Book Update: Bright is backin hadns of Awesome Agent. Cross your fingers! I feel its done - I rewrote beginning and ending in addition to edits _ added material resulting in an additional 12,000 words. Now tween book is at 63,000.
Blogger Update: so far have met Christy (Juvenescance), sherry solvang(write it now), suzanne young, shana silverman, lisa schroeder. someone told me Jess jordon was here but we havent seen her yet.
It is 10 pm (LA time) and our day really just ended.
Went for breakfast this morning with Lindsey Leavitt, Katie Anderson, Sarah Francis Hardy, and Kimberly Derting. (SFH had the best egg pizza - yum! and LL had a tower of sticky buns!! Yum yum! Me? the healthy oatmeal boring. Tomorrow I am going all out :)
The morning started off with Sherman Alexie, author of ...Diary of Part Time Indian...
he was so funny. But under all the humor was a guy who turned his painful childhood into a dream existence. A kid with brain damage, bad vision, poor, lived on an Indian reservation. A kid who found a way to escape from his hard childhood with books.
Here are some of my "Ah ha" moments (for more detail you can go to scbwi's blog.)
"when you give a kid a book he naturally identifies with than you expect him to connect with it. But when you give a kid a book that is outside his normal comfort zone, and he finds a way to connect with it - that is when you begin changing the world."
"The power of books is amazing. They find a way yo the people that need them the most. Whether its 1 person or 100,000. Every book has the destiny to change at least one person."
"As a children's author - you must accept responsibility of writing for a young audience; prepare to be lonely because it is hard work, and know when you write it - it will impact people."
Next was David Weisner (Flotsam)
"He talked about the films and books that impacted his illustrations and writing. He showed a journey of how he got to Flotsam. How all of his books led up to that one."
"Writing is a personal journey. We don't write with a certain kid in mind. We write from our kid. From our hearts, experiences, and memory. Kids just happen to be touched by them."
"Think about all the stuff that you thought was cool when you were a kid. There is a story in each thing that stood out to you."
Ingrid Law - Savvy
Write with creativity and courage
Read the book "Spunk and bite"
Push voice further than you thought possible.
exercise: write a crazy sentence - then ask questions. This is how Savvy started - one crazy sentence and a bunch of questions.
Trust your instincts, be wild and playful, have a beginner's mind, be courageous, take risks, and don't be afraid to break the rules - you can always rein them in
pretend you are always a tourist and see things with a new eye.
be sure to look up when you walk around so you can observe the nuances of life
Sarah Davies - Greenhouse Literary (love her!!!)
world rights - all languages in world
world english rights - english language anywhere in world
hard to see Us fiction in UK. less space for YA market
Ways to spread international buzz:
Scouts - represent foreign publishers
Publishers marketplace - sign up and watch foreign right sales
understand foreign market
Pub weekly features on international authors
Bologna Frankfurt conferences/book fairs
Advice for global sales
consider world when you write
have market in mind
middle grade needs strong sales
YA fiction with unique voice and premise
Audio Books
1) primary - when they exploit own rights
2) secondary - sells rights to someone else
what helps international sales
global appeal
unique voice
Non fiction and PB do not sell as well as MG/YA
unusually ideas
awards/sales figures
love young boy fiction
concepts and setting that transcends cultures
see you tomorrow!
Showing posts with label ingrid law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ingrid law. Show all posts
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Marvelous Marketer: Ingrid Law (Newberry Award Winning Author of Savvy)
Hi Ingrid, Thanks for
joining us
today. Before we get started,
could you tell us a little bit
about yourself?
My first book, Savvy, was released in May, 2008, from Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of the Penguin Young Readers Group) in partnership with Walden Media. I am represented by Daniel Lazar at Writers House in New York. Savvy has earned both a Newberry Honor Award
and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor,
and has spent three weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Savvy was voted one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of the Year (2008) and chosen by Booklist as one of the Top 10 First Novels for Youth (2008).
Do you have a website/blog ? When did you start it and who manages it?
I have a website and a blog. I use my blog more as a tool to share things with and by my readers, and less as a social networking tool, so I do not enable comments.
But one of the things I love to do most is to share drawings, videos, and stories created by young readers. I love it when kids answer the question: What’s your savvy? And do so in their own creative ways.
I started both my website and my blog several months before the book came out.Penguin Young Readers Groups has also created a terrific Savvy mini-site . This site contains a downloadable discussion guide, wallpapers, and an exclusive ‘origin story’ for the family in Savvy.
Walden Media also has a wonderful, playful site where readers can listen to the first chapter of the audio book, play games, send postcards, and find even more downloads.
In your opinion, how important is social networking ?
I think a lot might depend on one’s audience and one’s personality. For the adult and young adult markets, social networking sites may be more effective than for middle grade or picture book authors. While Savvy crosses into early YA, my main audience is 4th-6th graders.
As a parent, I did my best to keep my daughter off social networking sites when she was that age, so I didn’t really feel as though I wanted to place too much emphasis on these when it came to marketing Savvy. However, when marketing a book, even if a book is aimed at young readers, one wants to reach out to parents as well.
I'm sure that some people have made a different choice.The only social networking site that I am on is GoodReads, and I’ve been surprised at how many kids reach me through that site.
Logistically, I’ve found that managing social networking sites takes up a lot of time, and time is not something I have a lot of right now. Plus, I’ve always been a rather shy person, so social networking sites tend to push me out of my comfort zone.
How important is technology to an author’s marketing plan ?
Aside from the question of social networking sites, I think technology is becoming increasingly important in the marketing of books, especially in the face of our current economy. Author tours are expensive and many authors are turning to virtual visits as an alternative. Bloggers have turned marketing into a viral phenomenon.
And one of the biggest technological marketing successes for Savvy so far has been the week-long free e-book download offered last summer, which was a factor in propelling the book onto the New York Times Bestsellers list for the first time.
What other advice do you have for authors/writers regarding marketing?
Try from the very start to find a balance between your focus on marketing and your focus on continued writing. It is easy to get so tied up thinking about the marketing of your first book that your next book, or your writing in general, becomes neglected.
For me, writing and marketing use two very different parts of my brain. Trying to do both in the same day is difficult for me. I set aside days where I try to do nothing but write, saving other days—perhaps those already scheduled with additional distractions—to work on marketing, or any other business aspect of being an author.
What creative things have you done to promote a book?
I am very fortunate to have amazing promotional backing from both Penguin Young Readers Group and Walden Media.
Because my book encourages readers to discover what is special about themselves, asking kids and adults alike the question "What’s your savvy?" has given me the opportunity to engage everyone in the creative process that I began.
I love sharing the ideas kids send to me about what their own talents might be. This has become one of the anchors on my blog. I think that any time you can engage other people in your process and invite them to be a part of it, they will respond.
Thank you for joining us today!
Thanks Shelli!
joining us
today. Before we get started,
could you tell us a little bit
about yourself?
My first book, Savvy, was released in May, 2008, from Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of the Penguin Young Readers Group) in partnership with Walden Media. I am represented by Daniel Lazar at Writers House in New York. Savvy has earned both a Newberry Honor Award
and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor,
and has spent three weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Savvy was voted one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of the Year (2008) and chosen by Booklist as one of the Top 10 First Novels for Youth (2008).
Do you have a website/blog ? When did you start it and who manages it?
I have a website and a blog. I use my blog more as a tool to share things with and by my readers, and less as a social networking tool, so I do not enable comments.
But one of the things I love to do most is to share drawings, videos, and stories created by young readers. I love it when kids answer the question: What’s your savvy? And do so in their own creative ways.
I started both my website and my blog several months before the book came out.Penguin Young Readers Groups has also created a terrific Savvy mini-site . This site contains a downloadable discussion guide, wallpapers, and an exclusive ‘origin story’ for the family in Savvy.
Walden Media also has a wonderful, playful site where readers can listen to the first chapter of the audio book, play games, send postcards, and find even more downloads.
In your opinion, how important is social networking ?
I think a lot might depend on one’s audience and one’s personality. For the adult and young adult markets, social networking sites may be more effective than for middle grade or picture book authors. While Savvy crosses into early YA, my main audience is 4th-6th graders.
As a parent, I did my best to keep my daughter off social networking sites when she was that age, so I didn’t really feel as though I wanted to place too much emphasis on these when it came to marketing Savvy. However, when marketing a book, even if a book is aimed at young readers, one wants to reach out to parents as well.
I'm sure that some people have made a different choice.The only social networking site that I am on is GoodReads, and I’ve been surprised at how many kids reach me through that site.
Logistically, I’ve found that managing social networking sites takes up a lot of time, and time is not something I have a lot of right now. Plus, I’ve always been a rather shy person, so social networking sites tend to push me out of my comfort zone.
How important is technology to an author’s marketing plan ?
Aside from the question of social networking sites, I think technology is becoming increasingly important in the marketing of books, especially in the face of our current economy. Author tours are expensive and many authors are turning to virtual visits as an alternative. Bloggers have turned marketing into a viral phenomenon.
And one of the biggest technological marketing successes for Savvy so far has been the week-long free e-book download offered last summer, which was a factor in propelling the book onto the New York Times Bestsellers list for the first time.
What other advice do you have for authors/writers regarding marketing?
Try from the very start to find a balance between your focus on marketing and your focus on continued writing. It is easy to get so tied up thinking about the marketing of your first book that your next book, or your writing in general, becomes neglected.
For me, writing and marketing use two very different parts of my brain. Trying to do both in the same day is difficult for me. I set aside days where I try to do nothing but write, saving other days—perhaps those already scheduled with additional distractions—to work on marketing, or any other business aspect of being an author.
What creative things have you done to promote a book?
I am very fortunate to have amazing promotional backing from both Penguin Young Readers Group and Walden Media.
Because my book encourages readers to discover what is special about themselves, asking kids and adults alike the question "What’s your savvy?" has given me the opportunity to engage everyone in the creative process that I began.
I love sharing the ideas kids send to me about what their own talents might be. This has become one of the anchors on my blog. I think that any time you can engage other people in your process and invite them to be a part of it, they will respond.
Thank you for joining us today!
Thanks Shelli!
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