Anyone here ever tried writing a children's book?

A friend of mine who loves pug dogs and is a pretty good artist wrote a kids book about the adventures of brother and sister pugs. I thought it was cute and the artwork was good. She has gone to a number of publishers with no luck. I suggested she sell it on amazon as it might be a good kindle book and she could sell hard copies of it as well. She refuses to self-publish because she is certain she will get a publisher some day and make millions off of it.

My kids used to love that book (the real one) still have the entire thing memorized...

As I read such books Every Day to my kids [5, 8] I've met most of the books for their age. Usually I am not a proud hungarian, but I have to admit there are some really, really good authors here. Most of the value was written in the 70s-80s though. [Really] Good books for children are rare. People think everything is perfectly OK for them... So many carppy books on the market.. Last thing that shocked me was the book Paul McCartney wrote to kids. It is Pure Fucking Shit.

her dream is to give most of her money to a giant, soul sucking corporation?

today i learned a new word: loo
For sure, i'm not gonna forget it !

Her main problem is that she reads about some of these kids' books that sell millions of copies and make a ton of money for their authors and she thinks she can do that. I suppose anything is possible, but I have pointed out to her that most of these people are either celebrities who have written the book and have a large amount of fame that they can capitalize on them or they are well-known in the kids' book world.

I felt like she would be better served to get the book out, get some feedback, maybe make a few bucks and start growing a fan base. She has ideas for an entire series of books based on these dogs. I suggested if she can get decent sales on her own the bigger publishers will come to her.

She, however, is certain that she is going to find the right publisher who will see what she has to offer and will give her a six figure advance just for this book.

So really she is looking for a soul sucking corporation to give her a bunch of money up front which is likely never going to happen.

Sounds like she needs to be educated on the democratization of book publishing.

That's a Czech book for kids. Not sure you can read Slavic languages (they are very similar actually) but I hope you will understand the story anyways ;)

To some degree yes, but what she really doesn't get is that someone like Will Smith gets a massive advance for his kids book because he is Will Smith. She thinks she should get the same advance because her book is just as good. Her book might be as good or even better, but she doesn't have a legion of fans and the ability to go on countless talk shows and media outlets to talk about and promote her book.

True. This is why pricing an album with the honor system works for a band like Radiohead, but not so much for every other band.