Journeygirl

Hello fellow Children’s Writers and friends,
If you’re serious about your writing career, whether you like it or not, it will become a business. So begins part two of what I learned from the Aleesah Darlison workshop I attended last month. If your creative passion leads to a business it follows that you have to be business-like in your approach. Your approach to the marketing of your stories not the writing of them. One important aspect of this is your Writer’s CV. Like any other job you’re interested in you need to start building a CV for your writing career. Record any writing related achievements and of course any publications. Writing related achievements can include things like book reviewing, blogging and editing. Publications can be in magazines, anthologies, infographics, books of course and even online publications. If you’re established Aleesah suggests your top ten and most recent achievements would suffice although you can refer interested persons to a webpage where all your achievements can be found. If like me, you’re new to this then just put down what you have, we all have to start somewhere right?
All businesses, if they want to be successful need to have a budget and we as writers are no different. We need to plan our writing year, find out which conferences, competitions, workshops, mentorships, residencies or writing retreats are on and which of these meet our needs at this stage of our careers and then we need to decide on a budget for the year and cut (or increase ha ha ha) our lists accordingly. This was something new to me as I’ve generally seen what’s around when it’s advertised, checked finances and then said ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ if everything aligned. This hotch-potch method hasn’t always meant that I have been able to attend the events I have wanted to. In my case as I mainly write Picture Books and they’re aren’t many, at least that I’ve discovered, specific PB competitions around, it hasn’t caused a problem on the competition front. I can certainly see how it would though, if you write in a variety of genres and even in my case, if we consider the last paragraph a few short story publications would still definitely do me no harm. So it really is worth our while to draw up a plan and a matching budget to ensure we make the most of our writing for publication year. 
How do you go about finding this information? Well you can certainly do a Websearch and spend many valuable writing hours doing so, or you can say a huge ‘thank you’ to those who have gone before you and already done it. Thank them by buying or subscribing to their diary, journal, newsletter, website. I’ve recently ordered the Pilot Writer’s Diary pilotpress.com.au for this purpose and I’ll be sure to let you know about it. There’s also Writer’s Marketplace hard or soft copy in most countries, including here awmonline.com.au and then there are of also industry magazines with a wealth of up to date information. Aleesah like many others recommends Buzz Words buzzwordsmagazine.com and Pass It On https://jackiehosking.pio.wordpress.com 
Short and sweet, but hopefully helpful this week as I bid you 

Farewell fellow travellers

Savour the Quest

Journeygirl

Hello Children’s Writers and Friends,

I am writing this blog post today from a lovely cabin in my husband’s family home town of Traralgon, Victoria so my time and Wifi is limited. Nonetheless, I had to post about the terrific workshop by Aleesah Darlison which I attended last week. I have already spoken on Facebook about what an interesting, knowledgeable and able presenter Aleesah is and how much I always gain from attending anything at which she speaks. That said, today my post is about some of the new wisdom I’ve gleaned, as that is after all the reason I write this blog, to share my experiences and learning along my road to publication. I won’t mention the many things Aleesah spoke of in her introduction which were more about how to become a writer than about how to be published as I have discussed many of them myself in previous posts e.g. Attractions on the Literary Highway, Win! Win! Win! It’s Competition Time, Fun at the Festival and The Write Group.

Instead I will use this post to focus on some of the finer points, some related to the posts above, some not, which a writer should be aware of if they wish to make the move from writer to author. These are perhaps the next steps along the path, perhaps the reasons a writer should undertake the earlier foundation building exercises. After all you would not begin a marathon, which this journey is for most of us, without doing some stretching, some shorter distance running, a half-marathon first, would you? I think I’ve covered the ‘stretches’ pretty well so far; join writer’s groups, enter competitions, go to Festivals, Conferences and other writing related events. I’ve even touched on the shorter distance runs; read, read, read, write, write, write, critique and have the courage to submit. What I hope to look at today is the half-marathon, one day I hope and intend to come back to this post and tell you all about how to run the marathon, but for now…
Aleesah informed us on how and why to build a writer’s CV on the importance of industry magazines and the names of some, about budgeting, about blogging and about better use of your email. To avoid this being an extremely long post, I’m only going to share information on the last two with you today and I’ll discuss the other two in a fortnight when I post again. These last two are more on the business of writing, which we creatives sometimes overlook, forget about altogether or simply glaze over at the thought of. The thing is that publishing is a business and if you have a handle on these Aleesah says it actually frees you up later to allow your more creative side to flourish and to do what you enjoy; school visits and spending time with your family and of course, write.
As writing for publication is not only a creative outlet but a business enterprise as well, a writer needs to seriously consider their image. What do you want people to say and think about you as a writer? Decide and then pitch! That’s right, pitch. Write an elevator pitch about you! And memorise it. You do it for your manuscripts to prevent you sounding like a bumbling idiot, so why not do it for yourself – “My name is Artelle Lenthall and I write for children, my passion is Picture Books, but I write short stories as well”. Done, simple, concise, clear and prevents the stuttering, mumbling ramble of which I for one, am usually guilty. Don’t forget to do the same for your manuscripts now that people see you may actually be quite capable of being professional they’re more likely to want to hear about them. The above is of course your one sentence or ‘elevator’ pitch about yourself, be prepared with your one paragraph pitch and maybe even one page synopsis of yourself, just in case someone asks. In this you should include points which can also be found on your Writer’s CV. More on this next time.
Another important part of your business is making people aware of it, bringing traffic to your blog, for example. You can of course include paid ads although this is not ideal and not necessarily the right sort of traffic. You want to attract people from the industry and a supporter base; other writers, publishers, teachers and of course family and friends especially if they’re parents or grandparents of your target age group. Some ways Aleesah suggested were blog tours, sharing other author’s blog posts or articles about them on your blog, linking to other blogs, with their permission, of course and interviewing authors about their latest book or writing and publishing in general. Have an email list too and when you send out those emails include your own email signature. This could simply state that you’re an author or better still list the names of some of your latest publications or best of all have a row of thumbnails of those publications. Now you look really professional, please come back next time to find out about some of the more practical steps you can take to improve your writing business.
I do hope that was helpful and I didn’t ramble too much,

For now, it’s farewell fellow travellers,

Savour the Quest,

Journeygirl