Submission and reviewing sources.

By Susan J Berger
I have three sets of links for you:

Submitting

 Manuscript Wishlist http://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/  This is a great place to find what agents and editors are looking for. Also be sure and visit  their twitter regularly. Search the hash tag #MSWL
@ManuscriptWList

Casey McCormick and Natalie Aguirre host Literary Rambles which is a treasure trove of agent interviews. You can sort the agents by the type of books they represent.

Sue Ganz Schmidt recommended this website to me Authors Publish.com It's free and she says sometimes they send you very useful information. I subscribed last night and got some very useful links. http://www.authorspublish.com/the-top-20-publishers-for-new-authors/

Reviewing

I got a request for a list I previously posted about: getting reviews. I had been researching the sites for Picture Book reviewers, but these sites also review Middle Grade and YA

I want to add Middle Grade Mania, which had a list of bloggers who review Middle grade.



Here is a list of reviewers I wanted to contact:

The Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/get_rev.htm Reviewing print books/CDs/DVDs is always free of charge. They charge a 50.00 Reader Fee for eBooks
I now have my books, so I will be sending one.

The Picture Book Reviews
https://thepicturebookreview.com/review-policy-disclosures/

If you’d like to contact me, please send me an email at:thepicturebookreview@gmail.com.

Review Policy: Hello! As of January 1, 2015:  I happily accept picture books for review.  If we love the book, I’ll write a review about it.   I accept physical copies only — ARCs, galleys, etc. are fine — it just needs to be something I can sit down and read with my family.Thank you so much for thinking of me.  I’m flattered that you’d like your book reviewed on my site. Also, good luck with your book!  Picture book authors and illustrators

I will be contacting her. 

Readers Favorites.Com

https://readersfavorite.com/book-reviews.htm  All reviews are free. They post on their Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You CAN pay for more stuff. I didn't want to. I submitted an ARC PDF for review on 9/25. The review was up 4 days later.

KidReads.com

Here's what their contact page says:

I am an author, publisher or publicity agent and I would like my book to be reviewed on Kidsreads.com. What do I do?
To submit a book for review on Kidsreads.com, please send it to:
The Book Report Network
250 West 57th Street
Suite 1228
New York, NY 10107
Although we cannot guarantee a review, we consider every book that comes into our office. Due to the volume of submissions that we receive, we cannot contact authors or publishers on the status of a book for review. Typically books are reviewed within 3 months of publication. We suggest you sign up for our newsletter, which will list the content that we are promoting.
Please note that at this time we do not review eBooks, POD Books and other self-published titles as we only offer books that are available with wide distribution offline as well as online.

Places I will not submit:

Kirkus Book reviews. HUGELY expensive. If your publisher is paying. Great.

The Children's Book Review

 $195 for a review. No thanks. They do have a place where you can giveaway a copy of your book. When I checked it out, they wanted me to pay them 65.00 for the privilege of giving away a book/

 Places to check out:

 Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews

This is a collection of websites that TTLG has found interesting and/or useful. Because sites change so fast we cannot vouch for their content. If you have any comments or suggestions about this list please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be adding to these lists regularly so please keep checking this page for new doorways into the world of children's literature.

I have not checked them all out yet. Some are no longer active.  Some seem not to be reviewing sites at all.

Marketing

Planning your marketing campaign. Click the link for an amazing spreadsheet to help you plan marketing.
Incredible 15 tab excel spreadsheet for marketing Andrea Loney graciously shared this with me.
Start with the "About Tab" They sheet was authored by Jenny Blake and it's amazingly thorough, and perhaps more than you want. I would strongly suggest reading it. .
Jenny says Feeling Generous?
1) If you get value from this spreadsheet, please consider making a donation. I will be very grateful...we all know that authors only see royalty checks once in a blue moon (if ever)!
2) Spread the word -- please feel free to share this spreadsheet with your other author friends!
There is a link on the spreadsheet to where to send a donation.
Happy Writing.

In the News Local Author Gathering & SCBWI BookBlast

Local Author Gathering  Saturday, October 15, 2016 -

1:00pm to 4:00pm

Buena Vista Branch Library

300 N. Buena Vista St.

Burbank, CA 91505

Come and meet 50 local authors of mystery, science fiction, fantasy, children’s, young adult, self-help, romance, horror, and more! 

Buy books, get autographs, and meet new authors. 

Door prizes will be provided by the Friends of the Burbank Public Library. 

Susan will be there with cookies baked by the fabulous Hilde Garcia and also her books. All authors bring swag to the events. Please stop by and browse the tables. No one will pressure you to buy. But if you do buy, you get autographed books on the spot. You may also come away with gift ideas, and a door prize.

If you do come, please stop by and say hi to Susan and Hilde. 

SCBWI Book Blast launched Monday. 

Here's a tweet if you want to share.

Explore new books from Independent & Traditional writers & artists w/ #SCBWIBookBlast http://www.scbwi.org/bookblast 

The book blast is a potpourri of well-known and independent authors. There is one section for traditionally published authors and another section for indie authors. Really pretty landing pages with postage stamp sized images you can click on. I felt like I was in a candy store.Once you are on a  the landing page you can sort by type of book or author.

Happy reading and writing.

New Book? How do you get reviews?

by Susan J Berger.

Last week a second edition of Earthquake was published. Earthquake 2nd Edition has new material, new factoids, updated emergency supplies list,  and a tactile exercise to find the meaning of the numbers on the Richter Scale. Earthquake Second Edition is also available as a PDF for your eReader from Guardian Angel Publishing. Price is $5.00
The original edition was published in 2009. It got honorable mention in the Green Book Awards, and some very nice comments from FEMA and the USGS.  In seven years things changed. FEMA's delightful kid's page no longer exists. We've had some big earthquakes. Cell phones became a way of life. The book was revised. New material added. The Earthquake Book website has been updated..

 Next step get reviews and publicize it. What is available to an indie author?

SCBWI Book Launch Party? Nope. Not till September or October. When it reopens, it will be available for all books published this year. Sounds like a great resource.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. SCBWI has a booth and is offering signing opportunities for PAL authors. I booked a fifty minute slot for Saturday April 9th from noon to 12:50. Come see me. Will I make money? Festival goers mostly come for the swag and the chance to meet major authors.Unlikely. But it's a good opportunity to get it out there.
  Classroom visits?  Alexis O'Neill is the Queen of Classroom Visits. Her page is an excellent resource. I would love to be her intern and follow her around.

How about reviews?

I Googled  Reviewers? Where can an author get a non fiction children's picture book reviewed?
Results:
 Midwest Book Review?
There is a charge of 50.00 for reviewing eBooks, but I think print books may be free. I could send either. I will query them.
Kirkus Book Reviews? Don't think so. Cost starts at $425.
Publisher's Weekly Yes. I submitted a PDF for review.
Booklist online.  This looks possible. I will follow up.

Blogger tours? Pricy and probably for a non fiction picture book,  not helpful.

Marketing

I suggest you read this wonderful post by MJ Rose on the difference between publicity and marketing.
M. J Rose founded AuthorBuzz which includes KidsBuzz. Marketing plans vary in price. Lowest price I saw was $495. Is it worth it? If you are planning to write more books and make a career in the writing business, yes. In case you did not feel like clicking the link to M.J. Roses post, I will quote from it.
5. What to spend? The advice I give everyone, and follow myself, is to keep your day job or a freelance job and spend as much as you can on selling your book. I’ve worked with authors who spend $985 and others who, between my services and other efforts, spend $250,000. One way to decide: if you are going to look back and regret spending the money, don’t do it. But if you are going to look back and say, “If only I had tried maybe the book would have succeeded,” then do it. Nora Roberts said you should spend 10% of your advance. For years, James Patterson spent all of his on advertising and kept his job.

How about you? If you have an indie book out, where have you gone for reviews? Are you planning any marketing?
 Oh and if any of you would like to review Earthquake, 2nd Edition, I would be happy to send you a PDF. Just leave your contact information in a comment.
Write on!

Reminder: This Thursday, March 17th is PITMAD. Here a post on the Art of the Pitch Tweet. If you use Tweetdeck or Buffer, you can set your pitch up ahead of time.

I just found this: SCBWI 
Summer Reading List

We are putting together our 1st ever SCBWI 
Summer Reading List to promote our published authors. You are invited to feature one of your 
books on our premiere list. 


All you have to do is select one book of yours to be on the list. Send us the title, author (you!), and a book description of 25 words or less. Separately, indicate the rough grade level, genre, and your state/country of residence. (Choose from one of these genres: Adventure/Mystery, Humorous, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Non Fiction, Poetry, Picture Book, Series Book) 

We will assemble the lists by region (same regions as used 
for Crystal Kites) and organize all the books by grade level 
and genre. 

All the SUMMER READING LISTS will be made available to schools, libraries, bookstores, and consumers via digital download and hard copy distribution. We will promote the lists and support them with a robust marketing plan (more to come on this!). 

DON'T MISS THIS FREE SCBWI OPPORTUNITY TO GET YOUR BOOKS INTO THE HANDS OF THOUSANDS OF READERS THIS SUMMER! It's another way SCBWI is supporting your work and spreading the word about excellent books for children and young people. 

E-mail your information to readinglist@scbwi.org by 
April 1, 2016. 

Learn How to Love Me. The Dreaded Synopsis from Guest Poster Maggie Mundy

by Maggie Mundy

 Note from Susan. Hilde has a broken hand and Maggie graciously allowed us to use her post. I used her post to fix my mid grade synopsis. I hope you find it as helpful as I did.

Hi Everyone

I thought I would share with you my process of dealing with the dreaded synopsis. You will love it. I kid you not. You will find it much easier to do in future if you use this format. You will even learn to love them.

What is it?

A synopsis is a narrative statement, written in present tense, as if you were telling someone about your book.
That sounds easy.
Your book is only 90,000 words.
They want a few hundred words up to around 750.
Eek, you walk away from the computer in a cold sweat.
Relax and take a deep breath and I’ll try and make it easy.

Basic Rules

It should be
Written in present tense
It should be written in the same voice and style as the manuscript.
Third person.
Introduces only main characters, main conflict and main emotional arc
No cliff-hangers.
It should show how the layers of the story lead you to its climax.
It is Not
An info dump. Not a she did this, he did that.
Not a shopping list of people and events.
Format
Should be the same format and font as manuscript.
Double space unless requested to do otherwise.
Tittle and name in left hand corner.
Indent after main paragraph and number pages.

Take for example the movie French Kiss
Where do we start?
Opening paragraph
Genre: Contemporary romance
Setting :Canada and France
Length: word count novel or novella and whether part of a series.
Main characters: Kate and Luke.
Theme: Fish out of water. Personal growth.

Who is your heroine and what does she want?

Kate is an American living in Canada who wants to get married to Charlie when he gets back from his conference in Paris.

Who is your hero and what does he want?

Luc is a Frenchman who has stolen a necklace which he intends to sell so he can buy back his vineyard in France.

What brings them together?

They are on the same flight to Paris. Kate is scared of flying and Luc helps her. He uses her to smuggle his necklace into France with it wrapped around an old vine.

Their first problem. Cause of conflict.

Luc and Kate get separated. She sees Charlie kissing his new love and faints.Her luggage is stolen along with the necklace.

Initial solution to problem

Luc knows the thief and gets her bag back but she has no money or passport. She thinks he used her to get the vine into the country.

What happens to spoil initial success?

The thief tells the police about the necklace. Luc needs to get out of Paris in a hurry. Kate decides to go to the South of France and get Charlie back.

Where does the new problem lead?

Luc says he will help her get Charlie back. He really hopes to get the necklace hidden in her bag. They stop at Luc’s home and she meets his family. They both start to question what they want from life.

What risks do they take to deal with the problem?

They go to the South of France and Kate confronts Charlie. He wants her back but she is not sure it is what she wants anymore. Luc helps her get Charlie back. He is falling in love with her, but if Charlie will make her happy he will help her even if he loses her.

Dark Moment

The policeman from Paris tells Kate that Luc will go to jail if he does not give the necklace back. She does a deal and uses her life savings to pretend she has sold the necklace to Cartier. She gives Luc the money to buy his vineyard and says she is going back to Canada. Luc thinks she still wants Charlie. The policeman tells him what Kate did and that he should go after her.

Happy Ever After

Luc goes after Kate and tells her how he feels. They live happily ever after on his vineyard.

So what I have done is write short statements here about each heading. Your next step would be to enlarge these up to your required word count. What is useful about this technique is that it helps you work out what you can leave out. Hope this helps and that you will love writing your next synopsis.

Thank you  Maggie!

Maggie Mundy lives in Adelaide, Australia  with her husband, two cats, two dogs and a snake. She has a motorbike she would like to ride more, and loves walking  the beach and listening to the waves. She's always loved reading all forms of speculative fiction from high fantasy and paranormal to horror and decided the stories in my head needed to be written down. It was either that or start on medication. Maggie is a member of Romance Writers of Australia, and the local chapter SARA (South Australian Romance Authors).  She has four books out with Rogue Phoenix Press. Two erotic novellas called Blood Scent and Blood Oath and two paranormal romances called World Change and World Apart. She also has a supernatural thriller out with Soul Mate Publishing called Hidden Mortality and a paranormal romance called Unknown Protector, the first book in  the Midworlder Trilogy  . Book Two in the series Scarred Protector is out on November 18th 2015. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5428101.Maggie_Mundy?from_search=true
http://www.soulmatepublishing.com/
http://www.maggiemundy.com
https://twitter.com/MundyMaggie
https://www.facebook.com/MaggieMundyAuthor
http://maggiemundy.blogspot.com.au

The Burbank Library Author Signing: What We Took Away

By Susan J Berger and Victoria Krol

On Saturday, October 17, The Burbank Public held a Local Author signing event.. They opened up a meeting room, set out tables, made signs and a program listing the bios and books of the signing authors. The event was beautifully organized and well attended. 

I was one of the fifty signing authors, each of us there, hoping to attract the attention of the attending buyers.

And I had help! My brilliant fellow Inker Hilde Garcia stayed up most of Friday night baking her justly famous chocolate chip cookies. (This one top of the regular organized chaos that is her life and a twenty page paper she had due.) She and I and her son Sam wrapped over 100 cookies and attached a postcard to each. I wanted prospective readers to know how to find the eBook, Audiobook  and paperback on Amazon in case they weren’t prepared to buy at the event.

Most authors brought giveaways ranging from bookmarks to chap sticks. One author’s publisher provided Book shaped USB Drives. I think I had the best. Hilde’s cookies are the bomb.

Hilde schmoozed, bought books and made sure every author got a cookie and the postcard.

My favorite new idea? The author who had a poster with large print snippets of her reviews. It also said Show Special. 10.00 Next time, I want to do that. I know people put review snippets on bookmarks and postcards, but they are two small to read when you’re browsing a show.

 
Kris Kahrs, my other in-town Fellow Inker came and brought her son Tommy. And bought a book. We haven't had a Pen and Ink meeting in a long time. I was so happy she came!

I sold eight books.  - Five of my children’s books and three copies of Time and Forever.

Kris Kahrs, Susan J. Berger Hilde Garcia. We miss Lupe!!!!

I had three children's books to sell. I sold the last copy of Growing Up Dreams before this picture.

Children’s writers were underrepresented. I am not sure why.  I think SCBWI and Pal didn’t get the word

E Katherine was there with the ARC for her debut novel. How to Be Brave. I’d read a blog interview with her and it’s on my TBR list.

Andrea Loney, winner of the Lee and Low New Voices dropped by and bought my book. I love Andrea.

While I sat passing out cookies and talking with prospective readers, Victoria Krol interviewed many of the authors about the books. Here are her comments.

Sisan McNeil

Her book theme was Norse Mythology.
In her book it was Fantasy and a little drama.
 

Nara Duffie and her mom.



Nara Duffie

She is a twelve year old novelist.

The Monster Realm Her book is about a secret land called Lanodeka that monsters created to  be able to live in peace. The main characters sibling gets taken into the land of Lanodeka and encourages the monsters to go to war.

 

Tori bought this book and I dipped into it. I am borrowing it when Tori finishes.

It is self published and very well written. Also I love the cover design.

 E.V.Fairfall

The books she wrote were Y.A.

One of them was about mother earth and her  creations and how a hunter continued to destroy it. Her other book was about a person who had a personality disorder where at night he was really sweet and kind, but in the day he was mean, cruel and rude.
 

Paul Marquez

His book was called the Devil’s Daughter.

The Father and the daughter despise each other.
The daughter believes that her father should not destroy humanity so she tries to foil his plans and save the victims of his plans. His book is fantasy and it’s for young adults (Y.A).

R.J.Johnson

One of his series is about Indiana Jones meeting Iron Man.

The other series was called The Twelve Stones.
Both series were not my age group.It was for 18 year olds or higher. Vic Cabrera

Vic Cabrera wrote short stories about his life in Cuba.

It is titled My Cuban Story funny memories ,serious times.

Patrick Burdine

His story is titled Vampire’s Lover’s.

It is not my age group yet. There are good vampires and bad vampires that have developed into bloodthirsty monsters. The main character’s blood helps keep the good vampire’s alive and the bad vampires are trying to kill all the people with the special blood so only bad vampires are on the earth ,they don’t want any more good vampires on the earth.

 
Nancy Lorenz

Nancy Lorenz wrote about a girl that loved to dance but she faces conflicts when they move from New York to California.Nancy Lorenz included real facts about ballerinas because she was a ballet dancer.Her book is Y.A.

Allison Morse

Allison Morse wrote a book called The Sweetheart Deal. It is very light, The main character wants to be the head of her family's company and another man tries  to take over the company.
 
LeeAnne Hansen

Her books are for adults. One of her books is titled Yonder and a male ghost haunts a living girl. Her other book is called Ghostlight and it’s about these actors in Scotland and they have a performance in a Scottish castle and a ghost haunts that castle.

Barbara Sheppard

Barbara Sheppard wrote a little book and its purpose is to remind us to live life and enjoy it.

 

Cheryl Holt

She has written 40 books. One of her books is about a girl and when she is very little and her parents die and she gets separated from her siblings and neither of her brothers remember and one day she remembers and goes on a mission to find them.

 

Charles Duffie

Charles Duffie is Nara’s father.

He has written two comics, and one fairy tale about a Mole and an Owl.

Note the poster!

Nancy Cole Silverman

She wrote a book titled Shadow of Doubt and it’s about a reporter that dies from poisoned bath salts… who did it?

 

Christine Ashworth

She writes romance with mystery in them. Her book has a music star whose live is being threatened.

Now that I've read Victoria's notes I wish I had been able to dip into more of the books. I have read Allison Morse's The Sweetheart Deal and Christine Ashworth's Star books and loved them. Alison and I belonged to the same SCBWI critique back in 2008. Christine is the former president of LARA-RWA, which was well represented at the signing. 

Conclusions: No one was making many sales. Most book signings aren’t huge money making events. Don’t spend a lot of money on promotional items. Bookmarks or postcards are good. Candy is excellent. Cookies home made? Gold. A poster with review snippets which people can read easily, with a sticker giving a show special price is an excellent idea. Next time I will get a Square Reader so I can take credit cards. Write on!