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

3 big ideas with links to even more big ideas...

My inner geek rejoices.

Scientists have found another near earth like planet in Glisese 581. e to go with d that they discovered in 2007

That brings the total of exoplanets up to 347.

This is truly the decade of space exploration. I think the announcement of the discovery of this little planet(ok 1.9 times the size of Earth so not that little) this week is fitting as a testament to Stephen Hawking who is lying gravely ill in England. Stephen has often stated that the future of the human species lies in space.

Ta muchly to P J Hoover of The spectacle blog for alerting all her fellow geek kids writers out there.

Jumped onto Jane Friedman’s blog today. She is regularly posting the best twitter updates she see’s on her blog and today is no exception.

49 creative ways you can profit from content marketing by Sonia Simone

What a comprehensive list and the fun bit is that it that it can definitely apply to children’s bookshops (John.... Malcolm....go take a look) but also Authors and Illustrators could probably apply some of the ways directly to their own business. Actually if you know anyone operating a small business send them on over to take a look.

Twitter is good for something....Posting the title of your latest blog post...drives traffic to your website.

Penguin have just released some teachers notes to go with my book and I would like to thank the teacher who wrote them. They are very good and just what I would have done if I was still in the classroom, probably not in so much detail tho. After all this book would have been one reading group out of five and the reading ages in my middle school classrooms used to range from emergent to teen...but it’s a great resource to have.

On the conference front...(oh no I hear you sigh) things are continuing to come together slowly. However we have tied down a fantastic master class for Illustrators today...I would love to go on their mystery trip...I wonder if I can convince Fifi that I am really an up and coming Illustrator...

No probably not-she’s seen my stick figures.... (darn –that trip is soooo brilliant....sigh )

maureen

pic is an artists impression of Gliese 581 e