Books for Writers Giveaway!

Here's a shocker for you: I own lots of books about writing.

Sometimes, for whatever reason (such as when an unexpected gift or review copy shows up), I find myself in possession of two copies of the same title.

Well, guess what! In my hot little hands at the moment are extra copies of [imagine a crisply dramatic drum roll, please] . . .


(1) Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole

(2) 2013 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market by Chuck Sambuchino

I couldn't possibly bring myself to toss these in-demand books into my donation pile. They're too good. People need these. MY PEOPLE need these. So because I'm already in a sharing mood, I've decided to give away these gems in a little contest that starts NOW.

To be eligible to win one of the featured books, you must:

1. Write for, or sincerely aspire to write for, children and/or young adults. I will rely on the honor system.

2. Maintain your own website and/or blog. It does not need to relate to writing for children.


3. Leave a comment on this post. All comment conditions listed below must be met.

• In your comment, please share something you absolutely love about any one children's or YA book of your choice. It can be anything — a character, scene, theme, quote, dialogue snippet, setting, storyline, relationship, conflict . . . whatever makes your heart race with love for that particular work. There are no wrong answers. Any big or little thing that contributes to your kidlit book love is fair game!
• Link to or list your website/blog and tell us what kinds of things you write or hope to write for kids.
• Specify which ONE of the two giveaway books you hope to win.
• Note: If you wish to be considered for both book prizes, YOU MUST ENTER TWICE. To do so, leave two separate comments, with each one featuring a love moment from a select title — and each comment specifying your contest book selection. For example, if entering twice, you could mention a Mockingjay plot twist you love in your entry comment for Writing Irresistible Kidlit and then, in your entry comment for 2013 CWIM express your love for the magical visual world in David Wiesner's Flotsam.

The fine print: This contest kicks off at 12:00 p.m. Pacific on Thursday, February 14, 2013. It ends at 12:00 p.m. Pacific on Monday, February 18, 2013. The two winners — one for each featured book — will be selected from all qualified entries using an online list randomizer. Winners will be announced on this blog during the day on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, after which I will contact winners to make shipping arrangements. Postage is included in the prizes; the glass hearts and overhead-office-light spots pictured on the book covers are not.

I'm excited to run this contest (the first-ever for my blog!) and I hope you enjoy the thrill of the entry and seeing what makes other writers like you fall head over heels in love with books for young readers.

Remember to enter by noon Pacific on Monday, February 18, 2013 — and please share news of this contest with all your writer friends!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Selling Myself

I am in between projects at present. Waiting for new writing guidelines to come in. Any. Minute.

Meanwhile, I'm spending ALL of today and tomorrow (even if the guidelines get here, which they won't until Friday) looking ahead to potential new business. On my list of things to send out: a simple "Hello, I am here" email to two regular clients; an updated publications list with samples to a developer asking for same; a nonfiction proposal to a publisher I've worked with in the past; a reply to a foreign publisher asking me what I do; and a writer-in-residence application for next year.

If I still have extra time, I'll implement some sorely-needed updates to my author site and editorial services site. Those poor dears need to be ushered into 2010.

Exciting days in the life of a writer-for-hire!

EFA Fall Classes Start Soon!

I recently rejoined the EFA board as education chair, and I am pleased to share news of our Fall 2009 Education Program. We have an exciting season of targeted professional-development opportunities planned and hope you'll join us for some of our online offerings and/or live events in Seattle and NYC.

ONLINE CLASSES

How to Get Freelance Writing Work (starts 10/13)

Editing Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction (starts 10/15)

Dealing with Nightmare Clients (starts 10/21)

Proofreading (starts 11/2)

Turning Journal Entries into Polished Pieces (starts 11/30)

Writing from Healthy Starts (starts 12/1)

SEATTLE EVENTS

Getting Started in Editorial Freelancing (10/17)

Blogging Basics (12/5)

NYC SEMINAR

Supplementing Your Income with PR Work (11/14)

For full course descriptions, pricing information, and a link to EFA's online registration system, see EFA's main catalog page. Be sure to act now and SIGN UP for any classes you're eyeing, especially those starting just around the corner in October. Class size is limited, and some courses do sell out early.

Hope to see some of you in class! And please share this notice with any interested friends and colleagues.

My Fall YA Release

Have I mentioned how bad I am at promoting my books? I mean, here I sit with my own blog, and I have yet to mention in this space that I have four new books out this season. All were released in August!

(To be fair to me, I did mention the books on Facebook and LinkedIn. But, really, what self-respecting author doesn't take to the blog right away!?!)

The biggest — meaning, thickest — book is part of ABDO's Strong, Beautiful Girls series. It's called Frenemies: Dealing with Friend Drama, and it features fictionalized scenarios illustrating a number of the very real friendship issues that middle-school girls face, along with research-based advice for handling them.

My author copies are currently in transit, and naturally I'm looking forward to actually seeing the finished product. Funny thing is, I've already received (positive) feedback from an adult reader. So the book is out in the world, available for consumption . . . and yet . . . because I haven't touched it, Frenemies still exists only in abstract — and Word file — for me.

I'll be talking about the book at my local SCBWI chapter's Inside Story salon October 28. Can't wait for that, and I'll be sure to share more about the event afterward.

Back soon with a post about my other three releases!

Feeding the Self-Promotional Beast

I spent part of yesterday and most of this morning on nothing but self-promotional activities — all the stuff that writers/freelancers need to do to stay on clients' minds and initiate new contacts with peers.

Sample tasks:

Getting in touch with clients and other colleagues. I needed information from a few people, owed correspondence to others, and needed to remind a couple of folks that I still exist.

Creating a profile on relevant networking sites. I set up shop on JacketFlap , an online community of people working in children's publishing. I think I first became aware of it 2 years ago . . . so, bad me for taking so long to go back and get started. I did the same thing on BlogHer, an online community for women in the blogosphere. We'll see whether I really find/take the time to reap the benefits from joining the sites. Right now I intend to try, but only time will tell if I find them as useful as they seem . . . or if I'm just not going to add them to my to-do list.

Discussing promotional ideas with my painter. He was here doing interior work all week, and we traded self-employment stories. We're in totally different businesses, but hey, a good promotional idea is a good promotional idea. Thing is, I just haven't done anything more than send a few flyers — and that was "once upon a time" at that. It's good, though, to periodically reconsider the value of investing in advertising, mailings, giveaways, and so on. What doesn't make sense one year might be a no-brainer must-do another.

So, those are the types of PR tasks I try to fit in every now and again. How do you promote YOU?