All Good Things in One Place

This week I'm taking a break from the "Top Five" to discuss a few things that have become much more important over that past month.
There is a writers conference coming to town and in preparation, I decided to brush up on what getting a book published actually involves. 

Let me tell you, it's no small task.  The learning curve on this one has been unexpectedly gimongous.   To demonstrate my point I have include some pictures of other huge, giant and enormous things. 

And now, so all you other aspiring authors don't have to scour the interwebs like I did, here is a collection of very helpful information. 

All good things in one place

Number the first:

The difference between self publishing (or indie publishing) and traditional publishing.

The simple answer is this. With self publishing, you pay a publisher up front to put your book together for you. You get exactly what you pay for (and nothing more).  Depending on the company you hire to publish your book, you may have extra options available (for purchase) such as paperback and hard cover, full color or black and white, help with marketing, etc. It is generally your job to market your own book: setup your own radio interviews, schedule your own book signings, make your own school visits, hire your own marching bands, design your own parade floats...  (i.e. - more money up front and more work). 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-publishing

     So what are the benefits?  
Royalties are higher. The timeline to publish is MUCH (much, much) faster. And the big one - You own your own materials. There are no contracts, and no obligations. This seems to work great for authors who have already made a name for themselves. Or actors who have decided to moonlight as authors.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Lithgow/e/B001ILMA0S

http://www.jamieleecurtisbooks.com/

With traditional publishing, a publisher decides they love your book and works with you to mold it into what they want it to be (hopefully without compromising your story). You pay nothing up front, but it takes months or years of putting yourself out there, sending letters, asking (begging) someone to give you a chance and publish what you know is going to be the next Harry, I mean Larry Potter. 

The benefits: you pay nothing up front and someone else deals with the marketing end of the industry. You get to focus on writing or illustrating, and still have time for your day job. 

Luckily, there are people that can help you with this tough journey to greatness, they are called agents.  These agents know the industry inside and out. They know which of the thousands of publishers are looking for a romance, meets sci-fy, meets teen vampire thriller picture book for ages 13-47. 

Two:

Why you might want to hire an agent:
     See previous paragraph. 
They are awesome and once you prove yourself and find one you love, you'll be besties forever. (or so I assume.) After self publishing my first book, I've decided to go this longer, more difficult, and seemingly more profitable direction. 

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/09/what-do-literary-agents-do.html

Two-B

finding the right agent

Google has served me fairly well, but is very time consuming.  It's shocking I know, but it seems that the more people you talk to, the more conferences you go to, the more classes you take, the more you learn. There are agents hiding in the woodwork and they will reveal themselves once you know where to look.  

The problem is, only 2% (not a real number) are actually looking for the book that you are trying to sell.  However, the biggest waste of your time is sending book proposals (i.e. query letters - see section "not to B".) to agents who do not represent what you are trying to sell. 

Not to B

writing a query letter

This is where I'm at today. I have query letters written to each of the two agents that I will be approaching next month - yes, customize your query letters.  You are trying to sell your book and yourself.  You need to prove that you are not only serious about the industry, but that you can write.  

     You have one chance to prove all of this: your query letter. 

A query letter is an agents first glimpse into if you can write. This may come as a shock, but not everyone who wants to write a book, can actually form a complete sentence. 

For a good PG-13 rated laugh, click here.  

There are dozens of sample query letters out on the internet. But I will once again direct you to one of my favorite bloggers/authors, Nathan Bransford (i.e. Vicky)

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/how-to-write-query-letter.html

I'll let you know in a couple of months if this advice gets me anywhere. 

(wish me luck!)

More you say? You got it: here for your reference is an ongoing post by the Writer's Digest with examples of successful query letters. 

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/successful-queries

Third:

pitching to an agent

(not this kind of pitching)

This may be the hardest most intimidating part of getting your book published. If you have the chance to pitch your book, live, to a real agent sitting in front of you, you should absolutely take the chance. I figure it's harder to reject someone who is sitting directly in front of you, so you already have that going for you before you even open your mouth. 
The problem is, we are writers (not actors) for a reason. The best advice I have gotten so far is that passion is contagious.  If you are passionate about what you have written (and finished), if you really know your characters and your story inside out, If you are dreaming about the future adventures of your characters and cannot wait to tell others about your book, then you already have half the battle won. Your passion will be infectious and even if you stumble over every other word, the agent will see that this is something you believe in and have put a lot of thought into. People (even agents) want to be involved in a good thing.  Your honest passion for your story will make it hard for them to say no.  And that is great for you. 
YouTube is full of great examples of how to pitch to a literary agent, and this is one area that behooves you to do some actual interwebs research.

To get you started however, here are two more helpful website I found on the topic. 
  
http://thewritelife.com/tips-for-pitching-a-literary-agent-at-a-writers-conference/

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch.shtml

And a few more helpful things:

Two things that I had a hard time finding reliable data on were word count and page count. I figured there had to be industry conventions that were followed and if I didn't figure it out and tried to pitch a book that turned out to be waaaay outside the realm of reality, I'd get laughed at and rejected and have no idea why. So, to save the rest of you from certain embarrassment, here's what I have found. 

Word count:  
Picture books average 1000 words, though many are shorter. 
Easy readers for ages five to nine are 50-2500 words depending on level of reader and publisher.
Chapter books or short novels for ages seven to ten run between 10,000 - 12,000 words. 
Middle grade novels for ages eight to twelve come in between 20,000-25,000 words and 
Young adult novels round off the pile at 35,000-45,000 words. 

http://www.writing-world.com/children/backes1.shtml   (this is another extremely helpful website that falls into the helpful tips and tricks section of this blog.) 

Page count

The best resource I found on page count and layout was on a this website:

Tara's website is also one of 2013's top 10 blogs for writers.  (see link below for the full list)

These graphics are in fact stolen directly from Tara's website - so thank you Tara for being so helpful!

And finally, the 2013 top 10 blogs for writers to follow.  Every one is worth checking out at least once. http://writetodone.com/top-10-blogs-for-writers/

Next time I'll get back to the Top Five with "What is your main message".  Here I'll give you the first glimpse at my current plot and some of the issues that I am encountering along the way.

Balance

BALANCE

'balans

noun 

• an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. 
• a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions. 

verb

• offset or compare the value of (one thing) with another.

Balance is not a word that is foreign to any of us.  Whether you are talking about a life vs career balance, or a literal yoga balance, we all get it.

• Don't fall 
• Stay focused 
• Don't let anyone else fall.  

And you'll be fine!

Balance can be found in nature. 

Balance can be created from nature. 

 


These are awesome, I know.  I'm totally going to try rock balancing once it warms up around here. 



Balance can be  used as a way to pass the time in your Australian private school (you should click on this one, it's a little ridiculous, but I kind of wish I had been part of it.) 

Let's face it, balancing can be exhausting and terrifying...

where is this guy's mother?

...but if we do it right, it can create a calming, peaceful effect on us and those around us. 

So what, you rightfully ask, does this have to do with children's stories?
Well, intelligent friend of mine, I am glad you brought that up!

Point #1

Visual Balance

There are several things that can be done as an author and illustrator to improve your reader's experience. Not least of which is balance.

The appearance of your pages must give some semblance of balance.  Let's think waaaaayyyy back to the yoga guy (five sentences up). There is a center and a balance to this photo that is relaxing, calming.  For those of you following along, you'll remember I have mentioned the reader's experience before. Well, here it is again. (must be important.)

There is a classic children's book that shall remain nameless, but includes a small choo choo that may or may not make it over the mountain unless some help arrives quickly.

I often wonder if the author of this great story composed his own pages, or if they were composed by his publisher. For those of you who are not familiar, or aware of my subtleties as to which book I'm referring to, each page is comprised of great images of kids and candy and trains. It is one emotional roller coaster after another for small kids.

     Will they make it over the hill? 

           Will the kids get their food and good candy to eat?

Ahhhhh! The suspense! My three year old brain is going to explode!

Yet it contains one major downfall, each page starts a sentence and each page makes you turn the page to finish the sentence. Start sentence, turn page, finish sentence.

Once upon a time there were three...(turn page) bears.


There is no time to linger and absorb the pictures, or let little minds ask questions or point out the things that excite them. Nope, must finish the sentence and plow through the book as fast as possible!  In my house this leads to a lot of, "Wait Mom, just go back, I just have to show you one thing!"Mary had a little lamb who's fleece.... (turn page)  was white as snow.

Now I don't care if your story is about how Mother Nature allows wolves to befriend (read: eat) little bunnies. The actual meaning of the words has very little to do with my point here.  Take for example, a page like the one below. You can see how your eye is drawn to certain portions of the picture. The sentence starts and ends. Your eye moves across the page before you even know what the words say - there is a natural movement. This is no accident folks.  This is art.  Beautiful art none... (turn page)   -the-less.

Although it's safe to assume that most authors are not illustrating their own stuff, I'd like to think it's a collaborative proces. So, for this team, a few things to keep in mind:

• color balance
• words vs. images
• symmetry

Point #2

Cut out all the extra stuff!

The best way to achieve life balance is to evaluate what is most important to you and get rid

of all the stuff that isn't. I have to admit, I'm not very good at this.  When I start to feel like I have a little extra time, I immediately fill it up, and usually with long term projects.  This means that two months later, I'm again feeling like a plate spinner, desperately trying to get rid of something and put down some of those proverbial plates. 

So if you too are feeling overwhelmed, clean up your life, gain some relaxation time. Set down some of those plates on the table in front of you. Get your family or friends together and eat a meal off of those plates. Hopefully there wasn't food on the plates when you were spinning them, that could get messy. You don't want egg on your face.  But then again I guess life is messy at times so maybe putting down a plate before you are ready to put down a plate will make a mess... this analogy is going downhill very quickly so I am abandoning it. I am setting down my plate balancing plate.

The same goes for your writing. Cleaning up a story is one of the hardest things to do. The editing process (which we will talk more about later) is one of the hardest and most important things you can do for your book. This is true of children's books, novels, screen plays, etc.  The extra stuff will cause you (and others) to loose site of your point very quickly. Extra details do not always help and extra words can be your worst enemy.  

When I figure out a formula for eliminating all the junk from a story, I promise to share, but until then... it's a process.  A long process.  

In the end, you will be a better writer.  Guaranteed.

Keep asking yourself why - why did my character do that? Why do I need that sentence? Why did he run and hide if he wasn't scared? 

If you can't answer intelligently, then my guess is that whatever it is, is worth cutting and will make your story stronger in the end. Sometimes that's a sentence, sometimes an entire paragraph, sometimes an entire side plot.  

You will find your story to be more balanced (and improve the reader's experience) when you: 

• Stick to your point
• Stay true  to your characters 
• Leave out unecessary fluff

Good luck and happy writing! 

... and reading, hopefully for all of you non-writers reading this blog, you are gaining a greater appreciation for what you are reading as well.

It's All About Presentation

This                         or                            this? 

I know I wouldn't want to eat #1 if #2 was an option. 

This                        or                       this? 

I don't care if #2 is a single cookie, I'd pick that over #1 any day.

This                            or                               this? 

     

 I suppose this one depends on if you are at a job interview to be a lawyer or... a peacock?

It's all about presentation.

My four year old said (read: yelled) to me this morning, "Mom! you forgot my backpack. And my water bottle!" I calmly informed her that we had not discussed bringing her backpack today (because she had nothing to carry) and why in heaven's name would I assume she needed her water bottle?
To which she responded, "Because you're my maaaa-ahm" dripping with as much attitude and consternation as a four-year-old can possibly muster.

This lead to a discussion that I like to call:

It's all about presentation.

If she would have said "Mom, my backpack is at home and I really wanted it today." I may have responded with something like, "oh sweetie, that is too bad. We'll remember to bring it tomorrow." In short, it would have gone way better and not invoked mild forms of irrational rage where all I wanted to do was yell " NUH UH, YOU FORGOT YOUR STUPID, UGLY BACKPACK!!!" which clearly, would have gotten me nowhere.

(This is not the actual ugly backpack.)

skill #437: 

As a conversator, (the party of the first part) never start by blaming 

the conversatee (the party of the second part) for something they had no 

way of knowing they did wrong.

You've all been here - maybe not with four-year-olds who are learning basic communication skills, but it happens all the time.  Your boss, holding a custard filled doughnut, comes over to your desk in the morning and says, 
        "Hey what you said in the meeting yesterday about (insert seemingly brilliant idea here), yeah, that's never going to work and you shouldn't spend any more time on it. You should really run these things by me before embarrassing yourself like that."
And then takes a bite of the doughnut.

But if he would have brought two doughnuts and said,
        "You clearly put a lot of time into that (seemingly brilliant idea) however I'm not sure this is the best time to implement it.  Let's put it on the back burner for now and meet later this afternoon to discuss any other ideas you may have.  Here have a doughnut." He then hands you the doughnut and together you each take a bite of your yummy, yummy breakfast.

See? Even if you know he's lying through his teeth and he hates your stupid backpack, I mean idea, and is just trying to smooth things over so you don't quit. It's still much better because: 

It's all about presentation.

In life and in books.

Creating a consistent message across your book pages goes a long way when adults are deciding which kid books to pick up for the first second, and third time. 

Let me say that again: Adults decide which kid books to read. It sucks, I know. When it comes to first impressions, adults are now and always will be, your main audience.

If there are too many or too few words on a page, or worse - the words are hard to see in a dimly lit room at bedtime, (I'm talking to you Margaret Wise Brown) you are inadvertently creating a negative reading experience. If you pictures don't enhance your story or after six (out of seven) pages the princes is still trying to decide which dress to wear, you are creating a negative reading experience. Although it should go without saying, that is the last thing you want when creating the book. 
If your book is creating a negative experience, your book is not ready to be published.   Please take the extra time and make it better.  

Some things that matter:

• An interesting, relevant title
• Cover layout
• Page layout (busyness of illustrations vs text)
• Text color and size
• Illustration content should enhance text

Unfortunately there is not one right way to do any of the things on this list, but there are many, many wrong ways. 

To all you parents searching for good books, and all you writers hoping to make their search a little easier, I wish you luck. 

Also, 
May you only get and give pretty presents from here on out. 
And when you make spaghetti, a little green garnish and some French bread goes a long way. 


Thanks for reading

These Are a Few of My Favorite "Important" Things.

As I begin to write again after a couple of years away playing mommy, I am making a list of important things to keep in mind.  The more I analyze my writing against my life’s inspirations, I am discovering that many of these important things pertain not only to writing, but also to life. So I call this,

These are a few of my favorite “important” things.   

As you’ll notice. “important" is in quotes because I’m not sure how relevant they are in the grand scheme of the writing world. See, what you may or may not know about me is I have no formal training.  

none.  zip.  zero.  nada. 

I didn’t even take a literature classes in college. I tested out of English at an early age and never looked back.  In retrospect, this may not have been the best choice, but then again, if you don't think your hobby will ever be more than a hobby, why seek out the structured instructors who need only to follow a lesson plan and make sure their students pass, leaving little room for creativity and rule deviation. The faults of our educational system however are not for this blog, and I'm becoming a bit dramatic, so I digress. That being said, Here is my official disclaimer:

             Take what you read here with a grain of salt.  If you think it sounds good, and makes sense, 

             that makes me happy.  If you think it sounds like crap and the ramblings of a mad women, 

             then please put it out of your mind – perhaps next week will be better (but I’m not making any     

             promises).

Here, in no particular order (but in case you are counting, there are five) is the long awaited list!

• Know your audience
• It’s all about presentation
• Balance
• GOAL(s)!
• Presenting the best version of yourself

And because I clearly have a lot to say, we’ll do this across five separate articles. 

# the first:   Know Your Audience

This is a good life lesson, not just an authoring lesson. Even if you are a loud mouth, tattoo covered*, somebitch who swears like a sailor, (which is just fine if that makes you happy) you should probably tone down the profanity and insulting nature when you are at dinner with your mother, your childhood priest, and your four year old niece.  

You should say things like: 
              “Please pass the carrots Father." 
                                 "Yes, I do think that white color brings out your eyes." 
                                                  "Oh thank you for noticing, this tattoo is modeled after a Renoir I saw while visiting the Louvre during my junior year abroad. 

The same concept goes for children’s stories: 

you need to know who you are talking to.

  

The nice thing is that as an author, you can decide who you want to talk to, then market and sell your stuff to them.  
Let’s enter stereotype-land for a moment, shall we? If I don’t want 50 year old biker dudes reading my books, then I might write about starting kindergarten, getting a new baby sister, and the emotional conflict that exists between fluffy white bunnies and their very dear friends, the silvery pond guppies.  (for geographical reasons, of course)

 

But, when you are in desperate need of a birthday gift for your four year old niece, she will tell you about this great book that she saw at the library called:

Starting Kindergarten so I can get away from my baby sister. 

An emotional tale about bunnies and guppies.

There are a handful of things to consider when picking your audience; let’s stick with small children’s literature for now.                

                Reading or listening? – if your audience is made up of children who cannot yet read, they will be listening to the stories. (If they can’t read, they won’t be reading, deep stuff, I know). This is both a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because you don’t have to write in simple, easily understood words that early readers seem to appreciate.  A curse because you now need to make the book interesting to the parents as well as the kids. They are two slightly different audiences.

               

Story complexity – Will the plot hold the attention of your little non-reader? A story with the following plot line is probably not going to make it, no matter what age your audience is. 

The cat found a mouse and became it’s friend. The mouse introduce the cat to his family and everyone was happy.  The end. 

  

There’s no conflict, there’s no suspense, there’s simply no reason to read it again. Zero emotion was evoked between the front and back cover of the book. Maybe a kid will want to read it again if the cat looks supper cuddly-wuddly and the mouse is wearing a funny hat. But I'd call it two or three times tops.  And I promise you, Mom is not going to recommend that one to anyone at playgroup.    

               

Character development – will your characters grow and change in a way that not only keeps the attention of mom or dad (the story reader) but also a way that your little listener can relate to? Do they get into a little bit of trouble, or discover something about themselves that kids can relate to: A new talent, a new skill, a new emotion, a new body part?

               

The Cover – Kids are most often exposed to new books at the library or at school.  If the cover doesn’t look interesting, they are not going to even want to pull it off the shelf. Also, older kids are going to select completely different books than younger kids.

               

Relevant pictures – anyone who has read a story to a curious 2, 3, 4, 5… year old knows that if the kid can’t understand the pictures that are supposed to enhance the story, you’ll spend more time answering questions like, “who’s that? “what are they wearing?” “why is she over there?” “what happened to this guy?” “why does that bunny look sad?” and on and on and on and on... 

In the grand scheme of things, these questions are arguably fine if by the end they promote a better understanding of the world around them. (Impressionable Intrigue, remember?) But they are not okay if they turn a 10 minute book into a 60 minute book. That now lost hour is usually right before bed. In my house, books that take an hour to get through, do not get read again.   

We’ve donated several books to “friends” of ours because they take too long to get through. A terrible gift, I am aware. 

In fact, we’ve donated several books that don’t meet one or more of these criteria. ...Unfortunately, we’ve donated a lot of books.  

To recap:

Pick your target market and define it well. 

Stick to your definitions or you will be stuck with a less than desirable book that won’t sell.  A book that people would really love if only… if only it were better.

Next time we’ll dig into “Presentation”.  Thanks for reading!

*I have no ill feelings against people with tattoos, I have one myself that I’m quite fond of.