Breakout Session: School’s In: Writing for the Educational Market with Nikki Shannon Smith

Nikki Shannon Smith

Nikki Shannon Smith is an educator, presenter, and the award-winning author of over 20 children’s books. She has five titles in Capstone’s middle grade series, Girls Survive,  and LENA AND THE BURNING OF GREENWOOD: A TULSA RACE MASSACRE SURVIVAL STORY won the 2023 Oklahoma Book Award. Her middle grade novel, STRANDED, is forthcoming from Scholastic in September. 

Nikki believes writing for the educational market is a great way to learn, supplement your income, get books into young hands, build an audience, and… have fun doing what you love. But how does it all work? Her session discussed types of educational publishing, the pros and cons compared to trade, how to break into educational, as well as a great list of resources. 

Nikki shares some of the challenges with breaking into the educational market, it's a lot like traditional trade publishing, but there are more steps and rules for educational as well as a fundamental difference in initial approach. 

There are additional directions for the educational market: You're writing for a publishing company/ editor, but they are not beholden to just themselves.  They're trying to sell to schools and libraries and a publisher has to enforce curriculum and style guidelines or write to state standards to make sure those books are applicable and appropriate for instruction. 

The biggest difference to trade publishing is that educational publishers might be looking for you! They have databases of authors and illustrators, content creators and subject matter experts who are needed all the time. Nikki says breaking in through word of mouth and referrals can happen in the educational market, let people know what you know and help refer others when you can. 

Nikki shares a list of pros and cons between educational and trade publishing as well comparisons of some of the bigger educational publishers and ways attendees can find additional resources on the educational publishing market. 

Educational publishing is more than textbooks—it might be poetry books that incorporate SEL, graphic novels that might be low-reading level but high-interest, picturebooks that STEM, and more—and those could even be projects you ghost write or are based off of licensed IP.