This week the FaBo team were thrilled when we received an email from an ecstatic teacher telling us how the first week’s challenge had inspired the whole school.
All the senior classes and most of the middle school are doing it for writing now and hopefully they will all enter. My breaktime FaBo group has stopped because they are all doing it in class. Teachers have been using what they wrote in the in staff meeting as models for their children... A couple of classes have been planning menus for your hamburger competition. When I was on lunch duty today I could hear kids talking about Sher Lock while they were eating and a group of kids were in the library redrafting their stories at lunchtime. I have put together a group of gifted and talented senior children to work with and have been given 90minutes release time a fortnight to do it. I have never seen the staff so excited about writing!
It is great to receive such positive feedback and to know that in our small way we have made an impact.
Actually all the FaBo team did a happy dance and we have silly grin’s on our faces. Any author will tell you that an enthusiastic response from a reader (especially kids coz they are tough critics) is worth the sleepless nights and the hair pulling when we were crafting the story.
FaBo is an interesting experiment for us all. It is a chance to directly engage with the kids who read our books and stretch ourselves at the same time. We are learning about group blogging and marketing and the ‘keep at it, the rewards will come’ style of putting something new out there. (it’s a bit like writing really. It gets better.) It is inspiring and challenging and fabbo. (sorry team couldn’t resist.)
Elizabeth Spann Craig has a guest post on Spunk On A Stick about promotion traditional and 21st century style. There are some good tips here so take a look.
How many books should you have written before you think of indie publishing? What kind of benchmarks do you need? Bob Mayer has written another thought provoking post which has generated much comment in the writing blogosphere.
Seth Godin’s Domino project has had a lot of attention in the past few months but this link is in the Holy Wow category. Seth links to Jenny Blake’s Spreadsheet for Book Promotion. It is a jaw dropping one stop shop from planning the cover to the book tour and everything in between. Click on the links and be amazed.
Jody Hedlund has taken the 'steady as she goes,' way to work out how much time you should spend marketing your book.
Justine Musk has a brilliant post on the necessity to market yourself and how to keep your brand consistent. Are there lines and logos that you regularly use? (Hmm spot mine which I didn’t realise until I read Justine’s Post.)
In the craft corner,
What can Star Trek teach us about great writing. This is a comprehensive look at storytelling in the J J Abrams style.
Following on from last week... here is a link to creating QR Codes.
Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles about
When Women Write Male Charaters
Would You Apply For This Job?.....( great job, pity about the pay.)
Thinking About Publishing On A Kindle....
On a new job note...The wonderful Storytime bookshop is for sale! (if you always wanted a specialist children’s bookshop...) We all hope the new owner will be just as great as Malcolm.
Chris Guillebeau writes one of the most inspiring blogs out there. I am a regular reader. This week he has written a great post about making money online. Many of his thousands of followers think it will rank in the all time top ten...what do you think?
To finish,
When you get bunches of Children’s Writers and Illustrators together something wonderful always happens...From FaBo and the wacky writing challenge to our Inspiring Colleagues promoting this great message in the following video.
It Get’s Better!
enjoy,
maureen
