Buried in the Slush Pile

What I'm Thinking While Reading This Bad Pitch:

2011-10-07T08:18:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, I did two different pitches to illustrate the difference between good and bad. Now, keeping in mind that I wrote this pitch, this is still what the editor in me (in red -- of course) thought while reading that pitch:

In my early chapter book for young kids, Liv gets really upset after her brother goes missing after a boring field party. Wait. What? A field party in a chapter book for kids aged 7-9? How old are these characters? He's been kidnapped, but Liv doesn't know by who, kind of redundant because, really, that's not going to be very suspenseful if she does know and she spends the rest of the book looking for him and feeling guilty for hating him for most of their lives. Why does she hate him? Also, Morte Who is Morte? The brother? is a creepy looking kid that Liv thinks is somehow linked to death Wait. What? even though she doesn't have any proof for this. What on earth does that mean? The book is a mystery no this pitch is a mystery and kind of paranormal and a great thriller for kids to read. I can't wait for you to see the full manuscript. not likely

No way would I be requesting this book.

The Poorly Written Query

2011-10-05T08:52:00.002-05:00

Now last week's contest highlighted the weird, crazy stuff that people sometimes do with their query letters. But really, most of the time, the biggest problem with query letters is that they don't do their stories justice. When pitching the story to the editor/agent, the author does not present it in the most flattering light. As an illustration, I will use my own book that's now out, Missing or you can also get a physical book, here. (I don't know why the two aren't linked.)

First I'll tell you (in one sentence) what the general idea is, and then I'll pitch it poorly. Finally, I'll pitch it correctly. You'll see the difference.

Idea: After her brother's disappearance, teenage Liz finally addresses the intense sibling rivalry and hatred she has harbored towards her brother and dedicates her life to finding him.

Bad Pitch:
In my early chapter book for young kids, Liv gets really upset after her brother goes missing after a boring field party. He's been kidnapped, but Liv doesn't know by who, and she spends the rest of the book looking for him and feeling guilty for hating him for most of their lives. Also, Morte is a creepy looking kid that Liv thinks is somehow linked to death even though she doesn't have any proof for this. The book is a mystery and kind of paranormal and a great thriller for kids to read. I can't wait for you to see the full manuscript.

Good Pitch:
Like their names, Liv and her brother, Morte, have always been polar opposites. Neither can tolerate the others presence, and they spend most of their time fighting. Liv hates her brother and would give anything to just make him go away. All of that changes, though, the day after her brother goes missing after a boring typical, field party. Liv begins to face the sibling rivalry she and her brother have always shared and does everything she can think of to try to find him. A mystery with a paranormal twist to the end, Missing is at its heart Liv's quest to know both herself and the brother she has spent her entire life pushing away.

Which book would you rather read?

Top 5 Most Common Query/Cover Letter Errors

2011-10-03T09:29:00.006-05:00

Query and cover letters are not fun, but they are necessary evils. I don't know of anyone who has ever gotten away without writing a single one. However, in order to avoid sounding inexperienced, naive, or just plain crazy, avoid these common mistakes:

Address the letter to the correct person. -- Nothing is more annoying than getting a letter addressed to someone else, or addressed to the wrong agency/publishing house.
Do not make unrealistic claims about your story. -- Your book might become a best-seller someday, but you have no way of knowing that. However, if you already have (in writing) a deal from a charity to purchase 10,000 copies or you self-published and sold 45,000 ebooks or you've already sold the rights in 15 other countries that information is worth including.
Do not tell who has already read your manuscript. -- If it's other agents and editors who have read and passed on it, you don't want me to know that. For one thing, it would tell me others didn't like it, and for another it would make it clear that I wasn't your first choice. (This may be the case, but why rub the editor's nose in it?) If it's children, educators, friends, families, librarians, etc. this information isn't actually all that useful to me. Only dedicated market research would work, and I doubt you want to go to the time (or expense) of a statistically sound study.
Do not offer unrealistic comps (like bestsellers) or say there are none for your book. -- Either one makes you sound seriously unread or clueless of your market. Don't get me wrong. Comps can be hard to do, but no book is truly incomparable. If you are having trouble, don't bring up comps at all.
Do not make demands. -- You can ask things politely, but don't tell me that I have to print this, or that I have to respond by a certain date, or that I have to give you XYZ royalty or to not even bother. I don't know about you, but nothing irks me more than a bossy letter from a stranger.

Why Dee's Query Letter Was the Worst

2011-09-29T09:54:00.000-05:00

Now, I don't think anyone who has read Dee's query letter can argue that it isn't bad. It's pretty much makes everyone who sees it cringe. So, what exactly about the letter makes it so gut-wrenchingly terrible?

Let's examine it closely:

Deer Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Whatever M. Smoot: Ignoring the poor spelling found throughout the letter, there's still problems with the address. It would never be appropriate to title something to "Whatever." Always try to find out about the person you are sending your submission to. If the imaginary author had just google searched "m smoot cbay books" the first six entries clearly bring up me.

I bought the bright green sticker on the outside of the envelope on eBay so I don’t really know what gender you are since I didn’t actually attend the conference at witch you spoke. Sorry. I paid good money for the “M. Smoot” sticker to gain access to your closed publishing house, so I hope you appreciate it. I’m sure you did a wonderful, stupendous, fantastic job at the conference and gave a fabulous, mesmerizing, interesting speech. Thanks for being such a helpful, kind, grate editor. I found this paragraph particularly genius for a worst letter contest -- it would never occur to me that someone could buy entry into a closed publishing house this way although the idea, now presented, doesn't surprise me. However, even if this is the way that you got the sticker, don't admit it. Don't mention the conference at all.

Anyway, enough about you. (Just plain rude.) Now for my soon-to-be best seller... you’re gonna love it! I read variations of this sentence in cover letters all of the time. Taking pride in your work is great, but this sentence makes me roll my eyes and chalk the author up as a naive first-timer. Since it has an elephant AND a donkey in it, it will surpass sales of "Horton Hears a Who" and "Winnie the Pooh" (with Eeyore) combined. These are not good comparables for this imaginary title since the other books are long-selling classics and not picture books. It would be impossible for me to guess sales ranges based on these two. I know it will be made into a poplar movie and will be translated into many languages. Unless you or your agent already have deals in the works, your opinion isn't necessary. That’s why I want to keep all foreign rites. I also want fool plush animal sales. Save these demands for contract negotiations.

My book is called THE ELEPHANT AND THE DONKEY and it is completely in rhyme. Since it is about animals, I tested it out on my cat and dog and they absolutely loved it! Completely irrelevant, and it makes the author sound a little crazy. They showed their appreciation by marking the corners of this manuscript. You’ll probably be able to tell (or smell) witch corner is witch. That is so disgusting. Do I really have to remind you to reprint a sample that has urine on it?

I didn’t read my story to any pre-schools because I didn’t want the teachers to still the idea, but I know kids will love it!!! Even if the fake author had read it at preschools I wouldn't want to know. Also, the fear that someone will steal your work (so rare I don't know of any actual cases of unpublished author works being ripped off) sends up red flags of publishing ignorance.

Hear is more about it...

My 20,000-word picture book
For ages two to four,
Covers many topics
Other children’s books ignore.

Taxes, stocks, and politics
Are introduced in rhyme.
The story is sure to be a hit
At every child’s bedtime.

You’ll want to publish this right away.
It’s going to be a best seller,
More popular than "The Cat in the Hat,"
Or that tearjerker, "Old Yeller."

The conflict is that an elephant
And donkey can’t agree.
They fight over just about everything,
Including cups of tea.

Will they ever learn to get along?
Can these protagonists save the world?
I’m writing a 1000-page sequel,
Where the answers will be unfurled.
All right. That was just insane. Contrary to popular belief, editors don't hate picture books in rhyme. Some of the best-selling books are written that way. When rhyme is really well done, it is fun and great to read aloud. Unfortunately most rhyme submissions are not well done, cause the editor to cringe, and thus rhyme gets a bad rap. However, unless you are excerpting a stanza of your manuscript, never, ever describe it in rhyme.

Believe me, this book will fly off the shelves and beat the ebook download record, so you’ll want to publish this by November so we can both become rich quick. That’s only about a month away, but if you overnight the contract to me, I’ll sign it write away and the illustrator can start immediately. Clearly has no idea how the publishing industry works. Oh, I really like the work of Tomie dePaola. Don't we all. I hope you can get him for this book. Does he even illustrate books he didn't write? Do you have that kind of pool? Rude.

I know you only wanted a query and ten pages, but I am so confident you’ll like my work that I scent the hole book. Always, always follow the submission instructions. I am offering this as an exclusive transmission does author mean submission? for one week, but after that I’ll really need to move on if I haven’t herd from you. I want to enjoy my millionaire status before the world ends or before the next election - whichever comes first. Who knows what the tax rate will be after that! Besides sounding crazy, this last bit again highlights the author's inexperience and lack of research on publishing.

I should tell you that I’ve already been published in my third grade newspaper, not the kind of publishing credits to include so I’ll want the “royal treatment” when it comes to royalties. Oh good grief. We can go over all that when I meat you in person. At this point, I would be going: Wait! When (and why) would we meet? Is this person planning on stalking me down? Yule love how punny I am. I highly doubt that.

Sincerely,
Dee Ranged

P.S. - I hope you like the red, white, and blue elephant and donkey sugar cookies I enclosed. They were only supposed to have white and blue icing on them, but my three-year old helped make them and she had an owie at the time, hence the red coloring. OMG, OMG, OMG. I knew the cookies weren't real and I still started to gag the first time I read this. On a less insane note, do not send extra goodies with your query. They are not appreciated and mark you as an amateur. I was going to send a tea bag, too, so you could have tea and cookies, but Tea Party stuff seems to be getting a bad rap lately and I didn’t know your fillings on that, so I decided against it. Unless your book is literally about politics, don't bring it up. (The same goes for religion and any other traditionally controversial topics. If you wouldn't bring it up at a dinner party full of strangers, don't put it in your query.)

Fortunately, I have never received a query or cover letter quite this extreme. After all, this was for a contest and therefore was supposed to be rather ridiculous. That being said, some of the errors made are common ones (if only in a less extreme version). I'll discuss some of the most common query/cover letter mistakes next week.

Contest Winner

2011-09-27T10:39:00.000-05:00

I have to say(or do I mean hate to say?)that I loved every single entry in the terrible query letter contest. All of them made me laugh, and all of them were horribly awful.

However, there was one that stood above the others. This one truly surpassed everyone else in awfulness for one simple brilliantly terrible reason: part of it was written in rhyming verse.

Genius!

So, congratulations to Dee Ranged (or whatever your real name is) for creating a truly terrible letter. I've copied it so everyone else can also appreciate the wretchedness. On Thursday, I'll dissect all of the things (besides the rhyme) that is wrong with this letter.

Deer Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Whatever M. Smoot:

I bought the bright green sticker on the outside of the envelope on eBay so I don’t really know what gender you are since I didn’t actually attend the conference at witch you spoke. Sorry. I paid good money for the “M. Smoot” sticker to gain access to your closed publishing house, so I hope you appreciate it. I’m sure you did a wonderful, stupendous, fantastic job at the conference and gave a fabulous, mesmerizing, interesting speech. Thanks for being such a helpful, kind, grate editor.

Anyway, enough about you. Now for my soon-to-be best seller... you’re gonna love it! Since it has an elephant AND a donkey in it, it will surpass sales of "Horton Hears a Who" and "Winnie the Pooh" (with Eeyore) combined. I know it will be made into a poplar movie and will be translated into many languages. That’s why I want to keep all foreign rites. I also want fool plush animal sales.

My book is called THE ELEPHANT AND THE DONKEY and it is completely in rhyme. Since it is about animals, I tested it out on my cat and dog and they absolutely loved it! They showed their appreciation by marking the corners of this manuscript. You’ll probably be able to tell (or smell) witch corner is witch.

I didn’t read my story to any pre-schools because I didn’t want the teachers to still the idea, but I know kids will love it!!!

Hear is more about it...

My 20,000-word picture book
For ages two to four,
Covers many topics
Other children’s books ignore.

Taxes, stocks, and politics
Are introduced in rhyme.
The story is sure to be a hit
At every child’s bedtime.

You’ll want to publish this right away.
It’s going to be a best seller,
More popular than "The Cat in the Hat,"
Or that tearjerker, "Old Yeller."

The conflict is that an elephant
And donkey can’t agree.
They fight over just about everything,
Including cups of tea.

Will they ever learn to get along?
Can these protagonists save the world?
I’m writing a 1000-page sequel,
Where the answers will be unfurled.

Believe me, this book will fly off the shelves and beat the ebook download record, so you’ll want to publish this by November so we can both become rich quick. That’s only about a month away, but if you overnight the contract to me, I’ll sign it write away and the illustrator can start immediately. Oh, I really like the work of Tomie dePaola. I hope you can get him for this book. Do you have that kind of pool?

I know you only wanted a query and ten pages, but I am so confident you’ll like my work that I scent the hole book. I am offering this as an exclusive transmission for one week, but after that I’ll really need to move on if I haven’t herd from you. I want to enjoy my millionaire status before the world ends or before the next election - whichever comes first. Who knows what the tax rate will be after that!

I should tell you that I’ve already been published in my third grade newspaper, so I’ll want the “royal treatment” when it comes to royalties. We can go over all that when I meat you in person. Yule love how punny I am.

Sincerely,
Dee Ranged

P.S. - I hope you like the red, white, and blue elephant and donkey sugar cookies I enclosed. They were only supposed to have white and blue icing on them, but my three-year old helped make them and she had an owie at the time, hence the red coloring. I was going to send a tea bag, too, so you could have tea and cookies, but Tea Party stuff seems to be getting a bad rap lately and I didn’t know your fillings on that, so I decided against it.

Worst Query Letter Ever Contest

2011-09-16T10:15:00.007-05:00

Yesterday I got an exciting email from Chuck, the editor of the 2012 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market that I have an article in. Apparently, if I run a contest here on the blog, then he'll send the winner a free copy of the book. Pretty sweet, right?

So, I was trying to think what would make an appropriate contest for a book dedicated to finding your manuscript a home with the right editor or agent. And then I had it. What could be more perfect than a query letter contest? However, I just ran a query letter contest last spring.

And then I had an even more brilliant idea. I would make this the worst query letter ever contest. To enter this contest, your going to have to come up with most unbelievably awful query letter. Basically, you should take all the advice I've ever given you in the past and do the exact opposite. Then whichever fake letter is the worst, I'll critique on the blog so we can all review what should NOT be done.

To enter the contest:

Paste your fake query letter into one of the comments on this post. That way everyone can enjoy the awfulness.
All entries must be received by 11:59PM CST Friday, Sept. 23
We really want the query itself to be awful; however, the book being pitched shouldn't be ridiculous. Don't pitch offensive or really extreme books that no one would want even if the query was fantastic.
One winner will receive a copy of the 2012 CWIM direct from Writer's Digest. Should they choose to substitute prizes (like a copy of the excellent 2012 Guide to Literary Agents instead), I have no control over that. The winning entry will also be posted so that we all might critique/ridicule its awfulness.

5 Writing Tips I Learned From My 2 Year Old

2011-09-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

I don't know if you know this, but apparently when you take a baby home you are legally obligated at some point in its life to write a sickeningly sweet philosophical post on "life lessons" you've learned from said baby.

Don't believe me? Then clearly you have not been on a parenting/website blog recently.

So, in order to fulfill my contractual obligation as a parent (it was in the fine print), here is my sappy post. At least it's writing related.

5 Writing Tips I Learned From My 2 Year Old

Never Be Afraid to Experiment -- My child will draw on anything, and we as writers should be willing to at least consider every writing idea that pops into our heads, no matter how ludicrous it may seem. After all, futuristic Roman gladiator games sounds kind of silly, but no one is going to argue with the success of The Hunger Games.
Never Be Afraid of Failure -- Because frankly, you can't ever entirely fail. As my child practices at writing and drawing he constantly improves. (Yes, I have a freakish child that with no prompting from me likes to try to draw letters.) He has mastered the O and I and almost has a recognizable A. And just like him, your writing improves both with every rewrite and in general as you practice it more. Eventually, you will have that idea that works.
Take as Many Breaks As You Need, But Finish Your Task Eventually -- This is true of not only attention span challenged toddlers, but us adults as well. Sometimes we become so frustrated or hungry or tired or whatever that we need to briefly step back from a project and get some space. This is fine, but at some point you have to come back and finish up.
Do Not Judge Yourself By Other People's Measuring Sticks -- For various reasons (including a brief period of partial deafness and a "by-myself" independence streak) my toddler has a serious speech delay. Other people's response to this range from condescending worry (from other parents who have decided my child is autistic -- he's not according to the various doctors/specialists) to complete unconcern (from his doctors and speech therapist who say he'll talk sometime before 5. 5!). The point of this is that you have to define your own measures of success. For some author success only comes after a certain advance or when they reach a certain level of sales. For others, success is finishing a manuscript. You have to decide for yourself otherwise you will drive yourself crazy trying to meet everyone else's (differing) expectations.
Praise is Great Fun, But No One Appreciates a Tantrum in Response to Negative Feedback -- This is pretty self-explanatory. We all like being told our stuff is good, but when we are told our stuff is not working, pouting or throwing a tantrum is not productive and often inappropriate. You don't have to take every piece of advice you receive, but you should at least objectively consider it.

Why Do People Find This Necessary?

2011-09-11T09:21:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I briefly touched on this rather shocking post I had read a few weeks ago. In it, the author describes how her site and blog have been the victim of various hate postings and hackings that have escalated to death threats. Specifically, she has been repeatedly told that if she goes to speak at various conferences, she will be hunted down and killed.

Hopefully something you & I will never see.

I was appalled at this, and I wondered what kind of controversial blog was the woman running. So, I searched and looked around her site expecting to find a political or religious or some other controversial oriented blog. Instead I found lots of posts on . . . social media and internet marketing. Now, I don't know about you but I don't consider social media to be the kind of concept that should inspire enough passion in a person to warrant death threats. I just personally can't find the energy (or interest) to become properly motivated to hate someone who tells you the most effective way to use Twitter.

(Of course there's more to the story, the hate originally came from someone accusing the woman of having an affair and then devolved into accusations of internet scamming. I do not know about the woman's personal life -- it's not relevant for the blog, and you can look on the site yourself to see if it's true. I will say that she has lots of content and appears to be running a real (not scam) internet marketing site, so that accusation appears false.)

The moral of this story is that no matter who you are or what you do, if someone takes it into their mind to ruin you, they can probably do it.

And since we all work in the children's book industry where even the tamest book can become controversial (after all more Banned Books are children's books than any other genre), let's review some internet safety precautions in case any of us ever come under attack for our writing (or some other reason).

Here are the rules I formulated for my sister (age 12 at the time) when I found her posting comments on this blog:

Never put your physical address where you live on anything public. That's what PO Boxes are for. (Be careful where you put your physical address in general. Even private pages can be hacked.)
Never put pictures of the front of your home online. It makes it easier for people to find where you live.
Minimize the use of family member names (I always refer to husband, baby, Assistant Editor, etc. This isn't just a cutesy thing to go along with the semi-anonymous feel of the blog. It protects their privacy.)
Remember that everything that goes up online is pretty much up there forever. Don't post a scandalous picture or a rude comment that you may regret 10 years later. (For authors, this means think twice before telling the world how much you hate XYZ editor or ABC publishing house. You may want to do business with them someday, and if they find your comment (and they will), they may not want to do business with you.)
Just be careful. After all, just because your paranoid, doesn't mean that someone isn't "following" you.

Now what should you do if you are the victim of such an attack? Well, I don't know. Some say fight back. Others say lay low and wait it out. What do you think? What are some of your tips for being safe yet still maintaining a public profile?

A Bright Light

2011-09-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, I was not having the greatest day. I mean you can only redo a site from scratch so many times in one day before it really starts to get miserable.

My little one
working on his
next explosion.

And then while I was working in my at-home office, it started to get kind of stinky. Since my two year old was in with me at the time, I assumed it meant he needed his diaper changed. I turned around to get him, only to discover him on the floor naked with his hands in his diaper grinning and squishing and grinding into the floor this new plah-doh like substance he had discovered. I have never manhandled a child into a shower so fast in my life. My office now smells like cleaning supplies with a hint of poop.

However, when the mail came, my husband brought me a book from my buddy over at Writer's Digest. Chuck had sent me my contributor's copy of the new CWIM. There was my article in this new shiny book.

I have to tell you, nothing fixes a day like seeing your name in print. It works for me every time.

So thank you, Chuch and CWIM and WD for making my day!

A Long Few Days

2011-09-10T22:14:00.001-05:00

So, last week (or was it the week before? It's all blurring together) I was all set to blog about this horrifying post I read about where this blogger has been receiving death threats. However, before I could get going, my father-in-law had to have a quadruple bypass and then another surgery to install a pacemaker, and I found myself and my family away from home dealing with that. (He is recovering nicely now, but it was a hairy couple of days.)

Once I got back, I proceeded to work on various projects that I had fallen behind on, like rebuilding madelinesmoot.com. I must say, it was looking pretty marvelous.

I suspect this guy is more effective than me today.

Then this morning, I managed to delete the entire site. Yes, I did, and because I was using Wordpress, most of it was web-based and not on my local computer.

I reloaded Wordpress, uploaded my custom theme I had made and started over.

Two hours later I somehow managed to overwrite a key file requiring me to uninstall and reinstall Wordpress again. (I still don't know what I did or how I made the entire site unviewable.) I uploaded my custom theme again, reinstalled all of the plugins again, and wrote the copy for the site AGAIN.

So, if you're curious to see the site, and some of the different projects I've been working on for the past few months, head on over to madelinesmoot.com.

Now I just have to get the other 75% of the new Buried in the Slush Pile site up. Hopefully, I'll only half to do it once!

I'm Back!

2011-08-24T13:54:00.000-05:00

First off, I'd like to say welcome to all the folks who have discovered my blog from the CWIM article I wrote.

Howdy.

Second, I'd like to thank all of my current readers for being so patient while I spent the summer working at the bookstore and dealing with family health issues. We are fine now, but it's been a long hot summer.

However, I was able to work on some things, several of which are pretty exciting. Of course, the most exciting project has been the conversion of books to ebooks. I have now successfully converted all of Emerald Tablet to ebook, and I almost have the Kindle version done as well. Annnnnd, the Emerald Tablet has a beautiful, fabulous new cover. Take a look:

And, if you want to see the first 3 chapters of the Emerald Tablet (and PJ's new teen book -- not put out by CBAY, alas, but still cool), you can read the ebook sampler I put together for PJ. Click here to download it.

Ignoring the Light in YA Fiction

2011-06-07T17:59:00.000-05:00

(I originally wrote this from a bookseller's perspective for something else. However, we decided not to comment on the article after all, so I'm posting it here instead. What have been your thoughts on this issue?)

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal printed an article on young adult fiction that I assume was meant to be provoking. Filled with gross generalizations and fairly extreme examples, the article titled Darkness Too Visible basically complains that nearly all books published for teens today are filled with dark topics that leave teens with nothing to read. (In the interest of space, I am grossly oversimplifying the author's argument. I highly encourage everyone to draw their own conclusions by reading the article themselves here.) According to the author, teen fiction has become "So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18."

What teen section is this woman shopping in?

I read literally hundreds of books a year, most of them teen or upper middle-grade. (I am not exaggerating. On a good day with no interruption, I can read three full teen novels in a 10 hour period.) I don't like books with kids getting molested, or that have incest, or include gory, unnecessary violence, so I don't read books like that. Yet, I still manage to read tons of books every year.

Of course, I'm not saying those dark books aren't out there. Problem novels have been a staple of the YA cannon since the genre was first identified 40 years ago. And I'm also not saying that some of those problem novels aren't graphic or dealing with some difficult topics. If the topics seem more gruesome today, it's because they are no longer quite as taboo as they once were. Incest and child molestation has always existed, but people often (especially in the past) refuse to talk or acknowledge it. Teens cut themselves, fight addiction, deal with eating disorders and homosexuality. It may not be commonplace, but for the teens experiencing these problems, the pain is very real. However, nowadays people are better informed about these topics, both the causes and the effects. It's less surprising that such subjects now find their way into a very small portion of YA literature. After all, all literature is a reflection of the society which creates it. YA literature is no exception.

But despite the ever present problem novel and the current vogue for dystopic fiction (not even mentioned in the article), a majority of teen fiction does not fall in the "dark" but "light" category. After all, many readers, especially avid ones in my experience, read books for the fun escape, and these dark, hard-hitting books are not exactly "fun". They can be moving, gut-wrenching, or chilling, but they are rarely "fun". So, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite teen books that are fabulous reads about utterly frivolous subjects.

(Unlike the Wall Street Journal, I have not divided these books by sex. Many of these books can be equally enjoyed by boys or girls.)

The Gallagher Girls Series -- Starting with I'd Tell You That I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You, this fun adventure series centers on a group of girls at a school for spies.

The Heist Society Series -- Also by Ally Carter, I always handsell this one as "a teen's Ocean Eleven." Yes, it's about kids that are international art thieves, but the books are just so darn cool.

A Brief History of Montmaray -- I'm not normally a huge historical fiction fan, but this book and its sequel are fantastic. Set on the fictional island kingdom of Montmaray just before the outbreak of World War II, the teens on it try to save their home (and lives) from Nazis.

Before I Fall -- On the surface this would seem like a dark book since it's about a girl who dies in a car accident, but as the main character relives the last day of her life over and over, she grows and changes so much that the book is just amazing.

Death Cloud -- I'm a sucker for a good mystery, and this first in a new teen Sherlock Holmes series is just good, clean fun. Yes, it's a murder mystery, but in an adventure, not gory kind of way.

A Matter of Magic -- I love books where an author takes our world and its history and then tweaks it in some way. In this book (which is really two novels packaged in one), Wrede writes two great adventures set in a Victorian London with magic. I also really like her similar Sorcery & Cecelia novels that she co-wrote with Stevermer.

Anything by Diana Wynne Jones -- She is marvelous; she is brilliant. She also recently died, so there won't be any more new books from her -- something my co-workers are tired of me bemoaning. Two of my favorites are Howl's Moving Castle and its companions and Dark Lord of Derkholm and its companion.

A Brief Hiatus

2011-06-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have a flurry of activity only to find yourself completely burnt out afterwards? You don't want to do anything so just skate by with the bare minimum?

Well, it's definitely not something I recommend, but it's what I've been doing this past month.

At Dallas ComicCon with
my authors.

For me, the bare minimum has been keeping up the BookKids Blog, editing the Book of All Things, and making various promo items. (Did anyone get any of the Dry Souls trading cards at Dallas ComicCon?)
But now after a fair amount of quality time with family and my iPad Smurfs (yes, I'm addicted), I feel able to think about the art of writing again.

But for today, I'm going to refer you to someone else's thoughts on writing. We had been discussing character, and I have found a wonderful article by Malinda Lo on writing about race in speculative fiction. I heard Malinda speak during the Diversity in YA tour, and she mentioned this article she had written. I looked it up and feel it fits perfectly with our discussion. So read it, and then let me know what you think about how you would treat this potentially controversial issue.

Great Primary Characteristics

2011-05-04T14:50:00.000-05:00

To get back to our character discussion, I think it's time to discuss a few of the traits that all great characters have in common. They are (in no particular order):

Anne of Green Gables may have red
hair, but it's her love of drama that
is the important character trait.

Significant Details
These are not things like a characters hair color, eye color, or make and model of his/her car. These don't actually tell us anything about the character, they simply help the reader visualize the character's outside. What we are interested in are the things that tell us about the character herself. Does your character rub the inside of his elbow when he's nervous? This can be used as a detail every time he's in an uncomfortable situation. That way you don't have to tell "David is nervous." Instead you can show him rubbing his elbow.

You can tell the difference between significant and insignificant details pretty easily. The insignificant ones are the ones that are completely inconsequential. If I never told you that my character was a brunette, it would not change the story at all. In fact, if I make an insignificant detail signifcant (for instance the hero is blond), I have probably succumbed to stereotyping, a big no-no.

Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle
believes herself to be the
stereotyped oldest sibling
from a fairy tale.

Avoid Stereotypes
Obviously bad stereotypes based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. are absolute off limits, but you should avoid good stereotypes as well. (Example of a positive stereotype: people with glasses are smart.)

Sterotypes have the unfortunate effect of making a character seem two (or even one) dimensional. It also does the character a grave disservice by grossly oversimplifying him/her. You never want a simple primary character, even in a picture book. All of the best characters (including PB ones like Olivia or Fancy Nancy) have layers. Like a parfait.

Of course, occasionally authors deliberately make use of a stereotype to debunk it or to prove some type of point. That however is different than just using a stereotype for your main character and then moving on.

You don't get much more flawed than
the anti-hero Artemis Fowl.

Have Flaws
The best heroes have flaws. I don't just mean the grand "tragic flaw" you learn about in school that inevitably leads to the heroes demise at the end of the Greek play. No, I mean sometimes big, sometimes little personality traits that make the character's life just that more difficult.

There are a couple of reasons you want a flawed character:

They are more interesting. -- Flaws create drama, and drama is fun to read (and write).
They are more realistic. -- No one is flawless. Not even me (or you). Sorry.
They are more sympathetic. -- There is literally nothing more aggravating than perfection. People who appear perfect tend to make you want to slap them, and perfect characters in books make me want to tear them out of the pages and hurl them across the room.

Cearly I feel strongly about flaws.

National Short Story Month Contest

2011-05-03T12:04:00.001-05:00

I had no idea, but it seems that May is National Short Story Month. I didn't know anything like that even existed, but it seems that it's celebrating it's 2nd or 4th year depending on how you look at it. (I found an interesting article on it here.)

I'm quite excited about this. I love short stories. There's nothing like being able to read an entire plot and character arc in a single sitting. I like being introduced to different ideas, concepts, and even writing styles in a short story anthology. And I love how compact a short story is; how every word counts.

So, to celebrate National Short Story Month and to incorporate the character discussions we are also having this month, I'm going to hold a little contest this week. I present the Buried Editor's Character Short Story Contest:

Take your main character from the story or picture book you are working on and write a 500-2000 word short story featuring that character. (Write an actual short story, not another picture book MS. For some short story writing tips, click here. To see the difference between a PB MS and a short story, click here.)
However, here's the catch. Your story must take place before the start of your existing story. In other words, the short story should be a prequel. Besides being good practice at writing a short story, this exercise should also help you become better acquainted with your primary character's back story.
The short story can be for any age range between read-aloud to teen. It just must be a short story.
To enter the contest, post your story before 11:59 CST Friday, May 6, 2011, on the Board I set up for the contest. I will pick my 2 favorite stories, and then the readers of this blog will vote on a winner.
The prize will be a signed copy of Mo Willems' latest picture book, Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! This picture book is 6 1/2 short stories, so it seems like the perfect prize.

Any questions? Leave them in the comment field below!

Buried Editor's Book Club

2011-04-27T14:55:00.000-05:00

So, while I've been gone (from the blog) putting my office in order, I've been seriously thinking about the Buried Editor Book Club idea that was suggested as a use for the forum. I really liked the idea, but I didn't really know what books we should start with. And then we started the character discussions.

Last night, I had a scathingly brilliant idea, and I have decided that the first books for the Buried Editor Book Club should be books that are great works of character. And since we've been discussing primary and secondary characters and using secondary characters to help you show characteristics of your primary character, I have selected some books that I think exemplify this concept.

So, the first Buried Editor Book Club Selection is: 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore by Jenny Offill. In this book, the reader learns a lot about the first person narrator (the little girl) by how the other characters react to the things she does. However, what makes this book so extraordinary is that there is no dialogue, and the other characters never once say a word. It is all told in the pictures and in the way the girl reacts to the reactions.

That, at least is my opinion. However, this is a Book Club, and thus the book should be discussed. I would like to hear what others think about the book and the characters. I've already set up a discussion board. Go there and let me know what your ideas have been.

Primary vs Secondary Characters (Part 2)

2011-04-21T08:41:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we looked at primary characters, so today we'll look at secondary characters -- basically everybody else in your story.

He may be fully developed
with distinctive traits, a
personality, and back-story,
but Dumbledore is a
secondary character.

Secondary characters can be divided into 3 groups:

Major secondary characters: These are the ones we think of when we say secondary characters. These characters are nearly as important as the primary character(s) and may have their own backstories and subplots. In Harry Potter, some major secondary characters would be Ron, Hermione, Malfoy, Dumbledore, and Snape.
Minor secondary characters: These characters are less well-developed but are still distinctive enough to possibly be memorable. In Harry Potter, this would be the Weasley twins, Professor McGonagall, and Neville.
Filler characters: In a movie, these characters would basically be extras. They are the folks you need to fill out a scene or the world, but they are generally stock characters with no real distinctive features. In Harry Potter, most of the student body falls in this category.

Secondary characters are important for a variety of reasons. Obviously they help fill out your world. They make it more realistic. But what makes secondary characters so interesting is the way they interact with your primary character. A reader can learn a lot about a character by seeing how he/she interacts with others. (This is true about real people too.) It's a great way to impart information by showing it instead of telling it. Also, secondary characters will view the primary character different from the way the primary character views him/herself. This kind of multi-layered approach can really add depth both to your characters and the story as a whole.

Finally, secondary characters can act as a foil to the primary characters. For example Malfoy is the foil to Harry Potter in school. He is what Harry could have been had he been raised by an important wizarding family aware of his heritage instead of by the fiercely muggle Dursleys.

Primary vs Secondary Characters (Part 1)

2011-04-20T15:41:00.001-05:00

Today we are starting at the very basics of character -- the primary versus the secondary characters.

Which have your read? I've read all of HP
and only the first 2 in CB.

Just like in real life, the book world has your A-list, B-list, C-list, etc. characters. And no, I don't mean the difference between Harry Potter and Charlie Bone. (Both are wizards at school in series put out in America by Scholastic. One is a household name, the other is less known, a B-lister if you will.) Here, I'm talking about the A-list (or primary) characters and the B, C, and D-list (or secondary) characters in your story.

Your primary characters are the leads in your story. These always include your protagonist and may include your antagonist (if there is only one or a primary antagonist). Your primary character may or may not be your narrator. However, your primary character is, literally, the most important character in the story. This is the person that wants or needs something, and the entire story will be about that character trying to fill this want or need.

Some memorable primary characters:

Olivia (picture book)
Amelia Bedelia (early reader)
Clementine (chapter book)
Calpurnia Tate (middle grade)
Sabriel (teen)

(For some reason all female characters popped into my head first thing, but of course there are many memorable male primary characters.)

Books can also have multiple primary characters. This occurs when there is a shared protagonist or you can think of it as the book having an ensemble cast.

Some great examples of books with multiple protagonists:

Toot & Puddle (picture book)
Frog & Toad (easy reader)
Magic Tree House (Jack & Annie) (chapter book)
The Penderwicks (middle grade)
13 Reasons Why (teen)

If you don't have a strong, compelling primary character (or characters), you aren't going to have a good story. These people (or pigs or dogs or whatever) have to provide the motivation for the reader to keep turning the page. Of course, the way you can help explore your characters is through their interactions with secondary characters, which we will talk about tomorrow.

A Character Study

2011-04-19T09:32:00.002-05:00

Who doesn't know this famous character?

Last month when we practiced the parts of the book proposal, we looked at the overall manuscript. Each of us took our manuscript and worked on how it was presented to the world as a whole.

Now though, we are going to start looking at the individual pieces that make up a great manuscript. And of course the key thing that keeps a reader reading is the characters.

Don't get me wrong. Lots or other parts of a story are important too, especially plot. I know I'm the kind of person that is less interested in a character's growth than what happens next. I have been known to even finish books I don't like simply because I want to know the ending.

However, the sad truth is if you don't have compelling characters none of the other stuff matters You have to write characters that readers are going to be interested enough in to find out what happens to them.

So, for the foreseeable future, we are going to be working on making our characters as compelling as possible. (Notice I said compelling, not likable. There are some great books out there with anti-heroes even in the children's section.) I'll discuss different types of characters, and we'll do different exercises to help strengthen our characters. And remember character is very important regardless of whether or not your writing a picture book or the next Great American Teen Novel. Get ready to really get to know your characters.

Book Proposal Contest

2011-04-19T08:07:00.000-05:00

I only had 3 people enter the book proposal contest, so congratulations! All three of you are winners! I'll have your proposal critiques back to you by the end of the month.

I must confess to being a little surprised that there weren't more entries, but I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I was overwhelmed by TLA the last 2 weeks and wasn't able to post a flurry of nagging reminders.

TLA Wrap-up

2011-04-16T12:04:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out that if you stay in your booth the whole time repeating your pitch over and over again (yes, even I have to know how to pitch books), you generate interest and name recognition for your company, but you don't produce much interesting material for the blog. However, here were the highlights of the TLA conference for me:

Giving out over 200 copies of Dry Souls to the teens at the conference on Thursday-- If the kids had a yellow shirt, they got a book. Many of them thought the premise was pretty cool too. I hope we start seeing reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and the web from them.
Having the booth next to Candlewick-- I can sum up the greatness of that in one word: Traffic.
Having my authors sign-- 3 out of 5 my authors were able to make it this year. Besides being wonderful to see them again, I now have lots of signed stock.
Selling 42 Emerald Tablet to Taylor Middle School for their bookclub-- They are going to read the book and then come join us in Austin one day to meet PJ.
Having the Texas Sweethearts & Scoundrels have an ice cream social at my booth-- There was ice cream. There were authors. There were librarians. How could it not be great?

And now, after that very long week, I'm taking the next 3 days off. But you shouldn't be doing the same. My book proposal contest ends on Monday, so this is the last weekend to polish them up and make use of the forum for feedback. See you back on Tuesday.

TLA Setup

2011-04-12T17:09:00.000-05:00

I am excited to announce that I have survived my very first TLA setup day all by myself. I've only been to TLA as part of Blooming Tree. CBAY has never exhibited before, and it's very exciting to have enough books to fill a whole booth. I posted some pictures over on Facebook if you're curious to see the booth.

My plan for this week is to do a bunch of tweets, Facebook, and video updates throughout the conference. So, be sure you're subscribed to everything so you can see the fun!

Convention Preparation

2011-04-08T10:27:00.001-05:00

I have just spent the last few weeks getting ready for my booth at TLA next week. I have been ordering bookmarks and buttons and tshirts and posters, buying tables and table cloths and book stands. However, this is not what the usual person does to get ready to attend TLA (or BEA or ALA or any of the other large book trade shows).

So, since most of you are published and soon to be published authors, I thought I'd examine preparation for a large convention from that perspective.

Convention exhibition halls are a great place for authors to network and get a good look at what is happening in the publishing world. All authors, even unpublished ones, should try to go to a convention if at all possible. Before you go, here are some things you should do:

Buy an exhibits-only badge -- Unless you are a librarian or bookseller, the classes at ALA or BEA aren't going to be that pertinent to you. Exhibit-only badges are significantly cheaper.
Print business cards -- If you have a book out, make sure your cover or some information on the book is on it. Also make sure you have your website and/or blog address too.
Check out the conference signing schedule -- This way you will be able to plan your days and make sure you get autographs from your favorite authors.
Check online for other authors and bloggers who will be there -- Then, try to meet up with these groups. Often groups of bloggers and/or authors will get together for drinks. This is a great time to meet new folks and discuss marketing and publishing strategies.

And once you are at the convention, there's a bunch of stuff you shouldn't forget:

Do not be shy -- Talk with everyone. After all, pretty much everyone there also wants to talk with you.
Grab as many free books as you can, but be discerning -- Publishers only bring a set number of giveaways. Don't grab a book if you don't think you'll read it or give it away. Taking books you don't actually want only deprives people who would have read the book from getting it.
Wear comfortable shoes -- I cannot stress this one enough. Dress levels vary at the different conferences, but even if you decide to wear heels to something, make sure you can stand and walk around in them for 8 hours or so.
Blog/Tweet/Facebook about your experience -- Conventions always make great material for discussion and writing.
Have fun -- If your not exhibiting, there's no reason why you should be stressed. Be laid back and enjoy the experience. It can be quite a wild ride.

Goodbye, Diana

2011-04-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

In what sometimes feels like a lifetime ago, back when I was still in grad school (you know, last year), back when I was still working on actual class-work instead of my long, drawn out thesis, I wrote a paper on a brilliant fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones called Howl's Moving Castle. A fun, exciting book that turns fairy tale conventions on their heads, I loved both this book and its companion, Castle in the Air for years. So, you can imagine how excited I was when a third book, House of Many Ways, came out two years ago. Ever since, I've been eagerly awaiting Jones next book.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait a very, very long time.

You see, last week, Diana Wynne Jones passed away at the age of 76. Although a collection of her articles will be released in 2011, it is not the same. We will no longer see great Jones works like her masterpiece of form, Archer's Goon, or her greatest work of style and thematic subjects, Fire and Hemlock.

Personally though, I will miss her more light-hearted fare like her parody of sword and sorcery fantasies, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the darker Chrestomanci books.

If you have never read one of Jones's works, I suggest you take the opportunity now. Her books, besides being highly enjoyable, have also been a source of inspiration to children's fantasy authors for some time. Her imagination and witty writing will be sorely missed.

Picture Book Cover Letter Contest Winner

2011-04-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

I meant to post this yesterday, but I got distracted and forgot.

My picture book cover letter contest winner was Oliver Collosal submitted by Debra Mayhew.

Congratulations!

And thank you to everyone who entered the contest.

Book Proposal Contest Rules & Info

2011-04-01T10:49:00.002-05:00

The Buried Editor's Book Proposal Contest has officially begun.

In order to enter all you have to do is send your full book proposal (and if you don't remember what all the parts are click here)to the dedicated email that I have set up for this contest: bookproposals@gmail.com. All emails need to be received by April 18, giving you two full weeks to polish those proposals up.

Here are the complete rules:

All entries must be received by 11:59 PM CST April 18, 2011.
No attachments. Just copy and paste your proposal into an email. I realize this will make some long (and sometimes ugly format-wise) emails, but I that's fine for this contest. I would not encourage that for an actual submission somewhere.
Only do the parts of the book proposal that are pertinent to you. If you haven't written a series, don't write a series overview. If you've written a picture book, send that complete manuscript instead of the first three sample chapters.
Entries must be a proposal for a children or teen book; however, you can enter any kind of children/teen book in any genre. Even ones that CBAY doesn't normally consider (including non-fiction).

Prize:
There will be 5 winners who will each receive a full (free) critique of their book proposal, including the sample manuscript/chapters.

General info:

Technically, entries are not being submitted to CBAY Books, I will not be responding to every entry, just the winners. However, there's a chance that if I really like the book proposal that I see, I might ask you to officially submit it to the AE at CBAY Books.
You can enter a book proposal for manuscripts that have been previously rejected by CBAY since, like I said, this isn't technically a CBAY submission.
Questions? Comments? Enter them below.

Your Biography

2011-03-31T12:38:00.001-05:00

The very last portion of a book proposal is your biography. This is the chance to brag a little bit about yourself and to tell the editor/agent pertinent information about yourself. For example, say you've written a middle grade novel where the kids are running around trying to outwit an ancient Mayan prophecy and you also happen to be the world's current leading expert on all things Mayan, that would be something to include in your biography. Or perhaps, you run a blog with 1500 followers that offers advice to parents adopting children from China, and you wrote a picture book about a little boy going with his parents to pick up his new baby sister from China. Again, that would be something to mention.

Also, this is the time to remind the agent/editor (you've already mentioned it in the cover letter) if you are a published author. You can also enclose a one page list after your bio of your top publishing credits. However, again, use your discretion. If you've published 45 magazine articles, 12 short stories, 16 novels and edit an online journal, you don't want to list every single credit. Hit the highlights.

To practice your bios, go to the Forum and post it. No one will criticize what you've done, we'll just give you feedback so you can show yourself in the best light.

And that my friends, concludes Book Proposal March. You have now read (and in some cases practiced) all of the elements of a good book proposal. But don't stop practicing. Remember, in a couple of weeks I will be holding a Book Proposal contest. The top 5 book proposals will receive a free critique of their proposal (including the sample chapters/manuscript in the proposal), and ALL entries in the contest will be considered for publication by CBAY Books. You can submit any genre, any age, anything -- even stuff you might not think is appropriate for the CBAY lists. After all, you could still win a critique, and I'm also considering an ebook original imprint that will publish more than SF/fantasy. I'm thinking of broadening my scope, so to speak, but I have to see what's out there before I decide.

Rules, information, and deadlines for the contest will go up tomorrow. So, keep posting on the Forum (in any of the parts of a book proposal, not just author bios) to get your book proposal in the best shape possible.

Your Marketing Plans for Your Book

2011-03-30T11:38:00.001-05:00

The other major component of the marketing portion of a book proposal is where you detail out your marketing plans for your book. This section consists of your:

Promotion Plans -- Things you can do to get others to spread the word about your book.
Examples would be things like blog tours, reviews (blog or traditional), small contests.
Marketing Plans -- Things you can do to directly tell people about your book.
Examples would be postcards, book marks, your blog or newsletter, book release party, school visits.
Promotional/Marketing Opportunities -- Things that could be done that you do not personally have the resources or contacts to do yourself.
Examples would be ARC mail outs, bookstore tours, advertising in major market publications.

This section can be simultaneously the most fun and the most frustrating section to work on. It can be fun because you get to put all of your not inconsiderable amount of creativity to use thinking up ideas to catch readers attention. It can be frustrating because many of these ideas have already been used, and it helps remind you just how difficult it can be to stand out from the crowd.

When brainstorming for this, dream big. If your picture book has a blimp in it, put "flyover town by blimp covered in jacket art" on your list. However, when you actually go to write up your marketing ideas for your proposal, be more realistic. You and your publisher probably won't have the funds to hire and deck out a blimp. But, you might be able to "print jacket art on blimp shaped balloons to giveaway to kids." Put that option on your proposal instead.

Now, it's time to practice identifying your markets and marketing ideas. Go to the Forum, and post a small (1-2 sentence) description about your book and your potential markets and/or marketing ideas. At this point, we're still in the brainstorming stage, so put down anything you want. All of us on the boards will then give feedback on how realistic we think your ideas/markets are.

Potential Markets for Your Book

2011-03-29T14:49:00.001-05:00

While we wait to see who will win the Picture Book Cover Letter Contest, I feel that we can go ahead and move into the marketing portion of the book proposal. From here on out the rest of your book proposal is dedicated not to your actual writing itself, but how to ensure that others are made aware that your written word is out there to be read.
The first thing to consider (so not coincidentally it falls first in a book proposal) is the potential markets for your book. Obviously the primary market for your book is whatever age range you wrote it for. But there are lots of secondary markets for children's books. The other more obvious ones are:

The Adults in the kid's life (guardians/parents/grandparents)
The Educators in the kid's life (teachers & librarians)
Siblings just a little bit above or below the primary market

In fact some of these secondary markets are so important that they are actually primary markets themselves. After all, a Newbery winner is marketed more towards the librarians than the actual kids that might someday read it.

And then there are the other secondary markets that may take some brainstorming to come up with. These markets tend to be either seasonal or extremely niche, but they are still very important. Some examples of markets like these are:

The Graduation market -- Many year-round inspirational picture books experience an uptick in sales around graduation - the most obvious being Oh, The Places You'll Go - when people buy this picture book not for the 5-6 year old it is normally intended for but for high school and college graduates.
Expectant mothers -- Many people buy these women picture books for their future babies, but there are also several picture books that appeal more to these women than they ever will to their children. Books that fall into this category would be things like Munsch's Love You Forever.

So, how do you figure out what secondary markets your book might appeal to?
The easiest way is to find books that are similar to yours and see which markets that publisher is targeting. Now, before you say your book is completely unique and there is no comparable book on the market, think again. The particular idea you are using for your book may be unique, but most likely you are writing in an existing genre (even if that genre is Pop-up books or non-fiction guide to fictional creatures). Find books in that genre that are most similar to yours. Also, you'll want to find examples that are not the absolute bestsellers. I may have written a series about a bunch of kids at wizard school, but I'm going to compare it to the Charlie Bones series not Harry Potter. After all, statistically speaking, my book is unlikely to become the cultural phenomenon Harry Potter is, and most likely the publisher will have a marketing budget for my book more comparable to Charlie Bones series rather than Harry Potter book 7.
Once you've determined your comparable books, see where they are marketed. Periodically look for them in a bookstore and see where they are displayed. Do they pop up on Mother's Day displays? Then perhaps a good secondary market would be Moms. Also, look online and see what markets the publisher is trying to reach. A Google search (once you've gotten scrolled past all the blog reviews) will get you that.
Finally, after you've determined your primary and secondary markets. You type them up into a pretty little list with the name of each of your markets and the reason why you think your book would appeal to it. Here's an example for the Book of Nonsense:

Primary Markets:

Children ages 9-12 -- Both of the main characters turn 13 in this book, making them an age children in this range can identify with.
>Fantasy readers -- Fantasy is still the top selling children’s genre. Kids and parents are often looking for a new series to read. So, far there are four books planned for this series.

Secondary Markets

Reluctant readers -- One of the main characters has Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome which makes it almost impossible to read. He’s a character reluctant reader can identify with.
Parents -- The twins do not get along at first, but eventually they learn to work together. Kids can identify with the sibling rivalry, and parents appreciate the children learning to cooperate.
Jewish readers -- All of the books in this series are heavily grounded in Judeo/Christian mythology.
Teachers/Librarians -- There are many different areas of discussion that this book could be used as a starting point. They include bullying and various ethical dilemmas.

Picture Book Cover Letter Contest

2011-03-28T11:43:00.002-05:00

So, I read all of the entries, and I have picked the two I would be most likely to request if I was a general editor/agent. I had a hard time narrowing it down to just two. There were a couple that appealed to me more as the kind of book I actually publish, and there were two that had great summaries in their letters, but the rest of the letter fell just a tad bit short. These two, in my opinion, had the best overall letters.

Now, it's time for you to vote. Here are the two entries:
Number 1:

Dear Ms. Editor,

In response to your recent request for fantasy picture book manuscripts, I'm submitting my 312 word story Oliver Colossal for your consideration. This is a multiple submission.

Oliver is a just a regular boy, except for one thing. He’s a giant among averaged-sized people. When his mother decides that giants shouldn’t need a special blanket, she takes his favorite comfort away. Before long, Oliver’s extra large case of insomnia causes big trouble in Tiny Town. In the end, only Oliver knows what he really needs to fix the problem.

I'm an active member of SCBWI and I meet regularly with a critique group.

Thank you for your consideration of my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Number 2:

Dear Ms Editor,

Please find enclosed a disposable manuscript of JEREMY STRICKER AND THE HAPPY BOTTOM (483 words) for consideration with [Publisher].

This is the tale of the happiest fanny in the world -- and the unhappy boy attached to it. Having a dancing and singing (make that tooting!) bottom isn’t easy. But things only get worse after Jeremy Stricker confronts his derriere. Will Jeremy and his tush ever make peace?

I have enjoyed reading such [Publisher] titles as [ABC] and [XYZ], about stand-out protagonists and their offbeat paths towards acceptance. I hope you will find this story to be a worthy addition to your book list. In a planned sequel, Jeremy and his booty team up to foil a couple of dirty, rotten (but sensitive-nosed) thieves.

A writer, student, and mother, I have published over 20 articles in trade journals and magazines including, most recently, in Girl’s Life. I am a member of SCBWI.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://4198588.polldaddy.com/s/D6EFD3C926C6F0E6"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View Survey&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Cover Letter/One Page Summary Contest

2011-03-24T13:26:00.002-05:00

Ah, the time has come to test the cover letters and one page summaries you've been practicing. Announcing:

The Buried Editor's Cover Letter/One Page Summary Contests

There will be 2 categories for this contest with one winner in each category. They are:

Picture Book Manuscripts:
To enter this category you will need to post a cover letter for your manuscript on the forum board set up for this contest. The cover letter needs to be just like a cover letter you would attach to the top of a manuscript submission.

Prize: The winner will receive a free critique of the manuscript mentioned in the cover letter.

Chapter Book/Middle Grade/Teen Manuscripts:
To enter this category you will need to post a cover letter and one page summary of your manuscript on the (separate) forum board set up for this contest. Again, this should be exactly like the cover letter and one page summary you would include as part of a submission.

Prize: The winner will receive a free critique of the first 3 chapters of the manuscript mentioned in the cover letter.

Rules:

You can only enter one manuscript in one of the categories. So, pick your best cover letter!
This is not the time to offer feedback to each other. You'll be able to see other entries, but do not comment on them.
This is open to all manuscripts including ones that have been rejected by CBAY in the past. The only manuscripts that cannot enter are the ones that are currently under consideration by CBAY. This is 8 picture books and a few other projects. If in doubt email me, or submit a cover letter for a different project.
I will not be picking the winner. I will choose my two favorites in each category, and then we will vote on this blog.
Finally, I'll be picking the two for voting based on the quality of the cover letters/summaries not on whether or not the book is right for CBAY. This is unrelated to CBAY's wants or needs and will not result in any kind of publication. The prizes are literally just critiques.
All entries need to be posted by 11:59 PM Sunday, March 27.

Best of luck!

Final Picture Book Submission Update

2011-03-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

As of this point, every person who has submitted a manuscript to our picture book call should have received some sort of response from us now. If for some reason you didn't, please let us know so we can see what happened.

If I asked to hold onto your manuscript, then I will be contacting you in the next 10 days about editorial ideas I have, things I need from you, etc.

If your manuscript ended up being rejected, do not despair. You were in very good company. I only requested to continue looking at 8 manuscripts. I also would like to thank you for taking the time to send your work to us. Even though I wasn't able to personally respond to all of the submissions, I am still honored that you were willing to let me consider your work.

A Little More News

2011-03-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

I'm so very excited because I get to welcome back Assistant Editor (aka Rebecca). She originally left CBAY to go to grad school, but she'll finish that up this year, and for now is returning back to her old title. This is exciting for me because it means the editorial staff is no longer just me and Intern, it's now me, Intern, and AE. Yippee!

I realize you probably don't really care. Your thinking, "Okay, cool. But that doesn't really affect me."

Au contraire, mes amis. Au contrarie.

AE has just spent a fair amount of time interning at Scholastic where she spent most of her days wading through slush and queries, and apparently she must be feeling withdrawls because when I suggested that we open submissions up to teen queries, she thinks, and I quote, that it "all sounds exciting". Insane, I know. So, we're going to hash out exactly how we want to do this, and then post the new submission guidelines both here and on the official CBAY site.

However, I thought I'd give you all advance warning so you can start polishing up those old teen manuscripts you've got lying around and generally perfecting your query letters.

A Little News

2011-03-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

At this stage in our book proposal, we are going to pause and take a brief break. Everything we've done so far are things you might find yourself submitting during a general submissions process. Since every publishing house/agency is a little bit different, some might want your to query with a letter and a summary, some might want a submission with letter, one-page summary, series summary, and first three chapters, and some people just want a simple query letter. Everyone is different, and that is why it is so important to always check the website of the publisher/agency you are submitting to to check for their most recent guidelines.

After this point, everything we will work on in the book proposal will be geared more towards marketing. These elements are rarely submitted during a submissions process, but they are important things for you to consider, especially after your book is under contract. However, don't think you should wait until then to start brainstorming. You never know when someone will ask you about your marketing plans, and these days, authors are expected more and more often to have some sort of idea in place.

But that will be for the second half of this month. For the rest of this week, you should continue to polish your cover letters and one-page summaries. Why? Because in the near future I'm going to run a contest for cover letters/one-page summaries. There will be 2 categories: cover letters only contest for picture books, and cover letter plus one page summary for middle grade and teen books. I know MGs and teens that it's unfair that you have to write two pages, but it's really hard to do a one page summary of a picture book. The winner in each category will get a free critique of their full picture book manuscript or the first 3 chapters of the MG/teen manuscript (depending on which category he/she wins). I don't have a date for the contest, but as soon as I do, I'll let you know.

Until then, keep practicing. And if you haven't tried posting for feedback on the Buried in the Slush Pile forum, you really should. Everyone's been giving great comments over there.

Series Summaries for Book Proposals

2011-03-14T12:56:00.001-05:00

There are two types of book series:

Set Series - the kind with a set number of books planned from the beginning.
These are the series where every single book has a complete plot arc (or should), and then the overarching series also has a plot arc. The best example that every one will instantly understand would be the Harry Potter books. In each book there's a plot (Harry getting the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry saving Ginny from the Chamber, Harry competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, etc.), but the series itself has an overall plot (Harry vs. Voldemort). From the beginning, there were going to be 7 Harry books, and by golly, (even if some of them got kind of long) there were 7 Harry books. Other examples of series like this would be the Percy Jackson books, the Series of Unfortunate Events books, and locally, The Forgotten Worlds Series from CBAY.
Open-ended Series - the kind where each book is its own stand-alone adventure.
In these books, you can have as many adventures as you can think up. The only thing that carries over are the characters. Beloved by book packagers and the ghost-writing teams, these series can literally go on indefinitely. The most famous are the various series produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobsbey Twins, etc.) However, there are also modern day versions like The Babysitter's Club (who may or may not be written personally by Martin -- I won't pretend to know) and many chapter book series written by a single author like the Magic Treehouse Books and, my favorites, the Judy Moody books.

And just like there are two kinds of series, there are two ways you can write a series summary:

One paragraph summaries
This is where you write a one paragraph summary for each one of your proposed books in the series. In these small summaries you need to detail the major plot arc in its entirety. So, yes, you will need to give the plot away. This type of summary is appropriate for both set and open-ended types of series. However, if you are doing an open-ended series and dream of some day producing 46 books, do not try to think up a summary for 46 books. Limit yourself to around 5 for now.
Full page summary
This is where you write a one page summary of your the overreaching plot of your series. Exactly like a one page summary of a single book, this is a short-story summarized version of what the overall series plot arc will be. Obviously, this style of summary only works with a set series.

Like one paragraph and one page summaries for books, series summaries can be difficult to write. However, if you plan to do a series, at some point (unless you already have the entire series written and sometimes even then), you will have to do one of these. No one is going to contract a whole series without an idea of where it is going or the kind of books you are going to do.

So, over at the forum I have set up a board for folks to practice their series summaries. And even if you aren't working on a series at the moment, this might be a good time to make one up. You never know when you might have characters you are so in love with that you want to keep writing about them.

Picture Book Submissions Update (2)

2011-03-11T08:03:00.001-06:00

As of last night, I have officially read every single submission I received. Still, that leaves 142 manuscripts to respond too. Intern has a busy couple of weeks ahead.

Of course, Intern won't be going it completely alone -- there are at least 29 responses that I want to write myself. However, that still leaves 113. On the plus side that means everyone should have heard something from one of us by the end of the month. On the negative, all of the 113 (and most of the 29) are rejections. Man, all of us (you and me both) hate rejections.

Forum Ideas

2011-03-10T09:19:00.000-06:00

So, I'm happy at the way the new Buried in the Slush Pile Forum is working. The layout is clear (if unexciting), and it's easy to find all of the different people who want feedback on their various summaries. Best of all, the ones I haven't viewed yet are marked as new, so I don't miss anyone. I also can't argue with the free price tag. Supposedly there should be ads running around somewhere, but I haven't seen any.

A few people have started posting their summaries, and the feedback they've been getting has been great. No one has said anything I wouldn't, and some of my comments have just seemed superfluous. We're going to keep working on these through Sunday, so if you haven't posted anything yet, there's still plenty of time. On Monday, though, we'll be moving on.

But as great as the forum has been for critiquing, I've been wondering, what else could we use the forum for?

One idea I had was to have a board on there dedicated to submissions. We could have a thread on that board that could deal with who/where is accepting submissions and a link to the place's submission guidelines. As you run across someone accepting (or no longer accepting) submissions, you could add it to this thread. We could also have a thread profiling editors and agents so that when you go to figure out where to submit, you would have some names and editorial preferences to see if your work would fit that person's tastes. I'm actually working on a (free) manuscript submissions workbook that I'll be debuting in the next few weeks that has a worksheet like that.

What ideas do you have for the forum? I am open to any and all suggestions.

One Page Summaries (Revisited)

2011-03-09T09:14:00.001-06:00

A long, long time ago (as the song says), I posted about one page summaries. What I said then is still true now.

A one page summary, or book synopsis, is a one page third person short story of your novel. It's one of those few times that you can tell a story without a single scene, and obviously since you have one single-spaced page, in as few words as possible. Your summary tells the entire plot and subplots of your novel, introduces all major and possibly a few minor characters, and introduces the major thematic elements. Like your one paragraph summary in your cover letter, it also needs to be illustrative of your writing voice and give the editor/agent a sense of how the manuscript will read. Not quite as difficult as a one paragraph summary (because you have more words), these can still be hard to write. It can be hard to figure out what is important enough for the summary. I find that the easiest way to write one of these is to make an outline of your novel with all the major plot markers listed. Then you'll know what you have to include, and you can make choices from there.

More than any other part of a book proposal, the one page summary is where you really get to know your manuscript, where you can really evaluate what does and does not need to be in your novel. Do you find you have 12 subplots and can't fit them into the summary? Then it might be time to reevaluate the necessity of all those twists and turns.

For the rest of the week, we're going to practice the one page summary. Since Facebook did not have as sophisticated of a discussion board as I had expected, I have set up a new forum over at ProBoards: The Buried in the Slush Pile Forum. It's not as pretty as the Ning forum was, but this one is free, and Ning no longer is. I know. Bummer.

I have already started the one page summary board. All you have to do is start a new thread in that group, and then paste your summary in. (Don't worry about the character count. You get 60,000 characters which is roughly 32 double spaced pages. You are aiming for around 500 words which is around 5000 characters.) To leave feedback, just reply to that particular thread. This way no one who wants to participate will be overlooked. (I missed one yesterday, and even once I knew about it, I still had trouble finding it. Hence the switch in forums.) As always, general rules of critique etiquette apply, and on this forum, I have the power to remove comments and ban members for bad behavior. This has never, ever been a problem in the past, but I will exercise that right if necessary.

Finally, a note for the picture book authors: I'm sure you noticed that I kept referring to a one page summary of a novel. Obviously trying to write a one page summary for a picture book would just be silly. However, you can still participate if you like. Feel free to use this time to perfect your one paragraph summary, and then take the additional space on your page to really explore your characters and get to know them -- their motivations, their wants, needs, etc. Granted, very little of that will actually make it into your manuscript text, but it will help you to know these things. For example using Becky's Don Quixote picture book wip, if the little boy's main motivation is to get Mommy's attention, then learning this would help Becky decide if the activities he participates in are helping him try to achieve that goal or if they are just silly for silly's sake. When you're done, feel free to post your paragraphs (and maybe a sentence or two about what you've learned if you like) on the forum. Just be sure to prominently feature Picture Book Practice at the top so we won't be trying to figure out how to rework your unrelated paragraphs into a cohesive summary.

A Brief Look Again at Cover Letters

2011-03-07T08:27:00.001-06:00

The first part of any book proposal (or submission for that matter) is the cover letter. A query letter is also, in many ways, identical to the cover letter. Basically, these are incredibly important things to be able to write. Also, you're going to be writing quite a few of these over your professional career, so you might as well learn how to write them now.

Of course, I talked extensively about cover letters during the picture book submission process back in January. To review that post where I talk in detail about cover letters (electronic, query, or otherwise), click here. Today though, we are going to quickly review the parts, and then do a little practice.

Again, the parts of a cover/query letter are:

Introduction
Where you explain how you know the editor/agent and why you are submitting/querying.
1-2 paragraph pitch
Where you sell the book.
Series Pitch
Where you define and explain the series.
Biography
Pertinent information about yourself.
Conclusion
Thanks for allowing to submit/Ask politely to send the manuscript.

Again, for more detailed explanations, go here.

By far, in my opinion, the most important part of the letter is the 1-2 paragraph pitch. You really have to make the book sound intriguing, yet not give away everything. You don't want to rid the book of it's suspense. You need to try to convey the voice of your writing, but still keep everything in a short 1-2 paragraphs.

Since I consider this section so important, I thought that for the rest of today and tomorrow we could practice writing these. If you haven't already, join the Facebook Buried in the Slush Pile Page. Click on the discussion link in the left hand box. I've already started a One Paragraph Summary discussion thread. To post your own one paragraph summary of the book you're building your book proposal for, click "reply to topic." Although in the cover letter you can take 1-2 paragraphs, for this exercise, try to limit yourself to only one paragraph.

After that, look at other people's summaries and offer them feedback. You can do this by hitting reply just under their paragraph. And if you don't want to post a paragraph right now, still feel free to offer feedback to others. I'm sure everyone will appreciate it.

Of course, that being said, let's remember some critique rules while we're at it. Positive comments are always encouraged, but of course negative comments are necessary for growth. When posting a negative comment like "This summary doesn't work for me" always follow it with an explanation. Was the plot arc unclear? Could you not tell from the paragraph which character was the protagonist and which the antagonist? Things like that. And at no time is flaming or general "this sucks", "your writing is terrible", "find a new pasttime" allowed. Those types of comments are absolutely prohibited. The children's writing community is about fostering new writers and supporting one another. It is not about bolstering your own ego while tearing someone else's down. Let's continue that tradition.

In the past I've allowed people to critique one another's work on this blog without incident. Let's keep in that way.

Picture Book Submissions Update

2011-03-04T08:45:00.010-06:00

So, I worked again on Submissions last night, and I now have the following statistics to give you:

Total received: 231
Number left for me to personally read: 76
Number still needing a response: 149
Number I have requested to keep looking at: 3
Number I have requested be resubmitted as another type of project: 2
Number I have requested a rewrite: 1

What all this means for me:
Since the number was not so overwhelming, I decided that I would personally look at all the submissions and not just depend on Intern's (excellent) judgment. However, I have a lot going on, and this is slowing me down. However, my new goal is to try to look at 10 a night. The number we still need to reject also means that we had to resort to form letters, although since I'm terrible about not giving advice, I've marked lots of them with small notes for Intern to include in the letters. A few of the letters are actually coming from me.

What this means for you:
Do not despair if you have not heard from me or CBAY yet. It most likely means I haven't read you. That's all. People whose books that I so far want to hold have been told. Not hearing from us doesn't mean we like or dislike your book. It doesn't mean anything. However with nearly 150 left to respond to, we most likely won't hit my optimistic deadline of March 15, but we will certainly be done by the end of the month. (And since that's a full month before the 3 months I originally estimated and still officially cite, I'm quite excited.)

Finally, I have to thank Lisa for emailing me and suggesting I do this. It was a great idea, and I confess, not one I had on my own. In fact, if you ever have an idea of something you would like to see on this blog or a question you would like to see answered, do not hesitate to let me know. You know, if people started asking me questions again, I could bring back "Question of the Week." I'm just saying...

Children's Fiction Book Proposal Overview

2011-03-03T08:56:00.001-06:00

Just like queries and cover letters and even manuscript submissions, everyone does book proposals a little bit differently, especially in the children's book industry. Since fiction children's book editors rarely see full out book proposals, we don't really have a hard and fast standard. So, like when you are querying or submitting to an editor, you should find out what their specific book proposal guidelines are. After all, some people might like to see a synopsis for each chapter of the book while others might be content with a one page summary.

However, on this blog we are going to discuss the most common, and in my opinion, most important parts of a book proposal. They are:

Cover Letter
One Page Overview
Series Overview
Chapter Summaries (or Outline)
Potential Markets for the Book
Author Biography
Promotion/Marketing Plans/Opportunities
First 3 Chapters (occasionally full MS)
SASE (if physical submission)

Next week I'll do general overviews into each of these parts, and then the week after that, we'll get into the nitty-gritty or actually working on each individual part. (Instead of book proposals, tomorrow I'm posting a status update on the picture book submissions.)

And, if you would like to read ahead, so to speak, everything I learned about book proposals came from this fantastic book, Author 101 Best Selling Book Proposals. A few years ago I needed to put together a nonfiction, adult book proposal for a freelance client, and this book was a wealth of knowledge.

A Little Proposal for You All

2011-03-01T09:32:00.001-06:00

Ah, it's March. And that makes me think of spring (it's firmly spring here), basketball, green beer, and book proposals.

Wait, what?

Okay, so March doesn't inherently make me think of book proposals. I'm not sure any time of year particularly inspires that line of thought. And frankly as a children's book editor of fiction books, book proposals rarely cross my mind at all. After all, you will rarely need to write out a book proposal for a fiction book, and there are many well-established children's authors who have never written one at all.

And that, my friends, is a shame.

A book proposal is one of the best ways to get to know your book, I mean really get to know your book. An invite-your-book-back-to-your-place-for-a-drink kind of way to know your book. To "know" it in the "biblical" sense. By the time you have finished every section of a book proposal, there's not much about your book you haven't considered. And looking at your book in this kind of detail can only help you make it stronger.

Besides, a book proposal is the perfect project while waiting to hear back from critiquers with your first draft. It allows you to continue working on your current project without obsessively revising. (Remember what I said about over-revising yesterday?)

So, I propose that we spend this glorious month of March dedicated to all things book proposals. We will discuss every aspect of the proposal, we will practice proposals, and in the end we will have a grand contest (details of which I have not thought out yet, only just now having had this scathingly brilliant idea) with 5 Grand Prize winners recieving the chance to submit their book proposals to me for critiquing and to CBAY for official consideration. (In other words you'll submit to CBAY, and if I reject the project, I'll provide feedback.)

Sound good?

Revising Your Children's Manuscript too Much

2011-02-28T12:17:00.002-06:00

As you may have noticed, Buried in the Slush Pile has undergone yet another transformation over the past 24 hours. I have spend countless hours tinkering and moving widgets, columns, and various objects back and forth. The result? A blog that looks almost exactly the same as when I started it in 2006 with just a different color background, a graphic header (of stuff from my actual slush pile) and a wider spread.

Sigh. Sometimes there really is no point in messing with a good thing.

And this is a lesson that applies to revising, especially children and teen manuscripts. There is such as too much revision. Tinkering away at your manuscript can sometimes make it weaker instead of stronger. I've watched authors nit-pick at the things until the passages actually are choppier and more disjointed than they were 4 drafts before. Like everything, show some restraint and moderation when it comes to revising. And if you find yourself compulsively rewriting the same paragraph for the 45th time, it's time to take that manuscript or chapter to your critique group. Obviously you could use an outside opinion.

Editor Profile:Madeline Smoot (aka Me)

2011-02-24T09:31:00.001-06:00

It has occurred to me that people might want to know the answers to those conference appropriate questions I posted. Since the only editor I have access to on such short notice is myself, I'm going to appear very self-centered and interview myself first. However, I have started putting out feelers to see if anyone else would be interested in answering these questions.

Madeline Smoot is the publisher of CBAY Books, a small independent press in Texas. She can be found on Facebook and Twitter where she masquerades online as the semi-anonymous Buried Editor.

What are your favorite books (either that you acquired or wished you had acquired)?
Well me, that is an excellent question. I find that I love all the books I acquired. Since I have full discretion, I only acquire the books that I'm willing to read a minimum of 5 times. However some other favorite books of mine are Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, Ally Carter's books, Diana Wynne Jones' books (especially the Chrestomancis and Archer's Goon), Robin McKinley's Hero & the Crown and her Sunshine, Paranormalcy, A Brief History of Montmaray, Datlow & Windling's anthologies, The Lost Conspiracy, Larklight, the new Death Cloud by Andrew Lane and so many others I can't event think of them.
What kind of books do you enjoy?
I like a variety of midgrade and teen books. My favorites are the ones that are funny, with great characters, a compelling plot, and great world building. I also like ones that take on religion in a thoughtful, thought provoking way. A good example of reinterpreting Judeo/Christian myth would be David Slater's Sacred Books that we have published. Each one gets a little more controversial than the last with the 5th and 6th books (whose first drafts I just read) being inflammatory enough to probably make some people really upset. Not burn books upset (books 2-4 already do that). I'm thinking more like rocks through the window, DaVinci Code kind of upset.
What are you looking for for your list?
Right now CBAY exclusively focuses on fantasy and science fiction for midgrade and teens although we are branching into fantasy and science fiction picture books. CBAY's goal is also to publish "the banned books of tomorrow" so I wouldn't mind considering a tastefully controversial teen book (like The Mockingbirds or the like) if it came my way.
What kind of books do you really dislike?
Books that are supposed to be funny, but that I find condescending to the reader and to children in general. I really hate books like that. There's a very fine line between a charming, witty book and one that's actually just rude. I'm also not much into romance, including paranormal romance. I like paranormal books, but I've found (especially with so many right now) that the romance part bores me.
What kind of book is your dream book to acquire?
A steam punk picture book. I've never even seen one.
What kind of book would you like to acquire but the right manuscript has never come across your desk?
A controversial, thought provoking science fiction novel set in space. I'm a huge hard science fiction (as opposed to soft science fiction -- yes these classifications exist, I'm not making them up) fan and would love to publish one. I would also like a really good mystery that doesn't cheat, preferably one with a murder. All of these things in some form have crossed my desk, but I haven't found that perfect one yet.
Who are your favorite authors?
Dianna Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Robin McKinley, Isaac Asimov (although I don't particularly like his juveniles), Heinlein (for his juveniles), Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers. These are the people I read over and over again, and I consider their books my comfort reads (just like some people have comfort foods).
What are some of the books you have acquired?
Everything on the CBAY list. For Blooming Tree Press: Little Bunny Kung Fu, Jessica McBean Tap Dance Queen, Patrick the Somnambulist (although that one was found by our art director), Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy, Life in the Pit, and others I can't think of right now.
Have you ever acquired something from the slush pile?
Yes. About 30% of my books came from slush. However, I found 80% of my authors that way.
How many books do you usually acquire every year?
I publish 2-4 books a year, so that's how many I tend to acquire. However, I'm about to expand into ebook originals, so that number may go up to as high as 6-8.

Conference Questions

2011-02-23T10:01:00.002-06:00

Spending the week working on my CWIM article about editors has gotten me thinking about conferences. After all the main place new authors get to meet editors is at conferences. And what I think of as the conference season is upon us. (I have found that January through July culminating with the big SCBWI LA conference in early August is the busiest time for writing conferences. Conferences do happen in the fall, but there are fewer of them with all the holidays and all.) This year I find myself completely conference free since I have not been doing the proper pimping of myself as a speaker to the various local SCBWIs. This is good since it gives me more time to get ready for other stuff like TLA, but it's bad since I like conferences and they are a good source for slush.

However, I'm digressing. What I wanted to talk about are the kinds of things that are appropriate to ask editors either during a conference Q&A or even when you have the chance to talk to them one on one. Here are my top ten:

What are your favorite books (either that you acquired or wished you had acquired)?
What kind of books do you enjoy?
What are you looking for for your list?
What kind of books do you really dislike?
What kind of book is your dream book to acquire?
What kind of book would you like to acquire but the right manuscript has never come across your desk? (Every editor tends to have one of those at some point. Mine is currently a steam punk picture book.)
Who are your favorite authors?
What are some of the books you have acquired?
Have you ever acquired something from the slush pile? (Not every editor can say yes to this. This can be instructive regarding your chances of getting acquired this way.)
How many books do you usually acquire every year? (Again instructive for your chances. Obviously if the editor only acquires 2 books a year, both normally submitted by agents, you shouldn't pin all your hopes on this editor.)

All of these questions help you get to know the editor and will help you determine whether or not your manuscript is something that might interest the editor in question. For example, I interviewed an editor who automatically rejects all high fantasies that come his way simply because they do not fit with his list. He does fantasy, but only those grounded in our reality. So, if you've written a grand epic tale set in a world like Middle Earth there would be no point in submitting to this particular editor. It would merely waste your time and his.

Winner!

2011-02-23T09:29:00.003-06:00

We have a winner for our contest! Congratulations to BN Lippy for her "The Book of Yet to Come." It was a very close race with both stories in the lead at various times. However, Lippy ended up receiving 55% of the votes.

Congratulations to both of you for being finalists. I look forward to reading more entries from you both.

And thank you to the 67 people who voted. That was a great turnout.

A Little Dribble Drabble Voting

2011-02-21T11:41:00.004-06:00

I have a dilemma. When I went to judge the Drabble contest this morning, I found that there were two stories that I liked best, the ones by Estela and BN Lippy. That happens all the time in contest entries, but in this case I found that I didn't find myself leaning more to one than the other. In fact, I like them both equally, a rare occurrence. Normally, I would then just award 2 prizes and say, "Yeah!" But this weekend I truly only have time for one critique and to try to do 2 would either result in 2 lesser critiques or 1 just not getting done. So, I find I have to award only one winner.

And that's where you come in. I'm going to open the contest up to voting. I'm going to post both stories here, and then you, dear readers, will vote for the winner. Now, I've limited voting to once a computer (although if you have multiple computers I suppose you can pack the pot), and voting is only open through 11:45 Tuesday night.

Presenting my two contestants (in order of their posts):

HALF BAKED

I opened the carton and groaned. "One egg is not enough."

I prayed to Recipe, the Egyptian goddess of the kitchen. Just then, the doorbell rang. My neighbors. "We're leaving town. Could you use some eggs?"

"Absolutely!"

Then I couldn't find chocolate chips. I prayed to Recipe again.

"Cool." yelled my brother a moment later. "A chocolate bar under the sofa cushions!"

"I need that."

I mixed, put everything in the oven, and turned on the TV.

"What's that burning smell?"

Suddenly, Recipe appeared. "You are hopeless, even for a mortal. Here's some money. Go buy yourself an ice cream."

and

THE BOOK OF YET TO COME

Ryan is drawn to a worn leather book with no publisher or author listed.

Under the title on the first page he reads the following, “Ryan opens the book and sees no publisher or author. Curious, he watches as each word appears.”

“Ryan, this book is not for you,” says the librarian quietly. “It’s mischievous and from a different time.”

Ryan looks up with glazed eyes.

She takes the book.

“Here’s a book about Omm Ali Cocoa you’ll enjoy.”

The spell is broken when the book leaves his hands

He won’t remember the mysterious book; until it finds him again.

To vote, click the button by your favorite below.

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Drabble Contest

2011-02-18T07:43:00.002-06:00

This week I've been talking about short stories, and I think the time has come for us to practice them. So, I'm going to do a Drabble contest this week. A drabble is a short story of exactly 100 words (not including the title). That means your entry has to be exactly 100 words (plus title). Not 99, not 101, but exactly 100 words. Challenging, I know.

And just to make it more interesting, you have to use your #storystarts entries as well. The title of your story will be the #storystarts entry from this week, and you must at least mention your Egyptian God #storystarts from a couple of weeks ago.

Now, I realize not that many people entered the #storystarts this round, and for this one contest that is OK. Make up an Egyptian God and a title and go ahead and submit your story. However, from this point on, I plan to run a blog contest incorporating the #storystarts contest entries every few weeks. In order to enter those contests, you will have to have entered the related #storystarts. And the blog contests' prizes will always be something like critiques or a chance to query or submit even though submissions are closed.

And that leads me to the prize for this week: A free conference-style critique of the first three chapters of any children's manuscript you may want reviewed. (Or if you prefer, three picture book manuscripts.) This will be the same kind of critique you would get from me at a conference (without the in-person part) or if you had hired me to do the same. (Yes, I am a freelance editor although because I'm busy, I don't do a lot of outside work.)

To enter this contest, paste your title and 100 hundred word Drabble into the comments field below. This is not a critique board, so don't comment on other people's entries. Merely submit your own. You have until 11:59 CST Sunday night to get your entry up, and I will select the winner on Monday or Tuesday.

I know just how hard it is to write a full short story in 100 words, so I wish all of you the best of luck!

Microscopic Fiction

2011-02-16T09:14:00.002-06:00

One of my favorite types of short story is the the microfiction or flash fiction style of short story. Although varying in length, these tales are told in extremely limited word counts -- often under 500 words. And unlike a picture book manuscript of a similar length, these stories are published unillustrated forcing the author to rely solely on words. Some good examples of children's microfiction include Aesop's Fables and some of the shorter fairy tales.

As with all short stories, these have at least one major character and a full plot with beginning , middle, and end. There is a conflict and some sort of obstacle for the protagonist to overcome. The story can be action-packed or quietly introspective, but one thing all of them have in common is their length. A micro-fiction is short.

And that brings me to this week's #storystarts Twitter contest. It is to think up a short story title. The winner of the Twitter contest will get an ARC copy of The Beastly Bride, a short story collection edited by Datlow & Windling. They do some really great teen anthologies that are themed around various folk, fairy tale, or mythological theme.

However, when you choose your title think carefully. On Friday I will be doing a blog contest that will be incorporating my #storystarts contests. I'm not going to tell you exactly what the contest is until Friday, but I will let you know that the prize will be a three chapter (or 3 PB manuscript) critique.

Short Stories

2011-02-14T13:51:00.002-06:00

I like short stories. I like being able to read an entire plot arc in 15-20 minutes, to be able to pick up a story and read the whole thing at the doctor's office or while waiting in the car while someone runs an errand.

It's probably a good thing that I like short stories so much since I've been reading quite a few of them in my picture book submissions. Because word counts tend to be similar between a short story and a picture book manuscript, I can see how the two could be confused. In fact I talked about this recently in my Short Story MS vs Picture Book MS: There is a difference post. I'm not going to recap that discussion here. What I thought I would do instead is discuss some of the things that make a good short story.

Good short stories have:

A complete story arc.
Yes, that's right. A good short story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If it doesn't the tale is probably an anecdote or even just a scene from something longer.
Compelling characters.
Just because you have fewer words doesn't mean your characters get to be types. If your character is an uninteresting stereotype, then I'm not any more inclined to read his/her 5 page story than I was to read his/her 500 page novel.
Focused.
Since you are working in a smaller (word) space, a short story has to be more tightly focused than a novel. There often can't be any subplots, and there tend to be fewer supporting characters. Take as an example the difference between Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" and Ender's Game. The short story does not mention Ender's siblings and the politics of Earth. It also starts earlier and ends earlier in the novel's plot line.
Judicious use of summary.
You can get away with more summary in a short story, but you still can't use it much. After all, scenes are so much more interesting to read.

What's in a Name?

2011-02-10T10:02:00.003-06:00

This post falls under the "somewhat random" category; however, I have recently been thinking about pen names.

Pen names intrigue me. They can be powerful marketing tools for branding a series or even a particular style for an author. Think Lemony Snicket. They can allow an author famous for one type of book to publish in another genre without alienating existing fans. They can be clever characters in the novels themselves like Vordak the Incomprehensible or even allow a first person book to be "by" the character in question.

However, most of the time pen names are used by book packagers with ghost-writing teams to provide a cohesive author name for a series. (The most famous would be Dixon for the Hardy Boys or Keene for Nancy Drew. Neither of these people exist. Both series were developed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. A more modern example would be James Frey's new projects.) And this I understand as a logical marketing tool. It is confusing to read 14 books that all sound exactly the same but have 12 different authors. It also can be nightmarish from a shelving perspective since books tend to be alphabetical by author. (39 Clues was a real pain this way.)

What are your opinions of pen names?

Beating the Blockage

2011-02-08T10:46:00.002-06:00

The nice thing about writer's block is sometimes just writing about it can help it go away. It's like the old belief that knowing someone's name gives you power over that person. By naming my writer's block, I robbed it of its power, and thus it went away.

In other words, yesterday I powered through and finally managed to write my 300 word intro. I know. Impressive stats. And what's even better, the intro that yesterday I thought was possibly the worst thing I'd ever written, today reads as not so bad, and a decent base for a rewrite. So, the other moral of this story is to always let your writing sit for a bit before judging it. What was once brilliant may become more flawed and the direst muck may turn out to have some redeeming value. It's just to hard to tell when you are coming off the high (or low) of initial writing.

And thank everyone for your comments yesterday. I especially liked the "all editors were one step lower than God". I guess that would make me a literary angel. I like that.

Oh no. Writer's Block. Mine.

2011-02-07T15:01:00.002-06:00

I am currently working on an article about various small press editors for the next edition of the CWIM (Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market) guide for Writer's Digest. It's suppossed to be 1500 words. I have 117. I've had between 90 and 120 words for some time now, all in the first paragraph, all rewritten multiple times. The usual tricks for writer's block don't seem to be working. Things like:

Never removing your fingers from the keyboard, just keep typing until your character starts doing something interesting or back in line with the plot.
(Not real applicable for nonfiction, and I don't think my editors would appreciate it if I started inventing plot lines for them.)
Writing down everything that comes into your mind regardless of it's relevance.
(Although I'm sure my rather random passing thought about going back into time and trying to explain blood types to Sherlock Holmes & Watson and the relevance for forensic investigation is fascinating, it seems kind of inappropriate for my article.)
Not rereading what you wrote but continuing writing.
(I tried this for the second go at my intro paragraph. For some reason every sentence except the first started with "After all,".)

So, I have instead opted for asking for help. I'm trying to describe what people who have never met them think of editors. Now, I realize that for many of you this might take you back a bit, but I would like everyone to pretend that you are once again an unpublished, unseasoned author at your very first writer's conference who has discovered that for some reason you've been seated next to an editor at the conference lunch. In a phrase or three separate words, describe how you feel. Then, describe again in a phrase or three separate words how the generic editor appears to you. (I don't mean physically, rather things like intimidating or approachable or evil incarnate or divine luck, that sort of thing.)

Twitter Winners

2011-02-03T10:37:00.002-06:00

Since this was the first contest and since there were only 3 entries and since I liked them all and have plenty of Amulet of Amon-Ras to giveaway, I have made an executive decision and have made all three entries winners. Yeah!

The three winners are: @clothdragon, @bnlippy, and @brykateemma

If you three would email or direct message me your physical address, I will get those books out to you next week.

(Oh, my email is found on every page of the CBAY site.)

Twitter Contest

2011-02-02T09:21:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of books at home. Some of them are CBAY Books that I set aside as giveaways that I then never gave away, and some of these books are readers (either for CBAY Books or other publishers). But the one thing all of these books have in common is that they are middle grade or teen books, and they all need to go away. And being the kind, generous person I am, I have decided to give them away to my blog/Twitter followers. However, to make this more fun, I have decided to have a weekly Twitter contest for them.

Here's how it will work. Every week at a random time, I will post a tweet that starts with #storystarts. Then I will give you a writing assignment that can be done in 140 characters. After that, I'll list the prize for that week. Example of a tweet could be:

#storystarts Spaceship haiku. Go. Prize: Necropolis ARC

To enter the contest, reply to the tweet with your answer to the writing assignment. So, to enter my sample contest above, you would reply tweet me your spaceship haiku. Each contest will be open for 24 hours at the end of which I'll pick the winner(s). At my discretion (and based on prize availability), I may pick more than one winner. I'll then contact you to get an address and mail you your book. Because I'm eating shipping, at this point, this contest is only open to folks in the United States. That may change in the future, but for now, I'm having to stick to it.

Finally, the #storystarts I provide may be silly, serious, or downright strange, but hopefully they will motivate and inspire your writing. None of these should take more than a few moments to do, and hopefully, they'll be a good diversion from your writing projects. For the first contest tweet, head on over to me Twitter feed now.

(Note: Sometimes I post writing prompts. Those are not part of the contest. Only tweets that start with #storystart are contests right now.)

Submissions Recap

2011-02-01T11:32:00.002-06:00

So, I must say, this seemed like quite a successful submission period. We had over 200 submissions (211 to be exact) and some good potential CBAY books. I haven't gotten to look at all of them yet, but I am looking forward to it. Just so everyone knows, with this number I'll be able to look at each one personally. Im about 2/3 through, and I hope to finish by next weekend. We definitely should be able to get back to everyone in 6 weeks -- half what I was expecting.

And once again I'd like to thank everyone for the professional submissions. I didn't have a singl blog worthy example in the whole bunch.

Final Picture Book Submission Reminder

2011-01-31T13:12:00.004-06:00

Remember, today is the absolute last day to submit your picture book to CBAY Books. After today, we are going to close submissions again for a little while (specifically until we've responded to all of these.)

If you are planning to submit, be sure to read the submission guidelines, and then drop your manuscripts our way.

A Little Barnes & Noble Love

2011-01-28T08:12:00.000-06:00

I know it seems a little bit like I've been knocking Barnes & Noble all week. In reality I've been railing against the returns system prevalent in our industry and Barnes & Noble happens to be a part of it. For better or worse, Barnes & Noble is the most visible retailer out there right now, and so its name factored into my discussion more than it would have otherwise.

But when it comes to Barnes & Noble in other respects, I am quite fond of them. They are, by far, my favorite chain and one of my preferred booksellers in general. I would not have put in 20-32 hour weeks when I worked there if it was otherwise. (In fact I wouldn't have worked for them in the first place if I hadn't liked them. The picture is of me with some of the author and illustrators and contest winners when I edited Summer Shorts. We are at, yes, Barnes & Noble.)

And let's face it, Barnes & Noble is CBAY's bookselling best friend. With the exception of BookPeople and Powells, no other bookstore has carried CBAY books on their shelves as consistently as Barnes & Noble. And although I love my indies, B&N has a greater nation-wide reach.

So, I thought I'd throw a little love Barnes & Nobles way, and they have made it so very easy. When I was perusing all the different bookstore sites to check the information on CBAY's upcoming debut teen novel, Dry Souls, I discovered that B&N already has the book discounted when no one else does. I would like to encourage you to head on over there and pre-order now while it's 10% off. I have no idea how long that will last. They've never done it for one of my pre-orders before.

And just so you'll be tempted, I have a pdf of the first 5 chapters (nearly 20% of the book!) for you to whet your appetite on. I've read it in iBooks and Kobo on my iPad, and it should work on the Kindle and Nook, and of course on any computer. To download this free teaser, click here.

Returns from the (or my) Perspective as a Bookseller

2011-01-26T09:13:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I talked about how returns can be not so good for the publisher (any publisher, not just me). Today we'll talk about how returns are not always so good for the bookseller either.

Don't get me wrong. There are some serious pros from a bookseller's perspective for keeping the returns model. And since in my other line of work I am a bookseller, I can tell you what those are. (And I can even sympathize and agree with them.)

Reduction of Risk -- this is a biggie, and it's going to be a hard one to convince booksellers to give up. When a bookseller orders a book knowing that he/she will be able to send back unsold copies, it pretty much eliminates the risk. Yes, there are costs for the bookseller to doing returns (I'll talk about them below), but in general they vastly outweigh the risks of being left with stock you just can't get rid of (even with sales).
Allows Optimism -- Say you're a bookseller who has read the ARC of a book and doesn't particularly like it. You think it might do okay at your store, so you order a copy or two for the shelf. Then the publisher's sales rep comes in all bubbly about that book. You may not like it but they are expecting x number of star reviews and they're going to do y number of marketing things and be on z number of talk shows, and in the end the rep convinces you to take a 12 book dump. Because of your reduced risk above you can buy this dump even if you don't think that book will do all that great. And if your gut turns out to be right, you just return those extra 10 books back. (All right, this pretty much has never happened at our store because I work for some astute buyers. However if there is a doubt in their mind, they do err on the side of over rather than under ordering because they know they can return.)
Allows Events to Have Enough Books -- And this is the only part of the returns system where the bookseller and the publisher in me agree. Books ordered specifically for an event should be returnable. Period. You never, ever want an event with too few books. I've worked events like that as both a bookseller and once as a publisher, and it is just a nightmare for all involved. You end up with missed sales, unhappy customers, unhappy authors, and stressed out bookstore and publisher staff. In this case returning the books is worth any loss on both sides.
Take Orders without Prepayment -- Right now you can place an order at most bookstores for a book they don't have in stock without prepaying as long as the book is returnable. Why can't you do this for nonreturnable books? Because a majority of books that are special ordered for customers are never picked up or are rejected when the book arrives. Of course, I have a pretty simple solution for that dilemma, but it would probably reduce the number of people placing special orders to those who actually want the book.

Those pros I just listed are pretty powerful, but don't think that bookstores are in the returns system cost free. There are:

Shipping costs -- most bookstores pay their own shipping to return books. (I don't know about B&N. When I worked there I was not in receiving but on the floor. I pulled returns, but didn't box them up.) Shipping books ain't cheap.
Labor costs -- employees have to physically get the books off the shelf to return. At B&N we were expected to spend a minimum of 25% of our week "zoning" which meant going through bookshelves with a scanner listening for the little ding that told us a book was marked for return. We were also supposed to be alphabetizing and making sure the book belonged on that shelf, but nearly all of us just ended up in a zone that glazed over and listened for the return. At the indie I'm at, we have an employee solely dedicated to returns.
Loss of profit -- This is the biggest drawback for a bookstore especially the independents. (Barnes & Noble buys differently. It also returns differently. When I did my post yesterday, I did a generic bookstore, not B&N. I actually lose more on a B&N return than one from anyone else. However, my issue is not with B&N, but the returns policy of the industry in general.) When most bookstores purchase directly from a publisher or distributor, they receive a 47% discount (unless there is a promotion). I'm not divulging a trade secret. You can find this discount in every catalog and publisher website out there. This is actually just barely enough for a bookstore to turn a profit. It's one of the reasons so many are now going under. Many bookstores have greatly expanded their remainders and sideline (gift things) sections because these items are purchased at a greater discount. (Oh, and look, not surprisingly, these things are non-returnable.)

So, really in the end the only people truly profiting from this are the sales reps (who keep their commissions regardless) and the shippers (like FedEx) who are moving all these books back and forth. And I can't really blame the sales reps for working the system. After all, they've seen their numbers greatly reduced, their pay and commissions cut, and their workloads greatly increased. *

But my big question for us all -- authors, publishers, and booksellers alike -- to ponder is:

Why if returns are bad for publishers and not that great for booksellers, does the returns system persist?

Eric over at Pimp My Novel has a theory on just this issue.

What do you think?

*(Again, all of this is my personal opinion and was reached by observation in the bookstores I've worked at. I have not had long heart-to-hearts with buyers on this topic, and I've done a total of 0 research on it from a retailer's perspective. And the store I'm at has a great kids' buyer. Although rates for a particular book vary, the return rate for our section (excluding events, off-site bookfairs, and Christmas catalog books) appears to me to be in the 5% range. We do not over-order bestsellers for display purposes, and many of our books remain on our shelves past the returns period. When they still don't sell, we mark them down. The primary way BookPeople clears space in the kids' section for new books is by selling the existing inventory, not returning it.)

The Secret Loss of a Returned Book

2011-01-25T09:35:00.002-06:00

If I was a paranoid person, I might think Barnes & Noble had it out for me. Now in reality, the powers that be at B&N haven't the faintest idea who I am. I am just one or two pages in the NBN catalog -- pretty much indistinguishable from every other publisher in there. And from Barnes & Noble's perspective, they actually probably like me. After all, for the two books I put out in 2010 (Book of Maps & The Necropolis), they purchased nearly the entire print run of each. (In fact for Book of Maps, they originally ordered 3x the print run before I pointed out to NBN how unrealistic that was.) And in any other industry, that would be it. I'd pay my authors their royalties and take my remaining money to the bank.

But this is the book industry, and unlike literally every other industry on the planet, we allow returns.

And this is why I become paranoid about Barnes & Noble's intentions. Because although they bought nearly the whole print run of Book 3 of both The Sacred Books and the The Forgotten Worlds Series, they didn't buy any of 1 or 2. You can probably guess how many casual shoppers randomly buy the third book in a series. And since I know my sales numbers for book 2 (a reasonable forecast of sales for book 3), I can tell returns are going to be somewhere in the 85% range. If I'm lucky.

Large scale returns for me are, to put it bluntly, devastating. It would be cheaper for me to print books and toss them directly into a recycle bin or a bonfire or use them to build furniture than it is for me to sell a book and have it returned. Let's do the math:

Say I have a book that retails for $1.00.

That book sells to a bookstore at a discount that we'll say is 50%. (Discounts to people who buy from NBN vary from 47-60%, but 50 is the easiest number to use.) From there it goes to the store shelves. Yeah! On my end I've gotten $0.50. My distributor takes its cut of (this is not the actual number since I legally can't disclose that but an approximate that again is easier to do the math with) of 20% or $0.10 and my author (again this varies but we'll average for ease) gets 10% of that $0.50 or $0.05. I'm now down to $0.35 which after factoring in the cost of printing the book drops to $0.10. I then spend half of that in marketing, and finally I'm left with 5 cents.

(You may have noticed that the author and publisher make the same amount. This is intentional. Authors are considered an equal partner in each book.)

So far everything is looking good for all involved. The bookstore is getting to sell at a 100% markup, the distributor is getting its cut for its hard working sales force, and the author and I are equally sharing the profits. Great.

But then 90 days pass and the bookstore can return any unsold stock. The bookstore employee pulls the book from the shelf and returns it to NBN. Since they get a full credit, I have to give the bookstore back $0.50 for that book. But wait! I only actually got $0.35 for that book. I had to give $0.10 to my distributor and $0.05 to my author. Well, my author isn't going to get to keep that money. We're partners so if the book doesn't sell, neither of us gets anything. That royalty gets credited back to me. (However, if a royalty check has been paid, the author does not send me money back. That check just acts like another advance that has to be earned out. An author never, ever sends me money except for books that he/she buys directly from me.) However, my distributor keeps the money I paid it.

So, to make a long story short, instead of making 5 cents on that book, I have lost 10. If we were talking about one of my real $16.95 hardcover books instead of this hypothetical book, that would mean that instead of making $0.85 on that book, I've lost $1.70.

Let's extrapolate that out. Pretend my print run was only 100 books, of which a bookstore sells 15 and returns 85. On the 15 books, I make $12.75. On the returned books, I lose $144.50. That means on that initial 100 book sale, I lost $131.75. In fact in order to break even on sales with returns, no more than 33% of the books can be returned.

The industry average is around 30%. So, for most books, most publishers are breaking even or turning small profits. With a hundred book sale and the industry return rate, I could make $8.50 on my book.

However, I will not be getting the industry average. My return rate is going to be much higher guaranteeing me a loss. And even if I do eventually sell all of those books again and never receive another return, I will still never recoup all of those return expenses unless I print more books at the same print rate. After all, it takes two books' sales to recoup the loss of one return. And since I had printed what I had projected would be the lifetime sales for those two books, there will be no other print runs. By buying my entire print run and then returning most of it, Barnes & Noble has guaranteed that those two books will never be profitable (or even break even) for me.

See. They totally have it out for me.*

*All right. I know Barnes & Noble doesn't have it out for me. They had no way of knowing what my print run was or that they'd bought it out or what the returns on the book would be. I doubt anyone ran sales numbers on the previous books, so the buyer and my NBN sales rep would have just placed an order for the amount they normally order for new midlist books. (The same size order they would have placed with say Harper or Random.) The fact is, I hadn't expected B&N to pick up these book for nation-wide store shelves when they hadn't picked up the first 2. I had figured it would just carry them online and in a few regional markets. The fact that they are now starting to pick up my books more consistently means that I have made adjustments to this and to advance marketing practices. They won't catch me by surprise like this again. However, it is much more fun to play paranoid than to admit I wasn't prepared for a chain pick-up.

Publisher Math

2011-01-24T12:42:00.002-06:00

So, I had planned on doing a long detailed rant on why returns were killing publishers (specifically me) that was filled with glorious numbers and might help authors and aspiring authors better understand a less well-known aspect of the book business. However, before I started, I ran across this charming post about Bookseller Math. I decided to put off the returns post until tomorrow and instead write a companion post called Publisher Math. I present it now:

Publisher Math
By Me

Like booksellers, publishers are inundated by numbers all day long -- and I'm not talking about sales or returns figures or that number on the bottom of a P&L that determines whether or not a book should be published. (And yes, all books no matter how brilliant, all come down to that single number in the end.) I mean that we also have our own mathematical way of looking at the world. If life were a university, then all the people in the publishing field would have to take a year long comprehensive course entitled Publishers' Math 101. The units would include:

Statistics (Law of Averages) -- As you learn in statistics everything tends to trend to the middle of the pack. (Hence the infamous bell curve in grading.) You may have a few bestsellers and a few real duds, but most books fall somewhere in the middle. And for publishers this means you always have to remember the Law of Averages. What would the "average" reader like? What does the "average" kid prefer? What will the "average" sales be every month? What are the books "average" shelf life? Is it any wonder that many books in the marketplace are what we consider to be average?
Trigonometry -- When I take my sales numbers and have Excel make fancy graphs, they always create pretty little sines and cosines. Like waves, sales have troughs and peaks. Have a particularly successful marketing push? Get a peak. However, it's always followed by a trough. Always.
Negative numbers -- The amount a publisher makes after returns come back. See tomorrow.
Fractals -- Put simply, a fractal is something that when broken into smaller pieces, those smaller pieces look remarkably like the whole. Because of this, fractals are considered "infinitely complex." Is there a better way to describe what an outsider sees when they look at the publishing industry than infinitely complex?
Chaos Theory -- Although most evident during large trade shows like BEA or ALA, chaos can invade at any point in the publishing process. And sometimes even the smallest things (an extra dash in the ISBN of an ARC) can grind everything into a screeching halt.
Zero-sum -- What a publisher feels like at the end of a book's life (especially with a book with high sales but high returns). You haven't really lost much but it doesn't feel like you've gained much either.

Publisher Math can be a hard thing to sit down and face. Like Bookseller Math, it can be full of low percentages and negative numbers. It's actually a wonder, after running the numbers, that there are any publishers at all.

Sublime Submissions

2011-01-20T09:58:00.002-06:00

Normally submissions are great inspiration for the blog. I get all sorts of weird and wacky things when submissions are open, like that time the person submitted his/her entire manuscript on purple paper (because purple was a Blooming Tree color?) or the individual that packaged his/her submission with a handful of glitter.

Ah, memories.

But this submission round I so far find myself curiously lacking instructive submissions. Every one I've seen has been professional with well written cover letters and a decided lack of quirkiness.

Bravo.

Heartfelt Thank You

2011-01-18T09:41:00.000-06:00

Last week I asked for your opinion concerning a couple of different cover options for The Book of All Things. I had hoped I would get maybe 10 responses. Much to my surprise, I had 45. Since I had never planned on making the results secret (I didn't realize the poll wouldn't show results), here is the clear winner:

With 34 votes (76%):

The other covers received 5 votes (11%) and 6 votes (13%) for the Rainbow and other cover, respectively.

So, thank you in helping us out. Also to those 7 of you who went above and beyond to post your actual comments, I'm very appreciative for the feedback.

A Small Note About Rejections

2011-01-17T08:33:00.000-06:00

Although CBAY is still accepting picture book submissions through the end of the month, we will begin contacting the people whose submissions we've already read starting tomorrow.

That means that starting tomorrow, some people will begin to receive rejection letters.

Yes, the dreaded rejection letter.

Unfortunately, the reality is that most submissions will have to be rejected. We're looking for 1, maybe 2, manuscripts at this time, and we've already received 20 or 30 times that. And submissions have only been open for 2 days.

With that having been said, please keep the following in mind. (And this is true of any rejection letter you may ever receive either from me or anyone else):

Do not take it personal.
Form letters, especially, are the most impersonal thing you can get. However, most of the time what they say on them -- that "Your manuscript does not meet our needs at this time" -- is literally what they mean. I've personally read every submissions so far, and I can tell you that not a single one of them is irredeemable. In fact there are several good stories out there that will still be receiving form rejections simply because they either do not fit in with our list or was a short story manuscript instead of a picture book manuscript. There was nothing wrong with the writing or style. They just literally don't "meet our needs at this time."
Do not be insulted by a form rejection.
I did the math the other day. A form rejection takes 2-3 minutes to do. A short personal rejection can take 15 minutes or more. So, let's say pick a number and say I (well, Intern) have 100 rejections to do. Even with a form rejection, that's going to take us 300 minutes or 5 hours to get out. Personal rejections would take at a minimum 25 hours. We don't have 3 work days to dedicate to rejection letters. It's just not feasible. So, as depressing and soul-sucking as form rejections are for both us and you, it's a necessary evil. Pretty much all publishing houses eventually have to succumb to them.
Do not let them deter you from writing.
Like I said above, a rejection letter does not mean you can't write or will never get published. It just means that that particular work is not right for that editor or agent. Keep looking for that perfect match. Do not give up. (Personally, I don't know a single author who has never received a single rejection for something. I know I have.)

I know rejections are a miserable occasion, and although you might not believe it, we dislike them just as much as you. No one likes to disappoint others. However, it's one of the reasons we are going to try to start getting them out so quickly. We don't want you sitting around waiting on us when you could be submitting your work to someone else.

In 3, 2, 1...

2011-01-14T10:48:00.002-06:00

Let the countdown officially begin. Tomorrow at midnight exactly, CBAY will briefly open submissions again for the first time in three years. Three years! I know accepting submissions is a commonplace thing at other publishers, but it's been so long for us that this has turned into a pivotal, logistics-meeting inspiring kind of event. We're excited and nervous and upbeat about the coming avalanche. Personally, I have goose bumps.

For the first time in quite sometime, I will once again be covered in slush even if it is all of the electronic variety.

So, I want to wish all of you submitters luck, and to tell you not to be to stressed about the whole thing. Take a deep breath and hit send. We'll be eagerly waiting to look at it over here.

Rock the (Cover) Vote

2011-01-12T15:01:00.003-06:00

Earlier this week I said that I was working feverishly on various projects to get them done before submissions started. One of those projects is the cover for the fourth in the Sacred Books Series, The Book of All Things.

I have developed various covers, one of which is my favorite, and one which is the author's. They are not the same.

So, I could now use a little help from all of you. Below you will find the top three cover options (so far). Look at the covers, click them to see them full size, and then ask yourself, "Which book is the one I would want to buy?"

After that, please vote in my cover poll below. The more input I get, the more statistically significant the outcome. So vote! Show your friends and family and have them vote!

Thanks!

Basic Black

Rainbow Connection

Heavy Metal

&amp;lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/s/099C6E1E76DC3AE4"&amp;gt;View Survey&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Checklist for Submitting

2011-01-11T12:31:00.003-06:00

The final days are approaching until we start picture book submissions. Based on some of the questions and emails I've been getting, I can tell that people are starting to get nervous. To help reduce some of that stress, I've compiled a handy little checklist to go through before you hit the send button submitting your manuscript to us. Admittedly, this list is geared for this particular submission, but you can use it for just about any submissions (both online and off) that you make.

For a printable version you can check off yourself (that does not have my colorful commentary of each item), click here.

Checklist for Submissions
(As compiled by the Buried Editor)

Cover Letter:

Correct Editor/Agent Name and spelled correctly -- getting this wrong will get our backs up every time
Correct Publishing House/Agency and spelled correctly -- ditto
Correct Address/Email address -- or it might not get to us at all
Formal salutation -- remember, this is a professional introduction
Introductory paragraph providing context (why you are submitting, where you met editor, etc.) -- tell the truth, after all we don't really care that much, this just helps us jog our memories
Pitch paragraph(s)

Title of manuscript -- amazing the number of people that forget this
Manuscript’s genre -- useful
Age range for manuscript -- granted, we can tell when we read the manuscript, but this helps us in the beginning know whether or not its even something we are looking for and whether or not you know
Summary of manuscript -- this is where you really sell us on the work

Series paragraph (optional)

Title of series -- a bad tentative title is better than nothing
Projected number of books in series -- if you're working on an extended plot series (think Harry Potter) you should know, otherwise, the number you want to write

Biography paragraph

Publishing experience -- do not list every instance. Send a CV for that. Hit the relevant highlights here
Relevant education
Trade organization memberships (SCBWI, etc.)

Thank you for allowing submission/Request to send manuscript if a query -- word politely, after all there's no point in alienating the editor/agent by demanding
Signature -- remember to actually sign a physical letter (I forget all the time!)
Your correct contact information

Email -- if it's wrong I won't be able to reach you
Phone -- ditto
Website -- if you have one. If you don't, it's not necessary.
Blog -- if you have one. If you don't, it's not necessary.
Address -- optional in electronic submissions

Proofread letter -- missing words in letters happen, but it can be annoying and make for strange sentences

Spell-check -- computer should do it, but always double check

Have someone else read & critique letter -- you will never find all of your own errors. This is very important to have someone who is honest with you do this

Professionalism -- making sure it isn't too casual
Coherence -- nerves can come out in writing leading to odd sentences (or sometimes a word is missing or its homonym was used)
Interesting portrayal of pitch paragraph(s) -- did it interest your reader. If not, it probably won't interest me either.

Manuscript:

Formatted Properly -- seriously, folks do this right. It's such a little thing but so frustrating when wrong. And it makes the things very hard to read.

If printed or attached as document:

Double spaced
12 point font (Arial, Times)
1 inch margins
Paginated
Last name and manuscript title on every page (use header/footer function)
White paper/black type -- never, ever change this. I never want to see purple paper submissions again.

If included in body of email:

Single spaced
Double spaced between paragraph
No tabs
Standard font and sizes
Black type -- Green on white is almost impossible to read. Letters typed in green are going straight in the trash.

Contains title and pen name if different from author -- again, amazing numbers of people forget to put in the title
Does not contain strange page breaks or break text up into specific pages (especially important for picture books) -- This means don't tell me that "Stop!" is on page 1 and "In the name" is on page 2 and "of love." is on page 3. Simply write, "Stop! In the name of love"
Gripping beginning -- or I might not read on
Compelling middle -- to keep me reading
Conclusive end -- cliff hangars are one thing, but just leaving me dangling is uncool
Good strong characters -- weaklings need not apply
Shows not tells -- when appropriate. Obviously, some summary is occasionally needed, but it's more interesting to read scenes.
Consistent internal logic throughout story -- if your characters live in a world that never invented contractions do not suddenly have them "can't" and "won't" all over the place (unless of course they have just discovered contractions in a momentous scene)
Manuscript has been proofread -- again, missing words make for strange stuff
Manuscript has been critiqued -- you don't generally want to send something you just finished the night before no matter how brilliant you currently think it is
Manuscript has been revised -- at least consider your critiquer's advice although you don't have to take it
Manuscript has been sitting on your computer long enough and just needs to make its way into the world now. What are you waiting for? Send it! -- there's such a thing as too much revision. At some point you have to send your manuscript away and see what happens!

Submission Questions

2011-01-10T12:39:00.003-06:00

Just think, in only 5 days (5 days!) our submission period for picture books will begin. We’ve been ~~bracing ourselves~~ getting very excited over the prospect of all of those submissions. We've also been getting some great questions that I want to share with you today.

If I'm submitting several books in a series, should they all go in one email or still be submitted in separate emails?

Actually, if you have several books in a series, you only really need to submit the first one. After all, if we don't like the first one, we probably aren't going to be to into the rest of the series, especially if they build on one another or are interdependent. What you should do for that first one though is make sure you include in your cover letter that it is the first in a series and then describe the series a bit.

However, if you would still like to send multiple books, be sure to send them in separate emails. With the dummies this is essential to make sure the emails don't get to large and don't come through, but even with the manuscripts we prefer that they be separate for internal housekeeping reasons.

Can I submit early?

No.

Really, there would be no point. We're not going to look at them before the 15th. In fact, this week is a busy week to ensure that we will have time to start processing through the submissions next week. Also, we're trying to keep that email open for questions right now. If a bunch of submissions start coming in, those questions are going to get lost.

Can I submit more than five?

No.

Seriously, if you can't narrow it down to five, you aren't being discriminating enough. Have a trusted, yet honest, friend help you. I really should only be asking for 1 or 2, but I'm aware that what I think is your best isn't what you may think is your best. So, I'm giving you the benefit of a few more submissions. After all, picture books are short and can be gone through pretty fast.

I don't have a completed dummy, but I am a professional illustrator interested in illustrating my own book. What should I do?

In that case, submit with the authors and do a regular manuscript submission (Subject line: Fantasy or Science Fiction Picture Book Submission), but attach a sample illustration from your book instead of a dummy. Illustrations should be high resolutions jpgs, gifs, or pdfs.

My dummy does not contain any color illustrations. Can I still submit it?

Obviously if you are never planning on black & white or spot color illustrations, you do not need to change your plan now. My request for a color cover and at least one full color illustration is to get an idea of your style, not because I am only considering color picture books. I'm willing to look at any illustrative style or medium or color palette. The more complete the dummy, the better sense I will get, but I can still work off rough but comprehensive sketches. However, again, please have at least the cover and one illustration complete. It's hard to visualize your water color style if all I see are pencil sketches.

Status Update Requests

2011-01-07T09:53:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I told you to not bother an editor/agent about the progress of your manuscript in the slush system. However, if you haven't heard from them within their stated response time (for me three months), you can follow up.

Keep in mind though, that you need to be polite and nonobtursive. Remember to not make demands or accuse the editor of laziness or slowness. (Admittedly no one has ever done that to me personally, but I have seen ones that other people have received. And let me tell you, nothing inspires someone to immediately go look up and accept your manuscript than an accusatory email. Wow, I could literally feel the sarcasm dripping from my fingers as I typed that last sentence.)

Instead, send a small polite email that tells your name, the day you submitted, the manuscript name, and politely, politely, request a status update.

If you do that, you won't offend anyone, and you'll get the info you are dying to receive.

A Small Post About Etiquette

2011-01-06T13:23:00.003-06:00

As everyone knows, there is always a polite way to go about doing things. In this age of reality shows where screaming makes you famous and atrocious behavior makes you money, this concept is sometimes forgotten. However, there are people (like say me and every other editor and agent on the planet) who appreciate courtesy. In fact, it will make you look more professional than the rude louts we all cringe at having to deal with. So, in that spirit, I have compiled a small list of polite things to consider when making an electronic submission.

If you are doing multiple submissions, you need to send multiple emails.
I am not saying you can't do a simultaneous submission if the editor/agent doesn't require exclusive submissions. That's fine. What I am saying is don't use the exact same "Dear Editor" email and then type a bunch of different editor emails into the To or Bcc field creating a mass email. For one thing, we can tell when this has happened, even when you use the Bcc field. (It's pretty obvious.) For another, it means that you haven't taken the time to personalize the email to anyone which means you probably haven't bothered to learn if your manuscript is even a good potential fit for the editor's list. You can use chunks of your cover letter for every editor (the pitch and bio paragraphs won't change much), but otherwise you should carefully consider each person you submit to, and make slight changes to suit that editor. Just as you shouldn't make xerox copies of a cover letter and stick it in a bunch of submission envelopes, you shouldn't send carbon copies of your email cover letter. Besides being kind of rude, it makes you look lazy.
Do not make demands.
Unfortunately for submitters, editors are the ones with all the power. (And let's face it, most of us only have a little bit compared to the Senior Editors or Editorial Directors or Publishers or other departments like Marketing that have a say in acquisitions. Very few have my luxury of owning the whole show.) We decide what is printed, when, and in what format, and our decisions are controlled by market forces as much as they are by our own tastes. This means that authors are in no position to make demands. Besides being annoying, they make you look clueless.
Do not tell me that passing on your book would be stupid or the greatest mistake of my life.
Do I really have to explain this one? No one, including me, likes having their intelligence doubted. It almost instantly puts a person in a negative mood no matter how much they try to resist it. Why would you want a person who is about to read your manuscript to now be in a less than stellar mood? And let's face it. I've done (and will do) many stupid things in my life, but passing on a manuscript has never even come close to making the top 1000.
Do not lie to me.
Lying makes you untrustworthy, and no one wants to do business with someone they can't trust. So, don't tell me that I critiqued you at a conference and asked for the manuscript if I didn't. Don't tell me your manuscript is under consideration with XYZ editor at ABC house if it's not. I will know if you're lying. Trust me.
Do disclose if you are doing a multiple submission.
They're fine with me, just tell me you're doing it. Also, let me know if it's under consideration at another house (an editor has told you he/she is considering it) or another house has offered for it. Although if you do have an offer and are submitting to me in the hopes of starting a bidding war, don't bother. I don't do bidding wars or participate in auctions. Finally, let me know if you are agented. (Because from that moment on I'll need to be talking to him/her not you.)
Do not email asking for progress on your submission.
If your manuscript is being seriously considered, you will know because I will email you. If you haven't heard from me within the three month waiting period, it's because I haven't gotten to your story yet and therefore have nothing to report. I can guarantee that will mean that your story will move to the bottom of the metaphorical pile, lengthening response time. Of course, that is just for annoying emails during the three month period I have said it will take to go through manuscripts. After the three months are up, it is fine to ask for a status update. We'll discuss how tomorrow.

My Baby Has Croup

2011-01-05T10:31:00.000-06:00

Now normally croup involves an annoying cough and is easily treatable. Sometimes, however, it involves vomiting, coughing, paleness, and an asthma-like wheeze (that's what I though it was) that does not stop for anything, and at 2:30 in the morning requires a trip to the ER. My child, of course, had the second one.

He is now absolutely fine thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and modern steroids. In fact, contrary to the doctor's predictions, he slept all of last night without a single wheeze or cough, and the croupy cough has in fact entirely disappeared.

I, on the other hand, did not sleep much at all choosing instead to sit in his room waiting for the moment when his breathing would become bad enough that I would have to stick his head in the freezer. (An actual remedy for croup. I am not making this up.) Fortunately that moment never came.

The result of all this is that I have (to all appearances) a healthy, rested toddler, and a zoned out Mama who not only can't remember what I planned on talking about today, but also can't think of something in it's place. I will resume discussing whatever it was I was discussing when I can once again remember what that was.

Ah, first time parenthood.

Electronic Cover Letters (Part 2)

2011-01-04T07:13:00.000-06:00

Like I said yesterday, the body of your electronic cover letter should be exactly the same sort of thing that you would put in a traditional hardcopy cover letter. Let's review what the content of each of those paragraphs should be:

Introduction
This paragraph is where you set the context for your submission. Did you meet the agent at a conference? Are you responding to a manuscript call? Were you referred by someone else? What this is not the place for is explaining how this book was written for your child/grandchild/niece or to explain that these are the true exploits of your most amazing and adorable cat. No matter how true these things may be, I don't need to know them, and they will mark you as an amateur.
One-Two paragraph pitch
The next one or two paragraphs should be your pitch of your book. Like a published book's jacket copy or a written, more detailed elevator pitch, this is a teaser that gives the overall major plot arcs of the story, a feel for the major characters, the genre and age range of the book, the themes you tackle, possibly the setting (if important), and anything else you feel is important and will help set your book apart from the other comparable books out there. You are not quoting or paraphrasing the text, merely summarizing, but if possible you should still try to convey your voice -- your own distinct writing style that makes your writing sound like you.
(*NOTE* These are very difficult to write but extremely important to get right. If this paragraph(s) does not interest the editor/agent reading it, there's a very good chance the rest of the letter and your manuscript will not get read either. This is not to paralyze you into incapacitating writer's block inducing fear, but merely to make you aware of the importance of a good pitch.)
Series pitch
If you see your book as the beginning of a series, this paragraph is the place to tell me about it. However, if you don't see this as a series (and despite the tale bookstore shelves may tell, not every book is the first in a series), do not suddenly try to develop one for your cover letter. Just skip on to the next paragraph. Besides, if your editor/agent ends up seeing it as a series, they will be happy to tell you. You'll then be left with the pesky little detail of trying to think one up. Worry about it then.
Biography
This is the place to tell me a little bit about yourself. But be professional here. I would like to know if you have a PhD in literacy or an MA in Children's Literature. I don't want to know that you've been reading children's books since you were a child. Also, this is the place for any professional associations that you belong to like SCBWI, Writer's Leagues, etc.
Conclusion
Since we are discussing cover letters for unsolicited manuscripts (and yes, answering a manuscript call is still technically an unsolicited manuscript), you would then thank the agent/editor and sign the letter. However, if we were discussing queries, this would be the place to politely ask to submit the manuscript.

Format-wise, the body of your email should look the same as a regular business letter: single spaced paragraphs with no indent and a double space in between. Do not use strange fonts or sizes. They will not make your email stand out, but merely make it annoying.

For a great discussion and annotated query letter, see Brooklyn Arden's post from a year ago. Although a query letter, all of the pertinent information is the same. I greatly admire this editor, and if you don't already follow this blog, you should consider doing so. She is a great resource of information.

Electronic Cover Letters (Part 1)

2011-01-03T08:44:00.000-06:00

In this day and age of electronic communication almost completely overtaking all other forms, I feel that electronic submissions are only going to become more and more common. As more agents and editors want files they can read on-screen (either on readers at home or on computers at work), more and more authors will be emailing instead of mailing submissions. This means we need to discuss electronic submission formats and etiquette. To that end, I'm going to devote the rest of this week to this very subject.

First up, let's discuss the electronic cover letter.

Now, in a traditional hard copy submission, you would place your cover letter on top of your manuscript. It would look like a standard business letter with the date, contact information, and the actual content of the letter. Obviously, an electronic letter is going to differ in several ways:

You don't need to date it or include your email or mailing address of the recipient.
All of these things are going to be automatically included in the email anyway.
You are going to need to have a subject line.
This line can easily be overlooked when you are busy worrying about the contents of your email. However, having a No Subject email is the surest way to have it deleted by the recipient unopened. If (like me) the editor/agent is specifically asking for a particular subject line, use it. Otherwise, here are some potential ones:

Requested Submission -- The best one, but it had better be true.
Submission from XYZ Conference Attendee -- For people who met an agent/editor at a conference and were invited or told to submit online.
Picture Book Submission, Teen Romance Submission, etc. -- No harm in naming it what it is.
Unsolicited Manuscript Submission -- Probably what most submissions are, but avoid using this unless specifically told to.

You will need to address the email to someone.
I don't mean the To: email line here. I mean that you will need to start your letter to Dear ____. This is a formal business email. Do not just start typing away as if this is a casual acquaintance.
You will need to sign your full name.
Again, this is a business email. Sign it "Sincerely" or "Thank you again" or something else appropriate with your full name. You are not just dropping them a line. You are approaching a potential business contact.
Add full contact information after your name.
This includes your phone number, website, and blog(s) if you have one. You can put your address if you like, but most likely the person will either call or reply to the email. You do not need to put your facebook or twitter links here. Even though editors and agents realize what great marketing tools these are, they are a more casual form of communication than websites or blogs. I would only have these if you have thousands of followers and you specifically mentioned them as potential marketing tools in your cover letter.

After you've worried about all this small stuff, you'll need to actually write the cover letter content. This should be the same thing you would put in a regular hardcopy cover letter. But, for folks who would like a refresher, we are going to discuss what that should be tomorrow.

New Year, New Goals

2011-01-01T14:22:00.003-06:00

Ah, a new year is upon us. And like everyone else, I have some resolutions specifically for CBAY. And I figure if I post them, that gives me some accountability (and makes it harder for me to have already forgotten them a week from now).

Get all of the backlist and frontlist titles made into ebooks. So, far only the Book of Nonsense has been started on the ebook journey. My goal is to have all of the backlist made by April, and the frontlist as the books come out.

Exhibit at TLA. Okay, so this one is kind of a cheat since I technically decided to do this a few days ago. But it still is going to require a fair bit of planning and work, so I'm going to include it.

Get all those websites up. I know Forgotten Worlds. It's coming. I swear.

Respond to submissions within 3 months. This one is going to be the hardest of all. Even with Intern and the form letter already written, it's going to take a while to work through all of the submissions I suspect I'll be getting in 2 weeks. I'm going to try though.

Now that I've got my list up, it's time for you to make your writing oriented list. I know you can do it.

Happy New Year!

Short Story MS vs Picture Book MS: There is a difference.

2010-12-29T11:31:00.003-06:00

In CBAY's new submission guidelines which go up to the general public on January 1, we made the following statement:

Please limit your picture book to 1500 words or less. We truly want to see manuscripts that were written as picture books. We are not interested in looking at short stories. Yes, there is a difference.

I had a couple of people ask me what that difference is -- an excellent question indeed.

Now, obviously there are some good short stories that have been made into picture books, and there are some picture book texts that would make good short stories. However, not every tale can go either way. The main difference between the two is, as you may have guessed, in the illustration possibilities.

A picture book is 32 pages long (including the frontspiece and the copyright page) which means there can be as few as 15 images (15 full page spreads over 30 pages) during the tale or as many as 120 (although that would be an extreme 4 images per page which I don't think I've ever seen). Most picture books fall somewhere in between with some full page spreads and some half page or spot illustrations. Some older or classically styled picture books will contain 3/4 spreads with the text off on one side separate from the picture. The actual layout and style of the illustrations is not important from a manuscript perspective. What is important is that there are a minimum of 15 different visual images in the text. In other words, there are at least 15 different scenes for the illustrator to draw.

Let's use fairy tales as an example. There were literally hundreds of fairy tales collected by Grimm Brothers, but only a handful are constantly being reworked into picture books. The ones that are have lots of action and changes in scenery. Take "Little Red Riding Hood." Scenery wise, you have:

Little Red's House
The woods
Grandma's house -- both inside and out.

Action wise, you have:

Little Red being given the basket
Meeting the Wolf
Picking flowers
The wolf sneaking to Grandma's by the quicker path
The wolf eating grandma (or stuffing her in the closet)
The wolf in bed
Little Red arriving
The wolf showing big hands
The wolf showing big ears
The wolf showing big teeth
The wolf eating Little Red (or chasing her)
The huntsman hearing commotion
The huntsman chasing wolf
The huntsman killing wolf (or chasing him away)
Roasting the wolf (or celebration)

As you can see, there is plenty of action and change of location for an illustrator to choose from. This is why this tale makes a good picture book and other fairy tales do not.

So, my advice to you, is to take your picture book manuscript's plot and break it up much like I did Little Red Riding Hood above. If you you've got lots of illustratable action, you are good to go. However, if the entire action takes place around the dinner table and is just great dialog, then you've definitely got a short story on your hands. This is not a bad thing. There are markets for good short stories for younger readers. It just means that you should not submit that manuscript to me as a picture book.

Tailoring Submissions (part 2)

2010-12-20T21:04:00.003-06:00

Now last week, I started talking about tailoring submissions. I pointed out that you should make sure you send your work to someone who will appreciate it. What I didn't tell you was how to gauge an editor's tastes.

There are several ways to do this:

See if they've posted preferences anywhere.
Does the editor have a blog (like me) or is he/she specifically requesting a certain type of manuscript (also like me)? Because that's the best way to know your manuscript is going to someone who will actually look at it if the person says they are actively seeking something.
Check the various children's writers' boards.
Just because you haven't found the blog post or announcement doesn't mean someone else didn't find it. Look around at places like SCBWI or Verla Kay's site. I know my picture book submission guidelines have been put up there.

However, sometimes you won't be able to find the information this way. Then you'll have to be sneakier to figure out what those finicky editors like. You can:

Ask around.
Perhaps you know someone who has worked with that editor before. What did he/she tell your friend about his/her preferences?
Read things the editor has worked on.
This is the method that is least precise, but probably the one you'll most often have to rely on. After all, editors do work on projects they haven't acquire and that might not be to their tastes. I know I have. However, this will be your best bet on getting to know your editor when you don't have any personal or online intel. As I've said before, to find out what the editor has worked on, simply go to any book that is in the same genre as yours and look at the acknowledgments page. A majority of the time, the author has thanked his/her editor. Voila. You now have a potential submission target.

(Now I have acquired picture books in the past, but that was for Blooming Tree which has a very different publishing philosophy. I'm not saying I don't love those picture books. I do. They just wouldn't fit as well in CBAY. A better gauge of the kind of picture book I'm looking for now would be looking at my existing line. After all, it should fit in with the rest of the list.)

Running Out of Time

2010-12-17T08:25:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm running out of time. Between finishing the 2011 book edits and layouts, getting the websites up, and working on The Book of All Thing's cover, I don't know when I'm going to get my shopping done. Fortunately, I have a gift card to my favorite independent (OK, so it's my year end bonus from BookPeople, details, details) to spend on the people left on my list.

All this has reminded me of something very important that I forgot to mention in my Great Small Press Gifts in Big Stores post -- namely that starting around January 1, CBAY Books will no longer physically be in the stores. You can still get them online, but all of the unsold stock will be returned, never to grace Barnes & Noble shelves again.*

So, if you were planning to purchase either The Book of Maps or The Necropolis in store, like me, your time is also running out.

* I would like to point out that this is just a reality of the book industry. Have you ever heard about a book that's only five or six months old only you can't find it in any bookstore? That's because a book has only 90 days to sell before it is shipped straight back to the publisher for a full credit. Barnes & Noble is very aggressive in its returns, so the CBAY Books, which have been available since early October will be going away for good starting Jan. 1. Only bestselling backlist books earn longterm shelf space at the chains.

For example, Cynthia Leitich Smith's Eternal, which debuted in paperback at #5 on the NY Times Bestseller list can't be found at a single one of our local Austin stores despite the fact that the series is popular and she's an Austin author. Interesting, no?

Personally, I hate the returns system. By the time I've paid my distributor's restock fees and tossed out the books that have gotten damaged in all the shipping, it would have been cheaper for me to just set those books on fire (and not collected insurance money). It's just depressing.

And the worst part, the returns system isn't even particularly good for the bookstores. Why do you think B&N and other bookstores have started stocking so many bargain books and non-book items? It's because those are sold at greater margins but are non-returnable. Stores need those extra percentage points to be profitable. However, I seem to be digressing (and ranting) into a whole 'nother topic. And that should probably be a discussion for another day.

Tailoring Submissions (part 1)

2010-12-16T08:43:00.001-06:00

Now, normally when people ask me who they should submit their work to, I point out that they need to send their submissions to someone who is going to appreciate it. There is no point in sending a glorious, future award winning, historical fiction love story to an editor that only works on action/adventure manuscripts and has publicly said that love is a waste of time. That person is not going to like your book, no matter how good it is.

And, I for example, am not going to appreciate your wonderful basic to school realistic picture book featuring all the children as animals when I've asked for fantasy and science fiction.

"But," I can hear you saying, "it's an animal fantasy."

No, it's not. Animal Farm, Charlotte's Web, Redwall, and the Warrior series are animal fantasies. Anthopomorphized animals in picture books are not animal fantasies. They are simply human replacements because some (ok, many) illustrators prefer to draw animals over humans. Toot & Puddle are fantastic, and the Bernstein Bears are classics, and I really wish I could have discovered Chester, but they are not fantasies.

However, don't despair those of you writing about cats or dogs or elephants. I'm not saying you can't submit books with animals as the characters. I'm just saying that they better be pirates or spacemen or princesses or werecats for me to consider them.

My Wishlist (for Submissions)

2010-12-15T08:19:00.002-06:00

By now you've probably already looked at the Submission Guidelines for the picture book call in January. And you're probably wondering why I only want fantasy and science fiction manuscripts. Well, the answer is pretty simple. At the moment, that's the niche CBAY has positioned itself in. If you look at our list, all of the books are fantasy or science fiction. So, it makes sense to expand that niche into picture books.

However, when it comes down to it, I really want a good science fiction manuscript. There are very few science fiction picture books, and I would like to exploit that hole in the market. However, it can be very difficult to convey a science fiction world and still have a good story. I'll be excited to see what people produce.

If you want to see examples of books I wished I had acquired (but only saw after publication), here you go:

Of course, I'm not looking for duplicates of these. I'm just sharing with you some picture books I have liked and enjoyed.

Opening for Select Submissions

2010-12-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

Starting Jan. 15, CBAY Books will be open for 2 weeks for unsolicited fantasy and science fiction picture book manuscripts. (Sorry mid-grade and teens. Your time will come.)

That's right. After over three years of being closed for submissions, we will be open for only two weeks. After that, I don't know when we'll be open again. It'll depend on how long it takes to go through these. Polish up your manuscripts, give your critique group one last shot at them, and run spell check. It's time to send them out to the world.

And right now, the only place to find the link to the submission guidelines is here. I haven't put them on the general CBAY site (although you can access the general site from them.) I'm making the announcement here first, and then at the beginning of the new year, I'll post them to cbaybooks.com.

So, between now and Jan. 15, I'll be doing lots of posts about submissions, submission formats, my manuscript wishlist, and the like. It's going to be a writing party!

Great Small Press Gifts in the Big Stores

2010-12-13T09:11:00.001-06:00

During this crazy shopping time, we all need convenience, and it's hard to be much more convenient than a Barnes & Noble this time of year. So, I've put together a list of mine, and other small press books, that you can currently walk into pretty much any Barnes & Noble and buy right off the shelf. It doesn't get much more convenient than that.

And if you plan on making a special trip, click on the book's title to see if the book is in the Barnes & Noble nearest you.

From CBAY Books:

The Book of Maps by David Michael Slater -- Although this is the third book in the series, you don't have to have read the first two. The twins start on a whole new adventure in this one as one of the oldest demons comes after them. There's a lot of action in this one, and you might just find yourself biting your nails as everyone in the world seems to be against the kids.
The Necropolis by PJ Hoover -- This is the final book in The Forgotten Worlds Trilogy, and I have to say, it's the best one yet. From an editorial perspective it's great to see how the author's writing has grown, but from a kid perspective, the book is just cool. Lots of exciting stuff happens, there's some more time travel, and we finally get to see what's happening in Atlantis. Like I said, cool.

From Tanglewood Press:

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn -- The New York Times #1 Bestseller (pretty good for a small press book) is always a great gift. Dealing with separation anxiety, this picture book is good whether a kid is starting school or daycare or even going to stay at Grandma's for a few days.

From Barefoot Books:

Yoga Pretzels by Tara Guber -- A fabulous collection of yoga poses suitable for even the youngest yogi. These come on large flashcard sized cards so that you can always see exactly what it is you are working on.

(My list isn't longer because I had trouble finding small press books in Barnes & Noble stores. Nearly every presses full catalog is carried online, but it was hard to find them physically in the store. Show your support for small presses in big chains. Next time you're in a Barnes & Noble, purchase one of these books.)

Papering Over my iPad

2010-12-12T10:21:00.004-06:00

I'm a techno-geek. There's no arguing that. But I'm bad about buying gadgets that I use for like a week (like that ereader I've got around here somewhere) and then never picking it up again.

So, it took me awhile to convince myself to get an iPad. Fortunately, the thing is pretty cool, and if nothing else, I'll probably use it for quite some time as a car TV for my son for roadtrips. (Although if I have to listen to Elmo's squeaky voice for another minute in the car, I'm not sure I'll be rational enough to be held accountable for my actions.)

However, being said techno-geek, one of the first things I had to do was design new wallpaper for my iPad based on various CBAY Books. Since I was working on The Amulet of Amon-Ra website at the time, I made paper for it first. And now, since just this very minute I finished that site, I'm now sharing my techno-geekiness with everyone.

Screenshots of my iPad:

And because you can also hold it horizontally:

Nope, I'm not a geek. Not a geek at all.

Want to show your Amulet pride? You can get the iPad/iPhone background here.

Getting Back on the Web

2010-12-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

So, as part of my new trying to get the blog going again, I've decided to start posting about everything I think of. Like yesterday, I posted about the new Incarceron movie.

I must say this is greatly helped by having a new iPad toy. Yesterday I was able to do that post while baby took a bath. I would never dare take my laptop anywhere near the baby and water. I shudder at the thought.

So, as my first real publisher post in a while, let's talk about this blog. I've given it a new look as you may have noticed. Please tell me what you think (good or bad). I am not emotionally attached to the look of the blog in any way, so if you don't like it, I won't be offended to know.

Also, let me know what you are most interested in reading about, and I'll try to do more of that. What is more important: writing tips, marketing tips, editorial process, what? I always appreciate feedback.

Incarceron Movie?

2010-12-10T09:15:00.002-06:00

At the beginning of this year, I read the book Incarceron, book I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought it was a great example of world building as well as alternating points of view. As we all know switching points of view, even in a teen novel, can be tricky business.

So, it is exciting to see that it may be made into a movie starring the Taylor from Twilight.

I am currently interested in all things books-to-movies since The Book of Nonsense has been optioned for development into a movie. The details as I know them are here. I'm not involved in any way since I don't hold any of the film rights, but it's still exciting to watch.

Who do you think should play the twins?

Review: You

2010-11-08T12:54:00.001-06:00

You by Charles Benoit

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Writing in the second person is always hard. Readers can become annoyed at constantly being addressed or even accused of actions that the character did instead of them. The book is hard to read, but in a powerful, difficult subject matter sense. Benoit does a fantastic job of using second person.

In fact, second person in this book is used to great effect to help illustrate the disconnect the character experiences with himself. His reality is so far removed from what he would like to be, that he uses the second person instead of the first person pronouns in an effort to distance himself. It is both a subtle and powerful technique at the same time.

I would recommend this book to all authors.

View all my reviews

TLA Today

2010-04-15T07:31:00.003-05:00

One of the largest library gatherings (other than the ALA meetings) is the TLA meetings. Texas is a big state, and we've got a lot of librarians.

This year, fortunately, we aren't displaying at TLA. This gives me more time to get ready for our debut at BEA. But I am going to go with a contingency of Austin authors to walk the exhibit hall floor and look around. I'm looking forward to the opportunity (and the free stuff). There won't be as many freebies as there used to be, but I have high hopes for some good stuff -- especially reading guides.

Books I Should Read (V)

2010-04-14T07:07:00.001-05:00

For reasons beyond my control, the BookKids blog is not letting me type in new posts. And since I could not possibly let a week go by without meeting my reading challenge (especially on a week where I actually met it), I decided to post my review here. As soon as we get the kink worked out back at Bookpeople, I'll retroactively post this there.

The London Eye Mystery
Originally I wanted to read this book because it was a mystery. (Did you catch on my Monday post that I like mysteries?) I'm not sure what I expected, but I think I was assuming that this was going to be your typical kid mystery book. This wasn't one at all.

For starters, the narrator Ted has a never revealed disorder that is obviously some form of high functioning autism. Now before you start thinking this is another Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, it's not. But Ted does have a different way of looking at the world -- one that ends up allowing him to solve the mystery when no one else can.

The mystery itself is intriguing and well done with a trail of clues that can be followed. Basically Ted and his sister's cousin disappears from a sealed pod of the London Eye which is the huge wheel (not a ferris wheel) that gives panoramic views of London. Since it seems unlikely that their cousin combusted or entered a time slip stream, Ted and Kat decide to try to determine what happened to him. The solid mystery that follows should appeal to any mystery fans.

The autism element adds a new dimension to what would otherwise be a typical midgrade mystery. However, it neither distracts from the overall plot or intrude into the story. It just is another point that opens possibilities for discussion.

Overall, I would recommend this for kids 10 & up. Younger kids might find the book a little too tense.

Next week: I Put a Spell on You

Book Clubs

2010-04-13T09:39:00.002-05:00

When we talk about marketing books, we often overlook a rather key segment of the book buying population -- book clubs. Whether they are the mother/daughter variety (like the one we're starting at BookPeople), bookstore sponsored (BookPeople has a teen one of those too), school sponsored, or just a group of friends, book clubs are a great word of mouth tool for promoting your book.

So, how do you come to the attention of a book club?

Make the NYT bestseller list.
All right, I realize this isn't the most practical piece of advice. After all, that's what we're all striving for anyway. But technically, this is a great way for book clubs to notice you.
Have book club materials available.
I've made book club specific discussion guides for all of the CBAY Books (well, 3 out of 4 -- I'm getting there). A book club has different discussion needs than your classroom setting. Give them their own material and don't make them try to adapt a study guide.
Be available to visit their meetings.
Now, of course I don't mean that you need to fly across the country to meet with a book club with 3 members. But, you can be available to meet with them via Skype or some other video conferencing service.

And for those of you who aren't published yet, it never hurts to start working on these things for your book too. For one thing, if you do a book proposal it's nice to have this available. And for another thing, it forces you to look at your book in a different way. And that's never a bad thing.

Have I Mentioned . . .

2010-04-11T08:54:00.001-05:00

that Amulet of Amon-Ra is up for an award? Well, it is.

Leslie Carmichael's book has been nominated for a Prix Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction/Fantasy community. Kind of like the Nebula's here, this is a big deal thing up north of the US border.

For more information or to vote, click here.

Congratulations Leslie!

Source for Free Ebooks

2010-04-10T08:11:00.001-05:00

The NBN Sales conference went quite well. I got some great feedback on the books and made some interesting networking contacts. And it seems that my double life as a bookseller makes me a valuable resource for others as well. So many good ideas were floating around.

Since many of you review books on your blogs, I thought you might be interested in a site I just discovered. Now, some of you may have been using it for years, but sometimes I’m a little late to the party.

Introducing Net Galley.com. This site is free to reviewers, bookstore buyers, etc. (although it’s not free for the publisher – grumble) and allows you to request electronic and physical readers of publishers books. I haven’t thoroughly explored the site yet, but I know I plan to put electronic versions of all my books up. It’s a greener way to preview and review books. I look forward to becoming a part.

NBN Sales Conference

2010-04-08T10:46:00.002-05:00

Now, you may have noticed but I haven't blogged in, well, forever.

Actually, that isn't quite true. I'm the main blogger for the BookKids blog these days, and I have been getting 3 posts a week up like clock work. I manage to get those up because I have a dedicated 2 hours every Sunday at the store to work on the kids blog. It's amazing what a set time, an editorial calendar and a small financial incentive(I do mean small) does for a person's blogging. So, head over there to see the books I've been reading.

But over here in editorial/publishing land. I have been working non-stop on getting all my online marketing stuff ready in time for this year's BEA. That means new websites for Blooming Tree and CBAY Books (you can see how far I've gotten on CBAY here. All of my books are going to get new kid-friendly, activity oriented sites. The authors are getting newsrooms (here's PJ's work in progress). CBAY Books has it's own Twitter feed and Facebook page. Actually, it would be great if 13 more people would fan that page. Then I can change it's url to facebook.com/cbaybooks instead of the unwieldy thing it currently is.

As you can see, this is a lot of posting and uploading. Not surprising this is falling by the way side.

However as I learned with the BookKids Blog, I just need some discipline, so I'm going to start setting aside 2 hours a week for this blog too. That should enable me to get 3 posts up a week, minimum.

And this week, I thought I'd start by discussing the NBN sales conference I'm attending. I'm here to tell the NBN sales force all about the CBAY and BTP line of books. In two hours I'll present, and then hopefully, they'll go out and sell.

I'll have an update once I've presented.

Free Web Graphics

2009-12-22T09:41:00.003-06:00

Now, every blog and website needs a little color and graphics every now and then. A good source for images would be http://www.1clipart.com. Here you can find all sorts of free images like this one:

And the cool thing about this site is that you can edit the images first. Would you rather have the image in grayscale? It can fix that for you. Want it in an oval? It'll do that to.

And of course, best of all, it's free.

Favicon, Get Yer Favicons

2009-12-21T09:15:00.005-06:00

When typing a domain name, like say cbaybooks.com, have you ever noticed that some sites have little icons next to the name? These are called FavIcons. They are a very small (16 x 16 pixel) image that you can set to appear in the address bar of most browsers. How do you set it? Well, I haven't quite figured out how you code it yet. I'm still looking. But I have found a place where you can take your normal logo (in a jpg or gif format) and translate into the special .ico format you need to make this work.

The site is http://www.htmlkit.com/services/favicon/. Here you upload an image, they convert it, and then you download it back to your computer. Pretty simple. Pretty snazzy. I used it to make a little favicon for the Buried in the Slushpile Forum, but if you can figure out how to code it, you can use it on any webpage -- including your blog.

Of course with those of you with webmasters, you can have them do it. But for all the rest of us, converting the file on this site is, you guessed it, free.

UPDATE: I found a site, http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/favicon.shtml, that tells you how to do it. As you may have noticed, I have now added my own little favicon to the address bar of the site.

Big Day for Book of Knowledge

2009-12-18T12:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a big day for the Book of Knowledge. It was mentioned in both the PW Religion Line (enewsletter) and the PW Children's Bookshelf (enewsletter). You can see the PW Children's Bookshelf one here. Look at that mention in the headlines at the top and that beautiful cover art below.

I'm so excited I could cry. However, I decided a more productive thing to do would be to offer the books for sale. It's also a way for me to debut the new Blooming Tree store. I had hoped to have all the site links working by the time I did this, but alas, I've been sick. So, for now, ignore all the beautiful drop-down java menus at the top. They don't go anywhere yet. But instead, enjoy the new look and feel of the Blooming Tree store.

And even better, enjoy the CBAY books that I've put on sale. Curious to see what all the controversy is about in David's books? You can buy both of them as a set for only $20. And to be fair, you can also get both of the The Forgotten Worlds books in a set for only $20. That's for the science fiction enthusiasts. Or perhaps you would rather have paperbacks? Well, you can get The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate and our newest book, The Amulet of Amon-Ra, together for $10. There are bargains to be had for all.

So, check out the new store. I hear books make great gifts.

More Free Stuff

2009-12-18T08:47:00.003-06:00

I had meant to have all sorts of posts about free stuff this week, but I've been sick. Sleep all day, only wake up to take cold medicine, kind of sick. So, I'm going to have extend my free stuff posts through next week too. Think of it as a Christmas present of freeness.

Today's free web stuff comes to us from the pretty cool website Widgetbox.com. Here you can get all sorts of widgets for your site and blog, and most of them are free. As an example I made a slideshow of the Sacred Book Series covers:

Slideshow Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

You too could make a slideshow with your covers (if you have multiple books), artwork from the book (but only if you get permission) or photos from events or promotional art.

Another option is to make your very own widget for your blog/website. I made the free example below:

Buried in the Slush Pilegreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

With this, you can put it pretty much anywhere on the web, and even better, other people can too. Of course, for a small fee you can make a much nicer looking one, but this is free. And today, we are all about the free.

There are also a bunch of other widgets to play with and customize. Browse the site and have a looksee. At the very least it will help you put off that revision you've been meaning to do.

Newsletters

2009-12-13T10:03:00.003-06:00

Since I'm working on websites this week, naturally I find that I have the internet on the brain.

Specifically, I have been thinking about free stuff that you can do with the internet. And so, I thought I'd share the great e-newsletter manager I found called MailChimp.com. As long as you don't send more than 6 emails to 500 users a month, the thing is free. It comes with free templates, free subscriber collection, and free management. Yes, I said free.

Blooming Tree will soon be starting a newsletter, and you can guess who we plan to use in the beginning.

So, if you want to test out an enewsletter, now you can start for free.

We made PW's Children's Bookshelf

2009-12-10T17:43:00.002-06:00

They discovered we exist! True, CBAY is never mentioned by name, and it's not the profile that will later be in the Religion Bookline, but the article about David Michael Slater that's been kicking up all this dust is mentioned in Publishers Weekly!

I'm doing little fancy dances around the room.

You can see the link here. It's under the "In the Media" heading. Yeah!

Could a review at some point be next? We can only hope . . .

So much to do, so little time

2009-12-10T09:52:00.003-06:00

I am swamped. There's no other way to say it. I am bogged down with a thousand things to do, and that doesn't even include my personal life. (Oh that's cute. I pretended to have a personal life.)

What all this means is that I have a ton to talk about, and no time to talk about it in. For instance, someone is trying to hack my author, David Michael Slater's, website. Yup. Apparently the forum on the Oregonian article is not enough for someone. They would like to use David's own website as a forum against him. Crazy. (I suppose the hackings could just be coincidence, but the timing is just a little too suspicious.)

Then, I've been trying to get the new BTP and CBAY sites up and going. I've got a whole new shopping cart for BTP that I am tres excited about. Only, I can't get the shipping information to show. At the moment, it just tells me it doesn't ship to whatever area I've chosen. Grumble. I'm communicating with the developer on that.

And finally, I have to edit David's third book. The whole thing. Today. Ack! What am I still doing on the internet?

One Page Summary Winners

2009-12-06T08:42:00.002-06:00

At long last, I am announcing the one page summary winners. Admittedly, I notified them a while back, but this is the first chance I've had to fully discuss them again.

The Top Five (in the order they happen to be in my email) are:

Kelly Lyman, The Watcher
Lori Calabrese, Playing Hardball
Tiffany Harrison, Shades of Gray
Buffy Andrews, Brain Invaders
Susan James, Beneath the Trees

Congratulations to you all, and thank you to all of those who entered. We had a tough time narrowing it down to those five.

All five of these did an excellent job of fully representing their story but still staying within the word limit. They all gave me an excellent idea of their entire plot, introduced me to the key characters, and were straightforward and well written. What they did not do was have teaser questions, hint at a plot point but then not tell it, or play coy.

Now, when we went to choose the two overall winners, we did not judge solely on the summary. You have to recall that manuscript request was the prize, so the Blooming Tree folk and I had to consider what would be a good fit for our overall list. One of the summaries was for an adult novel (the rules didn't exclude them), but neither CBAY (which doesn't do adult) nor BTP (which does but isn't acquiring for right now) are reading adult ms at the moment. So obviously, this summary couldn't be an overall winner right now.

So (drumroll please) the overall winner for Blooming Tree Press was Playing Hardball, a midgrade boy's book with baseball and injustice.

The overall winner for CBAY was Beneath the Trees, a YA high fantasy complete with love, loss, and good and bad fairies.

Congratulations again to the winners and to everyone who entered. There wasn't a single summary I read that made me think, "Ick. What a horrible idea for a book." (I have read some query letters before that have made me think that.)

A Banning in the Making?

2009-12-05T15:13:00.003-06:00

So, I had planned to use this post to announce the one-page summary winners, and to discuss them, but I'm going to have to bump them one more day.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** I will be mentioning the climax of The Book of Knowledge, which just sold out on Amazon. However, there are more on the way.

It seems there is a storm a-brewing in the ultra-conservative, hot bed of fundamentalism, Portland, OR. Yes, that's right. I typed Portland, OR. It seems that even in that green, progressive city, people still want to burn and ban books.

It all started a few weeks ago when my author, David Michael Slater, got interviewed for his local paper. Then this week the state paper, The Oregonian, ran the following article:

Beaverton teacher's teen adventure series is stirring up a storm

You should really read the comments on it. Add to them if you've read the book. Or for that matter even if you haven't. Reading the book never seems to be a requirement for engaging in a banned book discussion. My personal favorite is the one that called David a satanist. I'm assuming the person hasn't read the book, although of course I could be wrong. It's just that there aren't any witches, wizards, black cats, black masses, inverted crosses or other things associated with satanism in the book. There are just books (and a reinterpretation of the first part of Genesis. It's not even the whole book.) But I suppose to some, books (or perhaps reinterpretations) are satanic.

It's been snowballing from there.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. If anything I'm running around giggling with glee. I want my books to get banned -- it's my whole slogan and all. And if anything, I kind of expected this one would. You can't really publish a book where ***SPOILER*** one of the characters is biblical Adam trying to rid the world of free will in an effort to coax God to return to Earth. There's a good chance you'll get some flack.

However, I must point out that I can't imagine a child reading this and going, "Wow, the Torah (or Bible) is wrong on this. It says Adam and Eve had children and died, but Slater in his fictitious book says Adam really is still alive today trying to trick kids into using a magic book to destroy free will. And then God will come back. Yeah!" I mean this is no DaVinci Code that was based on suppossed historical facts that supposedly proved the whole mortal, married Jesus thing. I'm pretty sure no one's claiming an insane thousands-of-years-old Adam is running around. But of course, Pullman's Dark Materials and Lewis' Narnia aren't exactly paragons of realism and they have been censored for their religious overtones.

So, if anyone decides to stage a public burning, as David says, buy them first. But then let me know because I a)want the pictures and b)will plant a tree to offset the carbon footprint of the bonfire. It seems like an Oregonesque (and Earth friendly) thing to do.