures in all their forms.
Our own children’s books are published by Penguin Random House, Hachette Children’s Group, HarperCollins, Oxford Children’s Books, and Little Tiger. They’ve been translated into 19 languages and won multiple awards.
Naomi worked at Hachette Children’s Group and Penguin Random House and has been a freelance editor and mentor helping other children’s writers for over eight years. As well as writing her own books she currently works for Cornerstones, Jericho Writers, Whitefox and Spark Mentor as well as directly with writers.
She wrote a piece for Emma Gannon’s The Hyphen about things you only know when you’ve worked in a big publishing house which you can read here. Naomi also posts personal essays every week on her other substack Stories by the Sea.
James started his career in publishing as a Junior designer and worked his way up to Art Director. He worked at Hachette, Penguin Random House, Head of Zeus, One World and was a Bookseller Rising Star. He now works as an illustrator and freelance book designer for publishers all over the world.
We have a free resource post here with lots of information in which we will keep regularly updated.
If there is a topic or question you’d especially like answering, just drop us a message in the comments and we’ll make sure we cover it in a future post.
We’re so excited to share the world of words and pictures with you.
Love Naomi and James x