Wrapping Up Our Series on Frequently Asked Questions

Image by Margo Lipa from Pixabay

Happy August!  

It's hard to believe that summer is already waning here in the northern hemisphere and students and teachers will soon be returning to classrooms. Today, I'm closing out our latest TeachingAuthors series. At the end of this post, I also share one of my poems and a link to this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

I've enjoyed reading all my fellow TeachingAuthors' responses to the prompt: "Share a question you often get from your students or readers." I must admit, though, that the post that most resonated with me was April's, in which she talks about someone approaching her with an idea and asking her to write the book. I, too, have received that request many times, not only from my students, but also from strangers I've met at social functions and even via email from random people who found me online.

But there's another question I've heard far more frequently from those same sources: "How do you get a book published?" In fact, when I first started teaching classes in writing for children and teens over 25 years ago, the question was frequently worded as "How much does it cost to get a children's book published?" Back before self-publishing became prevalent, many people assumed you simply paid a book publisher like Scholastic or Random House to publish your book. These same people also typically assumed that if you were a writer and not an artist, you had to hire someone to illustrate your picture book before submitting to that publisher. 

If the person asking the question was not a student in one of my classes, I simply directed them to the Frequently Asked Questions page of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) website. But over the years, the answer has gotten increasingly more complicated, and the SCBWI FAQ page isn't as helpful as it used to be. Thankfully, Jane Freidman has a great resource: "Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published," that covers publishing books for adults as well as for children. The post describes three publishing paths: traditional publishing, hiring a company to publish for you, and self-publishing, and she updates the information periodically. 

There are now all sorts of books on writing for children, too. Two of my favorites include Ann Whitford Paul's Writing Picture Books: A Hands-on Guide From Story Creation to Publication and Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole, both published by Writer's Digest Books.     

How about you, Readers? Do you have any questions we haven't addressed in this series? If so, please let us know in the comments. 

Now for the poem I promised. Earlier this summer, I had the honor of having two poems accepted for publication at The Dirigible Balloon, a UK-based online magazine that publishes poetry for children--my first time being featured there! Here's one of them, which you can also see on their site here: 

      On the Launchpad (An Etheree)    
      by Carmela A. Martino

      Preparing for takeoff! I fuel up 
      on determination so I can 
      blast past expectations and climb
      skyward, higher and higher—
      beyond the stratosphere—
      to where earthly fears
      won’t weigh me down.
      Here I go—
      THREE, TWO,
      ONE …

  © 2025 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

As noted above, this poem is an Etheree. If you're not familiar with the form, you can learn about it on the Shadow Poetry site.  And you can read my other poem, "Puppy Litter," on this page of The Dirigible Balloon.

Don't forget to visit this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Jane Whittingham for more terrific poetry.

Happy writing!

Carmela 

Treats and Tricks: My Q & A with Teaching Agent-Author Mary Kole

Today’s release of the hands-on how-to book for middle grade and young adult writers Writing Irresistible Kidlit (Writer’s Digest) gifts Moveable Type literary agent and KidLit.com creator Mary Kole with yet one more title:  Teaching Agent-Author.

Subtitled The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers, Mary’s interactive book offers up a bevy of agent-learned tricks, treats and best of all tools certain to help writers learn and hone their craft as well as their world.  She shares writing exercises, candid commentary and a collection of book excerpts and personal insights from bestselling authors and editors who specialize in the children’s book market.

Mary joined Movable Type from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency where she distinguished herself as an inventive and entrepreneurial agent.  Her books include author-illustrator Lindsay Wards’ When Blue Met Egg (Dial), Emily Hainsworth’s YA debut Through to You (Balzer + Bray) and Dianna Winget’s A Smidget of Sky (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).  KidLit.com was named one of Writer’s Digest’s Top 100 Websites for Writers; over 50,000 readers visit the site monthly.

This being Halloween, a favorite holiday of just about every children’s book writer and teacher I know, I consider Mary’s answers to my questions below both delicious, calorie-free Treats and writer-friendly Tricks, plural.

For one more Treat, be sure to read below of our TeachingAuthor Book Giveaway of the 2013 Children’sWriter’s & Illustrator’s Market (Writer’s Digest) which includes two of Mary’s articles - “Crafting a Query” and “Building Your Author Platform.”

(1) How did you become a Teaching (Agent) Author?

I became an agent after reading for free at an agency to learn more about the publishing business. But I've always been passionate about teaching others, so I knew that I wanted to pass on what I was learning to writers. The publishing business is often difficult to wrap one's head around, so I wanted to pull back the curtain a little bit. I understand things better once I articulate them and explain them to others, so the teaching aspect of my work has also been invaluable to me.

(2) Why and how did your book come to be?                                 

I started out as a writer, so part of it was definitely yearning to be a published author. But the book also became a personal challenge: Do I have enough to say about the writing craft and can I say it in a way that it earns its keep on my readers' writing reference shelves? I hope the answer to both questions is "yes," of course, and I'm excited to see the reactions once the book is out in the world. Since I was doing a lot of programming and teaching for Writer's Digest, publishing the guide with them was a natural fit and the process of actually getting the book deal was easy. The process of writing it, though, took a lot more stress and work, but I'm very happy with the finished product.

(3) What are the Top Three problems you note in manuscripts when you’re reading as an agent?

Beginnings are tough to do well, and I often notice that writers don't start with a strong sense of the present moment and present action. A lot of beginnings have tons of backstory and info-dumping and not enough conflict to hook a reader in. In terms of character, writers can always work on motivation and objective--a really strong reason for characters to be doing what they're doing, and an overarching goal that they work toward in the story. In a prose sense, I often find myself giving the following note: "You are saying something fundamentally simple in an overly complicated way." Not everything needs to be a showcase for Writing-with-a-capital-W. Sometimes there's style in simplicity.

(4) What are the Top Three writers’ questions you receive at www.kidlit.com?

Questions about query letters are always popular, and this is the first resource I end up sending to writers:

http://kidlit.com/2009/08/05/writing-a-simple-compelling-query/

Other than that, I've been answering writing questions on the site since 2009 and there are a lot of different concerns that writers have. I don't know if I can pick the runners up in terms of popularity.

(5) Please share a favorite Writing Exercise.

To really help writers individuate characters and think about voice, I like to ask them to describe the same scene or landscape from the POVs of two different characters. Think about syntax, word choice, what each character notices and how. This often drives home the point that each fictional person is unique and has a very distinct lens that should inform every choice that a writer is making.

(6) You’ve worn so many hats while residing in the Children’s Book World! Which do you love wearing the best?

I'd love to say "reader" but, to tell you the truth, there is no better way to frustrate one's love of reading than to actually work in publishing, where you are reading more than you ever thought possible and under time constraints. So I'll say that my favorite hat is "cheerleader," because there's no better feeling than believing in a project and championing it through to publication.

Thanks, Mary Kole, for the opportunity to bring you and your new book Writing Irresistible Fiction to the attention of our TeachingAuthor readers.

Happy Halloween!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S. Trick or treat?  You bet!  We’re giving away one copy of the 2013 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’sMarket (Writer’s Digest)!

You must follow our TeachingAuthors blog to enter our drawing.  If you’re not already a follower, you can sign up now in the sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.

There are two ways to enter:
1) by a comment posted below
OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.
Just for the fun of it, and since we’re offering a Writer’s Book, share your #1 chocolate Trick or Treat candy. J

Whichever way you enter, you MUST give us your first and last name AND tell us how you follow us. If you enter via a comment, you MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way: youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment. Contest open only to residents of the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded. Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Wednesday, November 7, 2012. Winners will be announced Friday, November 9, 2012. Good luck to all!