Topic 12: Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You

Making On-Line Writing Challenges Work for You

Part 1:  Sandy

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Lora Koehler’s and Jean Reagan’s Picture Book Marathon . . . Julie Hedlund’s 12 X 12 in 2012. Laurie Halse Anderson’s Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge . . . Tara Lazar’s Picture Book Idea Month . . . Maureen Thorson’s National Poetry Writing Month . . . and more. The Internet is awash in writing challenges, many of them well-organized, encouraging, free, and all but guaranteed to increase productivity for those who participate. 

How to choose?  Where to begin?

Much to my surprise, my answer turned out to be, “Why choose at all?  Begin everywhere.”   And that’s exactly what I did.  From January of 2012 through April of 2013, I took on and met every one of the above challenges, one after another and often more than one at a time.

Which might have been impossible, except that I added a twist:  “Do it your own way.”

“Why?” you might ask.  Well, I had my reasons . . .

As 2011 came to a close, I found myself wondering whether I had anything left to say to the readers and audiences I’d been sharing my work with for nearly 50 years.  Behind me stretched a publishing record of 30 books, more than three dozen plays, and well over 200 articles, stories, and poems in magazines and anthologies.  Ahead of me loomed a significant birthday.  A feeling of dread settled over me as I recalled a colleague’s announcement:  “I haven’t written anything in a long while.  Maybe I’ve retired and just don’t know it.”

But how does a writer retire?  Writing has always been far more than a job to me.  It’s been a way of experiencing life itself.  I write, therefore I am! 

If I stopped writing, I’d be . . . ?  Whatever that was, I didn’t want to go there.

So when a message arrived by email describing the on-line Picture Book Marathon – a pledge of 26 drafts in that February's 29 days, I signed up.  Perhaps this would be the very thing to nudge awake my snoozing brain cells, assuming they’d only dozed off and weren’t actually dead.  But as February approached with no further word from the Picture Book Marathon folks, I decided to sign on for Julie Hedlund's 12 X 12 challenge of a dozen PB drafts, one a month for all of 2012.  No sooner had I begun January's effort for the 12 X 12 than confirmation came through for my participation in February’s Picture Book Marathon, with the starting gun about to go off.  I was now entered in two races running at the same time!

Okay, I thought, I'll do both.  And then I added Laurie Halse Anderson's August event AND the well-known Picture Book Idea Month challenge of brainstorming a new idea every day in November.  AND THEN, with all that behind me, I took on the National Poetry Writing Month challenge to write poem a day every day in April, 2013. 

I completed them all.  BUT, with the exception of Anderson's writing prompts, which simply had to be addressed as posed, I tailored each challenge to meet my own needs.  Nothing against the original guidelines, mind you.  They were all impressively well thought out and, as each blog’s posted comments attested, all successful in helping writers get motivated and stay motivated, myself among them.  Call it cheating, if you will, but I had a personal agenda I couldn't ignore:  Along with various interrupted plays and one bogged-down novel, I had 50 years of short-form fiction manuscripts filed away in my cabinets, each of them carrying the promise, “I’ll get back to you some day.”  So my 26 Marathon drafts in February began as fresh revisions of some of those manuscripts.  I looked them over (finally!), all 37 of them, narrowed them down to the 26 most hopeful and set out to tackle one a day. 

To my happy surprise, reworking my ideas-gone-stale began sparking new ideas, so my daily output for February became a mixture of the brand-new and the old-becoming-new-again. 

Meanwhile, back at the 12 X 12 challenge, my one picture book draft per month became an opportunity to tackle the 12 most-likely-to-succeed pieces out of the 26 I'd generated or revived in February -- a full month of focus and further revision for each.  The new ideas took additional leaps forward; those that had fallen asleep in my files long ago began to stir, stretch, sit up, and take a look around.

Did I feel guilty not doing the challenges exactly as they were designed to be done?  Well, yes.  A little bit.  But how bad could I feel when I was writing each and every day, looking forward to that with renewed eagerness, and generating a wealth of material?  Retired?  Heck, no!  I was recharged! 

Did the on-going advice and encouragement offered by each challenge host still apply to me and help me?  ABSOLUTELY!   And reading about what others were up to as they met the challenges added to my options for and approaches to my work.  I’ll talk about one particular inspiration I received in my next post.  For now, I’ll just say that it was amazing how the sound of strangers cheering out there in cyberspace really did keep me going.  The challenge organizers were that good at communicating their encouragement and keeping their blogs lively with guest bloggers, participant comments, writing tips, mini-contests, and so on.  They offered daily reminders that I'd made a pledge -- maybe not the pledge they’d originally asked for, but very much the pledge I needed to make and keep.  With their help, keep it I did.

More specifics about how I did that next time.  But now, it’s your turn, David.  I’m curious about how on-line challenges look from the point of view of the challenger!

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Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You

Part 2:  David

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Well, dear Sandy, dear Sandy, I’m glad you asked how on-line challenges work from the point of view of the challenger. So far I haven’t been much of one to accept challenges but boy can I dish ‘em out.

My challenge-tossing habit began in 2009 when I became sole owner of a brand-new blog thanks to the devilishly clever Kathy Temean who, upon finishing the nifty website she’d created for me, said that I had to have a blog and, in spite of my manly protestations, proceeded to make me one anyway.

After some stuttering starts, I settled into the routine of searching for material to post. I didn’t want to talk about what I had for breakfast, as utterly fascinating as that might be. Besides, some mornings I skip breakfast so where would that leave me? I began to think about worthwhile content that would justify the time of anyone who happened by my speck of space.

One of my favorite exercises is to take a word – any word will do just fine – and see where it takes me. I’m hardly alone in doing this. What reminded me of it at the time was something I’d just heard Billy Collins say when he lectured in Springfield. One of his poems, “Hippos on Holiday,” sprang from those three words. First came the title, then the poem inspired by the thought.

I issued my first challenge, which I called, WORD OF THE MONTH POETRY CHALLENGE, in October 2009. It has continued each month since then. Again enlisting Kathy Temean’s help I created one category for adults and two for students (grades 3-7 and 8-12). Each month a number of poets, some in other countries, think about the word until a connection occurs that starts them off writing a poem. Long ago I stopped tracking how many poets, poems, and countries have been represented on WORD OF THE MONTH during the forty-five months since it began. Maybe one thousand poems? I get contributors from United States, Canada, U.K., Italy, Australia, Philippines, South Africa, Germany, France, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, and many others. I always accept my own challenge so I’ve now written forty-five poems for WORD OF THE MONTH.

The challenge hasn’t been as successful with students although we’ve attracted quite a few. Partly it’s a matter of time. Rules call for teachers to select up to three poems per month per class to post. But if a teacher is into a nonfiction unit or bearing down on math or preparing for testing or a million other things, spending time with young poets has to slip down the list of priorities.

Over the years I’ve thrown down the old gauntlet a few other times too. Now and then I’ll respond to some spontaneous urge. A year ago the lake behind our house was “turning.” Scum from the bottom was rising to the top as the weather changed and caused the semi-annual cycle. I moaned on my blog about my ugly lake and issued a plea for help in couplets. They came in serious numbers from poets who seized the moment to dash off a bit of sarcasm or encouragement.

Linking up with my friend and partner in two books (bugs and Vacation), I occasionally prevail upon Rob Shepperson to provide one of his wonderfully witty drawings, which I post with a challenge to caption it. The idea is borrowed from the weekly contest on the last page of the New Yorker.  I see it as a way to exercise a different writer’s muscle and many of my visitors apparently do too.

On several occasions I’ve enjoyed posting challenges issued by others. J. Patrick Lewis has come on my blog with such interesting challenges that poets leap into the game. Steven Withrow suggested a challenge. So have Joy Acey, Jeanne Poland, and others. I’m happy to act as host when these opportunities come along.

Sandy, for some reason the challenges I’ve issued so far have all involved poetry. I think I know why. There are many good bloggers who keep writers challenged with writing novels, picture books, creating story ideas, and so on. I also know of some who challenge their visitors to write poetry. Laura Purdie Salas posts a picture on Fridays and asks poets to write something in fifteen words. But poetry keeps me amused so I tend to stick with it.

My most recent addition, May 2013, is something called THEME OF THE MONTH POETRY CHALLENGE. The twist here is to help writers focus on one basic theme, very much like they’d probably need to do if working with an editor in hopes of being published. For this one I asked visitors to suggest themes and I got a lot. The first one I selected was fishing.  For June, the theme was food. This month it’s relatives.

Sandy, I think I’ll wait for my second act to talk about the responses I get from those who accept my blog challenges. By then maybe I’ll have some new comments from participants that I can pass along. So for now, back to you!

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Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You

Part 3:  Sandy

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Wow, David, so much to think about in your post!  Thank you!  Besides the fascinating insight into challenges from the challenger’s point of view, I note two points that resonate in important ways with my experience:  First, all those “others” who’ve influenced your decisions – Kathy Temean, Billy Collins, Rob Shepperson and the New Yorker cartoon contest, and all your guest bloggers – are absolute proof that writers do not and should not work alone.  We encourage, inspire, read, respond, and, yes, CHALLENGE one another.  Good for us! 

Second:  The line “See where it takes me.”  You’re talking about allowing a single word to lead you into a poem, but that’s exactly the approach I took to the on-line challenges.  They were a starting point that led me down unexpected but highly productive paths.  And isn’t that the creative approach to everything?  Whatever presents itself, see where it takes you.  That requires a certain amount of courage, doesn’t it?  But, oh! The places we go!

So, where was I?

Twenty-six picture book manuscripts in February.  Done.

A draft of a picture book each month in 2012.   Check.

Fifteen minutes a day of responding to writing prompts in August.  Yes, ma’am.  (Although, as Laurie Halse Anderson warned it might, this one did take until August 43^rd.  And as she assured us, that was just fine.)

I was on a roll!  And then along came Picture Book Idea Month (familiarly dubbed PiBoIdMo), soon to be joined by National Poetry Writing Month (aka NaPoWriMo).  By now I was not only a writer emphatically and energetically still writing, I was a pro at taking on-line challenges and making them work my way.

Did I really need to sign on for PiBoIdMo?  With 26 first drafts and 12 second drafts in progress, I now had more than enough work to keep me busy for the foreseeable future.  Would any of it actually be publishable?  I had no idea.  I could already see that some of the stories I’d generated were better suited to magazines than the book market, but – hey! – I was generating something, a lot of somethings, and enjoying the daily doing of it the way I’d enjoyed myself as a very young writer.  I was writing for the sheer fun of it, because there was simply no time to worry about anything other than the writing itself.

Still, I couldn’t resist taking a peek at what was going on at PiBoIdMo.  How were folks generating an idea a day?  There were posts from those who had taken the challenge before and parlayed an idea or two or three into actual publishable manuscripts.  They had contracts in hand to prove it.  In describing their process for the benefit of the rest of us, they showed how they’d generated ideas willy-nilly.  Nothing censored; everything gained:  A Picnic with Monkeys, A Picnic with Rabbits, A Picnic with Ants . . . each and every one admissible as a day’s work.

Oooh! I thought, as another unconventional modus operandi hit me:  For years, I’ve wanted to write a cycle of poems around one topic – maybe even a book’s worth.  (Full disclosure:  I’ve loved David’s poetry books and longed to try one of my own.)  So how about my idea a day becoming not one for a picture book, but for a poem?  Yes!  Around the topic of . . . um . . . let’s see . . . well, I was up to my eyebrows in book ideas, how about around the topic of libraries?

I was off on a new brainstorming frenzy and accumulated my required number of ideas right on schedule, plus a dozen or so extras, because once you start brainstorming, you tend to keep on going.  In keeping with the storm metaphor, “It never rains but it pours.” 

Short pause, deep breath, and then BOOM!  A post on Facebook about National Poetry Writing Month!  I was too late to sign up, but that didn’t stop me.  With my ideas already written down, I was ready to begin my long-awaited cycle of poems, one a day and sometimes two, to catch up with those who’d left the gate before me.

Which brings me to today.  After considerable revision, I just sent off my collection of library poems.  Wish me luck, and stay tuned!  Plus I’ve got a couple of PBs out there knocking on doors, a magazine story submitted, and a bunch of other promising drafts awaiting my attention.

Does every on-line challenge fit everyone’s needs?  No.  National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is very strict in its procedure.  Write a full-length work of fiction in one month from scratch.   Excellent!  But not for me, thanks.  Not this year, anyway. 

Laurie Halse Anderson’s August challenge prompts are heavily weighted toward novels and therefore probably not well-suited to those with PB or poetry dreams.  Still, in my challenge-taking mood, I was interested in whether this wise and wonderful author had anything to offer me.  She did.  My responses to her varied prompts began to clear a path back to that novel I’d set aside years ago.  Am I ready to pick up the manuscript and dive back in?  Not yet.  But I did write all those 15-minute snippets Anderson called forth.  I’m thinking I may take the same challenge this coming August and see what more I can learn about my unfinished piece.  And maybe the August after that. 

Bottom line?  A writer writes.  On-line challenges – adjusted to fit my needs – have restored my confidence.  I am undeniably still a working writer.   So thank you, Laura and Jean and Julie and Laurie and Tara and Maureen and David and Kristi and everyone else out there giving back to the profession in this clever and uplifting way.   Much has been said about writing alone, but much can also be said about writing together.  It helps!

Back to you, David, master of the poetry prompt . . .

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Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You

Part 4: David

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Hi again, Sandy. I’m astounded by the number of challenges you seem to handle without breaking stride! On occasion you have mentioned that you think I possess a lot of energy. But REALLY! You make me feel like taking a nap after reading about all the projects you’ve been working on. You also are the personification of a writer at work. As you so succinctly put it, “A writer writes.”

Some of us may accept writing challenges and/or propose them because writers sense a constant need to test our mettle, stay fit, compare our work, get it out there. Some highly successful writers, such as you, also provide a service as role models for writers who may be a rung or two down but actively engaged in improving their craft.

Jane Yolen, for example, occasionally jumps on my poetry challenges with one or several poems. It invariably causes a burst of energy that attracts other poets to join in. Others have lent their talents as well: J. Patrick Lewis, Joyce Sidman, Laura Purdie Salas, Sara Holbrook . . . the list is much longer. One surprise visitor was Gregory Maguire, author of WICKED: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST.

As I mentioned earlier, not as many student writers have been represented on the Word of the Month challenge as I’d like, but we’ve had quite a few. Two in particular who stand out in my memory are Rachel Heinrichs and Taylor McGowan. They were both 4^th graders when they first began posting their poems. In those days we held a vote-off at the end of every month to determine the Poet of the Month in each category. The girls mustered so many backers for their cause, some from other countries, that my total count of visits for the day – something over 1,600 – remained a record until early this year. It has been fun to keep track of Rachel and Taylor as they’ve grown, developed additional interests, and entered middle school; an unexpected bonus for issuing a challenge that young people can also take on.

In another case a teacher began sending poems written by her high school kids. These were students with various learning issues and much of their work was not of the highest quality, but they loved the idea that they could write poems that would be published on my blog and they were proud of the encouraging comments they received from other visitors there. Their teacher wrote me a note. “When I introduced poetry, my students were interested.  At first, they tried to act cool and aloof, but I knew them... When I showed them poetry, they were a little interested.  When I taught them to read poetry, they were more interested.  When I told them to write poetry, they thought I was crazy.  When they wrote poetry, they came alive. Were the poems good?  No, not technically.  But they poured their hearts into them and they loved seeing their names on your blog. And that is when their reading scores went up.”

Sandy, I can see that my challenges may be different from those that come with specific rules and guidelines. You have had success accepting the challenges but making them work to your advantage by adapting them to your own needs. In my case, Word of the Month Poetry Challenge merely tosses out a word for anyone to accept or not. Some months most of the poems come from regular contributors but along the way new names are always joining in the fun. There is no long-term commitment involved so people come and go depending on whim, time, and energy. Some of the first devotees of Word of the Month continue to post their poems while others have dropped out somewhere along the line.

From a challenger’s point of view, I take pleasure in watching a community of writers come together around a central issue such as writing a poem inspired by one word or writing something that is theme related or, well, writing anything at all. What invariably happens is that the sense of community serves like an extended family to welcome in newcomers and develop ties with everyone involved. People get to know one another. They exchange bits of personal history, express their concerns about an unruly line or a rhyme. Sometimes they even ask for advice although an unspoken guideline is never to offer unless asked.

So what do I make of these challenges? I think they serve an important purpose and you’ve already stated it: Writers write. No one ever said that writing is simple, fast, or easy. It takes work. It requires patience. It demands passion. Whatever it takes to keep us exercising our writing muscles can’t be a bad thing. I don’t take credit for the marked improvement I’ve observed in the writing of many who routinely post their work on my blog where I can see it, but I believe that those who write on a regular basis are going to get better. That’s how it works.

And now – drum roll please – Sandy and I are delighted to announce our special guest for next week’s concluding essay on this subject of “Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You.” Our mutual friend Kristi Holl has agreed to join us on the 5th Tuesday so be sure you are here on July 30 to learn what she has to share. Until then here’s a way to get better acquainted with Kristi and her wonderful work. http://www.kristiholl.com .

Thanks, Sandy! It has been good fun as always.

Kristi, the floor is now yours.

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Making On-Line Writing Challenges Work for You

Part 5:  Kristi Holl

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

“I Challenge You!”

In April, I ran two 30-day challenges from my writing blog based on Dorothea Brande’s classic book Becoming a Writer. She claimed that unless you could do two certain types of writing every day, you’d never have a career as a writer.

Structure of the Challenges

One type was early morning writing—the kind you do as soon as you get up (after necessary restroom visits and letting the dog out.) I make microwave hot chocolate to have while I write. But within ten minutes you are to be at your keyboard, even if you have to get up half an hour early to avoid those you live with. You write whatever you feel like writing, a lá Julia Cameron’s morning pages. It might be creative writing, a gripe session, a planning session…anything.

The second type of writing Brande called scheduled writing. You study your day’s schedule in the morning, decide where you would most likely have 15-30 minutes free to write, and schedule your writing for that specific time. When that time comes, you stop whatever you’re doing and WRITE. No excuses for skipping, other than maybe the house is on fire. You change the time from day to day, depending on when you have available times to write.

I kept the challenge groups to eight or nine people. (There were four groups.) I wanted them to get to know each other; with bigger groups than that, it’s too impersonal. And when it becomes impersonal, the accountability is lost. (In a huge group of strangers, “no one will notice if I check in today or not, so I guess I won’t write”…is common.)

Challenges, Improvement and Progress

From January through March, I had done a “30 minutes per day” accountability exercise with another writer. She had read that it took three consecutive 28-day periods of writing to make a solid writing habit, so that was our goal. After just doing the challenge for six weeks, I had seen a significant change in my writing, especially in three areas: (1) my enthusiasm for my writing went up, (2) my procrastination went down, and (3) the actual word count increased significantly.

I blogged at Writer’s First Aid about how much the accountability was helping me, and many readers made comments like, “I wish I had someone to do that challenge with.” Voilá. I decided to set up the group challenges for April. I said participants could sign up for one or both challenges. Four people signed up for both.

Each group mentioned different difficulties when they checked in throughout the day. The early morning “dump it on the page” groups had the highest number who completed the challenge. At first they had a hard time putting the writing first, feeling like they were squandering time they didn’t have to waste. Gradually they realized that the early morning “dump” writing was clearing the decks—priming the pump—for the more structured writing later. As Heather W. said, “I forgave myself and wrote what I needed to write in the morning to get into my day. The ‘real writing’ is always waiting for me.”

The scheduled writing groups had more challenges because they were trying to squeeze the writing into their already crammed days of small children and day jobs. At first, many scheduled their writing session late in the evening, after their day job ended and the kids were in bed. If they got the writing done, often they were exhausted from staying up too late. Gradually, over the month, I noticed a number of them shifting to writing during newly discovered “down” times during the day: waiting room times, sitting in the car pool lane, sitting in bleachers, while cooking supper, etc. They became better at noticing previously wasted times throughout the day, and consistently they reported at the end of the week that they couldn’t believe how much writing they finished just by fitting it into odd “unused” times in their busy days. That was a major paradigm shift for many of them.

Another big benefit was reported by McCourt T. “During the challenge I attended a writing conference, and I really appreciated how writing every day boosted my confidence. I felt that I could confidently talk about my works-in-progress because I was actually spending time on them!”  This confirms what professional writers frequently say: nothing makes you feel more like a writer than writing.

One surprising result was that one participant decided she didn’t want to write professionally after all. As Kim T. said, “I stopped checking in 2/3 of the way through the month because I realized that I don’t want to force my writing.  I don’t want to schedule it in my day and be held to that… I have realized that I don’t want to be a full-time author.  I want to keep writing as a hobby—to write what inspires me when I am inspired to do it.”

Did the challenges actually help the participants? Heather W. thought so. “I signed up for the early morning challenge. The theory was that if you wrote in the morning before your brain really kicked into gear that, when you sat down to write later, there wouldn’t be as big a struggle to focus and find the right words for your story. I hoped that would be true. It was… I initially felt I wasn’t ‘doing it right’ because my early morning writing was a more of a diary, a place to vent frustrations, count my blessings, organize my day, etc. I thought I wasn’t really ‘writing.’ Well it turned out that the ‘non-writing’ was one of the best things I could do with that time. It just made the rest of the day better.”

Many participants noted that even writing fifteen minutes daily reactivated the feeling that they truly were writers. As McCourt T. said, “I was surprised that some days were so busy, I really only had about 15 minutes to write, but those 15 minutes made a difference. Just focusing on my writing each day, even if for only a small amount of time, made my writing seem like a priority again… this challenge helped me realize that writing every day is good for me—not just for my writing itself, which definitely improves the more I do of it, but also for my mental well-being and sense of personal accomplishment.”

The participants exchanged email addresses when the challenges ended so that those who wanted to could continue. Many expressed the concern that Jennifer R. voiced here: “I would love to continue to stay involved in an accountability group. I have never written more consistently than I did while participating in this challenge. I am afraid that without the accountability group I will fall back into my old habits and writing will only happen when I get a chance instead of making time for it.”

I can understand that because I’m exactly the same way. I really need someone to “report” to. Many of us are truly helped by these daily check-ins. I hope my writing accountability partner never wants to quit!

Kristi Holl is the author of 42 books, including Writer’s First Aid and More Writer’s First Aid, as well as the new e-book Boundaries for Writers. Go to her blog to sign up for her free e-book Managing Your Writing Space and Your Writing Time

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Topic 11: About This Business of Internet Publishing

Response 1: David Harrison

 

Okay, Sandy, here’s a subject on everyone’s mind these days: the publication of e-books and books printed on order. In other words, technology-assisted self publishing. Do you remember the first time you heard authors talking about electronic publishing? I do. We were at one of the annual Children’s Literature Festivals in Warrensburg, Missouri. After a day of talking to students, some of us were relaxing in one of the rooms where we were staying when the conversation turned to e-books. No one in the group had tried one yet but there was lively interest in the potential. All I could do was listen. I knew so little about this newfangled kind of publishing that I was afraid to open my mouth.

As in any new field, someone has to go first. A lot of you know Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell and are familiar with their pioneering efforts to publish e-book collections of poetry for young people. My toe-in-the-water experience came last year when they invited me to be one of thirty poets represented in PoetryTagTime, the first anthology of children’s poems published as an e-book. They also invited me to participate in two other collections before the year was up, p*tag (for teens) and Gift Tag (for the holidays). To learn more, here’s the link.

So what led to my decision to publish my own e-book? Since 1989 we’ve lived beside a small lake that supports a rich variety of plants and animals. I’ve dubbed it Goose Lake. As an old biologist it pleases me greatly to watch and take notes. Two years ago I wrote a book of prose and poems about the place.

My wife liked Goose Lake (always a good sign!) and said it was my best work ever. I sent it out. Editor One said, “Absolutely lovely. I’ll buy a copy for myself if you get it published but right now my sales department would lynch me if I take on any more poetry.” Editor Two: “Your writing is quite wonderful. These poems are not simply gorgeous reflections on the beauty of nature, but rather active stories of animal observations and interactions. Unfortunately, nature poetry collections are sadly not at the top of my list.” Editor Three: “Your poetic prose and image-rich poetry complement one another in giving a multifaceted view of the many creatures, indoors as well as out.” And so on.

After two more such experiences I became a prime candidate to try an e-book. I knew I had a good manuscript and five editors had turned it down. I asked Janet Wong for advice. She took a lot of time to explain the procedures and nudge me in the right direction. Through her I was introduced to Sladjana Vasic, the talented artist who agreed to illustrate Goose Lake, and her husband, Milos, who formatted the finished book for uploading onto the Amazon and Barnes & Noble store sites. I’m skipping most of the details involved because one e-book hardly makes me an expert and any effort to try to describe them would take far more room than I have here. I hope it’s needless to say that I’m not encouraging people to go fogging over to Janet’s site with pleas for help! (Janet, if you’re reading this, let the record show that I’m trying to save you!)

On December 15, 2011, Goose Lake was published as an e-book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I don’t have it up yet on iTunes but hope to master that trick one of these days. The process (exclusive of the writing), from my first note to Janet to the day the book was e-published, took 46 days.

You may be more interested in sales than in the details, so here’s the report to date. As my own publisher, I’m paid 70 percent of net income from Amazon and 65 percent from Barnes & Noble. And I get to do all of my own promotion. (You’re supposed to smile.) If you read Writers at Work in January, you’ll remember our discussion about how hard it is for many of us to pound our own chests. It doesn’t get easier when your book exists only if you download it onto a reading device or computer. In the books that Janet and Sylvia did, there were thirty poets, and therefore the potential for a lot of promotional oomph on the order of thirty times more than one person might do. Furthermore, children’s poetry is considered by most publishers to be difficult to sell in the best of circumstances. The niche is further restricted by its small foothold in the world of e-books. I could be wrong, but I bet the market is better for picture books and longer stories.

During the first week or so after Goose Lake came out, I e-mailed notices to quite a few friends and colleagues. I mailed letters to neighbors around the lake. I posted the news of my first e-book on my blog. I mentioned the free apps you can add from Amazon or Barnes & Noble so you can download the book onto your computer. A friend of mine also sent an e-blast to friends on her list. Goose Lake debuted well. After five days it ranked #1 on Amazon’s Kindle Store for e-books of children’s poetry and #44 for general poetry. I was feeling gooood. Uh-huh!

But that was all I knew to do. And when I stopped touting my book, it began sliding down the scale rather quickly. It went from 1st to 20th to 50th in a matter of weeks. Now and then it would shoot back toward the top when someone out there bought a copy, but we’re talking about small numbers making big differences. I just now checked the rating on Amazon.com and I’m back in 14th place so I’ve had a few more sales. It drives you crazy if you look too often. I think they change rankings every hour.

I’ve been delighted to have interviews and features lately on some wonderful blog sites such as Robyn Hood Black’s, Roxie Hanna’s, and Laura Purdie Salas’s. Such exposure helps very much. I’ve also received great advice on how to promote one’s e-book from Barbara Gregorich about selecting potential markets and seeking write-ups in special interest newsletters. God knows when I can get to such time-consuming activities, but I can easily understand the absolute need to try.

So, Sandy, my conclusions about this grand experiment so far? Hmm. Well I’m a long way from breaking even but it’s still very early. I enjoy the fact that I’ve able to bring my work to readers who might never have seen it otherwise. I appreciate (always did) what traditional publishers do to help promote their authors’ books. I’m admittedly still close to the bottom of the learning curve about e-books and how to make them work. Would I consider trying another one? I won’t rule it out but for now I need to get better at promoting Goose Lake. Then we’ll see…

Response 2: Paula Morrow

Independent Editors: What We Do and Why You Need Us

Self-publishing, e-publishing, and self-e-publishing have rightfully been hailed for breaking down the barrier between authors and publication. We're seeing a sea-change in the world of books and reading, and like the tide that drenched Canute, it's not going to go away.

I'm not worried that books might disappear, any more than movies disappeared when everyone bought televisions. My concern is about the effect self-publishing and e-publishing will have on the literature of the future. Are we seeing a rise to new literary possibilities? Or a decline to the lowest common denominator?

The internet teems with sites eager to publish your e-book and with advice from bloggers and self-publishing veterans. "You should write an e-book," declared a typical blog. Reading on, I learned that these are the Steps to Take:

1. Get the software for you to create an electronic book.
2. Write your e-book.
3. Use the software to convert your document to the electronic book format.
4. Make your e-book available from your website. Note that even if you wish to sell your e-book, you should still have a sample available freely to whet the appetites of your prospective customers.
5. Publicize your e-book.

What ingredient is missing from this recipe? Alas, the instructions tell you how to publish your rough draft. Too many eager authors rush to publication before their manuscript is ready.

"But I have a critique group..." That's a good thing. Critique partners will give useful feedback during the creative process of writing your book. But how many of the group members have the time for multiple careful readings and the expertise to evaluate every aspect from voice to structure, not to mention page-by-page grammar and mechanics?

Most self-publishing companies claim to use professional copy editors. Okay. If you're reading this blog, you no doubt know about LinkedIn, an online site for business and professional networking. As of February 2012, LinkedIn has 824,000 users who list "editing" as a skill, marketing themselves as editors. I'm sure that most of these 824,000 souls know how to run spell-check and know something about grammar and punctuation. I'm afraid I don't consider fixing the mechanics to be enough.

A friend of mine self-published a children's book and paid for "professional editing" as part of the publication package. When I started reading the book, my heart sank. The interest level was junior high. The point of view was adult. The supplementary activities were just right for a five-year-old. The "editor" either didn't know or didn't care about giving feedback to make the book artistically satisfying (or even coherent) and marketable.

So what exactly does an independent editor do for you? That varies with the editor, of course, so be sure you understand what's offered before you make a commitment.

My own preference is the "forest and trees" approach. The forest is the big picture: structure, language, logic, emotional content, overall quality, and marketability. I pinpoint any problems and give the author specific feedback on how they could be fixed. The trees are the details, not only mechanics but also more subtle line-editing: word choices, stylistic inconsistencies, and the like. I also point out facts that need checking (important even in fiction!), although I leave the actual research to the author unless we contract for that separately.

A book edit is a time-consuming process requiring many, many hours of intense concentration. Before taking on a new client I read the manuscript, and sometimes I return it with a note that I'm not the right editor for this project. If I feel it's a good fit, I send a proposal and quote. I offer a choice of several levels of feedback, from a one-time critique to multiple revisions before final editing, and we contract in advance for a specific level and a specific time frame. Up to this point there's no reading fee and no obligation to continue. If the writer and I agree to work together, I determine a flat fee depending on what that particular manuscript needs.

Before contacting a private editor, look at your manuscript yourself, have a rough idea what help you want, and decide what your final goal is. If you have no idea what you need, start by reading a good book on writing for children (such as Barbara Seuling's How to Write a Children's Book and Get It Published) before you spend money on an outside consultant.

Once you have an idea what you expect from the editor, look for someone with experience and expertise in that area. Find out what the person's credentials are. In checking references, look for specifics: not "She helped me fix my story" but "She put her finger on the place where my plot went astray and gave me clear suggestions for getting back on track." Expect the person to ask you questions before agreeing to take on your project, so that you're both aiming for the same goal.

An author friend of mine does private manuscript critiques. Not long ago she plaintively commented that she is seeing more and more manuscripts that she describes as "trainwrecks." New authors are completely disregarding the basic tenets of writing for children. What's going on?

I believe what we're seeing is fallout from self-publishing. Folks go to press without being edited, others read their stuff and think, "Gosh, it's published, it must be right," and the snowball grows.

For new authors, editing is an essential step in the self-publication process. Even established, successful authors can benefit from an external perspective. (See Sandy Asher's book Writing It Right for lots of great examples of the creative conversation that a relationship between author and editor can spark.) Several years ago a dear friend who has published more than sixty books with traditional publishers decided to try self-publishing and asked me to edit the new manuscript. Our collaboration led to many exciting literary experiences—for both of us. But that's another story.

Response 3: Michael Wilde

Why an Editor?

Wondering what to write on this timely topic, I was instantly struck by two things: this recent article in The New York Times about e-books on tablets—a primer on the future of how we read; and a letter I received from a potential client. In the article, the conclusion looks grim: instead of providing that long-sought-for solace and comforting retreat from the world’s insane distractions, a book must now compete with every kind of addiction-forming instant gratification: “[T]he millions of consumers who have bought tablets and sampled e-books on apps from Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble have come away with a conclusion: It’s harder than ever to sit down and focus on reading.”

So here is the not-so-distant future of how a book will behave: it will reorganize itself to accommodate every digital temptation—a dark current that flows under a lot of professional conversations these days. What happened to focusing on one thing at a time? The editor in me is constantly asking, By the time you reach the end of this sentence, have you already gone to Twitter? How can a book possibly survive?

It will, and the why and how came in a query I received only yesterday, four days after the Times article had me ruing not only the demise of books but the death of meaning itself (the Times is good at that). Having surveyed the poor quality of self-published books, the writer decided to seek out an editor. “No matter what the future of the book industry is,” the person writes, “editors are still crucial.” Apart from the obvious validation (that in fact means everything to me), this brief, simple statement gives me hope and a galvanizing optimism: here is understanding, at its core, of a fundamental relationship, an age-old calculus, that determines how a book comes into being and why it acts as it does, no matter the medium or how the end result is marketed.

A writer needs an editor and vice versa; that simple. The disparate activities take place in different sections of the brain, I’m convinced, and the writer is not well served should he or she attempt to do both at once. In the same braincase, the editor inhibits the act of writing until the flow is dammed to a dribble. One of them has to be switched off for the other to function properly (i.e., disinhibited, not easy and not recommended). What does all that have to do with publishing, self or otherwise, you might ask? It turns out, everything. Now, in the e-universe, a writer needs an editor more than ever (assuming, of course, the editor knows what she or he is doing, another subject for another day’s blog)—and nowhere is this more emphatically true than in children’s books, which are deceptive if not downright treacherous from an editorial point of view.

I don’t have space to go into the particulars, but generally speaking, of all the levels and genres of writing and reading out there, children’s books come closest to poetry in style and composition—and are therefore that much harder to write. In children’s, as in poetry, every word is important—and even more, the order all the words are in, on every page, in every sentence. I can’t stress it enough. There isn’t any wiggle room at all. The text must engage at once and entertain. A first-time author—even a brilliant one—might not automatically know this. A sweat lodge worth of effort and draft after draft may yield a pile of rejections for want of an active verb, a musical phrase, choice of voice, a character’s disposition, any of a thousand factors; then, of course, it has to be somebody’s cup of tea. A grown-up first has to love it. Frustrating, I know.

An editor can help.

Michael provides all manner of editorial services and help with writing. Email him or visit this website.

Response 4: Sandy Asher

Reading the posts by Paula and Michael has made me want to wax poetic about editors. With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” I love editors for their intelligence, insight, and instincts. I love editors for their enthusiasm and encouragement. I love editors for their tenacity, which has so often roused me out of my natural laziness and forced me to do more and better. I love editors for not allowing me to publish anything that did not meet their standards. (Yes, I am referring to my file drawers filled with rejected manuscripts that fully deserved to be rejected. I’ve just spent a month rereading nearly forty such manuscripts. Thank goodness there were editors who prevented me from going public with them. Fortunately, I have the rest of my life in which to revise.)

There was a time, very early in my career, when I balked at editors’ detail-oriented, nitpicky thoroughness. Now I worry they may be too busy with other projects to give my work the full attention it needs. Even after many years of experience, I’m really nervous about publishing anything that hasn’t been vetted by a professional editor. We’re all far too close to our own work to see it as readers will receive it. Editors help us bridge that gap.

And so, my only experience with self-publishing has been to reissue—twice—Teddy Teabury’s Fabulous Fact, an already well-edited middle-grade reader. Teddy was originally a Dell Yearling Book. It had a good going-over—or three or six—for content and style by my then-editor Bebe Willoughby, as well as meticulous attention to mechanics, typos, and other details from an in-house copyeditor and proofreader at Delacorte/Dell. When the book went out of print and the rights reverted to me, I could reissue it by simply having it set up in a print-ready manner by my son Ben, a freelance professional copyeditor and proofreader. Together, we kept a keen eye out for late-blooming typos. (See Ben’s info here.)

That first reprinting of five hundred copies was done with a clear marketing plan, though this was long before social media began providing world-wide exposure. School visits, children’s literature festivals, and teacher and librarian conferences were the main marketing opportunities, and I was doing lots of those. With a reissued Teddy, I could continue to go forth armed with the dramatic and amusing story behind the book’s dedication “To the children of Otterville, Missouri, who asked me to write it and made sure I did.” I already knew from experience with the Dell edition that kids loved hearing the story and immediately wanted to read the book. I was confident I could sell five hundred copies. And I did.

Then I got tired of listening to myself tell the story. Five hundred copies were enough.

Time passed, and the whole self-publishing picture changed. With all the choices offered by technology, and writers doing so much of their own marketing anyway, it’s become quite an attractive way to go. Plus, Teddy has appeared a couple of times as a nineteen-part newspaper serial, and the illustrations commissioned by the serial licensing company were available. (The original illustrations by Bob Jones were not; my first reissue had no illustrations—not a good way to go with a middle-grade novel.) My agent mentioned that she’d checked out CreateSpace and was recommending it to her authors who wanted to reissue their own books. And there you were, David, all excited about your e-book Goose Lake. So I decided to give self-publishing another try. Teddy Teabury’s Fabulous Fact seemed the logical choice for my plunge, since I knew how to market it. I’m ready to tell the story behind the dedication again—not here, because it’s too long, but anywhere I’m invited to speak (hint, hint). 

Wow! This has been a very different experience from my first foray into self-publication. Back then, I used a general printer who did a nice job the old-fashioned way, following my directions but offering little guidance. With CreateSpace, I’ve had a steady flow of phone calls and email messages, an online account, a dashboard that alerted me to when I needed to take action and now tracks my orders and royalties, and helpful directions every step of the way. I got to alter and approve the jacket and proofread everything online first and then in hard copy, twice. And six days a week, there were real people to talk to, attentive, competent, cheerful people with satisfying answers to my questions.

I was impressed!

My personal “project team” at CreateSpace did an attractive design job and worked hard to get everything just right. Since my book had already been edited at Dell, I bought a simple and less costly package, but there are various options from do-it-yourself-for-free to full-service, in-depth editing. There’s a motive, of course, behind their perfectionism. CreateSpace books are automatically offered on Amazon.com and there’s a sizable cut for the company out of each copy sold. It’s to their benefit to create a superior product. I have no problem with that. 

The books are print-on-demand, which means I don’t have a basement full of copies I don’t immediately need. (Will I ever forgive the long-ago cat who once used a carton as a litter box?) I can order copies wholesale for presentations as I go. I could pay a little more to have an e-book edition as well, but I don’t quite trust the time lapse between my presentation generating interest and the listener’s opportunity to order the book online. I’d rather have hard copies right there with me. I’m fairly confident I can earn back my investment before once again tiring of the story, but even if I don’t, there’s Amazon.com selling the book online for me. Easy enough to email the link to family and friends and post it on Facebook. Best of all, print-on-demand guarantees that Teddy Teabury’s Fabulous Fact will never go out of print again.

So, do I recommend self-publication? Under certain conditions, I do, with these caveats: Have reasonable expectations, know your market, and devise a plan for reaching that market. Self-publishing isn’t right for all books, and, no matter how they’re published, books rarely sell themselves. Last but definitely not least: Do not venture out there alone. See above for how I love editors!

Topic 10: Regarding the Emperor's New Clothes

Part One: Sandy

Back in the day—you young’uns need to know this—book publishing followed a predictable path: Writers wrote. Editors acquired, edited, guided, supervised, and championed writers and books, thereby carefully building careers—their own and those of their writers. Given the editors’ choices, designers designed. Publishers published. Marketers marketed. 

Writers, the foundation supporting everyone else’s work, could be out and about or they could be hermits who lived in mountaintop caves and delivered revisions by homing pigeon or trained burro. Writers could be old, young, attractive, homely, or complete mysteries writing under pen names, unbeknownst even to their nearest and dearest, let alone the reading and/or media-viewing public.

While children’s writers were rarely sent on book tours, they were encouraged to visit schools and libraries and to present at teachers’ and librarians’ conferences and writing workshops to help boost their book sales. (Encouraged is the operative word here; not forced or even expected.) A book that garnered three or four good reviews automatically got an ad in the professional journals. An author who placed three books with the same publisher got even more attention. Often, invitations to present came through the publisher’s marketing office, and the publisher paid the author’s travel and lodging expenses, especially to attend large conferences, where autograph sessions at the publishers’ booth were a given. So was dinner.

Children’s books stayed in print for many years because publishers knew it took a long time for reviews, awards, and word of mouth to move a title from shelf to librarian to teacher to parent to child. Publishers also knew there’d be a new audience of children coming along every few years as each group aged and moved on. Backlists were valuable assets.

Enter the corporate “tailors.” (Young’uns, here’s where it’s all about what you’re up against. But David and me, too. We knew the emperor before the tailors took over and we’re still here.) While writing, editing, and reading have remained pretty much the same, and while librarians, teachers, parents, and children haven’t changed much, publishing has been turned upside down. Marketers now make the choices formerly reserved for editors—and then insist that writers do their own marketing. 

Writers are expected to maintain ornate, enticing, and ever-changing websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. It’s strongly suggested that they create and distribute bookmarks and postcards, produce trailers for each of their books, and tweet. Maybe hire publicists or join speakers’ bureaus. Publishers pay for none of this, neither the expense nor the time involved; it’s all out-of-pocket. Oh, and there are still those school and library visits, conferences, and workshops to do, also generally unsupported by the publisher—except for best sellers, top award winners, and celebrity authors, who also get the journal ads and the dinners.

While honoraria may offset some of the PR costs writers are asked to bear, one cannot help but wonder whether they really do, and how much time is left for writing more books—still the foundation on which the industry rests. Never mind time left for family. Or health. 

Meanwhile, books that do not immediately sell briskly go out of print in the blink of an eye, and writers who don’t generate enough “firepower” for brisk sales of their first and second books don’t get to build careers. So writers-who-market are under far more pressure than marketing departments ever were—they had years, remember?—to get the word out and to get it way out, in front of the hordes of other writers attempting to friend, blog, and tweet their way to fame and fortune. Or, at the very least, to earning out their advances, seeing future royalties, and publishing more books.

Is it me, or is there something wrong with this picture? It is what it is, and it’s not going back to what it was. I understand that. But, David, I have to ask whether the emperor is really wearing any clothes. Is this furious effort on the part of writers—especially the young ones—actually selling enough books to keep their work in print and their careers on track? If so, at what cost? And if not, or if the cost is too high, what alternatives do we writers have? I plan to speak to those questions next time, and I look forward to hearing what your own experiences are telling you.

Our wise friend and colleague Kristi Holl once remarked that the best way to sell your current book is to write the next one. I can’t get that advice out of my head. We’re writers. Writers write.

Part 2: David

Sandy, thanks for framing this conversation so colorfully. I’ll pick up with the growing expectation among publishers that authors work harder at marketing their own books.

I’ll start by suggesting that people who write are not generally known for successfully promoting themselves or hawking their own goods. Marketing is a profession taught at the college level. I’m sure that it comes more naturally to some than to others, which is true of writing as well, but most of us really don’t have a clue of how to make a difference.

My first effort, waaaaaaaaaay back, was to concoct a simple little flyer to hand out wherever I had a chance. I went through my files, pulled some background that seemed fairly impressive, and took it to a printer. I came home with 1,000 copies, confident that I would need more soon. That was probably thirty years ago. I threw out the remaining copies a few months back. There were a lot left.

About the only other thing I ever thought to do was have some business cards printed. These I shyly placed in a small stack at the corner of the table when I was signing books. So much for visual aids. Oh, wait! I dabbled in overheads too! But I soon tired of carrying around files of overlays to put on the machine and tinker with until people in the audience behind me started creaking their chairs. Besides, no one past the third row could read them, which only underscored my amateurism.

Over the past few decades I’ve grown increasingly aware that some authors can brag on themselves and some cannot. I don’t know about you, but my parents would not approve of a son who beat his chest and leaped around like Captain Marvel telling the world what a writing genius he is. I have met a few Captain Marvels in our industry but most of us are Walter Mitty types.

Sandy, I know that you have been involved in technology longer than I have but this recent life-changing transition from flyers and business cards to websites, blogs, tweets, and the rest is drastically underscoring the difference between those who can and those who cannot tout themselves.

When our son went into computers, I was proud of him but cautioned that computers are only a tool, not an end. Boy was I confused! I have, over the last three years, taken measures I never dreamed of to bolster my sense of what marketing myself might be.

First came the website. I got a good one, which cost a lot more than flyers, I can tell you that. Then came the blog. A blog doesn’t cost much money. What a blog demands is what a writer cherishes most and has least of to spare: time. Give a writer a stage, he may or may not be comfortable speaking from it. But give him a magic tablet that he can write on every day for folks everywhere to read, and he’ll go for it.

For nearly two years I rarely missed posting on my blog on a daily basis. My wife, the one who asks pertinent, practical questions, asked why I was spending two or three hours a day blogging instead of writing. She asked if my books sales were up. She questioned the time on Facebook and Twitter. Now that stung because I don’t know if my book sales are seriously tied to any of it. And the original reason I got involved in these technological opportunities was to promote myself and my work.

Kristi Holl is a friend, a smart lady, and a good writer and teacher. She’s right. We’re writers and writers write. But these days there is a caveat in that truism. Writers write with the time left after blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and in general spending time in front of a screen.

Sandy, I’ve recently taken a hiatus from daily posting on my blog. I enjoy doing it and have met many fine people in the process. But right now I have more than a dozen book projects on my desk with deadlines flashing toward me. When these books are written, maybe I can figure out how to help promote them. For now I have to write. No one else will do that for me. And to speak to your point, when writers stop writing, it causes problems from the bottom up.

Afterthoughts:

I’m rereading my remarks and wondering if I’m sounding more discontent than I am. The issues we’re discussing are real for sure. But I’m lucky. Not everyone gets to do what they love most. Writers participate in the hallmark activity of our species—communication. One way or another all humans reach out to others. We dance. We sing. We paint, invent, keep records, teach, and by hundreds of other means express how we feel and seek responses to verify our existence. I think writers are the luckiest of all because we use language itself to touch readers in their hearts and minds. Years ago when Boyds Mills Press published its first titles, publisher Kent Brown took a box downtown, set them on a table, and stopped people on the sidewalk to promote his new line. When I feel sorry for myself, I remember Kent and figure, “What the heck. Maybe I could do a little more.”

Sandy, back to you!

Part 3: Sandy

David, I think you put the key to sorting out our feelings about this writers-as-marketers situation right there in your Afterthoughts, where you said, “But I’m lucky. Not everyone gets to do what they love most.”

Many moons ago, Beverly Cleary became a much-discussed legend among teachers, librarians, authors, and event planners, not only for her wonderful books but for her absolute refusal to speak to groups of children. Finally, she wrote a piece for the New York Times explaining why: As a child, she’d loved a series of books—until the author showed up at her school and completely ruined them for her. As an adult, she had no desire to come between her readers and her stories. 

Good for her! Knowing herself and her limits, she bucked the prevailing author visit trend and went her own way, doing what she did best: writing books for children. Of course, she’s Beverly Cleary, creator of Ramona, and, gossip about her though they might, nobody else could come between children and her books, either.

You and I love to write, David, but we also love to visit with children, teachers, librarians, other authors, and anybody else who wants to talk about writing and books and young readers. So that part of marketing is a nice fit for us. But sharing what we do and know and love is one thing, and tooting our own horns is another. The latter makes us very uncomfortable. You rarely distributed your brochures; I made several stabs at designing one, but never printed any copies.

I actually do have experience in PR. My first job out of college was copywriter at an advertising agency. So I’ve got plenty of ideas. Not all of them fit me very well, though, and those that don’t rarely get done. 

The question has become, “Are we having fun yet?” And fun, for me, is promoting the entire field, with myself as one small part of it. Hence, my ten years as SCBWI Missouri Regional Advisor, organizing annual workshops at Drury College (now University) that brought in other authors and editors to talk to emerging children’s writers. Hence, also, the America Writes for Kids website, which began small as Missouri Writes for Kids, and has grown to include links to the websites of nearly 500 published authors and playwrights.

And, David, remember our brief period of TV stardom? Fifteen, 30, and 60 seconds at a time? As you’ll recall, after being interviewed on TV for some event or other and not passing out from sheer terror, I found myself thinking about how TV could be used to bring Missouri children closer to Missouri authors. School and festival visits with young people had shown me how much they adored having “their very own” authors and how they went on to read books by authors they’d met with a real sense of friendship and ownership. It seemed important to me that young readers realize more authors than the few they met in person were neither dead nor stranded on a distant island, but living and writing nearby in hometowns just like theirs.

But could I see myself going on TV alone to advance this cause? Absolutely not. So I ended up in your office, laying out my plans, and you hopped on board. Together, we read excerpts from other Missouri authors’ books (and, now and then, from each other’s books), gathered books from authors to give as prizes to kids who wrote to us about their favorite authors, went library-to-library giving after-school programs about Missouri authors, and roped a few of our colleagues into doing 15-minute TV spots themselves when they visited Springfield.

We offered our idea—free—to other authors in other states, receiving much approval but no takers. Nobody else opted to do all the work we were doing—also for free. But we were having so much fun! I don’t know about you, David, but it never seemed like work to me. How many retakes did we do because we couldn’t stop laughing?

Trading blog spots with you is also great fun. And I’ve just recently created a Facebook page and am enjoying reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. But what motivated me to join Facebook? The possibility of promoting my husband’s blog, my son’s editing service, and America Writes for Kids, along with my books and plays.

I am who I am, and marketing pressures notwithstanding, that has to be taken into consideration. I have a friend who recently published a book and went whole hog with the self-promotion bit because the small publisher he’s with no longer has a marketing department. He’s invested a good deal of time and money in a publicist, a book trailer, Facebook, etc. When I asked if sales were affected by his efforts, he said he couldn’t be sure. Then he added that HE was being affected, negatively, with feelings of anxiety because he felt he was supposed to be a writer and writers write, they don’t crow.

We may have been left on our own to market our books, David, but we’ve also been left on our own to nurture our writing, which means nurturing ourselves. So I’ve reached some conclusions that seem right for me and may be helpful to others:

          

1. Life is short. 

2. I need to write. Emphasis on the “need.” Not “should write.” I need to write because I am very unhappy if I don’t write. (Ask my husband.)

3. Marketing, as my play publisher once said, is a happy thing. It means you have something to market. But it’s not a happy thing if it means doing something that makes me seriously unhappy. 

4. The answer is to find—or invent—ways to meet the demands of the current publishing situation that are fun. Fun is energizing. That energy can then be used to fuel the writing. 

You’re the one with the science background, David. What say you about my recycled energy theory?

Part 4: David

Good grief, Sandy! Recycled energy theory? I’m going to need help from readers on this one! But off the top I’ll say that I love lists and yours is brief, to the point, and provocative.

So the answer to the author’s self-promoting dilemma, as you say, is to discover ways to promote ourselves that feel comfortable and are fun to do. Hmmm. Well, everyone is different and comfort levels are going to differ too. A list of options that are available to enterprising and energetic authors isn’t all that long. One can visit schools; speak at PTAs and other local groups; hand out business cards and flyers; attend conferences to meet, greet, and sign books; get interviewed on local radio and television stations; be reviewed or interviewed by local magazines and newspapers; and ask at local book stores and libraries about signing and speaking opportunities. The list should include sending letters and e-mail notes to those who might like to know about an author’s latest accomplishment. One can also enter a variety of contests and, for the higher rollers, there’s the possibility of renting a booth at conferences and selling wares directly to the conference attendees. That’s a little like standing behind a fruit stand hawking your own melons, but what the heck. For some, it’s the very ticket.

And these days there’s a host of Internet-based social media options: websites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts, videos, YouTube, Skype and so on. Sandy, so far I’ve tried several of these so let me tell you more about my experience with blogging.

When Kathy Temean created my website in 2009, I was proud of the way it looked and glad to finally join the rapidly growing number of authors who present themselves to readers who routinely search the Web for people who write and illustrate books. When Kathy urged me to establish a blog presence, I said no but it didn’t take her long to persuade me to give it a try. I never imagined how time consuming and exhausting it can be to maintain a decent, ongoing blog.

For one thing, writers write. So give us a blog, it’s like handing out free paper to write on each day and share with an audience of mostly anonymous readers who might or might not drop by to check out what we have to say. It doesn’t take long to begin to feel pressure to make the most of the opportunity. This isn’t Twitter. You have more than 140 characters. It isn’t Facebook. Blog readers don’t want to know what movie you like this week. A writer’s blog is about content and the merit of the content says a lot about the writer. I may write my blog in my pajamas and robe, but I want what I write to be decently dressed and have its hair brushed.

Early on I established a series of interviews of people I know or want to know who are in the business of writing or illustrating or editing or publishing or agenting or teaching or professoring. It has been a fascinating experience and I’ve learned much along the way. But fun though it is, interviewing someone is neither simple nor quick. So far I’ve done about five dozen and look forward to adding others when my time is less restricted than it is at the moment.

I also started a program for poets of all ages called Word of the Month Poetry Challenge. Until recently, I recruited judges who agreed to read entries and select their picks for monthly winners. These days, poets continue to post their work on my blog but we’ve dispensed with judging. In addition, I’ve posted writing tips on poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and, of course, you and I have engaged in several months of chatting in our Writers at Work series.

All of this takes time—hours of it. Sandy, you may observe that these blog activities have little to do with promoting my work. Like you, I usually find it far more comfortable to cheerlead for others than to wave my own baton and hope there’s a parade behind me.

The benefits of social networking (yes, I also tweet and have a Facebook page; sigh) include the meeting of many fascinating people. If you call this a “circle of influence,” then I suspect that mine has grown. I hope that some of my words and those of others who have appeared as my guests or left comments have been beneficial to readers who drop by.

Am I selling more books as a direct and measurable result of my blogs and tweets and LinkedIn connections and Facebook friends? Sandy, it beats me. I want to say yes but I don’t have a yardstick (blogstick?) for this situation. I think the answer is yes. Certainly I’m busy with books to write. I’ve made meaningful contacts with additional publishers. My publishers know that I’m out there trying to do my part. The price of the effort? It can be hours a day. I’m fortunate in that I have no “second job” to go to and can spend up to twelve hours on good days working at my trade. But not everyone can afford to give up an hour or more of their writing time to add Internet-based efforts to their marketing campaign.

So, my friend, we’re back where we started. Every author is expected to help promote his or her work. The trick is to choose ways that feel comfortable and fun so that it generates energy. Then, according to Sandy Asher’s theory, we can use that energy to fuel more writing! I’m good with that. 

Topic 9: Letters, We Get Letters—and Lots of Email, Too

 

 Response 1: Sandy

Mail, David. Think about what an important role it plays in the life of a writer. 

You and I remember the days when we sent manuscripts off by First Class Mail (it was not yet called snail mail, or even Priority Mail) and waited impatiently each day for the sound of the mailman approaching our door (they were mailmen, not letter carriers). Our hearts sang when we found a white #10 business envelope holding an acceptance letter (and maybe even a check), or they plummeted at the sight of a large manila envelope bringing a rejected piece home to roost. After many (many, many) of those manila disappointments, the prized #10s showed up with more frequency. And a while after that, our work appeared in print, and a happy day’s mail included complimentary copies. 

And after that, a new kind of mail began to arrive—letters from readers. 

As a playwright, I sometimes get to attend performances of my plays and observe audiences responding to them—laughing at the funny parts, falling silent at serious moments, and applauding at the end. That’s encouraging! It makes me want to rush home and write another play. But authors of books never get to watch their readers enjoying their stories. Well, that’s not entirely true. I once saw a little girl sitting cross-legged in a supermarket cart, completely absorbed in Teddy Teabury's Fabulous Fact while being pushed up and down the aisles by her mom. But that was once. (And, no, I did not disturb her by introducing myself.) Normally, unless we’re in a classroom reading to children ourselves, we don’t hear the laughter or the attentive silence, and it’s not likely that even observed readers like the little girl in the cart would burst into applause upon finishing a book. 

I don’t know about you, David, but sometimes I wonder: Is anybody really out there? If no one takes the time to drop me a note, I have no idea how my stories are being received. So when someone does write, it’s absolutely thrilling.

And sometimes funny. Or touching. Or . . . puzzling. 

Whenever I speak to groups of children, I ask them how many have written to the author of a favorite book. It’s a great day when more than three raise their hands. We laugh about the fact that when I was their age, I thought all authors were dead. I’d never met a live one. Like dinosaur bones in museums, authors left books behind on library shelves that proved they’d once walked the face of the earth, but I no more expected to meet a live author than a live dinosaur. So why would I write one a letter?

Then I tell them that’s why you and I developed the America Writes for Kids website, David—to show that real, live authors do still exist, and to provide access to information about them, including email addresses—so much easier than the old letter-to-the-publisher, and almost guaranteed to get a response. After each of these heartfelt pleas for improved correspondence, sometimes to hundreds of children in a day, I generally get one email the very next morning. Maybe two. I tell myself other children in that group are writing to other authors linked to America Writes for Kids. Good for them! I tell myself that TV executives once concluded that every letter they received represented 20,000 people who felt the same way, 19,999 of whom never bothered to write. Small comfort, since authors deal in considerably smaller numbers, but comfort all the same.

Whatever I tell myself, the fact remains: That one child’s email means a lot to me, and I promptly reply. I know each letter and email means a lot to you, too, David, so I thought it might be fun for us to share some especially memorable examples of mail we’ve received over the years, electronic or snail. I hope other authors will chime in with favorites of their own. And I hope readers of any age will be inspired to drop a line to their favorite authors and prove that readers really are out there, enjoying their books. 

I’ll lead off with a few examples of Most Unusual Correspondence this time, and move on to Most Touching Correspondence next time. In the Most Unusual category, I must begin with an email received very recently from a woman who has so enjoyed sharing my book Too Many Frogs! with her fiancé and her 7-year-old daughter that she’s decided to make it the theme of her upcoming wedding. Can you imagine my surprise and delight when I turned on my computer that morning and opened that message? Froggie and Rabbit have been in books, onstage, and on tape and CD, even on tabletops during my presentations, but this will be the first time they’ve attended a wedding.

Somewhere at the other end of the spectrum lies a postcard received from someone who was planning to review another picture book, Stella's Dancing Days, but decided not to and wanted me to know why. “This book depicts irresponsible pet ownership,” she declared, “because Stella is allowed to roam free, meet another cat, and give birth to kittens.” All true, except the irresponsible part. My real pets are always neutered and never roam free. This book was my opportunity to pretend to raise a houseful of kittens. Stella’s babies will not add to the world’s cat overpopulation. 

Sometimes, letters come in packets sent by teachers, usually after an elementary school visit. The Most Unusual, so far, had a bit of an edge to them. “Thank you for coming to our school,” announced the first. “I enjoy visits from authors, and you are one.” I passed muster just by writing a book and showing up! The other thank-you gave only qualified approval: “I enjoyed your visit, but I doubt anyone else did.” Both letters arrived in the same packet, so I had reason to believe this writer’s doubts were unjustified. 

Bring them on, dear readers, emailed or scribbled in pencil, with or without hearts and flowers and characters from my books and portraits of yourself and your pets. I love them all! And I’ll bet you do, too, David. Let’s hear it for readers who write!

Response 2: David

Thanks, Sandy! I love to hear from readers too. Who doesn’t? They tend to come in three categories. One is the packet of notes required by the teacher after a school visit. “Get out your paper and pencils and think about what we learned today when Mr. Harrison visited our class. What did you remember about what he said? Which poem did you like best?” A second group is from individuals who find something in a book that makes them want to write a fan letter to the author. The third category, which usually comes via the Internet, is from those who not only like our work but seek our help in getting published. That category is probably worthy of another day.

But back to the teacher-generated notes from students. “Dear Mr. Harrison, thank you for coming to our class. I remember when you dug up your dead pet parakeet and whacked off its wings. Your poem I liked best was ‘Life’s Not Fair’ because it was about running out of toilet paper and it was short. Your friend, Joe.” I read every note. I bet that every author fortunate enough to hear from a child takes the time to read the note and try to respond in an appropriate way.

I dig my way down through the stack, mining for the gold of originality. Every now and then a real voice speaks out and tickles me. When I least expect it, some kid makes me snort out loud and interrupt my wife to read the note. A few years ago I did a book with two voices called Farmer's Garden. It did well so I collaborated with the same artist, Arden Johnson-Petrov, on a follow-up title called Farmer's Dog Goes to the Forest. In both books, Dog stops to examine and interview the things he sees, which results in two-way chats in rhyme. A teacher read the second book to her class and asked her students to write about their thoughts. Here’s what one honest kid had to tell me.

“Dear Mr. Harrison,

Your book is weird. First, the dog is talking to inanimate objects. For example, the dog was talking to a tree, some grass, and the brook. Clearly you can see the book is kind of out there.”

Sandy, what can you say when someone that young pins you to the wall with such a valid point! In another case, I wrote a poem about a dead wasp I found on a windowsill in our house. “Death of a Wasp” is sad. I visualized the tiny creature’s futile efforts to escape, bumping against the window over and over until it eventually died on the sill. My editor told me she cried when she read the poem. When I read it to groups of adults, all eyes turn solemn. That’s true of most kids, too, except this one. I love his note.

“Dear Mr. Harrison,

On the wasp poem, I saw my teacher about to cry. I didn’t see why everybody about cried.”

What can I say? If dead insects don’t jerk your tear ducts, they just don’t! Which reminded me, as these notes so often do, that everyone reads with his or her own ideas about what’s good, what makes sense, what’s right, what’s funny, and even what is worthy of tears!

Sandy, do you save your notes from young readers? I do, not all of them, but the ones that really grab me. Sometimes they come in handy, for example, right now.

• Being new: “I’m new so I relate to the part (in a school bus poem) that says some kids are new but you wave at them too. That’s exactly what happened to me.”
• Being rejected: “I know how it feels to be rejected. I entered in the poetry contest in my school in third, fourth, and fifth grade but I never won. I plan to enter this year. It's my last chance.”
• Cursive writing: “You were just like me when I was learning how to write in cursive. I had trouble with the letter X.” 
• Being embarrassed: “My favorite poem was the one with you falling off the risers. When you fell off the risers I bet you were embarrassed. I have embarrassing moments too.”

Years ago I was waiting to see an editor at Random House. On the floor by my chair were stacks of boxes of letters from kids addressed to Berenstain Bears. When I asked about them, I learned that letters arrived in such volume that responding sometimes became a problem. Sandy, may I live long enough to receive so many letters that responding becomes a problem! For now, I remain grateful every time a child writes, even when he thinks my book is weird and kind of out there.

Back to you!

David

Response 3—Sandy

Here are two more correspondence categories to add to your list, David:

The Homework Assignment Request

           

In the (good?) old days, I’d receive these inquiries forwarded from my publisher, all too often long after the poor student needed the information to meet a deadline. I felt awful about that! But what can you do other than apologize and hope the young person understands the delay didn’t happen at my end of the slow process, since then aptly named “snail mail.” 

Nowadays, these requests come by email. The speed, alas, has resulted in a new kind of problem: “Dear Sandy Asher, I have to write a report about you. Tell me all about your life. My report is due tomorrow morning.” Or, “Dear Author, I have to write a book report. What’s your book about?”

Sigh. Not much we can do about those either, except explain, politely, that specific questions are welcome. Deflected homework assignments are not. 

Then we have . . .

The Deeply Moving, Never-To-Be-Forgotten Personal Letters

                                

These are the ones I’d like to talk more about this time around because they’re so important to those who write them—and to me, reading them. Also because I think they point to a very special relationship, not so much between reader and author as between reader and character.

Three poignant examples:

My second YA novel, Daughters of the Law, about the child of Holocaust survivors, brought a long, thoughtful response from a middle-school student in Canada. I was quite impressed by her insights and told her so in my return letter. Thus began years of correspondence—often more than 20 handwritten, two-sided pages from her end—filled with the loneliness of being the shy, sensitive child of foreign-born parents in a not very tolerant environment, plus some charming short stories of her own. 

Our pen-pal friendship lasted all the way through her high-school years and on into the first few months of college, when the thick envelopes from Canada with their familiar handwriting abruptly stopped arriving in my mailbox. I didn’t feel it was my place to inquire further. I believe that for this young woman, as for so many other bright, creative students who don’t fit into their hometowns or their high-school environments, college finally offered a safe haven rich with new opportunities. My support was no longer necessary.

During the span of the long Canadian correspondence, another YA novel, Just Like Jenny, was republished in Great Britain. The story is about two best friends, Jenny and Stephanie, who find themselves competing against each other in their chosen field of dance. How do you maintain a best friendship with your worst rival? Across the big puddle came a heartfelt, handwritten letter from a young teenager who told me about a similar situation in her own life, claiming that she felt she couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. She was “scared, really scared” of losing her dearest friend, and begged for help. I responded as best I could, suggesting that, instead of retreating, she share her concerns with her friend, who might be feeling similar stress. A second letter revealed that this was indeed the case. “It’s not always perfect, but I feel a lot better now. Thank you. It was much easier when I felt someone was backing me.” 

More recently, I received a letter and a packet of poems from a young woman, mother of four small children, who had read another of my YA novels, Summer Begins, some time earlier. The writer had little in common with Summer, the daughter of an Olympic swimming champ and a university professor, but explained that she’d carried the book around with her for years and had taken heart from the way Summer learned to stand up for herself. The poems included with this letter were a heart-wrenching account of the abuse this reader had endured in her home and in foster care before also standing up for herself. As you know, David, in this case, the reader and I have become lifelong friends, and I’ve been privileged to witness with awe her continuing courage and healing.

While it’s true that those letters were addressed to me, and I answered them, I’ve always suspected they were not really written to me at all. I think they were written to Stephanie and Ruthie and Summer, the characters in my books. It was Jo March who told me I could be more than the wife and mother my parents expected of me. She may have come from Louisa May Alcott’s pen, but she was far more real to me than her creator. Characters in books understand. They tell us we’re not alone, not in our fears, not in our hopes, not in our nightmares, and not in our dreams. A character who assures a young reader of that can be the best friend that child has, and the one he or she turns to, time and again.

There are days in my writing, when it’s going really well, that I feel as if I’m taking dictation from my characters. They become that real to me, too. They need me to get their stories written down. And, sometimes, they need me to answer their mail. I do both with pleasure and deep gratitude for their trust.

Response 4: David

Sandy, as we conclude June’s four-part chat about the correspondence authors receive, I confess that this topic has brought back more memories than any of our others. And I know why, at least in my case. We’ve both said many times that the first thing an adult reader must do when presented with something written by a child is to celebrate the gift. One of my favorite quotes is by Susan Ferraro who writes, “To a great extent, we are what we say and write. Laugh or sneer at how we express ourselves, and we take personal offense: Our words are all about us.”

It’s easy to forget to appreciate the gift of a beginning writer, whose work is disjointed and filled with errors, when our first impulse is to suggest how to make it better. Teachers know this and remind themselves all the time to look past the mistakes to the vulnerable child who is holding his or her breath, hoping for a kind word of congratulations before the red ink comes out. Professional writers, when confronted with less than professional efforts by emerging writers, have to resist the same temptation to make judgments before seeing that adults have the same vulnerability that children do. We may think we’re tougher, but Ferraro got it right: “Laugh or sneer at how we express ourselves, and we take personal offense.”

So, Sandy, back to me, and why I think those letters from fans of all ages mean so much to an author. It’s because they represent unsolicited affirmation that our words are good. We got them right, at least this time, and so maybe we’ll get them right again on something we do in the future. They are, often, among the few positive remarks an author receives. Most editors are good about complimenting what they like, but during the course of editing a book, getting it ready on time to ship off to the copy editor or artist, exchanges between writer and editor become mostly about the business at hand. Adults who buy books for children rarely take time to send fan letters of their own and most children are not likely to think about writing a letter to anyone these days, or an email to someone they don’t know.

That’s why those letters, notes, and emails that manage to make it to my mailbox or computer screen are meaningful. They got here to my house against some pretty serious odds and are all the more appreciated because of it. Recently a little girl wrote to say, “I like your poems. They are fun. I enjoy reading your poems a lot. Your friend, Camrin.” Camrin took the time to tell me specifically which of my poems she liked best. That made me smile. I got those poems right! She printed her letter on a piece of lined paper, addressed it herself, and (I can imagine) placed it in her mailbox so the postman could pick it up and send it on its way to me.

Sandy, I mentioned last time that people who write asking for information about getting published are another category of an author’s correspondence. Sometimes such letters come from kids but more often they are written by young adults or adults who love the idea of becoming a published author and wonder how to go about it. Such letters can be time consuming to answer, and sometimes the temptation is to rush through them and keep them short. Why can’t these people figure it out on their own? But then I remember how confused I was in the first few years of struggling to get the words right, and how much I appreciated any encouragement and help I could get. And I realize that to be asked how to do it is a form of flattery. The person asking must have decided that I do indeed, at least on occasion, get it right. And so I do my best to see the vulnerable person behind the question who wants very much to become published, and I take a little longer to give a response that might help.

So, Sandy, it’s a wrap for June’s topic about letters and emails. I’ve had a good time and know that you have too. We’ve also been blessed with a number of warm comments from readers, which are appreciated!

Folks, Sandy and I are taking off the months of July and August before considering what to do this fall. We are both swamped with work and have travel plans as well.

David