My company, Wood Lily Publishers, received a call the other day from a person interested in getting published. Their loaded question, “How do I get published?”, caught me off guard for a moment. My mind raced frantically trying to sum up in a short answer all the information I had learned over the last fifteen years about the publishing industry. Where to start? What to suggest? What to say? The short answer is - find a publisher and submit your manuscript. This is not what the person was asking - the more refined question was, “How do I find a publisher?”.
A new writer might wish to seek out a writer’s group to present their work and have it critiqued. Writer’s groups offer information sharing and topics of how to get published, which most often dominate the round table discussions at group meetings.
A library is an excellent resource, as they have lots of books on how to get published, market listings, and contest information. Make friends with a local school librarian, and they can share the publisher’s catalogues which they order from. These display the titles the publisher produces, and contact information.
Visit local bookstores to find out what writing conferences are coming up in your area. Attending writing conferences and joining the writing and publishing associations that put them on is an excellent resource. Many writing associations have web sites which have link pages to publishers.
Local Authors are great to talk with if they are doing a signing at a bookstore or event. They enjoy talking with other writers and will share information and are truly appreciative in your interest (especially if you purchase their book).
The Internet is a vast resource. It’s tough though if a person doesn’t know what to search for. If a writer is seeking a local publisher, they may not know the name of the company. Some key phrases might be: “submission guidelines“, “(your country) Book Publishers”, “Publishers in (your local area)”. Your local government web site might also offer information on getting published, especially if you look up “Getting an ISBN number”, “Books Published (in your country/area)”, “Copy writing your book”.
Finally, search the Internet for online publishing and writers groups, forums, blogs, and social networking sites. There is a vast amount of information published in all of these areas.
As a side note, it is getting really tough these days on the Internet to distinguish the difference between a traditional publisher (a publishing company will offer a contract/royalties to purchase and market your book) and print-on-demand (POD) publishers (A company who will take your work and produce it in limited runs. You pay the complete cost of production - you self publish and market the book).
If a company suggests you send in your manuscript and they will supply a quote, then you haven’t found a traditional publisher. Traditional Publisher sites have Submission Guideline pages, found normally under their “About” or “For Authors” pages.
Patricia L. Atchison,
Publisher, Wood Lily Publishers
Tags: Getting Published, Manuscript Submission, submitting manuscripts to publishers
Writing is a craft, and like so many crafts, the more a writer can learn technically, the better their writing will become. With so many people writing today, there are an unlimited number of resources to improve the craft of writing.
I’ve always been a writer, mostly through journal writing, but when I decided to get serious, I found my love of writing for children and teens. Gosh, almost 20 years ago now, I wasn’t quite sure where to start.
I started by picking up writer’s magazines. I noticed ads published for the Institute of Children’s Literature. You have most likely seen them in writing and general interest magazines. Like most ads posted, I was skeptical, especially when a request for money is made. Back then, there was a wider gap between US and Canadian commerce, and sending money to an unknown entity and in United States dollars seemed a bit daunting, but I need not have worried. Everything worked out perfectly.
Today, I have many people ask me about the Institutes’ program. Is it bona fide? Worth it? While I am not endorsing the Institute, I can suggest that it is a great place to start your education in writing for children and teens, especially if you want to work out of your own home and at your own pace. You can also check out local university and college options, pricing and availability of classes.
What I liked about the Institute of Children’s Literature, was that I could work at my own pace. I was still able to continue working fulltime, take care of my family, and work on the assignments as they became available. It was helpful to have due dates, which kept me on track. I was assigned an instructor who gave personal comments and suggestions on my work – similar to what an editor would do. Everything submitted to the Institute as part of homework assignments are kept confidential by the instructor. The resources and course manual are extensive with information specifically related to writing for children and teenagers. I still refer back to the notes today when I need guidance on a project I am working on.
If you are interested in writing for children and teens, then check out the Institute, or local courses in your area. What you should look for is an a-z, complete nuts and bolts course on all facets of writing including writing to a specific target audience and genre, the craft of writing and marketing your work.
I’ve touched briefly on the topic of entering writing contests before in a previous post, and the benefits, but I’d like to re-iterate some information here. I belong to the LinkedIn Children’s Publishing Group, the Aspiring Writers Group and the Aspiring Writers Blogs Group. At first I was tentative to join these groups, and even more shy to add comments or articles. I felt a sense of awe with the company the group kept. I mean there are even authors from Random House there. Did I have enough knowledge about writing and publishing to share? Would members take me seriously? After sitting in the background (I think they call it lurking these days) for awhile, I started adding a few comments here and there. I anxiously hit the send button to share a press release. What was I thinking? Would I be laughed out of the group?
But, guess what, I should never have feared. Like any new group, once a person gets past the awkwardness of joining, being in the community becomes fun and rewarding. I even went so far as to enter the June Children’s genre short story contest in the Aspiring Writers Group. I’m so happy to report that I shared winning third place for my story “Silly Bear“, along with Ronda Payne for “Canary Barf Yellow”. Second place went to Cindy Yatis for “Smally Small and His New Best Friend”, and first place was awarded to Carole Seawert for “The Best of Friends”. Congratulations to all who won!
I felt honoured to win, as all the stories entered were great. I’ve entered many, many contests, and have won 4 or 5. Entering contests not only gives you exposure (especially if winning), it helps you to hone your craft and stick to a deadline. Just the preparation of editing and making sure your entry is in the best editorial shape possible has its rewards.
If you want a community of like-minded individuals to share your work, comments or blogs with, take a look at the LinkedIn groups I mentioned above (just click on the links there), which were all started by Mr. David Nicholls, the CEO of Lebrary.com. An article regarding Lebrary can be found at: Lebrary — New Website for Authors.
Writing for Middle Graders Demands Knowledge of Likes & Dislikes
Writing for middle grade fiction is not easy. Age groups and their interest levels spell a big difference in their reading likes and dislikes. Middle grade readers can be divided up into ages 8 to 12, 10 and up, and young adults (YA) aged 12 and up. Depending on school systems and ages that children start school, this can encompass grades 3 to 7, grades 5 and up, and for teens/young adults, grades 7 and up.
To write for this audience, you have to know what they are into. When I was at a market recently selling my books, there was a 9 year old boy that came up to talk to me. I love talking to kids, especially when they have an interest in writing. This young man, in grade 5, also an artist, was creating a graphic novel. Over the course of twenty minutes, I found out his plot consisted of a ‘one-eyed garbage-can’ transformer/robot, who with his smaller army of flip top cans had to save the ‘alien’ forest from infestation of bad aliens. His creative imagination was beyond anything that I could even think of let alone draw.
We have to know what our young readers are into. For ages 8 – 12, we find readers who like to read for pleasure. They may be into a series about one topic (horses), adventure, or by one author (R.L. Stine comes to mind). They love their heroes and know their past from the future, so historical fiction ‘back-in-time’ type of novels are of interest. Since they watch television, and are into many types of computer games, they are mature enough to understand a complex story with a few subplots involving both minor and major characters.
Kids mature at different levels, so when we discuss reading likes for ages 10 or 11 and up, we leave the field open for those that aren’t quite ready yet for older teen (YA) books. Today’s children are growing up faster than ever with the influx of the internet, social networking, and television programming affecting their daily lives. Here novels can move into more plots about family, social issues, and personal problems.
The young adult group, ages 12 and up, sees teens that are into fast-paced learning and studying through junior high and high school years. Having to study about history, they enjoy when novels involving historical fiction, such as diaries, letters and accounts add to their learning experience. Writing fiction for this age group is the same as for writing for an adult when it comes to complexity in reading difficulty or literary tone. The difference though is that a typical YA novel is shorter by 50 to 150 pages, although with the Harry Potter and Twilight series, this may have changed the norm. Our audience is teens so they want to read and connect with teen protagonists. Subjects can be about suspense, romance, comedy and topics that relate to life as they know it today.
It is tough writing middle grade fiction. The best thing to do is research what titles are available to kids within these age groups. Better yet, read what they are reading. Personally, I love reading books for middle grades and young adults. They are usually great wholesome reads, without all the adult innuendo and emotion. They put me in a world where I can be a kid again if only for an hour or so.
I was recently in an Apple store. The store beckoned me, not only with its huge Apple logo, but with the number of people, including children milling about the iPad display counter. It was hard to get near it. The children definitely outnumbered adults and it was fascinating to watch how they handled the device.
I became entranced, watching a little girl about the age of 4 or 5 playing through all the applications on the iPad. She played games; she went to the bookshelf and opened up Winnie-the-Pooh. Whether she had prior knowledge of how to work the pages, or just knew intuitively, she flipped her finger in the upper corner, swishing it across the face of the iPad to get to the next page. Bored with that, it was back to an app where her fingers once more flickered on the iPad causing all sorts of interactive things to happen. It captured her attention for a few moments, until next she decided to try the car racing game again.
As an aside, I was in a fiction writer’s workshop recently with romance author, Alicia Rasley. The last thing she commented on before letting us go for the day was that the publishing and book industry is good for about another 10 years in the formats it’s in now. The publishing industry sits now where recording artists were about 10 years ago. If we look at how their recording media has changed, and the way their product reaches their audience now compared to 10 years ago, it’s quite a difference.
What changes will the publishing and book industry see in ten years time? It was only in the 1950’s that the paperback was introduced. Now in 2010 we are reading via e-book. We are reading on devices, the paper is gone. Libraries are disappearing in favour of virtual storage. In some states, children are given laptops which contain their learning resources and books for the year.
As authors, and publishers we need to think about that 5 year old little girl playing with the iPad and how she wants to learn. Within this digital age, she is the change that we need to incorporate into our books. She was bored with just flipping a page. Just may be in 10 years, Winnie-the-Pooh will be a holographic bear that jumps off the page and reads the story to her, allowing her to press links to learn more about Christopher Robin and A.A. Milne.
While at the Apple store, I managed to wiggle my way to the counter and picked up an iPad. I looked up my digital book, Little Blue Penguin, in the iBookstore, and left it on the screen for all to see. There was my app! I am one step closer to entertaining this little girl in the digital world.
Nothing would do but to bring home an iPad that day. After all - I justified that it can be a marketing tool. Now, not only can I sell my hardcover book at an author’s signing, but I can also show Little Blue Penguin as a digital book application. Now isn’t that futuristic thinking?
Tags: Apple iPad, digital media
With three weeks of targeted market research and a fifty page business plan, David Korinetz incorporated Red Tuque Books on December 16th, 2009 and began inviting small Canadian presses and self-published authors to join his distribution network.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wood Lily Publishers (Press Release) – April 9, 2010 - Water Valley – When David Korinetz invited Wood Lily Publishers to join his new Canadian book distribution network offered by Red Tuque Books, it was an easy decision to make says Publisher, Patricia Atchison.
Korinetz decided to self-published his first book at the end of a fruitless two year search for a suitable publisher. Spending a couple of years learning the marketing end of book sales, while writing his second book, he gained an appreciation for the difficulties involved for both the book publishers and the book sellers and decided to do something about it. Korinetz explains, “One of the main goals for Red Tuque Books is to build a distribution network to support literature produced by small Canadian presses and self-published authors.”
By bringing these titles into the Red Tuque Books catalogue, and utilizing the company’s national distribution network, Red Tuque Books intends to level the playing field for Canadian Independent Publishers. In addition to acting as a sales agent for Canadian micro presses and self-published authors, Red Tuque Books also plans to selectively publish manuscripts written by Canadian authors as a traditional royalty paying publisher.
Atchison is the self-published author of two children’s picture books. She started Wood Lily Publishers under the division of Atchison Literature Inc. “It is easier to market the books under a publisher’s imprint,” says Atchison. However, self-publishers are only allowed into bookstores under a consignment contract and individual invoicing is required by each store. This creates an accounting nightmare when trying to keep track of inventory for multiple stores and billing according to sales. Book sellers prefer to deal with a distributor, and it is difficult to find a distributor when only a couple of titles are published by one publisher or self-published author. “By distributing our titles through Red Tuque Books, I can leave the marketing up to them and do what I do best – writing and publishing,” explains Atchison.
“This is a win-win situation for book sellers and library services too,” says Korinetz, because writing a cheque to a single vendor for fifty books is better than writing fifty cheques to fifty vendors. By working closely with independent publishers and independent booksellers, offering promotional assistance and guidance where needed, Red Tuque Books will strive to create a mutually beneficial and profitable environment for all concerned.
David Korinetz vision for Red Tuque Books is “Ensuring Our Canadian Readers Literary Diversity”, meaning, “a distinct and unfiltered Canadian voice”. Red Tuque Books offers industry standard terms along with subsidized shipping and full refund return conditions. For its publishers, Red Tuque Books blends a high return rate on its own retail sales to help offset the discounts booksellers and library services require.
Little Blue Penguin Book
Atchison’s past endeavours include editing and publishing the Canadian Teddy Bear News magazine. She has written two books for children, including Little Blue Penguin, which was nominated for The Word Guild 2008 Canadian Christian Writing Awards. Her second book, McKenzie’s Frosty Surprise, features a Mallard duck and wetland conservation information. Little Blue Penguin has been converted into digital format and is available for download at the iTunes App Store and at MobiStories Digital Books for Kids.
For information about Wood Lily Publishers visit www.woodlilypublishers.com. Atchison has a blog through her web site, www.patriciaatchison.ca.
Tags: Canadian Book distribution, distributing self published books
Young child enjoys time at the library.
The digital future is here. From printed book to PDF copy, onto to e-book sales and now digital applications of books are making their way onto the iPhone/iTouch. With buzz words like Amazon’s “Kindle”, and “Sony Reader”, electronic readers are circulating throughout the net and in homes. Now we are being introduced to the iPad. It seems every month or two something new is being introduced throughout the reading world. Whatever happened to a simple pocketbook purchase that you could tuck away in a backpack and pull out on the bus?
Now-a-days, the “next” generation is pulling out their iPhones or a similar device that allows for music and application downloads that include simple e-books to read or interactive, digitized books to learn with. In addition to these are online bookstores selling their version of a reader – for books that can be downloaded, and read in a variety of fonts and displays of pages.
Authors not seeking the traditional publishing route are looking seriously at other publishing formats besides a hard or soft cover book. It is hard to know where to go on the net, what to look for and how much one should spend.
Traditional Publishers are also looking at hard copy sales versus electronic sales of books to see what their publishing mandates should be in the future.
Libraries are investigating other options as well. The Nan Boothby Memorial Library, Cochrane Public Library, in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada is one example. They have recently purchased an electronic reader and are hoping patrons will invest in a small fee each time the device is checked out to help with the cost of the device and subsequent downloads of books.
Schools find it cheaper to provide laptops to students and have them download curriculum textbooks online rather than purchasing or borrowing books. School libraries are also opting to download and build online libraries.
One thing is for certain, fast moving technology is introducing new ways people can read books on devices that are becoming common personal items in every home.
What happens over the next several years will be paramount to a shift in reading as we know it today. Fast forward to twenty years from now (will it take that long? – take a look at this link: www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2009/09/04/a_library_without_the_books) where we see a new generation of grade one students touring through a library display in a museum looking at a stained and ragged-edged, well-used picture book under glass, and asking “What the heck is that?”.
(Comments are most welcome, especially regarding the link article.)
Tags: Digital Publishing
Have you ever considered writing to a specific audience outside of the norm? An author can sit down and write for a specific genre (i.e. science fiction, fantasy, and general fiction), age group and topic. What about writing for those kids who are reluctant readers? Kids, who have trouble reading at their level, but want to learn about topics for their level and specific to their age group.
Books for reluctant readers have been dubbed by publishers as high-interest, low-reading-level, or hi-lo books. They are written not only for the middle-grader who has trouble reading at a first-grade level, but also for ESL students and adults, or university students with learning disabilities.
Hi-lo books are written for the reluctant reader.
Readers who have trouble reading may declare that they hate reading, simply because there are not many book choices out there that meet their high interest in a subject, but don’t address their low vocabulary reading skills. However, over the last ten years, more publishers have met this demand and are publishing hi-lo books. The population continues to have a growing number of challenged and reluctant readers.
A hi-lo book is written with content that interests the struggling reader who is older than the reading level the text is written for. The hi-lo books are edited to a reading level that is usually at least two grades below the interest level of the reader.
When writing for reluctant readers, think of topics, determine a plot and select characters that match or exceed the reader’s age and interest level. A student in grade eight wants to read about what grade eight and older grade kids are up to. But, the text they need to read has to be at a grade six level for them to comprehend the story. It poses a challenge to the author, as sentence length and narrating simple concepts are important. Dialogue plays an important part, as it helps to break up text, especially if it’s short and to the point.
An interesting thing to note with school-appropriate hi-lo books is that most of the books have male protagonists simply because it is mostly boys who are the majority of reluctant readers. In this case, hi-lo books will be about subjects that interest boys, such as nonfiction, disaster series, sports stories and adventure stories. Teachers make good authors of hi-lo books, simply because of their experience with students who have reading challenges.
If you think you would like the challenge of writing hi-lo books, do some research to find out about the technical writing requirements of high-interest, low-reading books. Ultimately, it will be the responsibility of the editor to work with the author in editing the text and using readability formulas as an aid to ensure that the manuscript meets the needs of those readers requiring a hi-lo format.
I’ve attended more than a few writer’s classes and meetings where the topic of ‘doing your homework’ with regard to manuscript submission has been discussed at length. ‘Doing your homework’ refers to the research a writer should do to determine the appropriate market trends and publishers to submit a manuscript to. This is in advance of submitting a manuscript to any publisher for publication, and sometimes even before beginning a project.
The general discussion at meetings is that if someone is really interested in a topic or has a burning idea for a novel, they should write about it, and not worry if it is marketable or not. If it comes from the heart, how can it be all that bad? Right? Wrong… When publishers look for new titles to add to their lists, they look toward market trends and what the readers are reading now. If you are someone who writes in a genre geared toward market trends, then you will have a higher chance of getting published.
When you are looking at different markets, and want to know what publishers are seeking, do a look-up using ‘author submission guidelines’ as a keyword phrase. Many publishers post their guidelines on their websites with what they want and especially what they don’t want. Even if you haven’t written toward a market trend, but have a manuscript you wish to sell, then you need to know which publisher will accept your manuscript.
Not only are you finding out what the publisher requires, but they also list ‘how’ they want the manuscript sent (i.e. with cover letter, brief CV or bio, synopsis, first three chapters, etc.). By meeting their submission criteria, you increase the chances of your manuscript reaching the right department and actually being read.
Note that some sites have taken great pride in creating several pages of guidelines, so they mean business. Don’t send a manuscript away without looking at these guidelines with the thought that, “Well, my book or query is really great I am sure they will read it.”
Some publisher guidelines also give useful tips, resource lists and links about publishing and organizations. These are invaluable tools and can help you with writing and submitting for publication.
It is wonderful to write an exciting story that comes from the heart and mind, but keep your mind open to suggestions for stories and submissions from those publishers who are actually looking for specific ideas to market.
Tags: author submission guidelines, book market trends, Manuscript Submission, submitting manuscripts to publishers
We all set them. Whether it’s for weight loss, achieving financial gain or for personal reasons, we all set out with goals or New Year’s resolutions each and every year. Did you finish that novel in 2009? Did you even start it?
Over the last few years, I’ve published two children’s books, and written two other chapter book manuscripts for young adults. The two chapter books have not been published yet, but as has been pointed out to me by those I’ve talked with is, “at least you have product to sell”.
We’d all like to publish that new best selling novel of 2010, but to do so we need to set some writing goals. I was totally unrealistic last year thinking I could write every day. It’s hard enough keeping up with a daily job, blogging and just enjoying life. They (whoever ‘they’ are) say that to get something you have to give something up. I’ve decided during winter I spend a little too much time in front of the TV. So, I’ve decided that for two nights a week I’ll give up two hours of TV and replace it with a writing project. From 7 to 9 pm, during which time there’s not much to watch anyway, I could be sitting and continuing work on my new novel.
When you pick a time to write, take into account the hours in the day when your mind is fresh and you are feeling creative. I’ve also decided to write on Sundays. Being the TV is taken up with football, (yikes get me outta here), I find myself escaping to a quiet area of the house for several hours until sports are over. I could be doing exercise, but hey, right now we are talking about writing resolutions in 2010 (we’ll save the ‘getting fit’ one’s for next year).
Whatever you wish to write, finding the ‘when’ is the hard part. Don’t be afraid to rearrange your day or week and schedule a time to fit in a little writing.
