It is conference season for Children’s Writers and Illustrators.
WriteOnCon starts next week. It’s Free and Online and close to 500 people have signed up for it. (Click on forums to sign up.)
SCBWI LA Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators L A summer conference has just finished and they had a record breaking crowd of over 1100 attendees this year.
Alice Pope and her team blogged their way through it again this year. You need a team to blog a conference of this magnitude. Last year was the first time that they did it and it was a stupendous undertaking. This year they surpassed themselves. For us who can only dream about one day making it over there to just experience it, or in our case having to put on our own conference so we could get the opportunity to learn, upskill, and network in our craft, the SCBWI Team Blog is the way to go.
Just a warning there is so much information about what’s new, what editors are looking for, trends, multimedia, master class information, tips, learning,....Set aside time to really study what has been posted. And it is a lot! I clicked older posts 8 times before I got to the start of the four day conference. Along the way the information coming at me was incredible.
If you are in this business you would be a fool not to check out the blog.
Michelle from The Y A Highway blog posted her impressions as an attendee and soundbites of what she took away from the conference. It is a great little roundup of highpoints.
A couple or three sites caught my eye this week to share with you before I got snowed by the conference blog.
The Book Doctor has an article up on organising your days on a weekly basis. It is timely as life gets pretty busy around here and fitting in time to write and not feel guilty is very tricky. So check out the advice from The Book Doctor Team.
Pimp My Novel has reposted an article from last year about 12 easy steps to help market your new novel. This is a good wake up call from the sales director of a publishing firm. Especially lead in times...websites etc...and Book Trailers.
As an aside Christopher Cheng from Australia/New Zealand SCBWI got an award In L A last week for most helpful Regional Advisor and he did a session on creating book trailers...yes the authors HAVE TO DO IT and his session showed how you could do it in 30 minutes. You have to read SCBWI TEAM BLOG!
As I have said in earlier posts, the futurists are predicting that publishers will only survive if they become more niche so it is useful for authors to look at this form of marketing as well. This week I have been delving into marketing books again and the new buzz word coming out is fusion marketing. Teaming up with other industries and marketing together.
Alan looks at some of these ideas and shows examples of book campaigns that are doing this.
Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page)
What Writers Wish They Had Known Before Pitching
7 Things I’ve Learned So Far (a satire...very funny but thought provoking too)
Open Sky Website lets Authors Sell Directly To Consumers (On Fusion Marketing )
Writing Vs Storytelling (Nathan Bransford writes a brilliant article on looking closely at why we love or don’t
love best sellers and what we can learn from them)
How A Sticky Note Can Change Your Life
Some Tips For Writing A Series.
And in other news
The FABO Story project is off with a hiss and a roar and we are getting some great stories from the kids. Go and check out Chapter Two and the winning kids chapter two version. Kids can join in at any time as a new chapter is posted each week. New Zealand Illustrators have joined in with a team of their own getting together to illustrate each chapter for us...
If you are dreaming of book trailers....and going global....check out how you can run a TV Ad in the States for very little money. Is this where FABO will end up?...heheheheh If you read the SCBWI TEAM BLOG you will find out that it’s not such a silly idea....
enjoy,
maureen
pic is from Christopher Cheng...his view of the 1100 attendees at SCBWI LA.
4 comments:
Hi Maureen. So much great information (as always)!
I'm off to check out the SCBWI team blog and check out chapter 2 of the FaBo story. :)
Oh good....There is a heap of stuff on there... talk about upskilling. I see that day one of WriteOnCon is up as well. It's looking good!
I hope you enjoy chapter two...I know who wrote it...(hint)
Thanks for the great links, Maureen. The WriteOnCon looks amazing! Can't wait to see how it works.
Tania,
The presenting team is stacked with talent! As it is online you can see the posts when you can. Only some stuff is being done in real time.
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