Inspiring Links for Teen Writers

New JournalSometimes the Internet just seems to throw something my way that leads me to explore even more. Today I started with one link and ended up with a series of websites about writers who were published in their teens. If you’re a young writer, you will find lots of great writers and books here to inspire you.

Here are the links to the sites I found. Enjoy! And keep writing!

Authors Who Wrote Great Books Before They were 25.

23 Writers Who Were Famous Before Age 23

List of Books Written byChildren or Teenagers

Teen Author Bookshelf: List of Published Teen Authors When you drop by this website to check out this list, take some time to explore the great resources here. An excellent site for teen writers!

Teen Writers Find Publishing Success

Yes, You Can Get Published as a Teen Another great site to explore!

Three Writerly Blogs for You to Visit

Crocuses --Spring must really be here!
Crocuses –Spring must really be here!

Today I thought I’d pass along three of the writerly resources that I visit often.

One of my favourite blogs is by Kristi Holl, author of Writer’s First Aid, More Writer’s First Aid, and many other books. Aside from blogs on the craft of writing, Kristi shares her extensive reading and insights into the other aspects of the writer’s life that can get in the way of creativity, such as procrastination, writer’s block, dealing with rejection, solitude and toxic friends. You name an issue that writers deal with and she’s covered it. I always find her blogs inspiring. http://kristiholl.net/writers-blog/

The title of Jane Friedman’s blog, Writing, Reading and Publishing in the Digital Age, says it all. The site is a wonderful resource for writers tackling the challenge of getting published or self-publishing. Jane tackles topics from query letters to author platforms and blogging, from how-to-publish an ebook to marketing, and a lot more.

The last blog on the list today is from Elizabeth Spann Craig, a traditionally- and self-published mystery writer, whose regular posts cover all aspects of the writer’s craft. Every week she creates a list of the writing-related blog posts that she’s found in her research and posted on Twitter. This weekly round-up, called Twitterific, is like having your own personal writer’s magazine delivered to your door every week. There really is something for everyone on the list. http://elizabethspanncraig.com/blog/

Hope you have fun checking out these blogs and that you find something in them that will help you on your writer’s journey. If you have any inspiring or informative blogs that you’d like to share, please add their links in the comments below.

Wishing you a creative week ahead!

Self-Publishing – My Experience & Lessons Learned

A Tagxedo view of my website.
A Tagxedo view of my website.

I have fumbled my way through self-publishing over the past few years. Trying things, making mistakes, seeing how things turn out. Thought I’d share a bit of that experience.

I’ve used a couple of publishers since I started self-publishing. Right now I’m using CreateSpace  https://www.createspace.com/ and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) https://kdp.amazon.com/kdp/self-publishing/signin?language=en_US  After I finish setting up my book in CreateSpace, I can choose for it to be sent to Amazon KDP (they are the same company.) CreateSpace will also send it to other epub distributors, too. Both services are free, though CreateSpace offers services like custom cover designs, copyediting, and marketing for a fee, if you want to take advantage of them.

I’m using CreateSpace for my second edition of Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens, and I’m fine with having them distribute it to Amazon and other sellers, such as Kobo. For my sequel to The Dragon’s Pearl, I’m going to go with CreateSpace and KDP only. There are some promotion options with KDP that are only available if it is the exclusive distributor for a set period of time. I’d like to try those promotions, so I’m going to give that option a try for my fiction. For 201 Writing Starters, I went to Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/ . They had a very easy-to-use product and also provide a free service. If I do another edition of the book, I will probably go through CreateSpace, though, because it offers free cover design options that I prefer to use rather than coming up with my own.

The first edition of Writing Fiction was published through iUniverse, a vanity press. I wouldn’t choose that route now for a couple of reasons. First, I want to earn more money per sale, and royalties are much better on my own. Second, I am more confident about being able to format a book that would look professional, and third, I know a lot more about the industry. I was lucky in that I took advantage of a sale offer at iUniverse and didn’t spend money on extras, and I can say that I have earned my money back. A few writers I know who took the vanity press route have realized they will never earn their money back.

I got the templates for the interiors of the dragon books and Writing Fiction – Second Edition from Joel Friedlander http://www.thebookdesigner.com/ at a very reasonable cost. You can see inside the book here to see what one of his formats looks like: http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Pearl-Heather-Elizabeth-Wright/dp/1483954021

If you’re thinking of the self-publishing route, be aware of the new trend among traditional publishers to have their own vanity press. They make it look like you’re working with Simon & Schuster for instance, but you’re really paying to have your book published with a vanity press that is part of a large company with a very poor reputation. Read this blog from Writer Beware®: The Blog to get the details: http://accrispin.blogspot.ca/2012/11/archway-publishing-simon-schuster-adds.html To make sure that you are working with a reputable company always check Preditors & Editors, an excellent site that has a listing of publishers/agents along with recommendations and cautions.  http://pred-ed.com/

To end on a more positive note, here’s a link to a great blog post from Jane Friedman with a lot of helpful links to help you make some decisions about your publishing future.  http://janefriedman.com/2012/01/28/start-here-how-to-get-your-book-published/

Good luck!

Classroom Visit and NaNo Thoughts

I had a great morning yesterday, visiting a class of Writer’s Craft students at a local high school. I talked with them for an hour about publishing: different ways to get your work published, some warnings, some resources and some facts about the money side of the business. The time flew and the class was attentive and asked good questions. I hadn’t visited the school before, but I was made very welcome. I was a bit early and while I waited for the teacher to meet me, without exception every teacher that passed me smiled and said good morning. That doesn’t happen everywhere.

In the conanowrimo_participant_06_100x100urse of talking about writing resources with the teacher after the class, I mentioned National Novel Writing Month. She teaches a course in the first semester that would overlap NaNoWriMo’s dates, and I thought it might be fun for her students to explore.  NaNoWriMo has a fantastic program for young writers with lots of excellent resources for the writers and for teachers who might want to get their classes involved.

So this got me to thinking about this coming November. Will I join NaNo and try to write a novel in 30 days? The first time I attempted NaNo, I stopped around 20,000 words. I was happily writing a suspense/romance and enjoying just letting the story go where it may, when I realized that if I could write 20,000+ words in a couple of weeks, why wasn’t I writing the book I had wanted to write for several years? Duh. So, I stopped the novel and finished Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens, instead. My 13-year-old son finished his NaNo novel with 50,000+ words and a lot of pride. The second time, just as we started NaNo, my much-loved mother-in-law began a swift and deadly decline due to pancreatic cancer.

There’s a unique quality about NaNo that seems to crack through something in me that just gets words on the page. Maybe it’s because the objective is so absurd that the writing can’t be overthought or second-guessed, and I don’t put up my usual procrastination roadblocks because I need to post a number every night.  Yup. Seeing that graph head upwards really motivates me.

Have you tried NaNoWriMo? What do you think about the experience? Are you thinking of signing up this year? If you’re a teacher, have you ever used the resources or used NaNoWriMo with your class?

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