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PiBoIdMo fans! This little guy wants you to get ready! So he’s lighting the way for you. You’ll be seeing him a lot during November, thanks to talented illustrator Bonnie Adamson.
For all who have been patiently waiting, PiBoIdMo sign-up will commence on Monday, October 24th right here on this blog. You’ll be able to pick up badges and Twibbons and ensure that you will qualify for the prizes, including the grandest one of all—feedback from one of three literary agents.
Stay tuned!
(Well, it is!)
Children’s: Picture Book
THE MONSTORE author Tara Lazar’s I THOUGHT THIS WAS A BEAR BOOK, about an alien who falls into the wrong book and has to try to get back to his home planet, to Alyson Heller at Aladdin, by Ammi-Joan Paquette at Erin Murphy Literary Agency (NA).
This book is tentatively slated for release in Summer 2014. I hope I’m still alive by then! LOL!
Many thanks to all the friends who helped shape this book and to Joan for her perseverance!
See y’all soon for PiBoIdMo!
There are many things I wish I had known about writing picture books when I began pursuing my dream of becoming a published author. Word count. Page turns. Linear storytelling. Building tension. The “twist” ending. Instead, I had to learn these things through trial and error, attending industry conferences, reading books and blogs, and networking with professionals.
On November 6 in Madison, NJ, I’ll be sharing all I’ve learned to those who also have a dream of becoming a picture book author. Are you in the area? I’d love to see you!
So You Want To Be a Picture Book Author
November 6, 2011, 2-4pm
Sages Pages, Madison, NJ
Many people believe writing for the young is easy. After all, “they’re just kids!” But writing for children is one of the most difficult genres in publishing to break into.
Picture book author Tara Lazar (“The Monstore”, Aladdin/Simon & Schuster 2013) will teach you all the things she wished she knew when she began her career, from story length to page turns, how to leave room for illustrations and create irresistible, age-appropriate, relatable characters.
You’ll learn the little-known “rules” of kidlit (and that rules are made to be broken!), plus how to fine-tune your ideas into sellable manuscripts. Participants can even submit a first page of their children’s picture book or novel for an anonymous critique. Tara will answer your questions and help you form an action plan for breaking into the kidlit business armed with knowledge, inspiration and encouragement.
Visit The Writer’s Circle to sign up. Only $25 for 2 hours chock full of what took me years to learn!
Yes, it’s almost time for the 30-picture-book-ideas-in-30-days challenge, otherwise known as PiBoIdMo! The picture book writer’s alternative to NaNoWriMo will kick off the last week in October and continue through the month of November.
In late October you’ll be able to sign up, grab a badge for your blog and social networks, and get ready for some awesome prizes! There will be critiques from published authors, feedback from literary agents, original illustrations by picture book arists, signed books, jewelry, journals, and who knows what else! You’ll also be able to purchase PiBoIdMo merchandise with the proceeds benefitting book charities. So get those notebooks ready!
In the meantime, here’s a Halloween greeting. I hope to see you for PiBoIdMo soon!
Thanks for everyone’s patience while I reviewed the Picture Book Premise entries. There were some wonderful ideas and I had a difficult time choosing my favorite. In the end, it boiled down to my gut reaction.
And thus, I got a feeling of what it’s like to be an editor, inundated with multiple pitches, trying to decide which stories sounded the most appealing.
Most of my regular blog friends know that I’m a quirky, humorous writer, so it will surprise you to know the winning premise was NOT quirky or funny! (Hey, it surprised me, too!) I now understand why agents and writers don’t typically tell aspiring authors what they’re looking for. Instead they say, “I’ll know it when I see it.” If I advertised that I only wanted laugh-out-loud premises, I would have missed out on some unique ideas.
Before I tell you the winner (I know, I’m like an awards show cutting to commercial), I’d like to give everyone a few tips on how to write their premises.
Your premise is your pitch. If you have to write a query letter, it’s the whiz-bang-pow paragraph that gets the editor begging to see more. It’s also your 60-second elevator pitch. When you meet an editor or agent and they ask, “What do you write?”, it’s your chance to dazzle them and entice them to request the manuscript.
Your premise should read like jacket copy. Here’s the jacket copy from Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen’s THE HOG PRINCE:
“Eldon Hog is fed up with mud-swallowing and slop-gobbling. He and his friend, Petunia, watch the royal carriage pass by every morning, and Eldon dreams of becoming a princely passenger.
“So it seems that all of Eldon’s dreams have come true when Miranda, a somewhat frazzled fairy, tells him that if he can break the Hog Prince spell put upon him, he will transform into a prince. SMOOOOCHES abound as Eldon searches far and wide for that magical, spell-breaking kiss. He tricks the Cinder girl, Ella (Smoooch! Eek!); Lady Aurora, spinning gold (Smoooch! Yecchhh!); and all the ladies he can find. But is it possible that true love has been sitting under his snout all along?”
Now, that may be a tad big longish for jacket copy, but see how it ends in a question that begs for an answer? You’re left hanging until you open that book and read on.
Not everyone sent a premise that sounded like jacket copy. Some only gave me one sentence, which wasn’t enough to understand what the entire story was about. I couldn’t envision the character or their predicament fully.
Others wrote a little too much detail. Remember you’re pitching a picture book, so if your premise is wordy, an editor may assume that your manuscript is full of unnecessary words. Trim down your pitch; trim down your story’s word count.
Others sent me snippets from their story, but I wanted to see that you could tell me about the story without sending the manuscript. That’s what editors and agents will ask for in a query. If they ask for a query letter but you send the manuscript instead, it may be discarded for not following instructions. (To be fair, I didn’t say DON’T send the manuscript, but you get my gist.)
And now onto the winners!
First, the person who referred the most people to my blog was MONA PEASE! You have won a picture book critique, redeemable at any time, as long as I’m still alive! LOL!
Next, I’ll tell you a little about the premise I choose without giving away the farm. Actually, the two top finalists were what you would call “multicultural” stories. They both struck me as very unique, although the winner’s premise is based on an actual event with a Latin-American folklore feel. Without further ado, the winner of the critique is VALARIE GIOGAS for THE RAIN OF FISH!
Mona and Valarie, please email me at tarawrites dot yahoo dot you-know-the-rest to discuss the details of your prizes.
Thank you to everyone who entered. There were 33 entries, out of which I had “starred” 7 premises, which I think is a pretty darn good percentage of darn good ideas. Y’all are smart and talented writers! Keep writing! Keep dreaming! Keep inspiring! (And keep reading this blog! LOL!)
It’s summer, so let’s have some fun, shall we?
How about a contest?
Good. I thought you’d like that.
And this one is easy. You don’t have to send a manuscript. All you need to enter is a premise.
That’s right! A picture book premise.
Make it unique, make it funny, make it touching. In less than 100 words tell me your story’s premise. What’s the problem? What crazy situation has got your character all flummoxed? Imagine it’s your book’s jacket copy. What would you say to sell the audience on your book? You’ve only got a few seconds to capture someone’s attention, so make it snappy.
The best premise will win a free critique–and get this, you don’t even have to have the book written yet! Think of a great premise now, claim your critique later. I’ll honor the free critique for as long as you need (although it’s non-transferable and its cash value is 1/100th of a cent.)
There are three steps to enter:
- Subscribe to my blog via email if you haven’t already. (See handy button in the top left column of my blog.)
- Send your premise in the body of an email with the subject line “PB Premise Contest” to tarawrites at yahoo dot you-know-what. All entries must be received by Sunday, August 14th. (One entry per person, please. So make it your best.)
- Tell your friends. The person who refers the most people to my blog will also win a critique! (Just let me know in a comment below who you referred. I’m working on the honor system here.)
That’s all! So easy-peasy! I’ll announce the winners the week of August 15th.
One last thing–if your premise is anything like one of my current projects, I will notify you, just to let you know, I’m not taking anyone’s premise. I’ve got enough of my own begging me to write them!
I drew this illustration to accompany an old story I wrote about my pencils and pens–who felt used and abused by my ceaseless creating, so they up and staged a revolt and escape! I never told my agent I could draw. I don’t think it’s good enough to be in books, but I thought I’d share it here. Maybe a coloring contest is in order?
Copyright 2011 Tara Lazar
THE MONSTORE is still two years away from release, but today I have the OK to share with you initial character sketches by the brilliant illustrator James Burks!
The main character of the story is Zack, who wants to buy a monster to scare his pesky little sister Gracie. (Isn’t she sweet? How could she possibly be pesky?) Three of the main monsters are Manfred, Mookie and Mojo…and of course, there’s the proprietor of the shop–the Monstore Manager. I wonder if Danny DeVito would like to play him in the movie version? (Yes, one can dream.)
I hope you enjoy these illustrations!
Copyright 2011, James Burks
Ah, how I love spending a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in suburban mecca: Best Buy. We went in for a digital camera, but stopped at every department, drooling over the latest gas ranges with dual ovens and french-door refrigerators (a thrill you’ll only understand once you’re married with kids).
We were also oogling over the QR codes. Yes, we were two geeks in paradise.
What are QR codes? You’ve probably seen them—pixelated bar-code-like squares that link your smart phone or iWhatever to additional information about a product. Want to see a video of the range in action? Learn about the warranty? View an extended list of features? Call the manufacturer’s customer service? Just scan the QR code and it will lead you to a website, video or other crucial piece of marketing magic that doesn’t fit on the price tag.
So what does the QR code mean for authors?
Glad you asked. Author/illustrator Katie Davis recently explored the possibilities. Just click on the graphic below to read her post:
Wouldn’t it be great if publishers started putting them on book jackets? Link to the book trailer! The author’s own book club! Her Formspring fan page! (Gee, the customer could even call you at home. But I digress.) The QR code delivers more whiz-pow-bang to help sell the buyer on the book.
Are QR codes the next big thing? Maybe. They’ve been used in Japan for about 10 years now and I’ve personally seen them more and more over the past few months.
Read Katie’s post about how to generate your own QR code and start examining the possibilities!
Thanks to The Daring Librarian for the graphic.
OK, the cat is out of the bag. I’m not the most organized person in the world. My daughter’s closet looks like Justice for Girls exploded and I store soda bottles and juice boxes on my kitchen floor. There. So now you know, when you visit my house, you must tiptoe around the towers of books because I never get them back on the shelves.
Mrs. Mozer brought to my attention that I featured every single one of her 3rd grade class’s monsters for The Monstore—except one. Alexander’s. I’m sorry, buddy! So without further ado, here is Alexander’s creation!
I’ve got just one question for Alexander—can I borrow your monster’s watch? I really need that thing.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 