How would I publish a children's fiction book (meant for preschool age
children)? I'm an unestablished author and I know nothing about the
publishing business.

I have found that "Getting Your Book Published for Dummies" and
"Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published" are actually a great
books. Much better than some of the other books in these series.
They're available on Amazon at the following links.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764552570/102-8223184-2627348?v=glance&n=283155">Getting
Your Book Published for Dummies</a>

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592571212/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-8223184-2627348?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155">Complete
Idiot's Guide to Getting Published</a>

I would go to the local copy shop and print up ten copies.

Approach ten mom s with kids of that age.  After the mom or kid reads the book,

take them both out for Ice Cream and ask what the Mom and Kid THink/feel.

Knowing how your kids/moms feel about your book will tell you more than most.

Writing a kids book is no cake walk.  Get a copy of LEWIS Carrols' book Slyvie 

and Bruno.(sP) He wrote it after Alice in Wonderland series ... it is  a 

perfect example of a childrens book that does not work.



The pictures are as important as the words.

Good LUCK

FIrst of all there is a process for everything, including this.  You
have to look at publishers, you can find them on the web, or for bout
40 $ youcan buy "the writers market", this is a listing of every
publisher in America, canada and many world wide.  If you dont want to
buy the book, google publishers, then look at the links for
submissions and writers guidelines.  THis will tell you exactly the
format to send them.  If you do not send it exactly how they ask or
it, they wont look at it.  Also you can not send it "dear Editor" 
that doesnt address any one, you will find the right person for the
department you are looking for on the site.  They will also give you a
word count, font and all kinds of other info.

Generally, however, you want to know the grade leval of the reader,
this isnt guess work, you can get it by setting you spell checker to
tell the Flinch kincade reading leval (under options).  Then you need
to write a queary to a publisher, to the person at the head of the
department you are writing in.  This tells them BREIFLy about your
story, not an outline but what makes YOUR story origional (dont use
the word origional), make it sound exciting.  If you are doing your
own art, do it about 4X the sixe it will be in the book, then take it
to a copy shop and get color copies shrunk to fit 8X10.  You will have
to mount them to card, about 1" bigger on all sides.  do not put your
type on the pages.  just samples of your art. Put it all in a big
envelope so that nothing gets folded.

If you are writing a childrens novel of chapter book, you will need to
send a letter, a breif outline (synopsis) that isno more than a page,
and the first three chapters.

Good luck

Test the book with young readers and make sure it works. don't be
satisfied too soon. After that it's mainly a matter of market research
and hit-or-miss submission. Search for book publishing tips --
rightreading.com, for one, has <a
href="http://www.rightreading.com/publishing/howto.publish/howto.publish.htm">some
general advice</a>.

Sorry, in my comment above I was using html, which I guess is not
supported. (I couldn't find anything about this in the guidelines.