Last week I attended TLA. It was a wonderful time to see fellow authors, visit with librarians, and to basically network my heart out. But one of the other great joys of trade shows like TLA and ALA is the opportunity to catch up on what the industry is currently...

That’s right. In less than a week, librarians will emerge from their stacks and squint there way out of dusty libraries into the sunlight of San Antonio. And they will swarm together in a noisy, riotous, fun-loving bunch. If you think librarians are quiet, meek, and...

Last week, I talked about the importance of community, especially in terms of activating you community when it comes to marketing. But community is so much more than what other people can do for you. Community is not just about receiving support, but also providing...

At some point in your authorial career you’re going to have to tackle the dreaded M-word. No, not magic, although that would be pretty cool if we all got wands and the ability to move objects from across the room at the flick of a wrist just because our book released....

There are so many facets to the publishing experience. There’s being a children’s book author or illustrator and the experience that comes from creating books for kids to consume. Then there is actually working for a publisher in some capacity whether that’s as an...

I know the temptation. That temptation to just change one more little word. To read through the manuscript one more time —  Just In Case. The temptation to tinker endlessly with a manuscript because it just doesn’t feel perfect. I get it. I do. I’ve had that...

If you type “how many pages does a picture book have” in a search engine, nearly every result will tell you that there are 32. So, are Picture Books 32 Pages? Yes, and also no. Wait, hear me out. Ok, technically, yes, picture books are 32 pages. Like almost all print...

We may have answered all of questions and set great goals, but the thing is we have to follow through. And that’s the hardest part, even harder than figuring out our goal in the first place. So, we’re going to have to Stay Motivated. First we’re going to keep the...

So far in our goal setting we’ve figured out what we want and how we’ll do it, but there’s one final question. Question 3: When will I do it? The truth is all the plans in the world won’t get you to your goal if you can’t find a time to implement them. You need to...

Last time we thought about what we wanted to achieve with our goals. This week we’re going to ask ourselves the next question in our goal setting: Question 2: How will I do it? We made goals that are actionable, but how exactly are we going to do them? We’re going to...

The Earth has spun around the Sun one more time, and you know what that means. Time to restart our goals for the year. The thing is, we often don’t make goals we can actually accomplish. At least, I used to make goals that I couldn’t actually accomplish. So a while...

Sometimes you don’t have tons of time to produce lots of writing. You may have run up against a hard deadline. You may be trying to build your self-published backlist. You may be participating in #NANOWRIMO and trying to write a whole novel in a single month. Whatever...

It's almost upon us … #NANOWRIMO is almost here. For those of you that don't know, every November authors get ambitious and try to write an entire novel (or at least 50k words of one) in one month. And not just any month—November, the month that officially kicks off...

One page summaries can be deceptively simple. After all, you’re just distilling thousands of words into 500. What could go wrong? Ask any author that’s sat down to write a one page summary only to have it be five pages, and they’ll tell you just how difficult it can...

It’s time for everyone’s favorite part of a query! The one page synopsis! Yay!! I can just hear the phones clicking shut and fingers slamming on the ctrl+Q keys to avoid this topic. No one likes the one page synopsis. No one. But why are they the bane of every...

Query Letters answer four questions. Seriously. That’s it. That’s all they do. Yes, you’ll see posts (including mine) that will talk about query letters and break them up into paragraphs. But those paragraphs are answering four fundamental questions: 1. Why is this...

As creatives, we often have no shortage of ideas. In fact, one of the challenges can be sticking to an idea and seeing it all the way through to the end. I don’t know how many times I’ve been mid-book only to get what feels like an even better, more interesting idea....

When it comes to writing a children’s book (or a YA), the characters are the most important part! No matter how cool your concept is, if your characters aren't compelling, readers won't care enough to go on the journey with them. So, who is the book about? Here are...

It’s been a bit since I’ve talked about query letters for kid’s books, so I thought it was time to review them again. I always think that the best query letters answer two questions: What is this book about? & Why should I care? However, there’s way more to a...

I need you to ask yourself a question: why does my character in my children’s book act the way they do? Because if you don’t know this, then I need you to go figure it out. Put yourself in their shoes and look deep. A part of you is actually in every character, so you...

Does it matter how old your main character is? Absolutely. This isn’t adult fiction where your main character can be just any old age. We are writing children’s books, and children’s books have very specific age ranges for specific types of novels. They are: Chapter...

Everyone wants to craft the perfect sentence and then the perfect paragraph, page, and book.  And to do that, you want to use evocative, colorful language. At least, you want to use colorful language as long as it doesn’t bleed into purple prose. What is purple...

You are your biggest fan. Without a doubt, no one will ever admire your children’s books quite the way you do.  Don’t get me wrong, you’ll get those rabid fans that read every word you write and remember details you don’t even remember coming up with.  But...

This is absolutely one of the worst moments of revising. This is where you discover you need to make a change (usually a major change) to your story. You know that you need to make this change. Making this change will make your story stronger and take it to new...

So, you’ve written a children’s book and now you’re wondering: Is my main character ready to publish? Well, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! Here are some questions to ask yourself to determine if your character is ready for publication. First, let’s focus on the...