Up And At 'Em...

The Buried Editor has come back up out of the slush pile with a bang....responding to a blog question....

Dear Buried Editor,
Do you plan to come back this decade or did the baby drain away all chances of you ever blogging again?

Madeline has always been good value in the blogosphere. She works for a small press in Texas has her own imprint with this press and also works in a bookstore to keep in touch with kid readers.

P J Hoover and Stacy Nyikos are both published by her. I first came across The Buried Editor Blog when she decided to have an online pitch slam as a practice before she went to hear pitches at the huge Book Expo Conference of 08...

She is an editor a publisher a blogger and now she has added online critiques to her busy lifestyle.

With a new ning forum on her blog she posts a weekly question and forum members comment or send in samples of writing....here’s what she wants to do with the forum.

But, what I'm most excited about is the new forum Get Me Out of the Slushpile! that I've started. Every Monday I'll post a writing prompt here and on the forum. Then, the rest of the week you and I can post the work the prompt inspires and critique one another. I have been so impressed with the quality (and kindness) that people have shown when critiquing on this site, that I wanted to have more opportunities for all of us to help each other with our writing.

Martin Taylor of the Digital Publishers forum has a workshop in Auckland in December on internet marketing strategies.

Martin spoke at our Spinning Gold conference and was well received....He has made it his mission to try to up skill everyone in NZ in digital publishing.

One of his speakers is a kiwi, Sean D'Souza who has a (global) small business marketing and branding advisory business. PSYCHOTACTIC

I recently trawled around on Sean’s site and I liked what I saw. Go and check it out.

I have been working this week! One MS out the door, another is being revised after a few years in the wilderness. Updated my blog sites (spot the changes) and I’ve done some dusting!

I still have a ton of must do’s before I can get back to Mars...I’m still trying to come up with one word title (...coz I like one word titles) for the Mars wip (work in progress)...that conveys mystery, culture collision, identity issues and space exploration....any suggestions?

maureen

Celebrating The Brilliance...

I have been contemplating publicity over the last couple of days...in the light of the NZ Post children’s book awards shortlist coming out.

First there was The DomPost, Wellington’s newspaper only printing the Wellington finalists...how parochial is that...we should be celebrating our collective national brilliance...then there was The Herald, Auckland’s newspaper making a right hash of the shortlist putting the wrong illustrators with the wrong books and leaving poor Melinda out completely.

I have passed several bookshops lately none of them have the list displayed in the window...ok they are chain stores but come on....celebrate the brilliance people!

So feeling a little disheartened about it all I started looking on the web at my usual link sites for some inspiration and to feel better as I broke my toe on Wednesday....

The lovely Madeleine of The Buried Editor came to my rescue with a brilliant post on author publicity from an editor and publishers perspective. She has her own little imprint at Blooming Tree Press called CBAY (Children’s Brain’s Are Yummy.) Here is a little snippet of what she has to say.

Besides, your book will never be as important to your publisher as it is to you, especially with your first book. Your book is most likely the only one you have coming out that year. Even at the smallest of presses, this is unlikely to be the case. With the big houses, you could be literally one book out of dozens being produced that month, much less over the year. And even at the small houses where your editor may have read the manuscript dozens of times, he/she still has not put in the kind of time, effort, or love that you have. And the house publicist may not have read the book at all. You are the best advocate for your book. You should take this responsibility seriously.

So, here are some things you can do to market your book:

Go and read the rest of her post Here.

This morning I heard our esteemed patron and all round good keen man, Jack Lasenby, speaking on National Radio, the interviewer asked him only question about his book, Old Drumble. I thought to myself ‘huh DomPost, I bet you want that interview I did for you on Jack now....’ They didn’t run it because they didn’t have space last June when Old Drumble came out. But it was an attempt to celebrate the brilliance...

I thought that I would post the book trailer that Brian Falkner has made for The Tomorrow Code because I think it is brilliant and he is shortlisted and really just to celebrate the brilliance...

maureen