Summertime and the Reading's Fine

Ah, summer. The long, lazy days stretch out before me like a pristine, sun-kissed beach…nothing to do but read, nap, read some more…

The Dream

I wish.

Somehow, summer missed the memo that it ought to be utterly carefree and chore-free.

Still, I would like to live vicariously through the kids, who can log some serious reading hours.


Okay, the kids DO read--just not as much as I think they should, given the freedom of these weeks.  Books the kids are reading this month include:

And the Reality

Insurgent by Veronica Roth,

Allen Zadoff's Boy Nobody, 

The Wings of Fire series from Tui Sutherland, 

The Gregor the Overlander series from Suzanne Collins, and, of course, Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants




All worthy titles, but what books and series have got my writer pals’ underpants aflame and souls aflight during these balmy months?

 I put out the call and was rewarded with terrific ideas for summer reading.

Maybe you’ll find a new favorite among the suggestions!

Have some travelling to do with (or without) kids? My friend Vickie Smith Barrios recommends The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart This one is great for mystery-loving puzzle aficionados (not to mention fans of clever kid characters and save-the-world adventure)! We listened to this one in the car on the way to Oregon last year, and my husband and I enjoyed it (at least) as much as the kids. Vickie’s suggestion reminded me to pick up the second in the series for the next trip!

Harold Underdown recommends Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone—one I hadn’t run across yet, but with his “thumbs up” and a read of the synopsis revealing there are flesh-eating monsters in a rich, shadowy world and all depends on the heroine's confrontation with secrets of the kingdom and her own heart, I’m in.



Harold also brought up what looks to be a terrific new memoir, Rapture Practice, by Aaron Hartzler. Heartfelt and quirky? Into the stack it goes.

Donna Jeane Koepp sings the praises of Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and several friends chimed in to sing along!  The more I know, the higher this one goes on my list! A great mystery with an appealing girl sleuth? And a writer who debuted at 70? I'll take it.

Author Sonya Sones recently posted on Facebook about how she was loving Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell so much that she felt relief to be just half way through. This book is getting a lot of love--including from John Green who said in a NYT book review that “Eleanor & Park reminded [him] not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.”  Swoon.

And speaking of John Green, Josh Galarza finds his The Fault in Our Stars an extraordinary, beautiful read. Be sure to make room for it if you haven't yet!

Another writer friend, Heather Petty, passionately recommends Unspoken from Sarah Rees Brennan. I just finished her Demon's Lexicon Trilogy, so am all over this.

A few Turbo Monkey suggestions for good measure:

 

Ellen Jellison, our resident lover of historical adventure, suggests The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.

Sarah McGuire reminded me to dedicate some time to Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass from Meg Medina. 

Amy Allgeyer Cook votes for Three Times Lucky from Sheila Turnage.  

Honestly, there were so many great suggestions from an array of genres that it's "forgot to put on sunscreen" painful stopping the list.  I'm grateful for everyone's ideas! If I keep going though, I'll cut into your book hunting and reading time!

Oh, Captain Underpants

If only there were as many days of summer as there are books on my to-read list! But please, add more!  What is not-to-be-missed?

Hybrid Publishing: What it is...and what it might become.

by Amy

From our tree house here, high above the publishing jungle, we hear things. (I hear things in coffee shops, too, and sometimes they end up in my books.) Lately, the term “hybrid publishing” has been tickling our ears. Monkeys love tickles and I was intrigued, so I snuffled around to see what all the hub-bub was about.

Hybrid publishing was originally minted to refer to those lucky self-published books that were later picked up by a traditional publisher. There are many examples of these 'cross-over' books, but I’ll point out PJ Hoover and her book Solstice, because she’s my Facebook friend and I like her.



(My tiara. I wear it on Wednesdays.)

Ironically, the term also applies to the opposite situation.  Books that were originally published by a traditional publisher and have gone out of print or are stuck on a backlist are being reclaimed by the authors, repackaged and re-released, either as ebooks or POD. I personally know of three well-published authors in the midst of this now. The process isn’t always easy – publishers are sometimes reluctant to let go of the rights. But those authors who can swing it get 100% royalties, lots of freedom and massive power. And a tiara. And a cape. (Part of that might be a lie.) Hybrid publishing is also used to describe traditionally published authors who decide to go the self-published route with their later books. But to me, that’s just self-publishing by a famous person.

Teams are fun!

The last example of hybrid publishing is one that I’m really excited about and one I expect we’ll see happening more and more. It’s a team approach—where an author and/or illustrator join forces with others to bring a project to life. Editors, digital content people, publicists, PR people…any number of folks can be added to the team, depending on what the writer and/or illustrator need, creating a process somewhere between traditional and self-publishing. I foresee a not-so-distant future where hybrid published titles like this are marketed on the street cred of the team members. Some free-lance editors (like our Fairy-Godmonkeys Emma Dryden & Harold Underdown) already have great name recognition and since they don’t work with everyone who knocks on their door, their vetting process offers a level of confidence to a potential buyer/reader.

A company called NetMinds is focusing on this ‘team approach’ with their Disruptive Team Publishing Platform, touted as “an alternative to traditional and self-publishing.” From their press release:  

Net Minds has built a software platform that allows authors to find any member of the publishing value chain, such as editors, designers, publicists, etc., selecting potential collaborators through a discovery system that includes ratings and commentary on a professional’s work. These teammates are invited into, or can request to join a project, offered traditional transactional and non-traditional compensation options, like percentages of the book’s financial performance, and the community then produces the book.”

In a similar-but-slightly-different vein, there is Diversion Books, headed by Scott Waxman, of Waxman Leavall Literary Agency (no stranger to traditional publishing.) Diversion offers “…a full service approach to production, marketing, and publicity, and engages the latest tools and technologies in order to produce and promote its titles in the best possible way.” To over-simplify their services...they help you self-publish your book, BUT there is a submission process and they don’t accept every project. They also take more in royalties than self-publishers but the author’s cut is still significantly higher than with traditional publishing—50% or more. Sadly, Diversion does not accept children’s, MG or YA titles at this time.

So, all of this is VERY cool stuff, but what do you guys think? Is this the way of the future? What are the drawbacks? Would you hybrid publish?

Writer, Heal Thyself: First Aid for Creative Types from Julie Dillard

So many of life’s worthwhile adventures include RISK.  We might suffer scrapes and bruises on the journey, whether it’s climbing a mountain, falling in love, parenting, or choosing the life of a writer/artist… 

A Cautionary Tale about a Girl Who Stood on a Chair to Hang Art

While I haven’t scaled Kilimanjaro and I’m hopeless when it comes to matters of the heart (running for one's passport is apparently not "a healthy choice"), I do have experience with effective first-aid for kid ouches. I have ice packs shaped like frogs and bunnies, bandages of every size, ointments, sticky sweet pink, purple, and red concoctions, thermometers, and a slew of books about what to do with that seal cough or goose egg.

Surely we risk-taking creative types deserve a toolbox full of comforts and cures, too, but what to put in it? Ice packs in the shape of character arcs? Bottles of fantasy-inducing potions?

I got a referral to some creative specialists and asked what they would put in a first-aid kit for various writer injuries and ailments.  There were a number of references to the healing properties of whiskey and pale ale, of course. Heather Petty touted the magical properties of Swedish Fish candies (and having read her work, I do not doubt their powers).

Gummy Muse?

In the course of my research, Kristen Crowley Held shared her experience with a writer's "first aid kit made by her husband:

Dan once made me a writer's kit when I went off to a cabin in the woods to write by myself. He checked out a bunch of books on writing/books on the subject I was writing about from the library and included them in a box with some chocolate and a note that I keep in my wallet to this day.

Mustache + Glare= Impact

(Swoon, huh? I know I wasn't the only one who made a point of leaving THAT up on the screen for a horribly neglectful spouse to "happen upon." Cough.)

Presuming you are not married to Kristen’s winner of a husband either, we just might need to (sigh) stock our own writer/illustrator first aid kits.

Next time you face

·         waiting-induced rashes of the psyche,

·         “we just bought a book exactly like it” scalds

·         conflicting rejection vertigo (I love the plot, but not so much the  character/I love the character but not so much the plot),

·         sluggish plot movement (plotstipation), 

·         or the common cold of the writing soul—self doubt,

 see if one of these cures just might deserve a place in your “artist’s first aid kit”:

Therapies:

Editor/Mentor extraordinaire Harold Underdown shows how it's done

• Snack break (posting pictures of it on Facebook optional)
• Walk it off (Nature + Escape)
• Clean or organize (bonus points if you beautify your working space). Charlene Ellen swears by a broom and a yard full of leaves to brush off the mental cobwebs.
• Change  (Abandon your laptop for a giant sheet of butcher paper, etc.)
• Meditation (I've been wanting to do this forever for presence of mind and stress relief--anyone use meditation to good effect? I'd love to hear about it!) Om.

My Biggest Fan

Fill Your Habitat with Creativity-Inducing Things:

Craig Lew's Muse

Favorite pens/tools (Craig Lew vows nothing inspires like a fountain pen)

Pets (because they know how AWESOME you truly are) 

Writer’s notebook or a sketchbook (No censorship—just brainstorming. Let go of the pressure to produce and just play.)

Kristen Held told me of a friend who lights a scented candle whenever she writes, so now when the smell of cinnamon-infused wax wafts through the air, a Pavlovian response kicks in and the muse shows up. (I’m so adopting this. Where is that coconut cream pie candle?)

Nathalie Mvondo (Multiculturalism Rocks!)  agreed that the candle thing works, and she reminded me of the healing/helping nature of music. Work on a playlist or station for that project to get your groove on. Tried Pandora yet? I actually have a station called "emotional writing music." Yep. 

All these things remind me of the importance of a happy habitat for writing. What would help make your working space more inviting and productive?

Second Opinions:

When the writing or drawing life has you under the weather, get a second opinion. Phone a friend, set up a writing evening, enter a contest, or sign up for that conference you're on the fence about--artist friends are the ultimate first responders.  Take that risk of reaching out and branching out. It'll be good for you--and your work.

With a little collaboration, you, too, can feel, well--

star-powered

First Aid Manuals: As creative types, we're naturally drawn to books, right? 

Here are a few books you might take a look at for your first aid kit:

The Artist’s Way  by Julia Cameron (Thanks for the recommendation, Marilyn Hilton!)

Steal Like An Artist : 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon 

How Not to Write a Novel :200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--a Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

What acts, rituals, items, or books have you found helpful for writer comfort and mental health?   I'm stocking up!

New Developments in Self-Publishing

by Amy

As a self-published monkey, I’ve been following the recent tossings and turnings of the industry with great interest. Back when I launched my book in 2010 (which is something like the Neolithic period with regard to self-publishing) things were pretty cut and dried. If you had a good manuscript, a publisher bought it and turned it into a book. Publishing something yourself seemed to indicate that your book wasn’t ‘good enough’ and that you were taking the easy way out.

Things have changed. Publishers, scrambling to make sense of a new landscape, seem hesitant to take risks on new books. Self-publishing has lost its stigma, thanks to some great authors putting out some more-than-good-enough books. (Self-published titles accounted for more of the year's best-selling eBooks than either Hyperion's or Harper Collins, and for the first time ever, a New York Times book critic put a self-published title on her best-of-2012 list.) And while the do-it-yourself route still has significant road blocks, there are technologies and services rushing to knock them down. Consider some of these new products and developments, and how they may affect self-publishing (click to Tweet!)…and by extent, the entire publishing industry.

Software:  One of biggest hurdles to successful self-publishing has been marketing – how do you get your book in front of buyers. Booklamp, which calls itself the Pandora of books, and Booksai, a program that uses Artificial Intelligence to recommend books similar to ones a reader likes, could open up that playing field. Booklamp’s engine isn't influenced by advertising budgets or popularity biases. Likewise, Booksai analyzes only a book's content, ignoring sales rank and purchase history. These recommendation engines provide great opportunities for self-published projects, which often don’t have the sales numbers to get recommended on Amazon or other large bookseller websites.

Self-Publishing Forums: Now that self-publishing has been around a few years, the trials and errors made by early authors can be avoided…provided you know about them. That’s the beauty of self-publishing forums. You’ll find everything from pros and cons on the various self-publishing platforms to information on how to format your manuscript to recommendations for professional editors. Self-publishing is a lonely road and these forums can help independent author/publishers feel less alone. For a list of recommended forums, see this great post at The Book Designer.

Big Six (er, Five) Self-Publishing Arms: Even the traditional publishers are starting to get in on the action. Simon & Shuster’s Archway and Author Solutions (owned by Penguin…House) offer varying levels of publishing packages to suit each individual author’s needs. I haven’t studied these in too much depth, but from my narrow perspective, they seem to take the “self” out of self-publishing and replace it with authors paying big bucks to a company to publish their work. Um...I think there used to be a term for that....varity press? vanishy? vanipy?

Mergers: With the Random House/Penguin merger a done deal and rumors of a Harper Collins/S&S mashup flying around, the traditional publishing jungle is starting to look a lot different…and a lot smaller. How self-publishing fits into that jungle remains to be seen, but it certainly does seem like there’s a lot more room on the battlefield.

So this is all great news for self-publishers.

However…

…before you go bananas and publish every last word you’ve ever written, keep in mind that publishing your own book is a tremendous responsibility and, even with these new developments, a LOT of work! I tapped two of our fairy God-Mentors, EmmaDryden and Harold Underdown, to give us their thoughts on self-publishing and what it takes to do it well. Read these brilliant words of wisdom with care before heading down that do-it-yourself path.

 

EMMA DRYDEN:

One issue I see happening is that because the technical aspects of self publishing are SO easy— in other words, it's easier than ever to get something up on the web for all to see—too many authors are doing so without thought and without following what to my mind are necessary best practices in the way of editing, design, and marketing, at the very least. To self publish well, one must think and act like a publisher, but most authors don't have any idea what that means, and it takes time and practice to find out. My concern is that someone's name is on a book- and that should mean the same thing as someone's reputation being attached to that book, so if a book is sloppy, unprofessional, and poorly executed, this will reflect on that author. So I feel it's essential for someone who is self-publishing to take care with the process, not rush, and be clear as to what the goals are by self-publishing. To self-publish something meant to be shared by friends and family is one thing; to self-publish with the expectation of being reviewed and to sell books, that's something entirely different. An author needs to think this through clearly and professionally, in my opinion.

HAROLD UNDERDOWN: 

A pitfall: I see a lot of writers (not folks who just want to get a book out—writers who see themselves as building a career as writers) who choose self-publishing as a shortcut. They see how much work it is to find an agent, then find a publisher, and they see that there are no guarantees that they will get published that way. Even if they find a publisher, they may then work with the publisher for years. So self-publishing looks like less work. You can get published faster and more dependably. The problem is that to self-publish successfully, as Emma notes, you have to do the things that publishers do. And those things are a lot of work. The experience of Amanda Hocking is a case in point—she self-published very successfully but, as she said at the time, this required so much work that she signed with St. Martin's so she could concentrate on writing. And there are no guarantees, even with all that work, that someone will succeed in self-publishing. A brief summary of what's involved in publishing is in this article: http://www.underdown.org/publisher-expertise.htm

Emma and Harold raise very important issues. The website Harold lists gives a rundown of all the jobs you'll be taking on as a self-publisher. It's clear that, to do a good job publishing your own book, you need either lots of skills and/or a lot of money to pay people to do the jobs you can't. And keep in mind Emma's point about your book being 'out there.' It won't go away if, three years down the road, you realize it's not that good. Trust me--that happens.

The bottom line...self-publishing may be easier than ever, but doing it right will never be easy.

Here's a big bunch of bananas for our guests, the amazing Emma and most excellent Harold! You guys are welcome in the Turbo Monkey Tree anytime!

 
Emma D Dryden is the founder of the children’s book editorial and publishing consulting firm, drydenbks, through which she provides editorial and consultancy support to authors, illustrators, agents, foreign and domestic publishers, and eBook and app publishers. An editor and publishing for over twenty-five years, Emma has edited hundreds of books for children and young readers, and has worked at Viking, Random House, and as VP, Publisher of Atheneum and Margaret K. McElderry Books, imprints of Simon& Schuster. She is on the SCBWI Board of Advisors and she totally rocked as a mentor for the Nevada SCBWI Mentorship program, where she inspired Turbo Monkeys Kristen and Marilyn.

Harold Underdown is best known for his wonderful children’s writing, illustrating and publishing website, The PurpleCrayon, and for his indispensible book, The Complete Idiot's Guide toPublishing Children's Books, now in its third edition. He provides editorial and publishing consulting services through PC Editorial Services and does workshops and retreats via Kids Book Revisions. Previously, he served as Vice President and Editorial Director at ipicturebooks and prior to that, was editorial director of the Charlesbridge trade program. He has also worked at Orchard Books and Macmillan. Turbo Monkey Sarah was the lucky monkey who benefitted from Harold’s awesome advice and mad editing skills during the 2010-2011 Nevada Mentorship Program.

Time to Say Goodbye ... (to an old manuscript)

by Sarah

This year, I said goodbye to a manuscript. 

I worked on The Looking Glass for years. That manuscript taught me how to write. When I wrapped my mind around a new aspect of writing, I applied to it to the whole novel. I rewrote it many times, and every rewrite tackled a specific issue:  made my main character more active, fixed a sagging middle, or built a believable world. 

The Looking Glass was the manuscript I rewrote (again)  while I was in the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program. I met my Monkeys because of it! My mentor, Harold Underdown, taught me so much as I worked on it.

All the rewrites changed it for the better.

Until they didn't.

By the end of last August, I had a feeling that things still weren’t right. Consultations with agents at two SCBWI conferences confirmed my fears. The worst part was that I didn’t know how to fix my story. The portions I did try to revise didn't show any real improvement. 

Amy wrote a great post about when it’s time to stop revising and send a manuscript out. My manuscript met all those criteria. Except it wasn't time to send it out. It was time to put it away. 

While I dithered about whether to set The Looking Glass aside, I remembered a conversation I had with one of my sisters, a classically trained singer.

During the last year of her degree for vocal performance, she gave a senior recital, singing several difficult arias. After she graduated, she continued to improve, but she told me later that all her growth disappeared when she revisited some of those first arias. Her breathing would change. She’d loose her range. She’d carry more tension in her voice.

She couldn't return to those songs without reverting to the skill she had when she first sang them.

I was doing the same thing with my writing. 

Continuing to work on The Looking Glass limited me to the skill I had when I first began crafting it. I’d built weaknesses into the characters and the plot. All my newbie decisions were so intrinsic to the story that I couldn’t see them, let alone undo them.

I needed a new start. A partial scholarship* to a Highlights Foundation workshop gave me the impetus I needed to dive into a new manuscript. The three-month deadline for a rough draft kept me from looking back.

I was surprised at how much easier the first draft of Valiant was to write.  I knew what needed to be done. I knew the questions I needed to ask about the plot and characters. I knew the mistakes I tended to make and worked to avoid them.

Don’t get me wrong: what I had at the end of three months was rough– really rough. But the bones were good. I used every bit of craft I'd learned over the years ... instead of working around all the mistakes I'd made over the years.

Isaac Newton, speaking of his accomplishments, said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." 

Granted, the giants he referred to were the intellectual greats that came before him. But the metaphor holds: I am convinced that a new manuscript stand on the shoulders of all the other stories we've spun. Those old stories give the new one height and depth and wisdom. 

So... if it's time, wave goodbye to your old manuscript. Give yourself permission to write the story all your earlier stories prepared you for. 

And in the meantime, have a Merry Christmas! I pray it brings you warmth and friendship and joy. 



*If you've been considering a Highlights workshop, but can't afford it,  apply for a scholarship! Now is the time of year to do so.

***Next week, the Turbo Monkeys will be on holiday with their tribes, but we've prepared some newsy little posts for you, so be sure to stop by, between the presents and the turkey. Love to you all!