To Market, To Market

Find yourself doing more marketing lately? Me, too. With the publishing layoffs in December and the market skittish, we need to market smarter. Here are some articles I’ve found interesting:

• Updates on Who’s Moving Where from Harold Underdown’s Purple Crayon site.
• 10 Tips to Getting Book Referrals
• It’s Not a News Release if There’s No News

And, in the upheaval, several former book publishing professionals are seizing the opportunity to move to independent book publishing professionals, looking at the opportunities and the silver lining in all that’s happened lately:

• Kara LaReau, former editor at Scholastic and before that, Candlewick, opens a creative consulting firm and has this advice on keeping a writer’s journal.
• Former publicists at Harcourt Children’s Books, Sarah Shealy and Barbara Fisch have opened a publicity and promotional company, Blue Slip Media. What talent! They were creative and efficient in everything they did for Oliver K. Woodman.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Within the picture book genre, there are certain sub-genres and I’ll cover some of these in the next few days.

Creative Non-fiction Picture Books

Non-fiction is about the facts. But those facts cannot be trite, boring, or presented in a cliched way. Not the for the picture book audience. Instead, you must find creative ways to present the material to the kids. Here are some examples of how writers have solved the problem.

• 
  Poetry To start, look at Wordsong’s poetry books. For example, The Seldom Ever Shady Glades, by Sue Van Wassenhove, evokes the Florida Everglades in poetry. Or, look at the World Snacks series by Amy Wilson Sanger, which began with The First Book of Sushi.
• 
  Creative Language Language play doesn’t have to be pure poetry, but can just evoke a poetic feel. Or it can evoke a certain place or time period. Or, use a concept that kids are just learning. Laura Vaccaro Seeger, in First the Egg, uses the pair of concepts, First – Then. First the egg, then. . .
• 
  
  Illustrations Of course, illustrations can add to the effectiveness of a story. Nic Bishop’s amazing photography was the starting point for the Red-Eyed Tree Frog, with text by Joy Cowley. Whether the illustrations/photography comes first or last, think about how to integrate the text and words.

Find creative ways to make non-fiction fun for kids and you’ll have a winner!

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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