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There isn’t any denial of the fact that beautiful garden is sheer pleasure to observe and utilize. It’s a common belief that a garden is helpful to the youngsters just for one purpose. However, this is not the case always.

It’s a known fact that a garden is best suited for your kids. After all what else could be a better playground than a garden for your kid. Your kid needn’t head to the nearest playground everyday to get his/her share of outdoor playing. Moreover, having a garden makes certain that your child is willing go out to play rather than sit at home playing Playstation games. It is very easy to set up fields of various sports in your garden. This could help your child enjoy the game with the real feel of the game. In this context, setting a basket ball net in the playground forms the ideal option. In case you have a particularly large garden, you can easily set up fields of diverse sports. However, best would be to fix up a field of your child’s favorite sport. This will prove to be a great inducement for kids to partake of outside playing.

One urgent thing in this context is to try to bring into your garden, the inside. You always have many activities that you sometimes perform in home like playing games like chess. However, it is very evident that these easy activities like eating and playing can become even much more fun when played out of doors. Try making your child eat in the garden and watch it him/her enjoying the process and ambience. Another benefit of doing the indoor activities is that it lets your child breathe unsullied air. You can make the entire experience intensely exciting by adorning the garden with the patio furniture. For this you can simply add some pieces of furniture in your garden like stools, toad chairs and lots more. This again is a sure shot mean to add on to the excitement level of your kids.

Your garden can also act as a place for your child’s get-togethers and parties. It’s a fun idea to invite your child’s buddies and let them have a ball. You will never need to fret about finding a venue for your kid’s birthday party. Your garden can make for a great avenue for group studies or merely a casual tea break. If you need to use it for this purpose, it will help having some tables in there.

All mums and dads like playing with their kids and there is no finer place than a garden to do so. Your garden is the ideal space for playing a variety of sports, from Frisbee to badminton. Being nearer to your house means, you can take a snack at anytime and run into the house for refreshments between your games. So, the garden is a good place to spend time with your children.

So, going by the already discussed info it is abundantly clear that a garden has plethora of things to supply to you and your kid.

Here is some more information on Global Warming and Environment. Also read about customer testimonials on Home Improvement Garden.

This year, lots more people will be struggling to afford any gifts compared to last year because of the economy. Many parents plan to only purchase gifts for the kids to save money. Babies, toddlers, kids, and teens should still receive gifts but grown ups may have to do without until the economy has recovered.

There are plenty of places to shop for gifts for the holidays. Most stores have specials and discounts even before Christmas in order to help their customers with shopping this year. For children, toys are number one on their wish lists. Many parents prefer to buy their kids educational toys. Developmental toys are very good for babies and toddlers. Learning toys and also books are great for kids and teens.

Books are often great for parents to buy for their children. Nowadays, there are lots of interactive books and also activity books that kids will love. Lots of companies publish exceptional books that aim to help children learn while keeping them entertained at the same time. One of the many publishers of children’s books is Usborne Books Publishing company. They publish great, educational books for children from newborn to teens. You can find some Usborne Books sold in book stores such as Borders and Barnes and Noble. However, for more titles to choose from, you need to visit the Usborne Books at Home website where you can select from over1500 books. Buying online is easy and you can even earn some free books too.

When buying gifts for more than one child, parents often look for the best places to do their shopping where they can find the best deals. Some shop at discount stores such as Walmart or Target, others may shop online utilizing promotional coupon codes to obtain better discounts. There are also more ways of getting cheap gifts. For example, if you want to buy Usborne Books, you can go to an Usborne Book Fair and buy great books for very cheap. Lots of organizations put together holiday shopping fairs where you can do your holiday shopping for cheap and support local businesses at the same time.

Interested in writing children’s books and hoping to get published, but not sure where to start? Or maybe you have a story idea – or maybe even a rough draft of a manuscript – but you’re not exactly sure what you need to do next. With the overwhelming amount of information out there, where are you supposed to begin? Well there’s no need to stress, because you’ve just found a concise, no-holds-barred, honest account of what every aspiring children’s book author really needs to do to get published.

So here it is: Tip no. 4 of your ultimate to-do list, straight from a children’s book editor’s mouth (well, hands). The present article only addresses tip no. 4 because there is not enough space here to cover all 10 tips. The other 9 tips are FREE, however, when you visit  www.mommypicks.com and download the full free report.

#4 Do suss out your rivals

Let’s talk about competition. When you’re going through lots and lots of books, pay attention to what your likely competition may be. Look carefully at books with similar topics and themes to yours that have been published in the last two to five years. If something has been done with a capital D, then you’ll really need to think about how your take on it might be different and how it might stand apart from the pack. I swear, a “going-to-sleep book” or an “ABC book” must really be something special if you don’t want an editor’s eyes to glaze over, because as you will find in your research, these types of books have been done.

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Industry Insider Tip

Attention introverts: this is the time to break out of your shell. Talk to your local independent bookseller and your local librarian. Ask them which books are their bestsellers or which books kids ask to be read again and again. And then ask them why. What is it about any one storybook, or chapter book, or nonfiction reference book that keeps everyone buying it or asking for it? Their answers may surprise you. Most books succeed because of their content. But some books succeed because of the way a publisher has marketed them. If a publisher has a lot of marketing dollars, then a book may be placed “face-out” on a bookstore shelf for months (this costs the publisher a lot of money), and as a result, the book makes a splash – just because it’s highly visible. Other books get sold or read on their literary merits alone. Luckily, books with literary merit have much longer shelf lives and go on to be classics, long after the publisher’s marketing money has run out. You want to write this type of book.

For more insider tips like this, be sure to sign up for the MommyPicks Editor’s Club.

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Don’t get discouraged if your research turns up a book that strongly resembles yours. Instead, get the creative juices flowing and think about what you can do to make your book different. This is where you really want to up your book’s all-important “special factor.” If you can’t do that, then you may want to consider pursuing another plot line or idea.

This sort of market research is not only important when it comes to knowing whether you are writing the same book by another author that came out last season, but it is also important when it comes to your query letter to publishers. This is research that you absolutely should include in your query letters. It shows you’ve done your homework and you’re not writing in a bubble. Any publisher worth its salt will conduct in-house market research to see how closely your manuscript resembles other books out there. If you have done the research for them, all the better … for all involved.

Also, when you’re researching books on the market, take note of the age group and the word count. If your book could easily fit into a certain segment of books on the market (and the books in the segment are published by bona fide publishing houses), great. If not, then you may need to revise, tweak, rework, start again.

A note about Internet searches: Searching for similar titles to yours online is very helpful, but it should not replace the physical act of going to bookstores and libraries. You need to be able to see what books are out there, where they are shelved, and what they really look like and read like – impossible information to glean solely from an online retail store where most likely you will only be able to see the cover. Online retail stores do offer advantages when it comes to the reviews they post (and I’m talking about the reviews from publications such as Booklist, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, etc. – not the reader comments section). Pay attention to positive and negative reviews. And – here’s where online + bricks and mortar research can go hand-in-hand and make you very smart – when you go to the bookstore or library, read through certain books and make note of what the critics you had read online praised and/or panned. You see, if you can start thinking like a literary critic and adapting your work accordingly, editors will take notice of your manuscript. I promise.

If you’re sighing out loud right now, thinking about how much you don’t want to do this legwork (and admit it, you’re secretly wondering if this is all really necessary, right?), then let me say again that children’s publishing is a business. If you’re serious about children’s book publishing and want an editor to read your manuscript, you need to get in the game and have a good idea of how the business works and what the competition looks like.

The Editor

MommyPicks

Interested in writing children’s books and hoping to get published, but not sure where to start? Or maybe you have a great idea for a book – or maybe even a rough draft of a manuscript – but you’re not exactly sure what you need to do next. With the overwhelming amount of information out there, where are you supposed to begin? Well there’s no need to stress, because you’ve just found a fun and informative account of what every aspiring children’s book author really needs to do to get published.

So here it is: Tip no. 3 of your ultimate to-do list, straight from a children’s book editor’s mouth (well, hands). this article only addresses tip no. 3 because there is not enough space here to cover all 10 tips. The other 9 tips are FREE, however, when you visit  www.mommypicks.com and download the full free report.

#3 Get familiar with the book business

I know this may sound disheartening, but I have to tell you that having a topic you love is not enough. And here’s why: Books must sell. A publisher has to be pretty darn sure before investing in any manuscript that it will bring home profits. Books cost publishers money. Make that a lot of money. So, understandably, publishers won’t consider anything they don’t think they can sell.

Your best bet is to start thinking like a children’s book publisher. A publisher will evaluate many things before a decision is made to go ahead with a book. This is because a publisher has to put forth a great deal of money for a book well before ever actually receiving any compensation from the sales of that book. Simply put, it’s a huge financial gamble.

You see, publishers must pay advances (although this is becoming less and less common), and then they must pay editors, proofreaders, book designers, cover designers, pre-press expenses, printing expenses, and marketing expenses – including catalogues and sales materials, and sales trips, and sales reps. Remember that all of this is done before one single sale has been made. That said, more and more publishers are beginning to buck this traditional model of publishing and not go to print with any book until there are firm orders in the bank from clients. Furthermore, publishers are actually less and less willing to take this financial risk all by themselves and are asking authors for financial contributions for marketing and other such expenses.

Because of this enormous financial risk, all books must have something that makes them special. Something that not only a publisher but a sales rep or a bookseller or a librarian will take notice of and say, “Wow, we need a book like that,” or “We haven’t seen a book like this in years.” With so many books published each year in North America, be aware that it will be very hard to get your one book noticed. So, you must be very, very clear on the purpose of your book before you start writing. When all is said and done, the publisher is looking for a hook in your book. 

In a nutshell, the hook is the one- to two-sentence tagline that first gets editors interested in even looking at your manuscript. That same hook can then be used to get sales reps, booksellers, and readers interested in selling and buying your book. In a world of three-second sound bites and dwindling attention spans, hooks are becoming more and more crucial for publishers. And from a writer’s vantage point, having a hook is an extremely valuable tool in knowing and then reminding yourself of exactly what is so special about your book. The beauty of a hook is that you’ll be able to use it to stay focused as you go through the loooooong process of writing and editing (and did I mention revising?).

To get more specific, a hook is usually the basic premise of a book. Is your book a birthday book? A book that addresses children’s fears about being away from home? A teen novel that deals with the dangers of Internet dating? To get to your hook, ask yourself: How can I quickly get someone interested in putting money into my book?

The hook also reveals your book’s “special” factor. Is your book a birthday book about forest animals that teaches kids the types of forest animals? This is your hook. If you struggle coming up with a pithy hook and find yourself blabbing on and on about what your book is about, then move on to another idea.

But wait, there’s more. A publisher is also looking for “bonus” elements in your manuscript (in addition to a great story and lively, memorable characters, of course). Could you craft your manuscript in a way that encourages children to answer, to guess, to repeat? Could you craft your manuscript in a way that cleverly turns a popular idea on its head, like Robert Munsch’s The Paper Bag Princess? Could you create a manuscript that readers (adults and children alike) would have fun reading out loud? You (and the publisher) are asking people to pay money for your book, so be sure to make it worth it for them.

This is when it’s helpful to know about every book on the shelves in the children’s section of bookstores and libraries. Because, believe you me, publishers do. And they will know in a nanosecond if your story is an old idea or a bad idea, based on what is or has been in the marketplace.

So – and this is really important – you must read children’s books (lots of them) to get an idea of what is being published, what is successful, what is winning awards (and what isn’t), what is a pleasure to read (and what isn’t), what booksellers and librarians are purchasing for their stores or libraries, and where/how booksellers and librarians are shelving books. Read as many books as you can – the timeless classics, the contemporary books, board books, picture books, tween novels, young adult fiction, nonfiction. And read a wide variety – the books published by the “biggies,” the books published by the “indies,” the books that won the awards, self-published books (these might be more difficult to find – you may need to order online – but do read them so you can see the full spectrum of what’s out there and then figure out where your book might fall … and where you want it to be). Bottom line? Thinking like a children’s book publisher also means thinking like a bookseller and a librarian.

This exercise is key for a number of reasons. It will give you a sense of what’s being published, where the gaps might be (read: opportunity), what the different formats are and what they look like (picture books, middle-grade novels, books with bells and whistles, series, etc.), the many different age levels and writing levels, and just where your manuscript might fit in if it were to be published (or where you should make it fit in). Also, the contributor bios on the back covers or the jacket flaps may also help you see which publishers are publishing authors with similar experience to yours – pay attention.

And maybe the most valuable reason for sitting down and reading and studying as many children’s books as you can, as intimidating as it may seem: it will give you a true sense of your competition. That’s right: competition. Don’t let the idyllic sounding “children’s book publishing” fool you. This is a business. And let me just say that it’s a business made up of highly talented publishers, authors, and artists who produce loads of beautiful, memorable kids’ books every year and, boy, is it ever a competitive space.

Industry Insider Tip
For explanations of publishing terms, be sure to sign up for the MommyPicks Editor’s Club. Each month, MPE will explain different publishing terms so that you’ll be able to talk the talk (or at least just understand it).

Interested in writing children’s books and hoping to get published, but not sure where to start? Or maybe you have a story idea – or maybe even a rough draft of a manuscript – but you have no idea what to do next. The prospect of wading through all the information out there can be daunting. Well there’s no need to stress, because you’ve just found a fun and informative account of what every aspiring children’s book author really needs to do to get his or her book read by an editor and break into the industry.

So here it is: Tip no. 8 of your ultimate to-do list, straight from a children’s book editor’s mouth (well, hands). this article only addresses tip no. 8 because there is not enough space here to cover all 10 tips. The other 9 tips are FREE, however, when you visit  www.mommypicks.com and download the full free report.

#8 Do forge a good relationship with publishers

Now that you have your market-researched, workshopped, beautifully written manuscript ready to go and have a strong idea of which kids’ book publishers you want to submit it to, it’s time to begin courting. Submitting to publishers entails paying attention to the micro and the macro details.

Let’s begin with the easy part: the micro. How do the publishers you’re courting want to receive material? Do they want a query and first chapter via email? Do they want the whole manuscript sent via snail mail? Do they want everything double-spaced with your last name at the top of each page? Do they have specific instructions about what you should write on the front of the envelope? Do they want everything on neon yellow paper and printed in glitter ink?

Be sure to pay attention to exactly what a publisher wants and exactly how each particular company wants to receive material. These are called guidelines and most publishers list them on their web sites. As you’ll discover, publishers often have lots of nitty-gritty guidelines about this type of thing and, seriously, such guidelines are not meant to drive authors crazy or send them off running and pulling out their hair. For the most part, publishing companies that accept unsolicited manuscripts get inundated with submissions (it’s not uncommon for me to receive up to 10 manuscripts a day), so the guidelines are in place to make the process more manageable and also suitable to a particular publisher’s resources. Follow them.

And the macro. This is where things start to get a little thorny. Let me be blunt and make something clear: your query letter needs to show the publisher that you would be a nice person to work with and that you are normal. Granted, we are fun, creative people, so we do appreciate “a tad quirky” and “a little eccentric,” but there is a fine line into “Crazytown” and you want to be absolutely sure not to cross it. So please: do not include personal photos, handwritten notes, strange anecdotes, creepy confessions, cash, or weird knickknacks you think cleverly fit with your story. And please oh please refrain from sprtizing your manuscript with your favorite cologne or perfume. I’ve had the “pleasure” of weeding through these things and more, and I can tell you with utmost certainty that they do not a good impression make. After you’ve pitched your manuscript effectively, talk about your writing and publishing experience. If you haven’t published anything (or much) and you want to include a few colorful details about yourself, go ahead. Just don’t get too colorful (read: wacky) or else you will be talked about in the halls of the publishing office for all the wrong reasons.

First and foremost in your query letter (sometimes referred to as a cover letter), stick to your manuscript and why the publisher should even consider it, let alone spend time reading it. It’s often said that a book needs to win over about six adults before it even has the chance of making it into a child’s hands, so here’s your chance to win over this first set of adults. Do it in a big way. Pay attention to blurbs on the back of books, and even to movie trailers – again, be an active observer. Dissect exactly how publishers and Hollywood-types try to engage and attract their target (paying) audiences, and make note of what works and what falls flat. Because, in a sense, you’re doing the same thing with your query letter.

So start things off right with a killer query. The goal with this letter is to get the editor (or whoever is reviewing submissions) to request your market-researched, workshopped, beautifully written manuscript. Why put in all that work to your manuscript and then flub the query letter? And please don’t make the mistake of not sending a proper query letter (you wouldn’t do that though, would you?). I see so many submissions that come without a query letter that it baffles me. Here’s your big – and maybe only – chance to introduce yourself and your manuscript to me and win me over. Use it.

Look, an editor has a packed to-do list and is surrounded by manuscripts, sketches, illustrations, page proofs, cover designs, storyboards, schedules, and more. Oh, and let’s not forget about the overflowing email inbox full of constant demands and queries. Editors are busy people who very often work around the clock, so do you really want to send them a ho-hum query letter? No. Wow them and make them want to read your manuscript.

Industry Insider Tip

For examples of specific – and common – mistakes authors often make in querying publishers, and for examples of what wows editors in query letters, be sure to sign up for the MommyPicks Editor’s Club.