Won't Somebody Speak for the Trees?

Tip of the Day: Enjoy the end of the summer fruit season with a "French dinner": bread, cheese, and different fresh fruits cut up for the whole family.

It never fails to amaze me how many times I can read through a chapter I wrote and still find things I want to change.

The truth is, though, I don't catch a lot of problems in my manuscript on screen. I don't see the problems until I print it out. I can think a chapter looks great on my monitor. I have it perfect now! As soon as I print it out and read it in hard copy, holy moley, the problems shoot right out at me.

I don't know why that is. I think it has to do with flow: I can see more of the manuscript in print, where I'm studying whole pages at once. So I can see where things connect more. Also, when I print off a few chapters together, I can see how they transition better. Somehow, on the screen, the chapters don't mesh together as well for me.

I absolutely have to do at least one revision pass on hard copy, most likely two. I do my best to recycle paper and print on the back of pages that have been used already. My printer hates this. It jams if even the tiniest corner of a page has been bent, and once it jams, it refuses to restart a print job. I spend a lot of revision days cursing at my printer. My kids clear out on those days. "She's printing off pages, let's get out of here!" Stupid "multi-use" printer. And don't get me started on how much the plain black cartridges cost. It's highway robbery. I don't even know what those cartridges are made of (crushed beetles? toxic plastic drippings?), but I'm betting it can't be good for anyone.

So I wish I could revise on screen, but I know I do my best revising on paper with a blue ballpoint pen. My mind was wired that way, and I don't think I can unwire it. The same pages look completely different to me in print. There's probably a psychological name for this visual perception gap, and I'd love to know if the next generation will weed it out by learning to edit on screen from school days on or if it will always exist. Or maybe some people can actually see the same thing on paper as they do on the screen. Can you?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Two books ain't enough??

Tip of the day: Stock up on school supplies now for later in the year, when things need to be replaced. They’ll never be as cheap as they are now, especially if you shop stores specifically to get their in-the-door specials.

Remember when I talked about how having a book released is similar to having a baby?

Recently I realized, that as you have more books, it’s also sort of like having lots of kids.

The first one, people get REALLY excited. They shower you with gifts and food, and just think that baby is the best thing ever. It’s the same with the first book. People you know can’t wait to run out and buy it. I know a real author, they exclaim!

The second one, people are still fairly excited. People come to the baby shower again, although a little less enthusiastic, because, after all, can’t you just use most of the stuff you got the first time around? With the second book, some people are still really excited. Your mother, of course. Your good writing friends. But some people think, I bought her first book. Do I really have to buy the second? I mean, she writes teen books. Not really my thing.

The third, fourth, fifth one? Yeah, the excitement kinda wears off and it almost seems like people turn the other way when they see you coming. People talk amongst themselves – how many kids are they gonna have anyway? And WHY? Why do they want so many kids? Isn’t two enough? And with more books published, some people look at you differently. Stop talking about yourself, they think. You’ve been talking about yourself and your books for four years now. We KNOW you write books. So what? So do a lot of people. Let someone else step in the spotlight. Like this amazing debut author over here. Haven’t you heard? Everyone is SO excited for this book and people are talking about it like it’s the next best thing since THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.

Yeah, it’s easy to feel like old news. But for an author, each book is new, different and special. With each one, it’s expected we’ll do some promotion. In this golden age of YA, where the shelves in the bookstores are expanding by the day it seems, we have to do everything we can to compete. We have book signings not because we intend to beg the same people over and over again to buy our books. We have them because hey, maybe there are real, actual fans out there now who might want to come.

I’m proud and excited about the fact that I have more books coming out next year. But I still have to work to sell them. I still have to put myself out there, even if people want a little less Lisa Schroeder and a little more of New and Shiny Debut Authors.

Don’t worry though. I don’t ever expect you to have me and my five books over for dinner.

Please note: I love all you debut authors and want the very best for you, I really and truly do. This post is more about how I feel sometimes with people in real life than people on-line, in case you were wondering. And really, it's all good. I'm very lucky to be building a body of work and just think it's fun to stop and ponder what happens at various points along the way.

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career

Losing Control

Tip of the Day: Don't waste your time trying to make the people who work at the DMV laugh-- they're a tough crowd.

You may not know this about me but I'm a bit of a control freak. I don't like things to just happen to me that I didn't completely intend to happen. And with being an author and getting closer to my release date I'm learning that there are a lot of things that are just not in my control.

Like pictures. If you are an author, people are going to take pictures of you and they are going to post them online. And some of them might be really, really bad. You could look like a squashed up monkey. Now you wouldn't post a picture of yourself looking like a squashed up monkey of course but you can't stop others from doing so. Not that they do it intentionally-- I'm sure they think you look like an adorable little monkey. But still. They're out there. And it's not like you can find every picture of yourself and paste a label over it that says "Seriously, my head isn't this big. I think the picture got weirdly stretched." right?

Then there is youtube. You could be giving a chat or whatever and someone can film it and put it on youtube. And you wouldn't know. Until you find it that is. I made it on youtube this week (no, I'm not telling where!) and the person even told me there were filming for something. Didn't stop me from sounding like an idiot. Then I think well, maybe I came off as more of a sweet idiot. And I watch again. Nope, I sound like the babbling kind.

And of course there's your book. People don't know you and how long you worked on your book. They can say anything at all about it online-- even if they've never read it. A person wouldn't come up to you on the street and say, "man your kid is one ugly little bugger." But they might write that about your book.

Ahhhhhhhh!!!

See? Powerless. How do you guys suggest dealing with this losing control thing? My current coping mechanism is closing my eyes, sticking my fingers in my ears and saying lalalalalalalala.

Kristina, Miss Delighted to Debut

Advice for a PB Dabbler? (or Dare I Try to be Concise?)

Tip of the Day: People-watch at summer festivals for some character inspiration!

I did it. I wrote a draft of a picture book. And not just any picture book -- a RHYMING picture book. Is that a death sentence or what?

It was fun to write! It was great to see the end of my story in just one page -- 250 words! And even coming up with the rhymes was kind of soothing in a poetic way.

Is it perfect? Uh, no. Does it need tons of work on the rhythm and rhyme? Yes. Am I happy I gave it a shot? Very much!

BUT -- I need advice here! How do I know when my rhymes and rhythms are perfect? Bc to be honest, sometimes I read it so much and make the rhymes fit in my head even if they're not right. And then there are some words that people in different regions pronounce differently!

In general, what advice does anyone have for a novel writer who is dabbling in picture books? What is the market like? Is it picking up for pbs at all?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Moving on...sometimes it's a necessity

Tip of the Day: if moving on from a book is hard for you, try to visualize the end result. It might make it easier.

Two weeks ago I briefly mentioned that sometimes it’s okay to “give up” querying a book. Not as in give up on a book completely, but put a book down for now, move onto something else, and then maybe in the future come back to that book.

If you are serious about your writing, you owe it to your book to have it be the best it can possibly be when trying to query agents, and if during the querying process you learn it’s not the best it can be, I think you need to stop, make it better, and then get back to querying. But how can you determine when to stop?

Because there are several times during the writing and querying process when all of us want to give up and if everyone did that no published books would exist.

Here’s what I think.

• If you just want to stop because you get a one or two rejection stings. Keep going. If it’s a hundred rejection stings, chances are you need to reevaluate your book.
• Stop when you don’t know who to query anymore. Hold off, think about your book more, and then get back to searching for agents or editors.
• When you get a rejection that resonance with you, you agree with it, and you realize you need more time to think about the book before being able to fix it.
• When another project is pulling you more strongly. Now this happens a lot, so you have to be far enough along to make the judgment call on what is best to spend your time on. Querying agents isn’t that really labor intensive, so you should be able to do both. But if not giving up on your old book is keeping you from making your new book as best it can, then maybe it’s time to move on. Get the new book done, and then go back to the old book.
  

I don’t like saying give up on a book, because I don’t think you should ever give up on a book. Especially if you believe in it. But I think you have to be smart about the time you have available. Just like in your day job, you have to pick and choose what things to do first. And if you are seriously wanting to be a writer, you need to treat it like a career or business.

This is very subjective. We’ve all heard the stories of those that didn’t give up. Even our own Tina landed her agent with lucky number 87 for her book. But I do think there’s a point when you can determine when to at least set your book down. At least for a month, a year, or maybe even a few years.

Because your next book might be The One that launches your career, and if you don’t get that book done then you’ll never know.

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

Make Your Own Writers' Workshop!

Tip of the Day: Don't just save your own writing to your thumb drive; save the critiques you receive. I carry a thumb drive in my purse with crits of the next chapter I'm planning to revise, so I can make revisions anytime, anywhere.

On Saturday, Deena and I met with our Rochester area YA/MG critique group for an all day, do-it-yourself writers' workshop. We rented an office in the city for the day. This was very reasonably priced, and the office had all the outlets and desks the five of us could ever need. The office we rented is a space designed for only that--they rent out the office space to people who want to meet and work.

And we worked! Now, I don't know about your writing friends, but my local peeps and I are chatty. Seriously, we could gossip about writing and, let's face it, everything else for hours. We knew that if we just showed up on Saturday, we'd find ourselves talking more than writing. So we drew up a schedule and we stuck to it like a German rail conductor.

We started with a half-hour of set up time, followed by 2 1/2 hours of quiet writing time. The schedule built in a long lunch time to get the chatting out of our systems. We went back for two more hours of writing, then a short break, then another hour of writing. We all brought cold beverages and snacks, so there were no excuses for slacking. But we didn't want to slack. We were spending a Saturday away from our families and significant others. We had BETTER have something to show for it!

So how much can I get done in about 5 hours of writing uninterrupted by "Mom! Mom!"?

--I wrote a 7-page insert chapter from scratch

--I heavily revised another, longer chapter, which ended up being a complete rewrite. (I was only able to reuse a short dialogue exchange.)

--I revised most a third chapter

Most of all, I gained a lot more enthusiasm for the project. I've been stuck in the mucky middle, telling myself that I can't sit still for 5 hours of revising. Well, it turns out that I can! And I forgot how much I like my characters. They're funny people.

I loved our writers' workshop, and I hope we do it again soon. We were so productive planning and plotting. Maybe we should give our crit group a name: The Planners and Plotters!

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Do book trailers sell books?

Tip of the day: I recommend M2 Productions for an affordable book trailer. She did one for I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME and I will most likely be asking her to do one for CHASING BROOKLYN.

So this week, we asked one of our Author2Author buddies a question related to writing or publishing. Just whatever was on our mind at the moment. Since I've been trying to decide if I should invest in a book trailer for CHASING BROOKLYN, I thought I'd ask Kate what she thinks of book trailers. Does she watch them? Does she ever buy a book based on a book trailer? Does she think teens watch them and like them?

Here's what she had to say:

I don't usually watch book trailers, but I'm not their intended audience. (I have lots of writer-like places to get book recommendations.) I do think that teens watch them. In fact, I asked a teenager who loves to read what she thinks of book trailers, and here is what she said:

"I've watched a few teen book trailers at my old school as an advertisment for our school book fair and they really did make me want to read the books! I even bought one of them!"

And kids do spend a lot of time on YouTube. Some of them like to make movies themselves.

I just searched Book Trailers on YouTube. The fan trailer for CITY OF BONES has over 55,000 views. In contrast, the "official" trailer for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK has about 15,000 views. A fan trailer for BREAKING DAWN has over 8 million views! I wonder if book trailers aren't a word-of-mouth thing with teens. It's a way they recommend books to each other. (Then again, I'm a sucker for fan art.) Check out this website: The Teen Book Video Awards by Kirkus Reviews. (http://www.kirkusreviews.com/kirkusreviews/book_video/index.jsp) It's a contest for teen-made book trailers.

I think there is a growing place for "official" publisher/author-made trailers. I think they'll take off when they're easier to find. Movie trailers are easy to find and studios don't mind grouping them together, even though the studios are competitors. There's a movie trailers channel on YouTube but not a book trailers channel. Sites like Bookscreening (http://bookscreening.com/) will help. Actually, this is the only site that tempts me to sit around watching book trailers for a while. I don't have time to watch a trailer here and there as I'm checking Twitter or Facebook quickly. I'd like to watch a few at once when I have some time, like we watch previews before a movie.

So yes, I think it's a good thing to have a book trailer made because I believe that we're figuring out how to get book trailers to teens. By the time my book is published, it will probably be normal to see book trailers in bookstores and school libraries, on their own YouTube channel, all over Amazon, and aggregated together like movie trailers are. People will be scrambling to make videos of their backlist books. But I think there will always be a big following for fan art videos. If a teenager ever made a fan art video of a book I wrote, I would probably die of happiness.

I agree, Kate. It's a really cool thing to have a teen love your book so much, he/she feels compelled to express him/herself in a video about it!

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career