Publish Your Book
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Transcript of Publish Your Book
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Publish Your Book
Catherine Condie
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Introduction
This week is a celebration of reading, writing and publishing books;
Building your story;
Different ways of getting your book published;
Things I’ve learned along the way.
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Where I began
Queen Edith Primary School, Cambridge;
Writing poetry and short stories – creative writing;
Composing songs with my guitar aged 9 and performing at the youth club aged 11
30 years later I began to write Whirl of the Wheel.
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What interests me about writing
What interests me most is the feeling that a pattern of sentences or collection of words gives you;
Stories, short or long, and poetry are no different to pieces of music – from Vivaldi to Jessie J and each composed the same way.
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Stories – where do you start and what should you write?
Write what you know or what interests you;
Think of a great plot;
Create your characters and their voices;
Show the action, don’t tell it;
Imagine your story as a film – changing scenes, different atmospheres;
Use Post-its on the wall or in a notebook to order your scenes or ideas.
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Whirl of the Wheel
A story for 8 to 12-year-olds led by a heroine who happens to be in a wheelchair;
Light-hearted time-travel adventure into World War II – time portal is a potter’s wheel;
Historical account of evacuation;
With goodies and baddies.
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The Switch
Young teens’ thriller about a girl on a French exchange trip who witnesses a raid at a bar from an apartment window;
Set in Paris, with some spoken French;
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Building your story
Ten
sion
HOORAY!HOORAY!High point of the story
THE QUEST BEGINSTHE QUEST BEGINS Main event or discovery that starts the story off
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Almost there Mystery
solved
OH NO!OH NO!Rug-pulling moment
Lull
Challenges or scenes that build the story
In a children’s book the hero will be a child or animal that has to overcome a challenge to reach a goal.
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Becoming a good writer
Read lots of different styles of books,plus you can read books about writing books;
Have a go and see what you like to write!
Ask your English teacher’s or your parents’ advice;
Start up or become part of a writing group in or outside school;
Find out about local writing workshops or courses (you might consider scbwi.com);
Enter a competition.
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My story is complete!
Fantastic, take a break and celebrate!
Ask friends, family, teachers to read and comment;
You could send it to a literary consultancy for comment but there is a cost www.cornerstones.co.uk;
Think about posting it online via critique sites like www.authononomy.com or www.youwriteon.com;
Look again at your story in the light of what you have learned.
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‘Local’ writers’ networks
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Critique sites
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I’ve finished . . . what next?
EditingEditing – read and re-read, making notes by hand or by making changes as you go, on-screen. Go through your writing a final time – line by line to look for mistakes, or ask someone to help;
Think about publishingpublishing – you could show your work to a recognised agent or publisher to see if they are interested in taking you on as an author . . . or you could self publishself publish.
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Traditional publishing
Look through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook (published by A&C Black);
Choose agents and publishing companies suitable for your genre of writing;
Each agent or publishing company has a different set of submission guidelines. Most ask for a few chapters by post;
Check for errors in your work,
send off your chapters and wait . . .
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What is self publishing?
Using reputable online sites to produce any number of printed books or e-books via your netbook or home computer.
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Why self publish?
‘I have always disliked writing to order; I write to please myself.’
Beatrix Potter
Creativity is a personal thing – self publishing is one answer to keeping it that way.
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Seeing my book in print
You can take an electronic copy of your work to a local printer where you pay up front, for example, for the print of 250 copies;
Or start a free account with one of the major online suppliers of printed books (print on demand) : www.lulu.com or www.createspace.com.
Order one or two copies – they cover costs by taking a percentage of each book.
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Print on demand
Lay out your pages using the guide at Lulu or CreateSpace;
Upload the document and use the cover wizard to create front and back covers;
These companies will put your book on their websites and distribute to Amazon.com and selected online shops for free;
Think about a selling price for your book.
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Seeing my book as an e-book
You can do this via Lulu or Createspace or independent sites e.g. Freado/Bookbuzzr , Bibliotastic and Feedbooks;
Kidpub (American organisation)
or set up a free account with Kindle Direct Publishing. Note that e-books are laid out in a different way to printed books;
KDP makes its money by taking a percentage of each book you or others buy. It sends your e-book for free to 5 international Amazon sites.
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Spreading the word
Friends and family, school fetes or your local bookshop – Waterstones and Heffers;
Facebook author page; Blog/blog interviews; Twitter; Goodreads www.goodreads.com; Free online press
releases prlog.org; Make a book trailer; Printed leaflets/postcards.
I’m published!
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Let’s publish a book
Lulu publishing wizard
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and finally. . .
. . . there is no hurry;
so have fun!
and enjoy forming your plot and creating characters;
practise writing a few chapters and see where your story goes;
if or when you finish, you might now have a plan for what you can do next.
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Any questions?
This presentation Publish Your Book for the Linton Children’s Book Festival 2012 is available at Slideshare.net or via
www.catherinecondie.wordpress.com