RIP Crad Kilodney

Who’s your biggest influence as a writer?

Sometime way too long ago to admit, a friend told me about a guy who stood out on the streets of Toronto selling his books. 

A crazy guy, with a crazy name:  Crad Kilodney.

In an era before self-publishing (think 1972), he typed his own stories and printed them off himself.  Then stood outside, all year long, in all kinds of miserable weather, getting the word out thanks to sandwich boards around his neck.

This is how I first met him.

This is what he looked like.  Sometimes with the pipe, sometimes not.

Most pedestrians on the busy downtown sidewalks he occupied rushed past pretty quickly.  Trying not to make contact with the greasy-haired guy selling – ahem – literature.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly literature.  Actually, it was the kind of crazy, train-of-thought, free-associated ranting my mother might refer to as “verbal diarrhea.”

I don’t believe my mother ever opened up one of those grimy little books that must have come home with me from time to time.

*** Caution:  a small excerpt of his writing is below which contains some NSFW / adult content.  I’m warning you now so you have time to shut the window.  (Also, any of these images of his stories could contain inappropriate language so don’t click if you don’t want to know.)

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Should you crowdfund your next book (on Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or PubSlush)? 3 reasons why not.

Should you crowdfund your next book (on Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or PubSlush or whatever tomorrow’s Next Big Crowdfunding Site happens to be)?

No.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?

Now we can all go home.

What?  You want me to defend that statement?

Well, okay.  Here are three reasons.

#1 Your crowdfunding project makes me feel spiteful.

I’m not saying this to be nasty, I promise.

I love you, I love writers, I want to encourage independent writers to get their books in print and live their dream.  Really… I do.

But if you publicize your crowdfunding project in writers’ circles, you’re going to get a LOT of people staring at your post, thinking, “I paid to publish my books, darnit; you should pay to publish yours.”

Either that or they’re just plain bored. 

Bored with writers who hang out online on facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else writers hang out, telling me to fund their book… when they ought to be writing. 

Another question that may just cross our mind when you announce your crowdfunding attempt: 

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KDP Kids: a first look at Amazon’s new Kindle Kids’ Book Creator software.

Spoiler alert:  I like it.  VERY much.

So much, on a first trial pass, that I’m planning to redo all my Kindle books to make them even more true to the print originals.

Okay, let me back up for a second.  Amazon has just released a new program designed to make creating beautiful kids’ books a total no-brainer.  This is huge news, because self-publishing illustrated kids’ books for Kindle has always been somewhat of a pain in the you-know-where.

Huge.  Like, “drop everything” kind of huge.

So I dropped everything to test it out.

I have a bunch of other things to do this morning, but I wanted to check out the program right away.  You can download the Kindle Kids' Book Creator tool free here. (I love that they remembered the apostrophe!)

I  decided to give it a “quick whirl,” a process that occasionally ends in an hours-long disaster.  Not this time.

Install was quick, easy:  hassle-free, and the program launched right away after install.  It has a fun, friendly look.

Again, I was in a rush, so I thought, let’s just haul in an existing PDF and see how it does.

I’m in the middle of preparing a book called Panda Purim, a Jewish holiday themed follow-up to Penguin Rosh Hashanah (which made it to #9 last night in the Jewish children’s books category!).

So I just whomped in the PDF file, images, text and all.

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How I ended up writing a Bible story (and why you might, too).

Excerpt from Writing the Bible for Children:  How to write blazing Biblical stories and picture books for kids.

I never write a story I don’t love.

But sometimes, it’s possible to write a story you don’t like very much, at least at first.  Stories can grow on you surprisingly quickly.

The scrawny chicken baby

Years ago, I wrote a personal essay about how I didn’t bond with my daughter instantly.  She was a preemie, scrawny and demanding, her wail high-pitched and insistent.  Her birth was unexpected, my marriage was in trouble; it just wasn’t the best time in my life to have a baby, and then she was whisked away to the neonatal ICU moments after birth. 

Trust me, it wasn’t the best setting for mother-baby bonding.

Yet I fell in love with my daughter anyway, albeig on her second day, because the first was just so crazily difficult.  That story, one of my most successful, was later anthologized in the book Chicken Soup for the Mother-Daughter Soul.

The fact that editors loved it, that it sold almost instantly tells me two things:  one, I’m a great writer (yay for modesty!) and two, a lot of people have gone through that experience of not bonding instantly – of falling in love with their baby a little late but just as deeply.

(That daughter, who will turn 19 soon, has never forgiven me for referring to her as a “scrawny chicken baby” in the story.  She doesn’t care that there’s a happy ending!)

I mention this because you may experience the same thing with a Biblical story.  Or perhaps with all Biblical stories.

Most of them are hard to love, at first.

Most of them are pretty scrawny, for one thing.  From a modern perspective, they’re short on details:  there’s almost no attention to basics like character development, establishing the setting, or on making sure the thing flows from one narrative to another. 

If it wasn’t God’s book, you could easily imagine it getting one or two stars on Goodreads or Amazon.

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Elijah and the Priests of Baal, covers, interior, and the secret back story.

Know what’s awesome?

Getting proof copies in the mail.

There may be more wonderful feelings, but not that are reasonably cheap and legal in all 50-some-odd states.

This book is called Elijah and the Priests of Baal. It’s an approachable Biblical narrative for slightly older kids. Illustrated by a super-talented artist who was a pleasure to work with. More words & substance than your typical picture book... more pictures than your typical big-kids' book. It's sort of a hybrid for big kids who like pictures.

Here I am getting my hands on it, literally, for the very first time.

I’ll be honest:  I was always bored to tears, or thought I was, by stories of the ancient prophets (in Hebrew, nevi’im).  I never thought I would write a Biblically-based story.  I’m just not that kind of person – I thought.

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Look what came in the mail today!

Know how sometimes you second-guess yourself?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a print edition of my new book, The Seven Day Manuscript Machine:  Edit your children’s book to perfection in under a week. 

(Thanks to the steampunk cover, my children have taken to calling it The Seven Day Time Machine!)

But then I thought, why not?  Costs nothing but about a million headaches formatting the thing.

I’m so happy I did.  The proofs came today and they are absolutely beautiful.

An ebook is definitely still a book.  But it’s not a BOOK like a book is a book.  If you know what I mean.

Somebody emailed me last week to say he didn’t love the choices of fonts, but honestly, I think the combination I picked works very well together.  I’d love to hear what you think.

 

I am utterly thrilled with the size of these, by the way.  It’s exactly 120 pages.  Too thin to have text on the spine, which is a shame, but also thin enough that it’s not a daunting project to take on.

Somewhere between an ebook and a full-length writing manual, this definitely feels like something that is “do-able” by an average writer in an average week.  I really believe anyone can use this book to make their own story (stories!) sing.

I can’t wait to get feedback.

(Okay, yeah, I’m a little scared, too.)

As I post this, you still have a few hours to pick up a Kindle copy free (I think it’s on until midnight, August 31st).

Enjoy!

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Three FREE graphics programs writers need in their arsenal.

Need a quick tweak for an illustration or cover? 

It doesn’t have to be a pain.  I promise, I’ll make this as easy and low-tech as possible.

Ideally, a professional would handle anything image-related, from changes to illustrations to adding text to your covers.  But for small fixes, you’re not stuck with Windows Paint. 

And even if you’re not planning on doing a lot of image manipulation, there are good reasons why you need a reliable paint program to turn to from time to time.

Obviously, you don’t want to spend a ton of money, which is why I’ve gathered this collection of three good, stable choices that you can download and start using absolutely free.

(I don’t get any kind of kickback for suggesting these – they’re just good programs that I have used myself.)

Autodesk Pixlr (Desktop version)

This program is free, fast to load and pretty nifty.  It’s also very bare-bones.  There is an “upgraded” professional membership for $15 a year that gives you access to more features.  I don’t know that it’s worth it, but the free one is a handy tool to have.

What can it do?

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Inspirational quote infographics about kids, books and writing.

Feel free to borrow and use any of these on your own site, facebook or elsewhere. 
I’d love a link back if you could include one.  Will update this page as new infographics and quotes are created.

Click each graphic to see full-size.
 
“There’s more summer in September than in June.” – Sara Lapell


“When I say to a parent, ‘read to a child,’ I don’t want it to sound like medicine, I want it to sound like chocolate.” – Mem Fox


“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” – Maya Angelou

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King

“A good book has no ending.” – R.D. Cumming

 

What quotes inspire you???  Let me know in the comments!

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Are editors and agents sick of YOUR book? 11 things they don’t want to see.

Is your story perfect?

Wait! 

Don’t hit the send button just yet.

Before you email (or snail mail) that manuscript, make sure you aren’t sending an editor (or agent) a book she’s already sick of seeing.

It’s not like it’s tough to read their minds.  Editors, agents and other publishing professionals are out there giving interviews.  They are sitting down with bloggers and newspaper / magazine writers, mostly begging us (as writers) to please not send them certain books.

Which books?

Let’s listen to what they’re saying for a minute.  Can you hear them all?

Straight from the horses’ mouths, here’s what all those editors and agents are utterly, completely, and totally sick of…

Books that rhyme.

1.  Rhyme.  “I am SICK of seeing rhyming picture books with bad meter and rhyme. Ugh. Is there anything worse? No. No, there’s not.” – editor Josh Plattner, via Writers’ Rumpus.

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Two, (no, three!) heartwarming indie books.

A lot of people send me books.

A lot.

But I don’t write a lot of reviews.  It turns out, I’m much too picky.

I know all too well that reviews are the lifeblood of any independent writer.  In theory, I’m happy to help.  But I won’t review just anything.  Like my mother always said, “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Two books arrived recently that were actually just right for us to read and review (check out my review guidelines before sending anything). 

Another is a series that has been waiting far too long, so I’ll throw it in here for good measure.

Here are the books:

• A Different Little Doggy, by Heather Whittaker (illustrated by Scott Alberts)
• Great Grandma’s Gifts, by Marianne Jones (illustrated by Karen Reinikke)
• The Dr. Dee Dee Dynamo Series, by Oneeka Williams

I read the first two tonight, out loud, with my kids.  All of these books have a lot going for them.  It makes me excited to be an independent author, honestly it does.  It’s like the book says:  it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 

These books are some of the best of what’s out there.

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8 mistakes to avoid while writing for children.

(guest post by Megha Mukherjee)

On my niece's seventh birthday, I wondered what would be an ideal gift for her. I decided to gift her something which would be beneficial for her in future. Seeing her inclination towards story books and comics, I thought it would be much ideal to gift a story book. And what could be a better gift than a book written by me?

With full throttle, I started jotting down a set of stories for her, all well thought on the present situations and issues, stories of high values and morals. Finally, I got the book bind from a local bookbinding shop and gifted it to her.

Three years have passed since then, needless to mention that my book is a history now.All because the next time I visited my sister, I saw my book carelessly turned over the floor by the side of the kennel. Apparently, my niece was using it as a sleeping tent for her doll. My sister told me she had discarded the book, announcing it was boring. That really broke my heart and I wondered what went wrong.

Anyways, that experience was a lesson. I still want to gift a personalized storybook to my daughter and I know exactly how to go about it. Here are eight reasons to why some children's books are so popular while others never get off the rack.

 

1. A book without pictures

The first step to draw a child's attention to a book is to make it look good. Pictures attract all of us; many of us still drift the pages of a magazine without actually paying much attention to the text.

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Writer Dad: mini-interview with Sean Platt

Sometimes, it’s good to be backed into a corner.

Like us, staked out here at the corner of “writing kids’ books” and “self-publishing.” 

I live here, too.  And I love it.  I love sharing tools to create excellent children’s books, whether that’s tips on publishing, marketing, or actually sitting down and writing or editing the thing (and getting it illustrated).

Did I mention I have a guide coming out to self-editing your own children’s book?  I love every aspect of this process, even editing (and with this book, maybe you will, too).

But it does get lonely sometimes.

It’s a fun corner, but there aren’t a lot of us around.  We aren’t very high profile, and there aren’t many folks to keep us inspired.

Then somebody like Sean Platt comes along, a proud indie author who makes his living and supports his family writing his heart out in science fiction, fantasy, nonfiction and more, to the tune of tens of thousands of words a week. 

Plus he does a couple of podcasts. 

Plus… (get ready for it)… he writes kids’ books.  But you’ve never seen his books, and he says you never will.  That’s because he writes under a pseudonym:  Guy Incognito, a name swiped from a Simpson’s episode.

“Most of my published work is for grownups, so it doesn't make sense for me to use the name ‘Sean Platt’ when writing for children.”

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