How To Get Published

Posted by on Mar 14, 2024 in Children's Literature, Editing, Writing Tips | 0 comments

Everyone Has a Story printed on a sheet of paper on a vintage typewriter. journalist, writer

A friend of a friend asked for some publishing advice recently, and I put together a little something that I thought might help others as well. Here you go:

Most of the big publishers require an agent, so if you have a finished manuscript or a solid proposal for a longer work (usually that means a few sample chapters and a well-developed outline), you can start there. Editor Brooke Vitale has an excellent list of agents who take children’s and YA literature.

Smaller and local presses don’t always require an agent, so you can also can start there if you like. In Maine, Islandport and Downeast Books do books with Maine/New England themes.

When it comes to looking for editors, assistant editors and associate editors can be the best targets. They are still building a list of writers and illustrators. Full editors and senior editors often have well-established relationships with creative types and not as much room on their lists for new people.

One thing that can help is to go to bookstores and libraries and look for books that you like or that seem similar to what you’ve written and see who the publisher is. Do check pub dates, too, because it’s not that helpful to see what a publisher was putting out a decade ago….you want current stuff.

Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators both have classes and workshops that can be helpful. And it can just be encouraging to get together with other people who are starting out and gather tips that way.

It’s a long slow process to get published! While you have one book out there looking for a home, continue working on new ideas and developing more manuscripts. It’s good for your mental health and for your career to have more than one (or two, or three) projects to show.

A friend of mine says, “It is the ground state of a manuscript to be rejected.” Most manuscripts are rejected most of the time. Prepare yourself, allow yourself to be sad for a few days when you get your first (second, third, seventeenth…) rejection, and keep going. Chocolate helps.


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Nycticorax

Posted by on Mar 7, 2024 in BOOK: Griffin's Boy, Fantasy, Uncategorized | 0 comments

The latest legendary creature to get a mention in The Griffin’s Boy, which I just sent off to my editor…the nycticorax. A crow-like bird supposed to be an ill omen and a natural enemy of the pelican, although I think the poor thing is probably just misunderstood.

photo © Frank Schulenburg

The Latin name of the unlegendary night heron is Nycticorax nycticorax, and they do have eyes that glow an unnerving red at night…I can see why people might be a tad jumpy about them.

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Leap!

Posted by on Feb 29, 2024 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Today does not feel like a real day to me. Shouldn’t we all just have the day off? How can anybody expect real work to get done on a day that doesn’t actually exist?

So instead of a post about books or writing or nifty magical creatures (next week, the nycticorax!) I thought I would mention a few interesting facts about Leap Day.

Why is Leap Day in February? Because in the original Roman calendar, the year began in March. Said year only lasted for ten months and did not include winter, because “people didn’t work then.” I am entranced by this idea of two months just not existing–sort of an enforced winter vacation, I guess?

By the 7th century BC, people had noticed that, even if farm work was slack in the winter, time was in fact passing. Two new months (Ianuarius and Februarius) were added to the calendar.

Then along came Julius Caesar, who announced (when you are an all-powerful divine emperor, you can just say stuff and wham! It’s true!) that a year was 365 days and 6 hours along, and every fourth year you get an additional day on the end of Februarius to use up those stray six hours. He also made the year start on the first of Ianuarius, and decreed that people had to abide by his new calendar (and, you know, worship him as a god and all) after a 445-day stretch to get everybody all caught up, called the ultimus annus confusionis or “final year of confusion.” All seemed well…

But wait! Caesar was off by 12 minutes. The year is actually 365 days, 5 hours, and 48 minutes long. By the 1500s, the calendar year was out of whack with the solar year again, and Pope Gregory had to step in with the Gregorian calendar. This keeps leap years every 4 years except for centennials (years with two 00s, like 1900) except for centennials divisible by 400 (like 1600.)

And that is why today is not real.

Sources: Time Magazine, “Who Decided February 29 Was Leap Day?” by Chad de Guzman
CBS News, “What is a leap year, and why do they happen? Everything to know about Leap Day”

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Save the…Rhinoceroses

Posted by on Feb 22, 2024 in Animals, Nonfiction, SERIES: Save the... | 0 comments

Have I mentioned that Save the…Rhinoceroses is on sale? Can’t remember if I gave this one a shout-out on its pub date!

And did you know that a contented rhino makes a sound like mmm-wonk? This is my favorite rhino fact.

(I lobbied for “rhinos” instead of “rhinoceroses” in the title but got overruled by somebody at the publisher. Shame. Once you start saying “rhinoceroses” it’s really, really hard to stop.)

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Poets? Poet’s? Poets’?

Posted by on Feb 8, 2024 in Editing, Grammar, Writing Process, Writing Tips | 0 comments

So I gather there are some questions about Taylor Swift, poets, and apostrophes.

Should it be The Tortured Poet’s Department? That would be correct if there is only one tortured poet in residence. Perhaps it’s a very small college.

Should it be The Tortured Poets’ Department? That would be correct if there is more than one tortured poet present. A seminar, maybe.

Should it be The Tortured Poets Department, as on the album cover? This is quite correct also, just as long as there is, again, more than one tortured poet. In this case, instead of a department belonging to tortured poets, it’s a department of or pertaining to tortured poets–kind of like the housewares department is not a department that belongs to housewares, but a department where housewares are relevant.

(There’s an argument for The Tortured-Poets Department, but honestly, it just looks clunky and awkward.)

Should it be The Department of Tortured Poets so that we don’t have to have this conversation anymore? I vote for this. When in a total grammatical quandary, rephrase!

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Manticore

Posted by on Jan 25, 2024 in Animals, BOOK: Griffin's Boy, Fantasy | 0 comments

A manticore (labeled “martigora”) from Johannes Jonston’s 1650 book, Historiae naturalis de quadrupetibus

Working hard on revisions for The Griffin’s Boy…so will just share one fun legendary creature: the manticore. Body of a lion, head of a human, said to devour its victims completely and leave not even a bone behind.

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Because Everybody Likes Quizzes

Posted by on Jan 18, 2024 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Check out this New York Times quiz of lines from classic middle grade and young adult books!

(Pet peeve–middle grade is ages 8-12. The first three Harry Potters are classic middle grade. Young adult is for ages 12 and up. Anything by Robert Cormier is classic young adult. People (I’m looking at you, New York Times) use young adult for all novels written for kids, and it’s not accurate. Thank your for listening to this public service announcement.)

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