Persistence Pays Off for Middle Grade Author Erin Teagan

by PJ McIlvaine

 

This is excerpted from an interview that appeared in the June 2018 issue of Children’s Book Insider. Click here to subscribe to Children’s Book Insider, or here to learn about the revolutionary WritingBlueprints step-by-step system to create, edit and publish books for children.

 

Erin Teagan (www.erinteagan.com) had it all planned out: she’d become a scientist first, then a writer. Combining her passions, Teagan’s debut middle grade novel, The Friendship Experiment (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2016) led to her being hired to pen the Luciana books for the American Girl: Girl of the Year 2018 series for Scholastic, Inc. Teagan lives in Pennsylvania with her two little self-described “mad scientists” and her extreme-sports obsessed husband.

 

PJ McIlvaine: With your first book, how long did it take from idea to first draft to actual publication?

 

Erin Teagan: The Friendship Experiment was my first ever NaNoWriMo project. That year, I spent most of October thinking about plot, working out challenges I might encounter while I fast-drafted. Going over characters and stories in my head. By the time November 1 rolled around, I was ready to get writing. I finished the first draft that month, but I revised for nearly two years before I found my agent. And then, my agent and I revised for another six months after that! The Friendship Experiment came out in November 2016, almost exactly five years from when I had the first glimmer of an idea.

 

PM: How easy, or difficult, was it for you to get an agent?

 

ET: Difficult. Finding an agent was a long road for me. I sent out my first submission to an agent in 2003, and I didn’t sign with an agent until 2013. During those ten years, I kept writing and producing new work and trying new things. I went to conferences and read books and joined a critique group. By the time I found an agent for The Friendship Experiment, I had seven full manuscripts in a drawer and about a million rejection letters.

 

PM: What do you like best about the writing process? Outlining? Research? Revising?

 

ET: Basically, I love every part of writing when it’s going well! I was never an outliner until I had to turn in outlines for Luciana, and by the third book, I started to really enjoy the outlining step in the process. It felt like brainstorming, and I loved that freedom. I think that’s why I like fast-drafting as well. When you’re outlining or working on a messy-first draft, anything goes, because you know the real work (revisions!) and the fine-tuning will come later.

 

For me, though, the worst part is that first time I read the messy-draft all the way through and have to face the reality of revisions. At first it feels paralyzing, like I can’t do it, like this will never grow into a polished manuscript, but as soon as I get my revision momentum going, things start looking up. That’s when I start enjoying the revision part of the process as well.

 

PM: The American Girl book series about “Luciana, 2018 Girl of the Year” — how did that come about? How many books are planned for the series?

ET: I feel so thankful for the opportunity of writing the Luciana books. It was an amazing experience, and a big surprise. American Girl was looking for an author that wrote for a middle grade audience and brought science into fiction. The Friendship Experiment had just come out and was on the SCBWI’s Winter Reading List, a list that any SCBWI member can volunteer their book for. The editor I worked with spotted my book on the list, read it, and thought my voice and background was a good match for the character and story they were creating. She reached out to my agent, and the rest is history!

 

PM: Your school presentations, as described on your website — how did you develop those? Do you tie the presentations in with your books/subject matter?

 

ET: I have a lot of fun developing the programs I offer. As a kid that didn’t connect with science until I was in middle school, I really looked forward to visiting schools and exposing students to a fun and/or weird part of science. All of my programs tie into my books. For example, in The Friendship Experiment, my main character likes to go around swabbing things (cleats in the lost-and-found, floors of the school bus, retainers…) to see what grows on petri dishes. I’ve visited a lot of schools and libraries and swabbed everything from tablets, door handles, trash cans and toilet seats to a favorite classroom book (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) with students. It’s fun and funny to see the results.

 

PM: Now that you’ve had several books published, do you find the process easier or harder?

 

ET: I’m not sure that publishing my books has made the process of writing easier, but each time I finish a manuscript, I’ve learned something that I can bring to the next project. And every time my writers group critiques something I’m working on, or an editor sends me notes, I learn even more. Because of this, sometimes I can read something I’ve written and figure out what’s not working. It can still take me two or five or ten revisions to fix it, but at least it’s a step in the right direction!

The post Persistence Pays Off for Middle Grade Author Erin Teagan appeared first on   WriteForKids - Writing Children's Books.

We Need to Talk About the M Word

By Jon Bard

Let’s talk about something most of you would rather not talk about.

 

It’s the “M word”……  Marketing.

 

(cue the sound of wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth!)

 

Now, deep down you know that, to succeed as a writer in today’s environment, you have to market yourself and your work.  And you’re probably not too thrilled about that.

 

Look, I get it.  You want to write, not promote.  If you’re like a lot of writers, you view marketing as being pushy…inauthentic…kind of “icky”.

 

And when you add to it all the stuff that’s been thrown at you about social media and blogging and author platforms and all kinds of other things, I expect you end up looking something like this:

 

 

 

So, I’d like to help you out a bit, and see if I can change your mind about marketing.

 

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing some thoughts about marketing that will help you see things in a  new light.  One that will hopefully get you inspired to go out and spread the word about you and your work.

 

Before I launch into my first set of thoughts, a bit of background about me that you may not know:

 

Before partnering with Laura on Children’s Book Insider, I was the creative supervisor at a major NY public relations firm.  I then co-founded my own PR agency (we helped promote clients like Pictionary, Ertl and Little Golden Books).  For the past 25 years, I’ve been consulting with and mentoring entrepreneurs on marketing and promotion.

 

But I have one big secret weapon:  you guys.  Because I spend my life helping writers, I understand your unique issues with marketing, and why it can be so difficult for you.  In other words, I get you. And I think I can help bridge the gap between where you are and where you need to be.

 

 

OK then, let’s begin….

 

 

THOUGHT 1:  AUTHOR MARKETING IS NOT ABOUT PUSHING THINGS AT PEOPLE.  IT’S ABOUT DRAWING PEOPLE TO YOU.

 

This is a major hangup for lots of folks.  They say “I don’t want to be pushy” or “I don’t want to hawk my wares”.  Well, that’s good. Because that’s not what you should be doing.

 

The point of author marketing shouldn’t be to sell a particular book.  It should be to develop a fan base.  A community.  A Tribe.

 

You can only do that by giving folks the opportunity to get closer to you — not force yourself upon them.

 

And how do you draw people to you?  By giving them things they enjoy.  By giving them points of connection.   By demonstrating shared values.

 

To put it another way, it’s about honoring them as human beings and inviting them to be part of something bigger, and wonderful.

 

That’s connecting.  And yes, it is marketing.

 

 

 

THOUGHT 2: THE TIME TO START MARKETING YOURSELF IS BEFORE YOU’RE PUBLISHED.

 

This is one of the greatest secrets I can share.  Most writers think “I don’t have to worry about marketing — I don’t even have anything published yet!”.  What a huge mistake they’re making.

 

Here’s why:  When the day comes that you first book, app or eBook is released, what would you rather the situation be:

 

a.  You have no fanbase, no way to reach potential readers (or their parents, if you write for young children) and no one to help spread the word about your wonderful new release.

 

or

 

b. You announce the release to your devoted Tribe, who eagerly buy copies and then start spreading the word.

 

Pretty obvious, isn’t it?  Start building your Tribe now.  You’ll thank me later.  

 

 

 

THOUGHT 3:  MARKETING SHOULD BE SIMPLE, AND IT SHOULDN’T TAKE MUCH OF YOUR TIME AT ALL.   AND IT SHOULD COST VERY LITTLE.

 

There’s so much nonsense surrounding marketing.  Flashy new techniques, the “hot social network of the week”, massive websites with all the bells and whistles that need to be built….

 

Balderdash.

 

You don’t have time for all that, and you don’t need to worry about it.   If author marketing is really just about building a Tribe, than that’s what you should focus on.  And it’s not brain surgery.

 

I’ll have more to say about what works in upcoming posts.  But, for now, I just invite you to relax and trust me when I tell you that marketing isn’t that hard at all.  In fact, if you do it right, it’s fun, rewarding and very, very human.

 

Keep an eye out for more thoughts on this vital subject tomorrow.  And, oh yeah, thanks for being part of our Tribe!  

 

PS: Please don’t fret about the hows and whys of this kind of simple author marketing, I’ve got all of that covered.  I’ll have more that I can share with you next week about that…..

 

This is a post from writeforkids.org. Read the original post: We Need to Talk About the M Word