Writing for the Educational Market (& general nonfiction for children)

#1 in the series: My books

In spite of the rather definitive sounding title, this one post can’t possibly be about the Whole here. Rather, it’s about my experience writing one book for one company. However, I will share knowledge and suggestions for how to go about this in a general way, as well as with thought given to how this might work for wherever you live. Writing for the education field does depend on where you live, and your provincial/state education system. (More later on how to work with this.)

Throughout all of the posts in this series, I hope to be useful both in terms of my personal experience as well as keeping in mind the broader questions of how one goes about making this a career piece. Of course, all these markets are constantly in flux. And with AI growing you’ll want to make an effort to distinguish your work as human. (I do have a fear that AI will be used in publishing for children, seen as cost-cutting and—as always with anything concerned with children—for a less-than market. Children tend not to fare well in the hierarchy of funding.)

This series will be pay-walled as I am trying to build my readership and my income, and sustain The Unschool.

(However, if you cannot afford the annual amount, please don’t hesitate to send me an email, and I will send you a deal-link that I hope will work with your budget. Email: alison@alisonacheson.com and use “deal link” as subject.)

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I’ll share both the specifics of my experience and more general principles of this type of freelance work, and breaking into this work.

An email from my agent kicked all this off, letting me know that she was heading off to an acquisitions meeting for a particular project—an educational publisher was putting together a “wellness” series for children in grades 4-6, working with a government grant for mental health—and she was asking me if I could possibly come up with a couple ideas. She was suggesting one fiction and one nonfiction.

Time frame: 24 hours.

“Sure,” I said. Because that’s what we do when life throws such an opportunity.

Then I sat to think.