What Kind of Kidlit Writer Are You? Part 2

Last Sunday I began a blog mini-series on one of my favorite things in the world: writing for young readers. The first part focused on getting started: magazine or book?

I'm writing these grounded in my experiences thus far, after several years of concerted effort to self-educate in the field, making many mistakes, and having some breakthroughs. In other words, I make no claim to be a world expert in this, but I hope you find some of what I have to say on the topic of interest and use! There are many ways to get to Rome, if that's where you want to go, and these are just some of the paths.

Agent or Editor? To Whom Do I Submit?

It's a question that crops up all over the place in the blogosphere. You can go either route, but here are some things to be informed of when making your judgment call.

Literary agents are "gate-keepers" in the publishing industry. You might not like that, but that is how it is and it isn't going to change any time soon, epublishing to the contrary! So why not just skip the middle step and go right to the editors themselves? After all, their mailing addresses are listed in publishing guides, right? Well, many editors are closed to "unagented submissions." And those that are open to all submissions have large, teetering "slush piles" (open submissions) that take months if not years to slog through. You'll wait longer to hear back on average, and generally speaking your work will be read by a despairing intern doing their time in the Siberian outpost that is the slush pile to prove their worth to the editor. Their goal is to slog through slush as efficiently as possible, not to pause and admire your turn of phrase. Although you and they both dream of submitting/finding the diamond in the cistern, the odds are against both of you.

The other thing to consider is that although you can send work to an editor, this counts as "shopping it [your literary work] around" and you have then determined a path you have to stay on. Agents are not interested in considering work that has been shopped around to editors already, unless you have an offer on it and would like agent representation to finalize the deal. Why not? Because first, you thumbed your nose at agenting and went it alone. Second, many agents want the opportunity to have you work some revisions before they shop something on your behalf. (This serves two purposes: they see that you are open to revision and behave professionally--you are someone they want to work with. And their name is on the line with yours when they send your stuff out on their letterhead, so they do want it to be the best it can be.) And third, if you have already sent out your work to a bunch of editors, what can the agent do with it? You have already "tainted the pool," so to speak. And unless you have an offer, you are admitting to an agent that you have been rejected by a lot of editors already (kiss of death: do not quote any nice things said in a rejection; it was still a rejection). Unless you plan to overhaul the manuscript significantly, it will now need to stay shelved until after you sign a three book deal somewhere.

If you go to a conference and meet with an editor either one on one for a critique or, in some cases, are simply in the audience for their presentation, the conference organizers have usually made arrangements for you to submit your work to them after the conference, following whatever submission guidelines they have set, and noting that you were present at the conference (thereby avoiding the slush pile and guaranteeing a slightly faster response time). This type of editor submission is acceptable to agents, providing you are only talking one or two editors, but full disclosure is important. Agents need to know where it has been submitted. If you have not sent it anywhere, say so in your cover letter.

Agents also attend conferences and permit attendees to submit to them afterward. However, it is rare to get picked up at a conference, and there doesn't seem to be any strong advantage to having met the agent or had a critique with them--other than good advice, of course. So if you do attend conferences (like SCBWI--Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) then do so because you will learn vast amounts about the industry expectations and good writing, not because Prince Charming might invite you to dance!

Education/Non-Fiction Writing

Agents don't really apply in the case of the non-fiction children's writer. Here, the hustle is different. Either send a pitch/prospectus directly to a relevant Press and/or send your resume to education presses that accept WFH (work for hire) applicants.

In my case, I sent my resume to around 40 presses. About a quarter or more of them emailed or wrote to say they liked my credentials and found me qualified to write for them. They kept my resume on file. Although this may yet provide some writing work, and for some it might do so very quickly, I found personally that networking has paid better dividends thus far.

A colleague in my writing group had an overflow of work from her editor and suggested to both of us that I might be a good fit. I sent my resume and magazine work clips, and got a contract two days later, and have my first book in this genre--for a high school market--due at the end of January. Needless to say, I'm extremely happy at this turn of events, and hope that this work will produce more work, particularly as the editor in question works for a book packager and thus works to connect press needs with writers. In other words, the editor represents many presses.

When I expressed my gratitude to my lovely writing colleague, she told me to pay it forward. She got her first break this way as well, and said that she suspects connections work best in this industry. And so I will.

So, my counsel in summary is: write. Learn the hustle of submitting, tracking, researching markets, and contacting agents and editors. Attend conferences that help you meet people. But the people you really want to meet are your colleagues, because they're the network that can help you most!

First Things for Aspiring Children's Writers!

If you write for children and haven't made it "official," or if you think you might like to write for young readers in any way (rebus, magazine, picture books, picture story books, easy readers, chapter books, middle grade or young adult fiction) then you should join the national organization: SCBWI (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators).

Then, you are a card carrying children's writer. SCBWI sends you a host of materials and, perhaps more importantly, access to your regional chapter. Even if you live too far to attend any or many of your regional chapter's events (workshops, agent days, annual conferences featuring editors, authors and agents) you can still get access to their newsletters, craft columns (writer's craft, mind you!) and critique groups. You could even start your own local critique group with other local SCBWI members.

When you submit your work, thoughtfully and in proper format, to agents/editors, you will state on your cover letter that you are a SCBWI member. It is a sign of your professionalism. To live up to the expectations that establishes, you need to do your homework on submissions, read the websites, and do everything it tells you to do to ensure your submission will be read.

This plug for a great organization is brought to you by one happy camper, who spent all day yesterday a few hours from home attending a SCBWI workshop with Cheryl Klein, the incomparable editor at Arthur A. Levine, she of the last 3 Harry Potter novels fame (and A Curse Dark as Gold by Kansas' own Elizabeth C. Bunce, one of my favorite reads of last year, and of course many other books too), and author of Second Sight (about revision for writers).
Buy the book! For less than twenty dollars, you can experience a paradigm shift.

Writing is Obsessive

This morning I read a tweet from an SCBWI colleague, who posted (at midnight) that she was in bed with her manuscript. And I understood completely, since I was up too early and pondering the same book mapping exercise that she is undertaking. We're all slaves to a homework assignment posed by Cheryl Klein, editor extraordinaire at Arthur A. Levine books (and she of Harry Potter continuity editing fame). I ordered a copy of her book Second Sight on revision, and it has once again been a paradigm shift of an exercise (and I've only just begun). I guess that is the good thing about revision. Every time I think I have the ms done, I'm back to the drawing board. But the book gets better every time too which, after all, is surely the point.

Chapter 13...

I went to KC for a novels workshop on Saturday. Lisa Harkrader was a fab presenter, and it was fun to hear snippets of others' novels-in-progress. Ironically, when discussing endings, she mentioned being in the middle of Chapter 13, and wondering how to pull it all together. I happen to be in the middle of my own Chapter 13, literally, and daunted at the task of finishing the thing. I know what has to happen, but everyone is so scattered around the place, in the middle of something. It seems like hard work to interrupt them.

So I'm taking a couple more days of down time, and then will gird the proverbial, and get them all home again.

I'm Back!

Did you miss me? Did the taxes (check); cleaned out the raised beds from last year (check); rescued daughter who had tripped backward over some yard obstacle (first frightening dash through the yard as son screamed Help! Help! ... not recommended); drove five hours to St. Louis for FAB agents day and spent time with three interesting agents and a mess o' interesting kidlit writers while family wandered the zoo in sudden inexplicably cold temps; survived long drive home on snow-covered I-44 while kids watched movies and occasionally announced they had waited until bladders were on Defcon 4 before sharing the info with us, the drivers.

I may actually be ready to go back to work tomorrow!

Three Day Weekend

Today's edition of he said/she said:
Son got in the middle of dispute between Father and Daughter, thus getting himself into trouble. I attempted to comfort him by telling him that I, as the oldest child, had that same tendency and used to get into trouble for inserting myself in parental vs. sibling disputes too. "So," I added with a sense of maternal sufficiency, "I know how you feel." Son's victorious reply: "So THAT'S where I get it from."

Good news from Australasia: acceptance of my first ever published fiction, a story called "Monty is from Mars," forthcoming in April 2010 issue of Explore Magazine, an Australian kids' mag published by an education publisher!

Finally, after enjoying Julie/Julia (the book, but of course with Meryl Streep the film was great fun too), and now reading Not Buying It (a year without shopping), am wondering what great venture I would task myself with for a year. I tried to read a book about a family who only ate what they grew for a year, but it was unspeakably exhausting to read if you just aren't a large scale (or competent) gardener to begin with. I then realized that I am in fact still in my first year of writing for children (begun May 24, 2009), so if I can get something amazing to happen before the end of May, I could reverse engineer a wittier blog and write a book about it. Don't worry; I think that was a joke!

Met in KC at Borders with my critter group yesterday, and it has been a big month for two of them, at least. They have launched new and exciting ventures in the web. One, similarly inspired by the Julie/Julia project, has gone live with a commercial blog meshing nursing/parent advice/humor called, appropriately enough: NurseMommyLaughs. Already she has pediatricians beating a path to her door! Another is growing Blessing Beans, a devotional website with spinoffs, and already has a trademarked product. And for a third, with whom I meet for chapter book critiquing, she says she has given up lucrative employment possibilities to carve out 90 minutes of writing time a day and stay home with her three children. Vacations have moved from Florida to nearby St. Louis instead, but she and her husband are bucking the trend of the Joneses they run with. So we're back to Not Buying It again! (But of course, I had to buy the book.)

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Son, to his sister: I'm bored.
Daughter: I'm bored too. But you're boring.

**

On the writing front there is much labor and sweat and persistence, all of which I understand to be key ingredients. I'm slowly working on the early chapters of a YA novel, and enjoying it a great deal. When I need a break from that, I'm exploring new types of magazine writing, like rebuses: fictional and non-. Thanks to one of my lovely crit group members from Kansas City, who brought a rebus that Highlights had purchased and showed us how they tick, I have had fun playing in those waters! There is craft in keeping to 120 words or so, telling a story, using age leveled vocabulary, and a set ratio of concrete (illustratable) nouns with some repetition. Try one! They're bite-sized wonders.

And have set up a new ms exchange with another SCBWI Kansas City-ite, to swap chapter book drafts. Am enjoying the critiquing there too.

Oh, and have another piece published in the regional quarterly newsletter of the Kansas SCBWI, In the Wind, called "Breaching Decorum," about selective register leaps in children's picture books (December 2009 issue).

I spend some weeks mailing out a lot of pieces. I remember back to working on the doctoral dissertation. One piece of advice that was helpful from another grad student (in computing!) was to do at least one thing a day toward the cause. If that meant buying post-it notes, then so be it. Usually one thing lead to another and another, of course, but sometimes it didn't and post-it notes were the only thing accomplished in a day. Nevertheless, like knitting it came together one stitch at a time. The same mentality (without the luxury of time) worked for the Bluebeard book, the second one written around teaching full-time and having babies and raising them. Some days, only one email got sent out "toward the cause." So now it is with the kidlit writing and editing and mailing. Some days, I just want to play with my binders, put them in order with dividers, and create systems to manage the different genres and communications going back and forth. It never feels like wasted time.

So, before going in to work to complete finals grading, I'm going to work for an hour or so on my novel! Have a great weekend all.

Critters of the Month Club

Had a great critique session in Kansas City at Borders, yesterday afternoon. Nice drive, nice coffee, great company. Spending two hours critiquing children's writing with folks who are as enthused and focused is wonderful. Thanks, guys.

Critters

So, thanks to the tireless efforts of the moving force behind the Kansas regional chapter of SCBWI (Soc of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), I get to go up to Kansas City this week to the inaugural meeting of a new picture book critique group. I'm excited! First, because I haven't been up to KC in ages (that two hour drive...). Second, because the meeting place is a huge Borders bookstore... ! Now, I like our local Hastings, but there are some limitations. Like when I asked if they stock the CWI Market (2009) and they said "oh, here it is online, but we can't order it." And yet amazon can ship it to me? What's the deal? I worked in bookstores. I'm pretty sure books can be ordered. The new one isn't out until fall... (The same guy said there were no books in the store teaching guitar for children, and of course there were.) Anyway, I'm in danger of overdoing it on lattes and Newbery award and honor books... YAY!