WRITING ADVICE: The Everything Guide to Writing Children's Books - Luke Wallin, Eva Gordon

Release Date: 18/01/11

SYNOPSIS:

Writing for children is fun and rewarding - if you can break into the fiercely competitive world of children's book publishing. With The Everything Guide to Writing Children's Books, 2nd Edition readers learn how to write and promote a children's book that will impress any publisher. Whether writers have a basic idea or manuscript ready to go, they'll need to build a successful career as a children's book author. This clear and concise guide helps readers: formulate an original idea, create an outline, and write the book; learn the basics of children's storytelling, from point of view to story pacing; find helpful writing workshops and conferences; design a winning book proposal, get an agent, and negotiate a contract; create a marketing a publicity plan; and, use professional and social networking sites to promote their book. Full of eye-opening insider information and invaluable writing advice, this book should be on every aspiring author's bookshelf. It features: advice on how to protect your work, and to gradually build up confidence; updated information on using the internet to promote yourself as a writer (blogs, websites, professional networking sites, social networking sites); information on M.F.A. programs, both traditional residency and brief-residency, with writing for children tracks; and, details of the YA phenomena, including Harry Potter and Twilight.


REVIEW:

To be honest with you, I’ve read writing guides on everything from novels to dialogue, from pacing to specific genres yet I’ve never looked at one before that deals with young adult. Whilst my own preferred writing method is more for the picture book side of things, this title has a lot to offer. After all there’s a hell of a lot of information out there but it can be confusing as well as misleading, so having a title to help hold your hand is a great thing.

Not only does this title deal with finding the right type of Young Adult Literature for you to write but also gives you advice on what your title needs to contain for the relevant age group. Back that up with some help on obtaining an agent, query letters alongside how to make the most of self-marketing and web presence and you can see that this is a title that could be worth its weight, especially when you back that up with the authors friendly voice to help encourage you.

All in a descent book and one that whilst perhaps not pertinent to all writers is one that can definitely help point you in the right direction which whilst focuses purely on the US market doesn’t make the advice incompatible to the UK one as the advice is pretty universal. Finally add to this some advice on your writers writes and it’s a title that is worth the read if only to help point out some floors in your master plan.