We recently connected with Kristin Wauson and have shared our conversation below.
Kristin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?
I’m represented by Adria Goetz at P.S. Literary Agency. We connected through a Twitter event called #pbpitch which stands for picture book pitch. During the event, authors pitch their projects to agents and editors in the form of a tweet. I almost didn’t participate that day. I had participated before and hadn’t gotten much response. Sometimes it can be hard to put your work out there, but ultimately I decided nothing good could happen if I didn’t try. It was near the end of the day when I finally decided to send out my tweet and I immediately had to run out the door to my son’s basketball game. During the game my phone started going off. You’re not supposed to “like” a tweet unless you’re an agent or editor, and I was getting lots of likes, but often people just don’t know the rules of the event, so I try not to get excited without checking the person’s bio. When the game was over I had interest from a few agents and a publisher. A couple months later, I ended up signing with Adria.
I decided to work with her because our taste in books and art were aligned. It’s important to choose an agent who is a fan of your work because they ultimately have to be able to sell what you’re making. She seemed ambitious, communicative, hard working and very savvy of the publishing industry. She also seemed like a warm and kind-hearted person who treated everyone with respect. I felt that she was someone I could trust and that’s maybe the most important thing. I think she probably decided to work with me for some of the same reasons.
I signed with Adria in 2019 and working with her has been so great. She is such a rockstar agent and I think she has a good eye for what editors will respond to. And although I try not to rely on her as my only source of editorial feedback, I know that when I’m stuck or need a second set of eyes on something she will always have something constructive to offer. When my debut book went under contract I was really grateful to have her on my team. I feel like she believes in me and always encourages me to reach just a little bit higher.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I’m an author and illustrator of picture books. My debut picture book, MR. THATCHER’S HOUSE, published in August with Sleeping Bear Press. I love working on projects that include animals, elements of fantasy or magic, and lots of heart.
I have always enjoyed drawing and writing. I grew up inspired by fairytales, music, horses, C.S. Lewis, the Wizard of Oz, and classic Disney animation. Before I got into picture books, I worked as an in-house graphic designer for almost 10 years. It was a great job, but I worked in state government and had started to feel like that environment didn’t allow me to be as creative as I wanted to be. I always enjoyed picture books when I was younger and having kids allowed me to rediscover them. As silly as this sounds, it had never occurred to me that real people write and illustrate books, but I saw a photo of an author/illustrator on the flap of a book jacket and a lightbulb went off. I started looking for whatever information I could find on how to publish a children’s book. Then, when I went on maternity leave after the birth of our youngest son, I decided not to go back to work. I joined SCBWI (The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and started taking some online classes on writing and illustrating for kids and just sort of went from there.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Publication can take years and there are many rejections along the way. It often feels like nothing you are doing is moving you forward. I started this journey in 2015. I wrote the manuscript for my debut book in 2018 and signed with my agent in 2019. We spent a year working on my book dummy, which is a mockup of the book with some finished and partially finished illustrations. By the time it went out on submission, COVID had begun to shut the publishing industry down. Acquisitions meetings were being canceled, publishers were cutting staff, and fewer book deals were happening. So for about a year, we waited, not knowing if anything was ever going to happen with that book or if we were going to have to start again from scratch. Illustrators put a lot of work into preparing a book for submission, so starting over from nothing would have been a tough blow. Eventually, in 2022 things started turning around and we finally got the offer we were looking for.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Money is tight for a lot of people right now, but there are so many things you can do to support authors and illustrators that are basically free.
1. Check out their book from the library, read it and write reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. So many people rely on reviews before purchasing something, so good reviews are like gold to authors.
2. If your local library doesn’t already have a copy of the book, you can request it.
3. Help the author/illustrator through word of mouth or post about the book on social media. When I check out a book from the library I sometimes will take a photo of it to share on Instagram or Twitter and tag the author and illustrator. They are always so grateful.
4. Give it as a gift. Even though we might not be spending money freely on ourselves, we are probably still buying gifts every now and then for birthdays, holidays or baby showers. I always feel like it’s better to buy a book for a child than another plastic toy from target.
5. Amazon is so convenient, but if you can, order from an independent bookstore or a places like bookshop.org that supports indie bookstores. We need them to stay in business!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kristinwauson.com
- Instagram: @kristinwauson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristinmacbride
- Twitter: @kristinwauson
Image Credits
Kristin Wauson (illustrations) Clayton MacBride (headshot photo)