Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  Publish your newsletter regularly. A manageable publishing pace for you may be seasonally or bimonthly. Quality newsletters take time to put together, so be realistic about your time commitments.

  Distribute the newsletter electronically. This is cheaper and more efficient than printing your newsletter and paying postage. People are also more likely to share their e-mail addresses than their home addresses, so distributing electronically can get you more readers.

  Create a newsletter template that you just fill in each time. This also helps you keep your message focused and consistent. Most word processing programs have newsletter templates you can just open up and use. Or you can type “free newsletter template” into a search engine and download a free template. Another option is to lay out your newsletter using desktop publishing software that’s probably lurking in your computer’s “office software suite.”

  Save and distribute the final (proofread!) newsletter as a PDF. PDFs are read-only, and your recipients can easily open the files on their computers. You can attach PDFs to e-mails as well as post them on most social networking sites. An alternative is to use a customizable HTML e-mail newsletter template (type “free html newsletter template” into a search engine to download one) that lets you embed your newsletter content within the body of an e-mail that you then send out to your subscribers.

  Post each newsletter on your website for visitors to read. This is a great way to refresh your website content for repeat visitors.

  Create a mailing list. Collect e-mails at appearances and put a “sign up for my newsletter” feature on your blog and website (there are free widgets for this). Subscribers get automatic inbox delivery, which they like, and you get consistent access to your audience, which you like.

  Typos are a writer’s worst enemy. They undermine your credibility as a wordsmith. Always proofread your marketing materials. Have someone else read your marketing materials, or set them aside to return to with fresh eyes on another day.

  Making appearances

  An author appearance is your opportunity to connect face-to-face with your readers. Teens love meeting a real, live author! And guess what — so do grown-ups. There’s nothing better for sealing a sale. So get out there and hawk your goods. Meet teens in school appearances, talk to writers’ groups and librarians, pitch sessions at writers’ conferences, and set up signings at local bookstores and book festivals.

  Exploring venues and planning your presentation

  YA author appearances fall into four categories:

  School visits: The most effective high school author visits aren’t about the books but rather about the students. Remember, teens tend to be a self-absorbed bunch. Focus on how books relate to the students’ daily lives and what it means to be a writer and how they can become writers themselves. Bring in props related to your books if appropriate. (Just be careful: These aren’t grade-schoolers. The props better be cool.) Give the kids behind-the-scenes looks at the making of the books they love. Incorporate pop culture and promote literacy in general.

  Never, ever try to sell books to the kids during school visits. It’s not appropriate. But do give them a reason to go to your website, an extra step that may be enough for a kid to buy your book. Offer the class a shout-out on your blog, for example, or invite students to read excerpts or to download a sample chapter. Leave them with bookmarks that list your website. You’ll be surprised at how many students will e-mail you or comment on your blog about your inspirational visit. School visits are warm fuzzies in disguise.

  Writers’ groups: Put together a useful presentation or workshop for other writers based on your book or your expertise or an area of craft interest. Chapters of SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and other writers’ groups are always looking for inspiring speakers with useful information. You can also offer to be a guest speaker at local universities, colleges, junior colleges, and writers’ clinics.

  An alternate way to present is through “appearances” in online writers’ forums. There, you prepare a post (basically an online article) about a particular topic of interest for the group and then make yourself available to do Q&A (question-and-answer exchanges) for a specified time afterward.

  Here’s a sneaky fact: A lot of YA writers are teachers in their day jobs. They share the books and writers they like with their students, which means that if teachers are in your audience at a writers’ group appearance, you may just get a classroom visit out of the deal.

  Book signings: If your publisher isn’t sending you on a book tour (and most new authors don’t get tours), you can do one on the cheap by staying with family and friends or by planning appearances in the cities you’re already planning to vacation in. Piggy-back ’em. And be creative. You can hold an event at the zoo if your book is about a teen on safari. Got a YA historical fiction novel featuring a young sailor on a 19th-century sailing ship? Contact the organizers of nearby maritime festivals about hosting a book-signing booth. Look for opportunities specific to you and your topic.

  General events: Watch for speaking opportunities such as writers’ conferences, teacher and librarian conferences, public book festivals, or community events that may be connected to your book’s themes or topics.

  You can maximize your success as a speaker by being professional and tailoring your appearances to each audience. Know the group and its interests before you pitch your visit, and then ask your contact about the group’s latest interests so you can tailor your words to the group’s current needs. Return calls and e-mails promptly, follow through on your promises, and get materials to people quickly. End each appearance on a professional note by following up with a thank you. Better yet, post a public thanks on your website or blog — both you and your group get another plug in the process.

  Getting a gig

  Make things as easy on your potential hosts as possible. Put up an appearance page on your website that lists the following:

  The kinds of events you speak at

  Some ideas for speaking topics

  Testimonials from previous appearances

  Your hometown and whether you’re willing to travel

  Your contact information

  You can also include your own honorarium request or a line like “honorarium is negotiable” on your website. An honorarium is a payment for appearing. Writers’ conferences and groups pay honorariums, and schools do, too, but there’s a catch for YA authors: Elementary schools are more likely to spend their public-speaker money on authors than high schools are. (High schools spend their money on anti-drug speakers and the like — go figure.) For current speaker honorariums, peruse other authors’ websites, which frequently list this information.

  Some writers get around the lack of high school funds by offering free classroom visits to local high school teachers. Free visits allow authors to drum up word of mouth, hone their speaking skills, and maintain a connection with young readers. And hey, you never know what a free appearance can lead to. I’ve had free appearances lead to radio interviews, TV appearances, and lucrative, all-expense-paid trips to out-of-state private schools.

  Want to do out-of-town appearances but are unable to travel or need to keep costs down? Offer to use free Skype or other video-conferencing technologies for a virtual visit. Schools generally can handle low-tech, Internet-based video conferences in individual classrooms. And for today’s technologically savvy teens, interacting with a face on a TV screen is totally normal.

  Teaching classes

  Teaching establishes your expertise and raises your credibility as a writer. Propose classes or guest lectures to local universities, colleges, junior colleges, and writers’ clinics, or put together workshops for writers’ groups. These gigs are easier to land as you get published books under your belt.

  One of my first acts in building my image and reputation as a w
riting expert was teaching a 9-week night class about writing children’s books. It’s a good thing I did, because three important things happened: 1) students booked me for speaking appearances with their writers’ groups, which led to more appearances, interviews, and guest blog posts; 2) several students hired me for freelance editing, which led to referrals and the foundation of my editorial business when I left my full-time office editorial gig to raise my trio; and 3) I learned something about myself in the process: I love to teach. I hadn’t known that before. I embraced this discovery, turning teaching into a strength and then into a platform and then, well, into this book. All this happened because I took a single brand-building action to launch my platform and then expanded it as time and circumstances permitted.

  Taking leadership roles in organizations

  Taking on a leadership role in an organization related to writing, YA fiction, or the topics/themes in your books sets you up as an expert and immerses you in a community, which is great for platform-building and general networking. If you don’t see a group that’s right for you, start one of your own. If you want a leadership role but can’t find one in your organization, propose a new office or initiate a project that needs a project leader. In return for your service, you’ll have opportunities to share your book news and meet people who can help you and whom you can help in return.

  Having an active role in a group can take up a lot of your time, of course, but it can also open major doors. SCBWI regional advisors do a lot of work for their chapters, but they get to attend the events for reduced prices or sometimes for free and then interact personally with editors and agents when they help put on events. You can’t buy that kind of networking . . . but you can work for it. At the very least, be a participating member of an organization. You’ll gain as much as you give.

  SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators) is the main organization for children’s book writers. At any level of participation, you’ll find it an amazing resource on craft, the marketplace, and the publishing business. Find more on SCBWI in Chapter 3.

  Joining an author promotional group

  An excellent way to tackle marketing is to combine resources with other writers in an author promo group. Pick a common denominator — your genre, your topic, something that encompasses all your books — and rally around that. Choose “mommy paranormal YA writers,” for instance. Push that angle with press, signings, and appearances.

  Joining forces can give you more marketing power for less work. Five authors spreading the word about one signing? That gives you greater coverage and hopefully wider turnout than any of you could do on your own. You can hold your own blog tours, giving you an event to hype, and you’ll have access to each other’s audiences in guest blogs or newsletter articles, growing your own audience in the process. The group’s members can step up their participation or dial it back in a group ebb-and-flow, depending on the curveballs life throws. Above all, the emotional support of a core group can be immensely buoying.

  Here are some things an author promo group can do:

  Group marketing: Split the costs while multiplying word of mouth. Pool your resources to pay for ads in genre- or topic-specific publications, which are generally out of the budget for individual authors. Create a group website, with everyone contributing content and taking turns with a group blog on the website.

  Group newsletters: Generate a group newsletter, with members taking turns writing the features. Spread the workload among the group.

  Guest blogging: Feature group members on your personal blog, and be featured on theirs, increasing everyone’s exposure.

  Blog tours: A blog tour allows you to create buzz without ever leaving your writing nook. Like its big sister the book-signing tour, a blog tour starts and ends on specified dates, makes stops at scheduled and prepromoted venues (in this case, blogs with an audience that matches your target audience), and offers the audience a chance to interact with you while giving your host an opportunity to promote an event. You can put together a blog tour for yourself, but a blog tour by an author promo group creates a weightier big “event” feel. Plus you can make stops at each other’s blogs in addition to the outside blog tour hosts.

  You can set up the tour yourself or hire a blog tour company to handle the searching, contacting, and coordinating. Effective blog tours incorporate book reviews, author blog posts, Q&A, book giveaways, and links galore, letting everyone on the tour score some cross-promotion action. Although blog tours are not paid appearances, all the participants benefit from the exposure.

  You’ll find potential members for your author promo group through your networking in online writing communities, through your writers’ group or chapter, by spreading the word among writing friends and colleagues, or even through your agent or publisher, who may know of other writers interested in teaming up.

  Gathering your marketing materials

  After you target your marketing audience and devise a strategy for reaching them, it’s time to create your materials. This section offers a rundown of the basic items every author must have along with things you can tackle beyond that, such as print mailings and expanded electronic marketing (also known as e-marketing).

  The basics

  In terms of promo materials, there are four absolute musts for a YA author:

  Author photo: Every author needs a photo to accompany his basic bio. The photo will be used for your appearances, interviews, website, blog, social media, print materials, even your book jacket.

  Your photo represents you to your readers, and it must be professional. Don’t use some fuzzy shot of you sitting at a party. You’d be wise to keep this photo personable or serious; silly photos can easily backfire because not everyone shares your sense of humor. And you know, when teens don’t think you’re funny, they call you a dork.

  Hire a professional photographer or set aside a block of time with a patient friend and a really good camera. Take a million shots, with different backgrounds and different camera settings, until you get a polished one. Due to space and size considerations, keep the photo focused on your head. In fact, consider using tight cropping to fill the frame with your face. And maybe tilt the camera or take it from an unexpected angle. Don’t get all proppy; focus on you.

  Bookmarks, cards, or postcards: You need one of these items to hand out as your business card. Keep a stack at the ready, no matter where you go. If someone talks to you, mention that you’re a writer, hand out a card, and say, “Read excerpts on my website. Here’s the address,” to give that person a reason to go to your site. The more action people direct toward your book, the more likely they are to buy it.

  You can create bookmarks, traditional business cards, and mail-ready postcards cheaply online without being a techno stud. The online printers have templates and instructions for you, and plenty of free “make your own business cards” sites are out there. Ask writer friends who they use for their cards to find reasonable and quality printers (yet another reason to be networked!), or hire a graphic designer to come up with a design and make a printer recommendation for you. Print tons of these cards so you won’t hesitate handing them out like candy.

  Author website: You don’t have to go all bells and whistles, but you do need an author website if you’re writing for teens. They expect it. And frankly, adults do, too. They get suspicious if you don’t have one. See the earlier section “Creating and maintaining a platform” for my whole spiel about websites and why you need one to build a platform.

  Promo copies of your book: Promotional copies are prepublication editions of your novel that are distributed to reviewers ahead of the publication date, with enough lead time for them to read the book and have the reviews ready when the final bound books hit store shelves. Promo copies are also called galleys or ARCs (advance reading copies). They’re usually printed and bound before the final editing is com
plete, so most come with warnings about confirming excerpts against the final book before printing them in reviews. Your publisher can provide you with ARCs to send out to your review contacts. But be selective — ARCs are costly to produce and mail, so you want to be sure your targeted reviewers have a solid audience and are worth the expense.

  Mailings: Postcards and other printables

  The goal of direct mailings is to provide useful and relevant information (including ordering information) in a fun and easy-to-implement format, which in turn makes a personal connection and generates sales. Direct mailings are a great way to reach librarians and teachers. Publishers usually have lists of teachers and educators nationwide. If your publisher doesn’t have the right list for you, or if you’re self-publishing, you can buy mailing lists from providers of education marketing information and services.

  Your mailing materials should focus on your title and on a theme related to the education market, such as April’s National Poetry Month. If possible, the materials should suggest classroom activities that incorporate your book and the theme, giving teachers a reason to take action, which is one step closer to buying your book or putting it into students’ hands. You can also do a mailing of sample chapters or promotional copies to any key opinion-makers you identify in the marketplace, such as influential librarians, teachers, or authors, or even high-profile local media personalities or national celebrities. Such folks have large platforms and can spread the word about books that connect with them. If you have a specialized topic that would appeal to a large, organized niche audience, send sample chapters or promo copies to the organization leaders. For example, a novel about a group of young aspiring firefighters could get a great plug in a junior firefighters’ publication if you send promo materials to the group’s president or other influential people.

  Downloadables and web features

  After you’ve gathered your basic marketing materials, you can start adding powerful support materials to your website and to your general marketing larder. The goal here is to give people more reasons to think or talk about your book, as well as more reasons to interact with your website. Teens particularly love interactive sites, and teens are forwarding-crazy. If you want kids to get excited enough about something on your site to forward it to their friends, make it 1) cool and 2) worth forwarding. Then let teens do the marketing for you.