BOOMERANG - All week long!
So this week, we celebrate the release of BOOMERANG --Veronica Rossi's new book with co-writer, Lorin Oberweger (writing as Noelle Aug...
BRAZEN - all week! by Donna
This week the Muses celebrate the release of BRAZEN by Katherine Longshore. It seems like such a short time ago when Katherine Longshor...
My Favorite Bookstore-by Donna
When I first moved to Colorado, I fell in love with The Tattered Cover , The Boulder Bookstore and Fort Collins' own Old Firehouse Boo...
HUGE LAUNCH WEEK by Donna
One of our favorite weeks on YAMuses is when we have the opportunity to share the release of a new book into the world. We lived with these...
The Voice of the Copy Editor-by Donna
Everything is new when going through the publishing process for the first time, but the copy editing stage was one step I knew little about...
TRUE BLUE SCOUTS OF SUGARMAN SWAMP by Kathi Appelt - Book Blog
I know many of our blog readers write for middle grade readers, so I wanted to share one of my favorites. Now in an effort for full discl...
Happy Holidays! by Donna
This week has been a difficult one for a lot of people in my life. Illness, grief, and hard times seem to be present with so many. It...
CAN'T LOOK AWAY - by Donna
My Thanksgiving view Right before I left for a mountain Thanksgiving holiday, I received an exciting email with the cover co...
Failure IS an Option - by Donna
Disclaimer: This is not my arm “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ― Paulo...
Book Blog: HOW TO LOVE by Katie Cotugno
I recently received a lovely box of books from my editor to read while recuperating from surgery. HOW TO LOVE by Katie Cotugno caught my e...
Confessions of a Goody Two-Shoes by Donna
Bret and Veronica wrote great posts in the past about staying true to your own story. You can read it here and here . This week we shift...
Inspiration Vs. Intimidation
Happy October! Thanks for all the well wishes. It's great to be back at YAMuses after a brief medical leave. I'm hard at wor...
All GOLD, All Week! by Donna
You may not have noticed with all the exciting, insightful new Muses' posts, but I've been a bit scarce for awhile. I'm recuper...
QBCD by Donna (From the Archives)
Last Saturday, four of the five YAMuses (Bret Ballou was home with his brand new baby, Evan) spoke at the SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference. T...
Writers as Readers by Donna
“Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentic...
Book Blog - The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman For the author's website : A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy ...
Proud to be Quirky - by Donna
This week we're talking about what we're most proud about in our writing and I'm... Proud to be Quirky I'm a Texan...
Hitting Send by Donna
As some of you know, I've cut back recently from blogging here at YAMuses to work on my latest revision for Book2. That deadline, combi...
This week the Muses turn our attention to ALL THINGS MARKETING and I'm kicking it off talking about school visits.
School visits are a great way to connect with readers, build a loyal following and inspire future young writers. If you're not familiar with schools and speaking to large groups of kids, however, it can be daunting. As a teacher and administrator for many years, I've learned some Dos and Don'ts that just might make a future school visit go more smoothly.
Before the Visit:
- Define your message. Even though selling your books may be an author's goal for a school visit, it isn't the reason schools invite authors to come speak. They want to help students understand the writing process and to encourage reading. It's important to talk about the writing PROCESS in a realistic, approachable way. Editing, drafting, proofing, and rewriting are all important parts that always need reemphasizing with young writers. Also think about what makes your book unique to educators. Is there something special you can highlight in your presentation that deals with bigger issues than just the story itself? For example, I talk about self-esteem and body image issues when I talk to schools about SKINNY.
- Put your expectations for the visit in writing. Before you make your first school visit, design a simple information sheet that you can send out ahead of time. Describe your presentation(s) and your personal needs for the presentations. Be specific and know your limits. It's not about being a Diva, but about providing the best experience possible. Everyone's different, but I specify things like I'll make up to four presentations a day and if the audience is larger than 100, I'll need a microphone. I also list the technology needed for my Powerpoint, but also have a back up plan (see below). Finally, I specify the payment details, including whether travel expenses are included in the fee or not.
- Arrange for book sales. Make this as easy as possible for schools. Librarians (or other educators) are amazing supporters for authors, but this isn't the primary focus of their very full time job. I work with a local independent bookstore in town to supply order sheets to be sent home ahead of my visit and then sign the books purchased when I'm there. Your publisher may also have some great suggestions on ways to insure books will be available for sale.
- Put a limit on how many freebies you will do. While this may sound harsh, any time doing school visits is time away from working on the next book. I love giving back to my community and have so many wonderful connections to the schools in my area. I'm also so aware of the huge budget constraints schools operate under. I wish I could visit every one for free. But I can't, so I agree to four free visits a year -- first come, first serve--two in the fall, two in the spring. I don't charge mileage, or any other transportation costs for these visits, but limit the location to where I can reasonably drive to in one day. If airfare or hotel is involved, then I ask those costs be reimbursed, even if there is no charge for the actual visit. (By the way, I still have one freebie available for next fall if anyone is interested!)
- Plan your presentation. While this seems like it wouldn't have to be stated, I've seen way too many presentations where authors don't very specifically plan what to include in their talk. It's hard to keep the attention of a cafeteria full of middle schoolers! Trust me. The biggest advice I can give is to try and keep it visually stimulating. Use Powerpoints, music, book trailers, movable GIFs, and audience participation when appropriate. After you've run through it a few times, you'll learn the pacing and adjust the timing. One friend, a very seasoned and popular presenter, gave me a great piece of advice. "Add in some kind of video clip about 20 minutes in, just when you're loosing them." She includes a short clip of her home office, pets, etc. It's a great way to show the audience your "real" life and break up the lecture with some visual stimulation.
- Talk to someone at the school before you arrive. How many presentations will you make? How many kids in each session? Will you teach an actual writing class or will it be a speech? Should you plan for questions and answers? What ages will be in the audience? The answers to these questions (and more) will help guide you in your planning, so it's great to have a contact on site to speak to before the visit. Be sure to write down the name and contact information. You never know when something unexpected might happen on the day of the visit. On one visit to a school in Chicago, my driver ended up taking me to the wrong school and dropping me off outside. We didn't realize until he drove away we were at the wrong place. Luckily, my publicist was prepared with phone numbers for the driver and the school to let them know what was happening and that we would be running a little late.
During the Visit:
- Be gracious. Talk about the student work you see around you. Ask questions about the learning goals of the school. Be interested in what THEY are doing. Thank people for their time and effort.
- Come prepared for a technology disaster. If you are counting on a Powerpoint, then you might want to invest in some simple tools. I learned early on that a projector without a remote can be disastrous with a large group presentation. You don't want to be trapped behind a computer screen, with your back to the audience, pressing the forward button for every slide! I bought a simple USB remote that also includes enough memory to store my presentation and always bring it with me. I also store my presentation in a Dropbox folder as further insurance. If you end up doing a lot of school visits, you might want to also invest in a projector. They make small, lightweight ones that have enough memory to store a presentation and don't even need a computer attached.
- Expect the unexpected. In the real life of schools, things happen. You have to roll with it. On a recent school visit, I arrived to a packed school cafeteria just after the school was evacuated for the first full school fire drill of the year (complete with the firetrucks). Needless to say, it was a bit of a challenge after all the excitement.
- Leave something behind. Bookmarks. Bling. Website info. Email. These are your future readers. Even if you don't sell a single book the day of your visit, you are planting seeds.
After the Visit:
- Be appreciative. A successful school visit takes a huge amount of work from educators who are already working more than full time jobs.
- Post photos of your visit on Facebook or Twitter. Students love that connection.
So what about you? Have you seen a special way authors have handled school visits? What works for you or for visits you've seen?
School Visits by Donna
This week the Muses turn our attention to ALL THINGS MARKETING and I'm kicking it off talking about school visits. School visi...
I’m going to be honest with you. Every big break I ever received in children’s publishing was a direct result of attending a writing conference. It all started several years ago when I attended my first national writing conference. I stepped onto a crowded elevator in LA and met a woman—Big Break #1. That chance meeting led to writing one of the top 500 bestselling children’s books of all time (according to Publisher’s Weekly) and also writing several episodes of a very popular children’s television show for PBS. I’ll tell you that story in a future blog post, but this week the YA Muses want to share how writing conferences have helped us in our journey toward publication and highlight some of the best.
After that chance meeting in a LA elevator, life happened. I eventually stopped writing for children to focus all my efforts on writing for tenure at a research university. I was granted tenure, but I longed to write something a little more creative than “The applied multiple regression correlation of the blahblahblah” and “Complexity arises in the behavioral sciences when one departs from the orthogonality of factors in the blahblahblah.” Attending a conference seemed a good way to get back into the game, so I signed up for the Big Sur of the Rockies conference sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SCBWI. From the beginning, the conference was different from my past experiences. I was required to submit manuscript pages ahead of time and had to be accepted to attend. I submitted twenty pages of my first attempt at a middle grade novel, Boob Blogs, but had little more than that completed. My biggest hope for the weekend was that I would be motivated to finish the book.
So on a crisp, fall weekend I checked in at Chautauqua in Boulder, Colorado. That night at dinner I saw my personalized agenda and knew this definitely wasn’t like any other past conference. The weekend was organized around two different critique groups. Each small critique group was led by one of the faculty members and met twice during the conference weekend. Writing time for revising the manuscripts, based on the feedback, was scheduled between the critique group sessions. Large group presentations, featuring the editors, agents and authors that served on faculty, were also scheduled—but the focus of the conference was on the critique groups. Later that evening, I found myself sitting on a couch in a quaint cottage with four other writers nervously passing out stacks of papers. Agent Andrea Brown sat in the circle with us, smiled supportively, and asked, “Who wants to start?” I didn’t know it at that moment, but it was to become Big Break #2.
Big Sur of the Rockies was an amazing experience. Both critique groups that weekend were thoughtful, tough and encouraging. More importantly, both resulted in better manuscripts. I certainly left with the desire to finish my book, but I also left with amazing connections that eventually led to my signing with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. I also learned that the Rockies conference had been patterned after the original Big Sur Children’s Writing Conference organized by the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. That December, I attended the Big Sur Children’s Writing Workshop in California. It was designed very much like Boulder, but the faculty was even larger and more impressive. Top agents, editors and authors were everywhere! This time I had the privilege of having bestselling author Ellen Hopkins and Abigail Samoun, editor at Random House/Tricycle Press, as my two critique group leaders. Once again the groups were small, intense and focused. That weekend I received incredible, enthusiastic feedback on my writing from multiple editors. It was definitely a Big Break moment, but not in the way I thought it would be. Big Break #3 ended up being the small group of writers I met in my critique group who became the YAMuses. I might never have met them if not for Big Sur, and I thank my stars every day for their support and encouragement. Nobody understands this frustrating, exhilarating world like they do.
I realize my big breaks involved some elements of good fortune. I could have missed that elevator, or had someone else as my critique leader, or been in another small group. I could have also had all these opportunities, yet not been able to take advantage of them if I hadn’t also followed the “put your butt in the chair and write” rule. Nothing takes the place of that. That being said, if I hadn’t been at those conferences, making connections, and putting my writing out there—those particular breaks would have never come my way.
So enjoy our journey through the writing conference world this week and leave us your questions and comments.
My Big Break by Donna (from the Archives)
I’m going to be honest with you. Every big break I ever received in children’s publishing was a direct result of attending a writing confer...
