Art & Creativity Quote by Margaret Mahy

The line lands like a kindly scolding from someone who’s spent a lifetime watching writers sabotage themselves with avoidable mistakes. Mahy isn’t talking about “market research” in the corporate sense; she’s talking about respect: respect for your own work, and for the ecosystem you’re asking to enter. The deceptively plain example - don’t send a picture book to a publisher that doesn’t do picture books - is doing double duty. It’s practical advice, yes, but it also punctures the romantic myth that publishing is a lottery where the right words, mailed anywhere, will eventually be “discovered.”

Mahy’s intent is to shift the aspiring writer from wishful thinking to professional agency. Know the terrain. Learn the difference between an imprint and a genre, between taste and capacity. The subtext is that fit matters as much as talent: editors acquire within lists, budgets, formats, and brand identities. Sending the wrong kind of manuscript isn’t just inefficient; it signals that you haven’t paid attention, which makes it easier to dismiss you even when the writing is strong.

Contextually, coming from a major children’s author, the advice has extra edge. Children’s publishing is intensely format-specific: word counts, page turns, illustration space, age bands. Mahy is quietly teaching craft through logistics. The right publisher isn’t simply a gate; it’s a collaborator shaped by what it routinely makes. Her point isn’t to narrow ambition, but to aim it - because “getting in” is rarely one dramatic moment. It’s a series of competent choices that convince others you’re ready to be taken seriously.