Children's Writer Guide

Dear Fellow Writer,

Both new and established children’s writers keep sending unsolicited praise saying that our annual Children’s Writer Guide provides them with invaluable aids to publication that they don’t find anywhere else.

To power your writing to increased sales in today’s marketplace, Children’s Writer Guide to 2008 packs hundreds and hundreds of shrewd insider tips, market-tested strategies, and pointed insights from more than 250 leading editors, publishers, and authors in the children’s field.

It all adds up to 448 pages of writers’ gold—that essential information you need to profit from the new players, new priorities, and important shifts in children’s magazine and book publishing. For example—

The teen and tween juggernaut sails on with a market of 30 million readers in what is proving to be the genre’s golden age for emerging new writers and for boosting crossover sales into the adult market.

Our 2008 Guide reveals the editorial wants at Poppy, the new chick-lit imprint from Little, Brown; Simon & Schuster’s tween imprint Aladdin MIX; Harper Collins’ Eos and its new graphic novel imprint; Penguin’s Razorbill; Smith & Sons, the new middle-grade fiction imprint from Smith and Kraus; and the contemporary YA imprint Flux, from Llewellyn Worldwide.

Hot spots abound in picture books and in series too, especially nonfiction and young adult series, while middle-grade is waning a bit right now. Some noteworthy new opportunities: ABDO Publishing Group launched Magic Wagon, a publisher of picture books and graphic novels for the preK to grade 8 market; DK Publishing has a novelty line for preschoolers, Kids Play; and Robin Corey Books, part of Random House, features pop-ups and novelty books.

That’s a lot of good news for that book manuscript you’re working on!

Guide 2008 reports on how new magazines in the trade, religious, and educational genres are among the launches that survive and thrive. More and more niche titles succeed and the big publishers like Hearst, National Geographic, and Nickelodeon are adapting and specializing for their audiences.

You’ll get valuable guidance from the editors of publications such as National Geographic Little Kids, Golfer Girl, Go!, Young Urban Viewz, LaTeen, Logan, PresenTense, and more.

Children’s Writer Guide to 2008 brings you recent news that will help guide your publishing plans, including magazine launches, changes of editorial direction, and new contact personnel. And to keep you from wasting time and postage, you’ll learn which magazines and publishers have closed their doors since our last Guide.

Renowned children’s magazine editor Paula Morrow speaks with other editors and writers to detail how writers must soar in language, emotion, and “image triggering.” Morrow passes on her hard-won wisdom on structure, word choice, subtlety of message or theme, and separating ideas from plots. She also provides a terrific checklist for writing saleable short stories.

Other Guide writers and editors delve into voice—how to best use multiple voices, dialogue, storytelling, perspectives, character complexities, story arc, and character arc; imagery—the sensory, the metaphoric, and the evocative; melodrama—NOT!—except when it can work to add character depth, action, and help avoid imitation; transitions—specific advice on flow, coherence, bridges, and cause and effect; and theme—with considerations such as: Is theme or voice more important? What are the differences for book vs. magazine writing? Should theme be close to the surface or more deeply ingrained?

Learn how successful freelance writers take care of business and how you can too. Guide 2008 covers the eternal question: to agent or not to agent. What about professional associations? Guide provides a primer. Learn about creating your author’s website. It can be an excellent source of sales, but it requires both creativity and practicality.

Learn how to submit to magazines with writer-friendly payment policies. Learn about contracts and rights. And learn about those software packages that promise to solve your problems with idea generation, plot development, and characterization, as well as business software that tracks submission and payments.

Wise writers know that technology is enlarging magazine publishing. Guide explores what young readers expect in tech interactivity with their reading. It’s especially important in the tween and teen markets, and especially among girls. Learn how classic publications like Cicada are changing to meet these needs.

Explore the increasing Canadian markets, with titles such as Crow Toes Quarterly, Girls Can Do Anything, The Magazine, and Zamoof!

Coming-of-age stories are appealing to both girls and boys and are an especially good genre for literary novels. They can be humorous or serious, but they share the qualities of strong characters, arcing conflict, struggle, and growth through the adolescent journey to maturity. The characters need to be personal, intimate, and multidimensional.

Autobiography has been called the art of assimilating our own personal stories into fiction-like writing, something well beyond translating reminiscences into prose. Autobiographies can be memoirs, advice pieces, first-person accounts, even novels. Learn all about them in the 2008 Guide.

Better than any other resource, Children’s Writer Guide to 2008 brings you a timely and complete overview of what is going to happen in the field of children’s literature in the coming year. No other resource brings you the guidance of as many top editors, publishers, and industry experts on how to:

adapt your work to meet current needs . . .
make it past the final cut . . .
build a relationship with editors that leads to repeat sales . . .
locate current magazine and book publishers that are the best fit for freelance submissions aimed at specific age groups and genders.

There’s so much more, in 448 pages packed with writer’s protein, all of it conveniently organized so that you can quickly find the specific guidance you need to make 2008 your best year ever.

Editors tell it to us like it really is because of the strong bonds of trust and mutual respect we at Children’s Writer newsletter and the Institute of Children’s Literature have forged with them over the years.

Successful children’s authors swear by it!

“Thank you for the opportunity to read and use this wonderful book. It contains a wealth of information and inspiration. I highly recommend Children’s Writer Guide.”
—Jennifer Watts, Clayton, GA

“Children’s Writer Guide is full of great ideas, pointers, and information. You really know how to keep writing fun! Thank you.”
—Traci Conrad, McKee, KY

“Timely, encouraging, and full of surprises! Thanks for
encouraging writers in their craft and for offering
such thought-provoking articles and suggestions.”

—Glynis Belec, Drayton, ON, Canada

“What a book! It serves a full menu of guidelines and information that no children’s writer should be without. I feel like writing again!”

—Aubin Marie, Muenster, SK, Canada

“I enjoy reading the book in my spare time. It has so many helpful hints and gets me inspired to write! It reminds me of one big Children’s Writer newsletter. I wish there was even more in it!”

—Becca Johnson, Oak Run, CA

“I’d be lost without this book as a reference. It would be like paddling a canoe without the oars. It’s well done and informative—a must have.”

—Sr. Mary Laerence Hiti, Columbia, PA

“Fabulous book—it keeps me informed and up-to-date.
It gets my writing juices flowing.”

—Candy Teske, Douglas, GA

Use the Guide for 30 days. If you don’t find the Guide as valuable as we think you will during your free examination period, simply return the book to us and we’ll refund the full purchase price you paid.

No questions asked. No hassles. Guaranteed.

If you’d like to receive Children’s Writer Guide to 2008 for a 30-day, no-risk examination, simply complete the order form today.

Just click on Order Now.