Twitter, Facebook, Good Reads and More

When and where should authors use social media? I recently read a blog post about how businesses are using social media. Here, I go through these 10 purposes and muse about how authors might use social media for the same reasons.

1. Win Real Fans.
   For children’s book authors, gaining thousands of fans seems to work best with teen audiences, not middle grade or picture book audiences. But if you concentrate on educators, you might have a chance to gain real fans. Perhaps this is also easier for a publisher’s fan page, because there are a variety of books, not just a couple like on an author’s page. Still, it’s a real goal and one you might want to concentrate on.
2. New Way of Thinking for a Direct Response Pro
   This comes from a business person who is used to doing direct mailings and social media moved him into a different way of communicating with his audience. This advice is to basically re-purpose your communication to fit a variety of media. Certainly, authors can write blogs, speeches, twitter posts, fan pages and re-use ideas and copy. I’m also paying attention to links that I add to a posting. For example, the post about my new book, Prairie Storms, included links to the publisher’s submission information and information on the publisher’s grant programs for schools. When I posted on mailing lists that the article was up on my site, I emphasized the different links for the different audiences. Think about how communication can be used in a variety of ways.
3. Long-term relationships versus short-term profits
   This is an easy one for authors. We want long-term relationships with people who are interested in the stories we write, the passions that fill our days and our books. Those relationships may result in sales; but we also care about deep conversations about our passions, speaking engagements, connecting with kids, learning more about our craft and so on. Relationships – YOU – are important to me!
4. Virtual Tupperware Party
   This was an interesting idea, that you could develop a group of people who would support your efforts. For the business, it meant the “tupperware salesman” would get special discounts, products, etc. which they could share with friends at specified times. “. . .they could simply become discount agents for their friends. Somebody who all their friends know can get good deals on specific products or services.” Not sure how an author could replicate this; but a publisher might be able to.
5. A Straightforward Sale
   Yes. An article or post or twitter or fan page – any of these might result in a straightforward sale. Online, you have three choices: sell from your site, links to your books that take a customer to an online bookstore, or links that point customers to local bookstores. Choose one and make sure you always implement it.



6. Find Out What Your Customers Want
   Again, for children’s book authors, it’s hard to use social media to find out what tweens and below want because they either aren’t online, or because their privacy must be strictly kept. For teens, educators, librarians and the general reading public, it might be easier. For example, I’m currently running a poll about what you might like to see in a book about book trailers. Take the one-minute poll.
7. Track Lead Generation
   Keep track of where your sales came from. This isn’t so straightforward for writers and authors, but I keep track of my speaking engagements this way, to see where the invitations come from. And social media has figured into it recently. Certainly, website traffic is easy to track and Twitter has increased my page views this year. Programs like HootSuite.com for Twitter allow you to even track specific links to see how many times someone follows a link to a particular posting.
8. Present Real Value
   This business person is emphasizing the need for real value in what you represent or sell. It downplays the importance of slick communication in favor or filling a need. This is actually encouraging for authors who don’t want to do lots of social media tasks. Instead, concentrate on writing the best novel or story or nonfiction book you can.
9. Lead Generation
   This business person is talking about directly enticing customers with giveaways, contests, sample chapters, etc. We’ve all see this work to some extent. In fact, Twitter seems to be a good way to announce these promotional efforts.
10. Social Media is About Awareness, not Revenue
    This business perspective says that the most important task of social media is name recognition, reputation, brand awareness. Certainly, an online presence can raise awareness of you and your work. This type of benefit is hard to measure, of course.

What is the purpose of your social media efforts? Something not listed here? Or a combination of these?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Create Vivid Images to Bring a Novel to Life

“Vivid imagery makes a story world come alive,” says Stacy Whitman, Associate Editor at Wizards of the Coast (Update March, 2010: Whitman is now editorial director of the Tu Books imprint at Lee & Low.) Everyone agrees that a writer’s ability to create an image in a reader’s head through their words is integral to fiction and effective novels. When writers and editors push toward imagery vivid enough to transport readers to new worlds, there are many options.

A book Whitman has edited is In the Serpent’s Coils: Hallomere (Wizards of the Coast, 2007), by Tiffany Trent, the first of a ten-book dark-fantasy novel series called Hallomere. (Update: Wizards of the Coast is no longer publishing stand alone fantasy novels and this series is out of print, only available from used book sources.) The series features six girls from around the world who are drawn together to rescue their missing schoolmates and prevent catastrophe in an epic battle between dark fey (or supernatural) worlds and the mortal world.

Vivid nature imagery sets mood. Whitman describes this short scene as having vivid nature imagery that sets a dreamy, magical tone for the novel, while emphasizing the Fey’s connection to nature:

But then she saw a dark shimmer by the hemlocks again. The tall man turned, as though he felt her gaze. He wore shadows deeper than twilight, and, as before, she couldn’t see his face. But she felt his gaze, felt it through the swift gasp of her heart, the seizure in her knees. The Captain raised his hand to her, and she saw, despite the dusk, that his hand was shiny and scarlet, as though wet with blood.

Stark, direct description sets mood. Alan Gratz creates a different sort of mood in his award winning book, The Samurai Shortshop (Dial Books, 2006), through what he describes as stark and direct description. In one of the most emotional openings of a story in young adult literature, Toyo helps his Uncle Koji perform the Japanese ritual suicide, seppuku.

Now Toyo sat in the damp grass outside the shrine as his uncle moved to the center of the mats. Uncle Koji’s face was a mask of calm. He wore a ceremonial white kimono with brilliant red wings–the wings he usually wore only into battle. He was clean-shaven and recently bathed, and he wore his hair in a tight topknot like the samurai of old. Uncle Koji knelt on the tatami mats keeping his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo.

Both Gratz and Trent are paying particular attention to the sensory details used in creating distinct images. Sensory details are those things that a character sees, hears, feels (temperature, texture & kinesthetics), tastes, and smells. As human beings, we understand our world through these senses and including them in a story created the Show-Don’t-Tell imagery that makes a world come alive. Beginning writers often focus on visual details, but it’s essential to provide a variety of sensory details. While Gratz’s visual details are clear and precise, he also gives us the damp grass and the kinesthetics of how Uncle Koji holds his body.

Non-Fiction Vivid Imagery

Even in non-fiction writing, it’s essential to pay attention to sensory details. Carla McClafferty’s award winning book, Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium (FSG, 2006), pays careful attention to these details. As she researches a topic, McClafferty says, “I don’t want the information I share to be dry and boring as if it came out of an encyclopedia. I want it to be alive with details so the reader can visualize what is happening.”

Research vivid details for nonfiction. While researching Marie’s story, she paid attention to any details that could help create vivid imagery: At Marie’s Polish school, officials rang a bell to warn teachers when Russian inspectors came to make sure that only Russian history and language were being taught–no Polish. The bell adds imagery to the opening:

Two long rings, two short–the dreaded warning bell cut through the classroom noise. Four schoolgirls launched into action. Forbidden Polish books and papers were gathered with speed and precision into aprons and hidden. The girls slipped silently back into their seats just before the door opened to reveal the enemy.

Approach Imagery Through Choosing the Right Details

What do authors focus on as they try to create vivid imagery? The traditional answer might be to select great adjectives and metaphors. But Gratz and McClafferty offer different advice.

Simplify. Gratz says his first drafts are overwritten and he concentrates on simplifying: “Since seppuku is already a startlingly graphic thing, I knew that to overplay it would ruin it. I used the occasional metaphor (‘his body deflated like a torn rice sack’) but for the most part I presented the ritual steps in almost a clinical fashion. I wanted to show the suicide in the simplest most direct means possible.”

He revised numerous times, always with this mantra: simplify, simplify, simplify.

This extended even to the dialogue between the father and son that ends the ritual suicide chapter; Gratz simplified until only five lines, 23-words remained:

“Did you watch carefully?” his father asked.
“Hai,” Toyo said.
“You observed precisely how it was done?”
“Hai, Father.”
“Good,” Sotaro Shimada said to his son. “Soon you will do the same for me.”

Choose details carefully. Strong verbs and specific nouns are the core of the writing; adjectives, adverbs and metaphors are only added as needed. McClafferty says, “It’s like cooking with cayenne pepper–you want to give it some spice–but you don’t want to overpower the whole thing.”

In other words, these authors are making choices, selecting the right details. Whitman says, “Improving imagery doesn’t just mean becoming more and more observant of the sensory world around you. It also means knowing how to express that imagery. . . An author can even use too much imagery, muddying the intended effect.”

Focus. The key is to select, choose, simplify, focus. Whitman says, “Get to the core of the scene.” In the Hallowmere selection above, the first draft focused on the main character’s point of view, what she was seeing. “It pulled the reader away from WHAT Corrine saw, and too much was happening. The core of the scene, the man with the red hand lurking in the shadows, was lost. The revision picked a smaller number of images to narrow in on, allowing those images the strength they need to evoke the mood.”

Study this original version to see how the selection above is more focused:

She could see the very edge of the hawthorn if she leaned out far enough. Ghostly light from the hedge flashed in response to the sky above. In one of the flashes, she saw a tall figure standing in front of the hawthorn, and although it was man-shaped, she had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t entirely human. She also was quite sure it was looking at her. The being raised its hand towards her. It’s outstretched palm glistened in the uncertain light.

Simplifying a scene through careful selection of details can be accomplished by paying attention to other things, as well. Mel Boring, author, with Leslie Dendy, of Guinea Pig Scientists (Henry Holt, 2005) and several non-fiction titles from Northword Press, says, “For me, it’s how the scene affects the reader, and how s/he interacts with the scene. I try to dissolve any barrier between the reader and the scene being described. I want the reader to feel as if they are acting a part in the story.” He chooses sensory details for the purpose of putting the reader in the character’s shoes.

Approach Imagery Through Character

Character driven author has to remember to add details. Not all authors add imagery automatically; they come to it through a different route. Candie Moonshower, author of The Legend of Zoey (Delacorte Press 2006), says she is a character-driven kind of writer. “I have to remind myself to not forget sensory details. My first draft is always a huge info dump–I write fast and furious, spelling out the plot for myself, a bare-bones plot, often, but at least I have the story from which to hang the details. I then go back through and cut all the unnecessary verbiage. On the third draft is when I start asking questions about sensory details and also the psychology of the scene and character.”

Moonshower wants to put the reader into the mind and emotions of her character. In this excerpt, Zoey is looking for her mule, King George. Moonshower says, “I focus on showing how the mule’s appearance let Zoey know that he’d been through a lot to make it back to her, so I used details such as his ribs showing, his mangy coat and his stinky smell. I also wanted to evoke Zoey’s real emotion at seeing her mule-friend again–how every much it means to her that in the midst of her topsy-turvy flight into a chaotic and frightening past, King George the Mule can be counted on.”

I took off my shoes and stepped into the creek. The water was frigid, but that didn’t stop me. I desperately wanted to catch King George before he ran away again. He still wore his bridle with the reins dangling in front, though his packs had disappeared. . .
In answer, the mule nudged me, hard. I threw my arms around his broad chest and cried into his mangy coat. He was skinny and he stank a bit, but no animal had ever looked as dear to me as King George.

Details reveal character. Jennifer Wingertzahn, Editor at Clarion Books (Update: Wingertzahn is no longer an editor.) agrees that vivid writing can open up a scene and reveal character. “By showing us a scene–fleshing it out with dialogue, perspective, voice, and language–it opens those characters up and lets the readers see them interact firsthand. Suddenly these characters feel more real because we can hear their voice and see the drama between them for ourselves.” She points to Deborah Davis’s YA novel, Not Like You (Clarion, 2007) as an author who uses vivid writing to peel back the layers of characters.

Approach Imagery Through Common Human Experiences

As a nonfiction writer, McClafferty takes a different route toward imagery, too. “Some things are common to all people. For example, everyone knows what it feels like to be hot, cold, afraid or hungry. So as a writer you can take what is common human experience and use it to flesh out the scene. You can’t make up any ‘facts’ in nonfiction, but you can add details that make it read like fiction. In the opening scene of Something Out of Nothing, I knew that the Russian inspector was fat. But I don’t say that. I mentioned his gold-rimmed glasses perched on his round face and that he squeezed into a chair. That gives you a visual of him without saying he was overweight. In my research I didn’t see a sentence that said he squeezed into a chair, but I know he was overweight, and I know what kind of chairs usually fill classrooms, especially a classroom for young girls. And I’ve seen overweight men sit down in a chair in a child’s classroom and noticed how they seem to sort of squeeze down in them, and then have trouble getting up from them. I felt it safe to say this overweight man squeezed into the chair, because it’s a common human experience. You get the information about this man, but in a way that seems natural to the story.”

Nonfiction still requires vivid imagery, but often writers must infer from given facts what it would feel like for a person to be in a particular situation.

Approach Imagery with Strong Word Choices

Another route into vivid imagery is for those writing magazine articles, where the limited word count controls many of the decisions about a story. Katy Duffield, author of Farmer McPeepers and His Missing Milk Cows (Rising Moon, 2003) and magazine articles in Highlights for Children, AppleSeeds and Clubhouse, says, “One strong verb can replace several weak words. I concentrate on fun, action words kids will enjoy. It may sound boring, but a neat exercise is to take an old manuscript and change every verb. Often, the tone changes dramatically, making the story more vivid, more accurate, and especially, more fun.”

Narration and Imagery

Imagery makes scenes come alive; but fiction is created by interweaving narration and scenes that evoke specific imagery. The narration ties together the scenes with information that interprets the events; or, it can function as transitions between scenes. Boring says, “The images must not overbear the narrative, so that the images become ‘sidetrips’ away from the narrative.” He points to the Eragon series , by Christopher Paolini as an example of vivid images. “Not only are his images sharply vivid, but the narrative transports you to a fantasy setting with scene touches and descriptions that dissolve any barrier to being transported to that fantasy.”

Whitman reinforces this idea: “Vivid images are at the service of narration.” She offers these examples:

• Clunky narration: Corrine felt rough hands at the back of her smock tying the laces.
  Smoother: Rough hands turned Corrine and tied the laces at the back of her smock.
• Clunky narration: Corrine felt that Mara eyed all of them, especially her, with a piercing
  disregard.
  Smoother: Mara eyed all of them, especially Corrine, with a piercing disregard.

Moonshower sums it up: “I’m a big fan of purity and simplicity. If I can write imagery in such a way that it speaks to some experience a child has had–whatever that experience might be, and it could be different for each child–and that imagery is intrinsic to the scene and the characters, then I feel I’ve done my job. When I first started writing for children, I tried to write beautifully and lyrically, but when it is forced, it is often a lot of beautiful lyricism that says nothing to the child reader. Now I try and say it in a way that speaks to the child in me, and I hope that it speaks to other children, too.”

Whether you overwrite or underwrite your first draft doesn’t matter: it only matters that between the first draft and the last draft you remember to bring the scene to life, to open it up, with vivid imagery.

This article first appeared in the Children’s Writer’s Guide to 2008, Writer’s Institute.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Book Trailer Case Study: The Book of Spam

Some book trailers are sponsored and developed by the publisher; others are done entirely by the author. Witness this glorious book trailer by Dan Armstrong and Dustin Black about The Book of Spam: A Most Glorious and Definitive Compendium of the World’s Favorite Canned Meat. (Atria Books, 2007)

Description:
“What luncheon meat is found in over forty-five countries, available in ninety-nine percent of supemarkets and corner shops, and sells nearly eighty million pounds every year? It’s SPAM. From the 20,000-member SPAM Fan Club to Monty Python’s Broadway sensation SPAMalot, after seventy years of canned-meat greatness, SPAM has become a pop-culture sensation with a devout following, and The Book of Spam is its Bible.”

First and Second Campaigns

It doesn’t sound like a book that could inspire greatness in a book trailer. But the authors were committed to helping publicize and popularize their book, especially with online efforts. Their first offering was a song, “Theme from the Book of Spam.” It was followed by a series of humorous book trailers called The Pig Diaries, in which the pig is ignorant about all things MEAT. It’s a kitschy sort of trailer with plastic farm animals and humor that almost falls flat. By now, there were two websites: TheBookofSpam.com and ThePigDiaries.com

Third Campaign: Toastvertising

But Dan and Dustin weren’t finished. Enter Toastvertising.

Dan said, “We picked toast because of it’s close connection to SPAM. Plus it was a media that was unexplored in the world of animation. And it was downright delicious.”

The idea was to do an animated video using a series of pieces of toast; it’s much like a flip book, except the images are dark outlines made by laying a stencil over a piece of toast and torching it until the image is dark.

As you watch this clip, listen to the script. Play it several times, just listening to the script. The script is brilliant.
(YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYMmh_H3dJA )

Dan said, “I wrote the script and did the voice over and sound editing. Dustin built the set and flambeed each and every piece of toast. Once we had everything ready to go, the shoot took us about 10 hours. Dustin ran the still camera, I ran the toaster. His sister was nice enough to go get us lunch.”

A ten hour day, 9 days of toast smell, 13 loaves of bread, 220 pieces of bread, a $10 toaster, 9″ of snow outside, bright light inside–it’s a long hard day, but look at what they had at the end, a 1 minute, 11 second piece of Toastvertising, which is, of course, featured on its own website.Even more fun than the Toastvertising trailer is the trailer about making the Toastvertising trailer.
(YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK5LpsL7eJQ)

By the end, they had done a song, computer wallpaper, three websites, and The Book of Spam Blog. And they had snagged a great special sales: The book was featured on the Spam can and Hormel was making The Book of Spam available through a special promotion.

Lessons to Learn

• Make book trailers part of your overall plan of publicity. You can’t rely just on a book trailer to create a demand for a book, but it can help.
• Don’t give up. Be willing to do two, three or more “campaigns.” This third campaign for The Book of Spam was the most successful, earning it a mention in Publisher’s Weekly.
• The most successful trailers start with a great concept: animation with toast was quirky and appropriate. Followed with great execution, it was a winning book trailer.

Dan said, “Our advice to an author that wants to do this themselves is “yes.” They should do it. Promoting your own book is the only sure-fire way to get it done. To your publisher, you are merely one of hundreds of books they’re thinking about and promoting. With the age of the internet, you don’t need tons of cash invested in traditional advertising. Do something that gets noticed for cheap. It’s a win-win for everybody. The book got exposure. We had fun making it. And our publisher saw that we had mad fresh marketing skills.”

POLL: Would you like to see in a book about book trailers?

This poll is to find out what you would want to read about in a book about book trailers. It will run from March 22 to April 22. Please leave comments with any other suggestions. Privacy: We will not store or use any private information.
(For those who read this by email, you can find the poll here: http://www.darcypattison.com/marketing/book-trailers/)
[poll id="5"]

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Random Acts of Publicity: Word of Mouth

About a dozen times these past few weeks, I’ve found myself saying, “Have you seen ‘Julie and Julia’? It’s so funny. Meryl Streep just becomes Julia.”

Yes, word-of-mouth is still the best publicity.

A great source of information about kids and reading is the Consider this Scholastic study, the 2008 Kids and Family Reading Study (Download the entire pdf or watch a video clip. )

Word of Mouth: Talk to kids!

The Scholastic study on Kids and Reading says,:

• Kids overwhelming (89%) say “My favorite books are the ones I picked out myself.”
• Sixty-eight percent of kids say they love or like reading books for fun a lot (72% of girls/ 63% of boys).
• Half of all kids say there aren’t enough really good books for boys/girls their age.

What? Not enough really good books? Surely that’s partly because no one has told them about a special book – and you’re just the one to do that.

Word of Mouth: Talk to parents!

The Scholastic study also says that, “Parents are a key source of book suggestions for their children, but nearly half of all parents say they have a hard time finding information about books their child would enjoy reading, and especially parents of teens age 15-17 (62%).”

Wow! What an opportunity!

Word of Mouth: Talk to booksellers, librarians, teachers, or other professionals!

It’s called industry buzz. The more professionals talk about a book, the more it gets talked about and has a chance to break out into the general public.

Word of Mouth: Talk to anyone!

The last few weeks when I’ve been telling people about the movie, Julie and Julia, I haven’t confined myself to cooks or pretenders to the title of chef. Instead, I’ve found it coming up naturally in conversation. For a friend’s book, you may have to do a bit more explanation up front, since the book might not have the press coverage that the “J and J movie” has had. But a bit of explanation, followed by your enthusiasm – that’s what will help spread the word.

Your Random Acts of Publicity Task for Today

Your task: Tell one person about your friend’s book.

Please, post a comment about what you did today.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Kindle 2 Great for Novels, But Still Needs Improvement

Have you been keeping up with the reviews of the Kindle 2, Amazon’s ebook reader? Here are a couple of the most interesting comments I’ve seen:

Jakob Nielsen says the Kindle 2 is great for reading novels, but less successful in reading newspapers or magazines where you must click on an article. Perhaps the most significant conclusion of his report is that he now endorses ebook readers.

Roger Sperberg, however, is enamoured with the Kindle 2′s always connected state.

And thanks to the Author’s Guild promptly raising public awareness of the copyright issues of Kindle 2′s text-to-speech feature! Amazon has taken the first step of announcing that publishers can opt out of the feature.

Anyone tried it? What do YOU think about it?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Many speakers used quotes in their presentations or made memorable statements. Here’s my collection of quotes from the conference:

• About True Love: “It’s great when a publisher loves my work, but a contract is better; a contract is True Love.” Jarrett J. Krosocka, picture book and graphic novel author and illustrator.
• Humorous Take on True Depression: “It’s like, no one has blogged about my book in two days.” Jarrett J. Krosocka, picture book and graphic novel author and illustrator.
• “Nothing good comes from reviews.” Paul Newman, actor.
• “I only wished to publish a book or two that lasts.” Susan Hirschmann, founder of Greenwillow Books
• “Magic doesn’t create: it summons.” Richard Jackson, editor.
• “You write books for children? Huh. I guess someone has to do that.” Woman on plane to Bruce Hale, author.
• “There is no terror in the bang–only in the anticipation of it.” Alfred Hitchcock, film director.
• “Fiction is a lie and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.” Stephen King, author.
• “We must continually be jumping off cliffs and growing our wings on the way down.” Kurt Vonnegut, author.
• “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” Zora Neale Hurston, author.
• “Sure it’s simple writing for kids. . .Just as simple as bringing them up.” Ursula K. LeGuin, author.

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

One main reason to attend a national conference is to meet editors, listen to how they describe their lists, and find out what they are looking for. Attendees are usually offered an opportunity to submit for a short period of time, even if the house policy is no unsolicited manuscripts.

Needs Contemporary, Upper Middle Grade and YA

Jennifer B. Greene, Senior Editor at Clarion Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Children’s Books) talks fast and passionately about the books she has published.

Clarion’s submission policy: Open to unsolicited, but will not respond unless interested. Do not include an SASE. NO email submissions. Greene adds that personally, she’s not a fan of query letters, but would rather see the entire fiction manuscript. For nonfiction, she needs to see a detailed proposal with sample chapters. Be aware, though, that for a first contract with an author, Clarion wants to see a completed nonfiction manuscript.

She handed out a long list of books that she has edited, or wishes she has edited. Like many other editors, she looks for fresh, distinctive and original books.

Specific needs:

• Preschool Picture books. Quirky & subversive, with illustrations that have vintage appeal. No bedtime stories. Books shouldn’t be for adults for should reflect the early experience of preschool or early elementary kids.
• Multicultural. Only 2 % of books feature Latino characters, yet our population has many bilingual families. Asian folktales, especially if they affirm our shared humanity.
• Nonfiction picture books. These are often for upper elementary students. Would like to see something on the topics of art, food, architecture, design.
• Nonfiction for older readers. Wide variety of nonfiction topics and biographies.
• Fiction. For either middle grade or YA readers, Greene looks for character oriented stories. Emotionally true. Not fast-paced action. Would like to see something in an alternate universe, apocalyptic stories, life after death. By or about emigres, especially India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Something that includes the clash of cultures.

Does NOT want to see

• Rhymed picture books
• Picture books written for adults instead of kids
• No mass market ideas.
• For historical fiction, setting is secondary to characters. Make sure it’s a character driven, literary story.
• Chick-ick
• Romance
• Sports

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Where do you find your ideas? Every author gets this question, but I’m one of the few who has a straightforward answer. Go to www.illustrationfriday.com.

Friday Ideas 2008

Last year, in the midst of lots of family struggles, I asked several people to join me in trying to come up with more original picturebook ideas. Here are the posts from last year.

• The original Friday Ideas posting.
• Friday Ideas Updated at five months.
• Originality is one of the emphases of the whole idea.

In December 2007, I asked the group if they wanted to continue and almost everyone is still with us. Entering a second year of Friday Ideas, I wondered what would be different and already, there’s an interesting thing happening.

When you start an exercise program, the first couple months is hard. Muscles ache. It’s hard to get motivated. You stumble. You fuss about which are the best shoes to wear, the best socks to wear, the best sports bra to wear. In short, you’re uncomfortable about everything.

In a similar way, Friday Ideas was hard last year. But this year, I’m finding that I come up with ideas easier, and when I find an idea, it develops into a full mss lots faster. So far in 2008, I’ve written two picturebooks and they seemed easy, natural to write. I wasn’t fighting the material and trying to force it into a structure for which it wasn’t suited. Instead, I seem to grasp the conceptual idea faster and then am able to work with the language and voice easier.

Oh, I’m not saying it’s all a snap and I don’t have problems! But, it just feels easier and more natural to be working with a story that runs under 500 words and once the story arc is right, it feels unfinished until I go the extra step of reading aloud and working with the language and rhythms.

For example, I had a good idea for a picturebook before I went to the NYC SCBWI conference last week. While in NYC, I wrote about five or six drafts of the story (handwritten b/c I didn’t have a laptop with me), often scribbling during a presentation, or snatching five or ten minutes before bedtime. I had a full weekend there, and participated in everything; it’s just that I’ve learned to work in the midst of a full life. I came home with a 340 word picturebook that I’m really excited about.

In writing, we’re seldom told to consistently exercise our language and writing muscles. We write picturebooks when inspiration strikes; we work inconsistently on novels, because, well, life happens. But this year of consistently trying to come up with original ideas (in the midst of life!) and then consistently work with the best of those ideas to turn out picturebook mss, it has been a great experience.

It’s sorta like artists who commit to turning out a sketch a day, or a finished piece of art a month. What you find is something about art that only happens when you work consistently.

So–I wish I could report that I had sold all nine of the picturebooks I wrote last year. I can’t. But I’ve had revision requests, some mss are being held for decisions, etc. Our business works so slowly that I expect it will be the end of this year before I really start to see fruit from the 2007 mss. But I’m hopeful. Stay tuned for more updates!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

5 Days on Psychology of Revising

For six years, I’ve taught the Novel Revision Retreat across the country and I’ve thought a lot about the psychological issues that writers face as they face the work of revising a novel. It’s interesting that most psychological discussions of writing involve writer’s block. Not much discussion of everyday issues of a working writer. Of course, I’m not a psychologist: these are just my observations. Your experience for any particular novel may vary widely from this!
5 Days on Psychology of Revising
Hope
Fear and Humility, part 1
Fear and Humility, part 2
Gifted and Talented
Perseverance

Perseverance or just plain Stubbornness

We’ve heard the stories: Dr. Seuss? first book, To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937) was rejected twenty-eight times. Neil Simon, in Rewrites: A Memoir tells of over twenty drafts needed for his first play.

Most of us would have to agree with Vladimir Nabokov, “I have written–often several times–every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasures.”

Or Dorothy Parker, “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”

Or John Kenneth Galbraith who jokes, “There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I’m greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed.”

Or Truman Capote, “I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”

We understand that revising means doing it again until it’s right. But psychologically, that means the best trait a writer can have is stubbornness. On days when there is no hope sheer perseverance takes over.

Help

On those days, I highly recommend Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It?s my favorite books on the psychology of making art and goes into much more detail on many more subjects than I can here in five days. There have been days–like when I got that rejection of a novel after two revisions and fourteen months of dealing with an editor–that all I can do is sit at my desk and cry and re-read this book.

And start again.

Perseverance comes in two forms: revising until the story is right and making your art your way over a lifetime. It took Dr. Seuss twenty years after his first book to write The Cat in the Hat. ( 2007 annotated version). It often takes the work of years to hit your stride and produce your best work. We are in this for the long haul and this current book is just one of the waystations. Think career. Get stubborn. Persevere!

A great story of perseverance–it just takes until you’re 96 years old!

How do you deal with those deadly rejections?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win