I have had an idea of a series of children's books I think I could write and have my sister illustrate. Anyone ever had something published?

I won't get into details because the series name is one of my huge selling points. I want to instill a can do spirit in kids and counter the victim hood atmosphere thats been so prevalent lately. I think with Obama winning the Presidency (even though I voted for McCain and even sent him my money to prevent it from happening), its a good time to build on the "you can do it" feeling. I also want to reinforce resiliency.

So, has anyone dealt with publishing or pitching ideas like this? Anyone work with editors or illustrators (if my sis cant help)? What kind of money is involved? I know it involves no real "start-up costs" (if you can really call publishing costs "start-up"). I feel like publishing a book would be very exciting, if not just to say that I did it once.

I guess I would try and do it even if there was not much money involved for me, but what kind of contracts could I get? Maybe something small for the first book and progressively more for more books if they do well? How saturated is the market?