Socially Speaking....

Around the country Children’s Writers and Illustrators are getting together to celebrate Margaret Mahy’s life by going to their local library and reading Margaret Mahy stories at 11am on the 11th of August.

This is happening at public libraries up and down the land and overseas....If you want to find out more check out this great website especially put together for the event.

This whole event has snowballed from comments, made on social media among a bunch of children's writers, to become a National Event, getting press coverage around the country, in under 10 days.

In the blogosphere this week a lot of comment was devoted to Ewan Morrison’s piece in the Guardian about the (non) value of Social Media for authors.

Morrison often stirs the pot of controversy just before a speaking engagement and he is in fine form...however he took some flak for his blanket statements and figure analysis of the 80/20 rule of social media.

(You know it’s important if Shatzkin comments.)

Part of Morrison’s piece was to focus on Joanna Penn, who this week made a stir with her blog post on why she, a successful self published author, has just signed with an agent. It is all about putting the right team together. It is a good read and very timely as agents are re-examing their role in the changing marketplace...along with legacy publishers who seem to be chasing after the indie authors. 

SelfPublishingAdvice has a timely post on how Indie authors can work with traditional publishers.

Books and Such Literary agents have an interesting blog this week on Why Agents Blog.

Staying on the Social Networking topic, Writers Funzone looks at adding value in your social networking....and no, its not the 80/20 rule.

Publishers Weekly looked at the supposed Long Tail of publishing and wondered where it was...Their commenters put them straight! (you wonder if some publishing execs have been buried in sand for the last three years...)

It is conference season....and last weekend was the SCBWI summer conference.

I try to drop in, during the conference, to their live blog and get a feel for what people are talking about, hot trends, changes in the industry, things that will filter down here.

The running conference blog is a wonderful idea for those of us who can’t make the Los Angeles Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference...(tho over 1300 people did.)

Drop into the blog and scroll down the links to keynotes, panels etc. There is heaps of information just a click away.

However if you do feel like a conference experience...Check out WRITEONCON.

This is a free online children’s writers and illustrators conference which is getting bigger by the year. There are over 4000 members. I ‘attended’ last year...squashing in some online panels during the afternoon (NZ time). The big bonus tho for attendees is that everything is recorded online so those of us living in different time zones or having to work can drop in anytime and get up to date or post questions before panels and it is FREE. If you want to register go to forums. (if you registered at a previous writeoncon just log in) WRITEONCON goes live for forum and agent questions on Monday and conference live 14^th and 15^th August.

Dee, from I Write For Apples, has ten tips that will make WRITEONCON sooo much better for you.

In the Craft section,

The fabulous K M Weiland strikes again with her great common mistakes series This week Tension....

Joanna Penn has a great post on How To Create An Audio Book and why you should consider it.

Chuck Sambuchino has made public his Pitch Sheet Template...fill this in and you have your pitch sorted.

20 tips for writing strong heroines

Jodie Renner is guest posting on Elisabeth Spann Craig’s popular blog looking at how to name characters...and where to find their names....

Passive Guy takes a good look at which Creative Commons License is best.

Two links I just had to include for you... (the everything you want to know group of links.)

Mashables collection of digital tools to create ebooks

Inspired to Writes 25 helpful websites for writers

I am a fan of author collectives and their power to do good out there in the marketing world. Joanna Penn has a post on the 7 Benefits Of An Author Collective and how one such collective works specifically.  If you don’t know much about them, Read It... it will open your eyes!

I’m off to practice my Margaret Mahy story and work out which WRITEONCON sessions I can make...after all the power of Social Media to connect with others is what it is all about.

maureen

pic from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

Needing tissues...

What a nasty week...My body decided it was the time to lie down and let a rampant cold stomp all over me...cue tissues. I retired from the world as far as internet was concerned. The problem with that is, the emails still keep coming and the things to do list just gets longer.

So crawling back to my notes, made a couple of weeks ago what interesting tidbits from the publishing blogosphere do I have to share with you.

Penguin’s acquisition of Author Solutions still has everyone talking.

Mike Shatzkin looks at the moves to publish in the cloud and why it makes sense if you are a small to medium sized publishing company...here small means up to 200 titles a year.

Roni Loren recently got burned using a pic on her blog post...She talks about the hazards of pictures and how you can get around law suits from photographers.

Porter Anderson has been checking out the author shadow career...do you have one...it’s called author platform and it happens when you misuse the 80/20 rule. 80% networking....There are some interesting observations in the article and check out Eion Purcells link right at the bottom...

For those of us who like an inspirational story Inkygirl has a link to an interview with Helaine Becker...something in this interview for everyone.

Catherine Ryan Howard has tips for anyone who has ever tried to get a US Tax number....

Karen Woodward has the writers definitive must have gadget if you get your best ideas in the shower....

Rachelle Gardner has reposted her article about top ten query mistakes. It makes good revision reading...especially rhetorical questions that ask the agent to answer NO.

Victoria Shockley writes about what it is like to be a virtual assistant to a bunch of writers.

Cheryl Shireman sends a thoughtful open letter to all traditionally published writers.

The magnificent Chuck Wendig has written a thoughtful response to a question about whether writers should care....This is worth the read to discover that Chuck can write without using any dubious humour or needing any warnings on language...It is quite touching...grab the tissues.

Over in the craft section,

Check out these wonderful links

Josh Whedon’s top 10 screenwriting tips

Super agent Donald Maass on predictable plot turns...and how to shake them up

Roz Morris takes a hard look at dream sequences...

The write practice shows you what to do with loglines...especially when your log line doesn’t match your manuscript.

After the shock of Margaret Mahys death last week, New Zealand children’s writers and illustrators have been discussing how best to remember the colossus of our genre. Several writers had a bright idea to gather in public libraries around the country and read Maragret Mahy books at 11 oclock on the 11^th August...the day that there is a big public memorial to Margaret in Auckland.

We would like to throw this date and time open to the world so wherever you are across the time zones...at 11’oclock on the 11^th grab a Margaret Mahy story...there are over 200...find some kids or read to yourself and remember this remarkable storyteller and the impact she has made on children’s literature around the world. You can let us know what you are doing on the official website where you can get a cool poster and craft activity.

photo: Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/burstyriffic/4569392331/

Margaret Mahy 1936-2012

This week we mourn the loss of Margaret Mahy.

Tributes have flowed in from around the world with obituaries appearing in the The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Herald Sun, The Huffington Post...and are still flowing in.

The world mourns the loss of THE STORYTELLER.

Margaret Mahy published over two hundred books for children and was the recipient of The Hans Christian Andersen Medal (commonly called The Little Nobel) for her world wide impact on children’s literature.

She won the Carnegie Medal twice for two young adult stories.

She was inducted into The Order of New Zealand, our highest civilian honour retricted to only 20 living people.

She was THE children’s writer.

Her awards are many...from her first ever published book, The Lion In The Meadow...discovered by chance in 1969, on an open page of our (famous) School Journal (in a glass case) as a book fair trade exhibit, by a New York editor,  through to her NZ Book of the year in 2011 with The Moon and Famer McPhee which was also named as an IBBY Honour Book this year.

A fact only lightly touched on in the media, but for me goes above the awards so richly deserved was that her little stories and poems made up a significant portion of the expanded Ready to Read series which introduced children to reading. She brought bounce and rhythm and fun into the challenging process of interpreting squiggles on the page as words and made reading time in the classroom a joy. This series was sold around the world...and so the world's children learned to read and laugh and understand that language could be playful and reading could be the best activity you could ever do.

Beautiful tributes have appeared in the last few days from this poignant personal poem from a close friend of Margaret’s, to the Pundits Of Literature trying to compare her with other well known New Zealand writers.

As the tributes and tears flow throughout the land (and now, as I write this) I am reflecting on the loss to the Children’s Literature community here in New Zealand.

In the children’s writing community you couldn’t and didn’t compare her. She was and is a colossus and a genius, as her friend and fellow children’s writer, Jack Lasenby said on National Television. 

On Facebook today I read this comment from John McIntyre owner of The Children’s Bookshop and National Reviewer of children’s books.

We have a growing, and perhaps irrational frustration at the comparisons of Margaret Mahy as "up there" with our finest authors, Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame.
Hell, she wasn't up there, she was streets ahead. 
We like some of Mansfield's stories, but her's was a slight cannon of work over a short time span, most of it written in the many years she spent overseas whinging about how restrictive New Zealand was.
Janet Frame lead a reclusive life, and wrote for a small literary audience. She wrote brilliantly, and has had some international recognition, but could walk down the street without being recognised.
Margaret Mahy is the greatest writer we have ever produced, in any way you measure greatness. International recognition, generosity of spirit, quality of output, length of career, range of genre, awards won, languages translated into, critical acclaim, markets conquered.
Is it because she was a "children's" author that they need to qualify her greatness, or a we just being unreasonably insensitive. (and feel free to tell us if you think we are.)

This has roused a hearty cheer amongst the children’s writers and illustrators here....Margaret’s words helped children form an appreciation of reading so they could go on to appreciate the work of other writers.

I had to stand up and deliver a speech at our Children’s Book Association Annual General Meeting less than 24 hours after the news filtered through. How do you encapsulate her impact, personally and professionally and profoundly to people for whom children’s literature is why they are on this earth? You don’t. You leave it to the Storyteller herself to provide the words.

The Fairy Child

by Margaret Mahy

The very hour that I was born


I rode upon the unicorn.


When boys put tadpoles in their jars 


I overflowed my tin with stars.


Because I sing to see the sun


The little children point and run.


Because I set the caged birds free


The people close their doors to me.


Goodbye, goodbye, you world of men -
I shall not visit you again.

Margaret Mahy

Storyteller

1936 - July 23, 2012

Not R.I.P but...Dancing Among The Stars

Margaret Mahy’s last book, The Man From The Land of Fandango, illustrated by Polly Dunbar, published by Clarion will be out in October.

The Children's Publishing Business...

It has been a big week in Children’s Publishing! 

First up Tools of Change Bologna followed by the Bologna  Children's Book Fair and then Spinning Tales....

Where, oh where, to begin.

I’ll go backwards.

Spinning Tales brought together over 115 Children’s writers and Illustrators from around the country to Auckland for the second National Conference of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators. This was a great learning and networking time for all of us. 

If you didn’t make it to the conference you must try to make the next one in two years time. The opportunity to spend time with others in the field is invaluable.  Learning from the speakers and the chance to talk with publishers is also worth gold. Each speaker was carefully selected to add value for the conference attender and any opportunities where you can sit down and pitch an idea to a publisher...is an amazing plus.

The FaBo Team met for the first time. This was an historic occasion. We have been working together for a year on our online story and we finally met the whole team...except for Brian but we’ll forgive him being in Australia. Plans were made for FaBo 2. New members... new challenges...new secrets to keep.

My personal take aways...The literary feast...and the art work it inspired. Gosh we have talented Illustrators who can draw and incorporate food in their drawing in new and innovative ways, not to mention the wonderfully entertaining stand up writers.

Kate de Goldi’s well deserved standing ovation! What a marvellous speech she gave as she received the Margaret Mahy Medal. Margaret was the first on her feet. The HUGE NEWS that New Zealand will be hosting the IBBY Congress in 2016.

The wonderful, amazing, Katerina Mataira who challenged us all with her statement at the Kaumatua Panel. ‘I am nearly 80....I am publishing ebooks and selling my work online and on websites...If you have a niche, forget Traditional Publishers and do it yourself!’

And that is what Tools Of Change, Bologna was about. 

How can we continue to tell stories in today’s world? Read this excellent post by Bridget Strevans, an Illustrator, who attended TOC. It is an overview, a challenge and a guide to helping us navigate our way through the changes in publishing.

Bookman Beattie linked to the Bookseller overview of the Bologna Children's Book Fair. It is a must read as it quickly encapsulates the state of Publishing Worldwide right now. Vampires are sucked dry, Dystopian is still in and heading towards us...Time Travel is about to be HOT.

If you want to spend a little more time on getting a sense of Bologna, Nosy Crow has two excellent posts on Tools Of Change and the Book Fair. Well worth a read!

In the tips and tricks basket this week,

Mediabistro has linked to a great page on understanding Story Arc by Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt used these grids in his lectures to explain how a story should grab you emotionally.

The great Larry Brooks of Storyfix has a wonderful post on story architecture. How and when you should build in those plot points.

Anne R Allen has a thoughtful piece on 3 things you must know if you are contemplating the Indie way.

The superb Bob Mayer takes a look at the keynote presentations about publishing that he makes at conferences  and  throws out most of the content in favour of what he knows now, what he is guessing and what he doesn’t know.

Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago, Alan Rinzler has a great column on Forbes.com  of advice for Amanda Hocking from authors and agents.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Making Money On Author Websites

Pitch Week with MG/YA Agent

Words Of Wisdom From Famous Authors

In the news this week is the speculation about the price of the eBook rights for Harry Potter. This is being negotiated  at the moment and reminds me of comments made by the publishers at Spinning Tales about eBook rights being non negotiable or deal breakers here in NZ. 
The margins are so slim here at the bottom of the world that eBook rights and world rights are the only way they can make money and if they don’t get both they may as well pass the project.... This is a good reminder to Writers and Illustrators...They are in a business and they need to know all the ramifications of the contract.

Enjoy,

maureen

The pic is the golden moments of going to a Kid's Lit conference... Every encounter is gold....

The following video is 60 seconds of Bologna....