Rebecca Colby

When I began teaching, I was gobsmacked to learn how much the profession had changed from when I attended school. Gone were the handy, school-supplied textbooks that provided teachers with lesson plans and worksheets. Instead, I found myself spending all of my free time creating my own lesson plans and worksheets, or researching teacher websites for appropriate resources. My full-time teaching job quickly became two full-time jobs.

After publishing my first book, I was determined to make my book as accessible and as desirable as possible to teachers. Teachers are the busiest people I know! If I wanted teachers to use my book in the classroom, I knew I needed to both create the resources AND bring them to the teachers.

Pinpoint your book’s USP

One of the first things you need to do is pinpoint what your book’s unique selling point (USP) is in respect of teachers using it in the classroom. How does it fit in with what is taught?

My first book was about a wee lassie who swallows all manner of Scottish birds and animals. The USP was obvious: I placed my primary focus for the activity guide on Scottish wildlife and their habitats. However, with my second book, which is about a witch parade, the USP wasn’t as clear. I focused on several aspects of the book—after all, witches aren’t a typical classroom topic. So while the main English activity asked children to create their own rhyming spells, math found them comparing and ordering the size of frogs, science had them playing a game of bat and moth to learn about echolocation, and art saw them creating musical rainsticks.

Research relevant curriculums

Find out what is being taught at what grade level. The best way to do that is to research both The Common Core Standards and state curriculums. While researching your own state’s curriculum is a good place to start, keep in mind that unless your book releases with a regional publisher, then you also need to look at other states’ curriculums—particularly curriculums for the larger (and often bellweather) states. Two good examples are California and Texas.

Make teachers happy

Just producing an activity guide is sure to make a teacher happy, but if you want to go that extra mile, think about two things: 1) How can I make the activities cross-curricular? and 2) How can I extend children’s learning?

While my guide is cross-curricular and covers most subjects taught in school, some of the individual activities are also cross-curricular. For example, the art activity involves making a witch puppet, which can later be used in English to act out and retell the book. In this way, one activity allows for learning in two areas of the curriculum.

Teachers are also always looking for ways to extend children’s learning. In one of my science activities, children are asked to measure rainfall over the course of a week. This can be done simply by marking water levels on the side of the rain collection container with colored felt-tip pens and comparing levels. But if a teacher wishes to extend children’s learning and introduce standard units of measure (or the teacher wants a differentiated activity for more able students), he or she could ask the children to measure the rainfall in inches or centimeters with a ruler.

Where to share

Now that you have your guide, what do you do with it? I always make mine available as a download from my website. But teachers are incredibly busy, remember? Bring the guide to them. Post it on websites like Teachers Pay Teachers and Share My Lesson. Forward it to your publisher. They often hold a database full of educational contacts. Bring hard copies of the guide to library, festival, and bookstore events. And if you have some spare time, you could email teachers and let them know about your guide. After all, you’re probably going to email a few teachers anyway to see if they’d like to set up author visits with you. Mention the guide and where to find the download in the email.

If you have your own tips for producing teachers’ resource guides to your books, I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to leave me a comment below.

Thank you to Bobbi Miller, who inspired this post, and to Teaching Authors, for originally hosting it on their blog on August 24, 2015.

Everywhere I look on editor and agent submission wish lists these days, I read the following: WANTED: Funny, Quirky Picture Books. Why? Because everyone enjoys a laugh—kids and adults alike. Laughing makes people feel good, and as a result, funny sells.

But if you’re not the kind of person who automatically sees the funny side of life, you may find writing humorous picture books difficult. (And even if you do see the funny side of life, like me, you may still find it a struggle.) So here are some tips to showing editors and agents “the funny.”

Juxtaposition

Put two things together that don’t normally go together. This already sets the scene for a humorous story before you’ve even written a word. For example, Melinda Long puts ‘pirates’ and ‘a baby’ together in Pirates Don’t Change Diapers (illustrated by David Shannon). Who can resist laughing at babysitting pirates, especially when they think they’ve been given the task of sitting on babies.

Contradictions

Some of the funniest books to read are those in which the illustrations contradict the text. Mark Teague does this so well in his book, Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School. In the book, Ike begs to be rescued from dog obedience school. He writes letters home to Mrs. LaRue, complaining about the school and painting a bleak picture of it, while the color illustrations tell a very different picture—that of a luxury, high-class school that is more akin to a spa retreat.

Potty Humour

Okay, so it doesn’t appeal to everyone, but most kids of average picture book age, love (and I do mean LOVE!) potty humour. And if you’re looking for an example of a book that is super-duper, hilariously disgusting then look no further than Morris, the Mankiest Monster by Giles Andreae and Sarah McIntyre. Morris lives in a house made of dung and eats green bogies. Need I say more?

Word Play

Be it nonsense words, puns, tongue twisters, or other word play techniques, using fun language can add humour to a book. And the sillier sounding the language, the better. A picture book author that knows how to use word play to its best effect (and one to study) is Margie Palatini. With titles like Broom Mates, Moosetache, and Gone with the Wand, you already know she’s an author who likes to play with words. In her book, The Web Files (illustrated by Richard Egielski), someone has pilfered a peck of perfect purple almost-pickled peppers and Ducktective Web must investigate the fowl play. While it proves to be a hard case to quack, he eventually finds the dirty rat involved. Now how’s that for some fun word play?

Give it a twist

Another way to ensure your book is humorous is to add a twist. Your book should be anything but predictable, so surprise your audience. A recent book I’ve read that accomplishes this is I Thought This was a Bear Book by Tara Lazar and Benji Davies. The entire book is a twisted fairy tale with an alien accidentally falling into the pages of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But while some of the elements in the book, like the appearance of Goldilocks, porridge, chairs, and beds are expected, these elements are mish-mashed with the story of the alien, making for a completely new and unpredictable book. And just when you think you’ve got the book sussed and the happy ending is looming, a further twist shows up on the last page. But to find out what it is, you’ll have to read the book!

Illustrations

Illustrations are another way to inject humour into your picture book. However, since this is a post about writing, rather than illustrating, I’m not going to say much here, except occasionally–and only VERY OCCASIONALLY–if you come up with a strong, visual image that would enhance the humour in your text, then you might want to consider inserting an illustration note in your manuscript.

Humour is subjective so employing these tricks is no guarantee that every editor or agent will find your book humorous, but you’re sure to tickle a few funny bones.

Thank you to Laurie J. Edwards, who inspired and hosted this original post on her blog on August 27, 2015.

If you’re anything like me, you probably thought getting a book contract was the last step in achieving your lifelong dream of selling a book. And like me, the only other things you planned to do were to announce your big news to the world, celebrate, and watch the sales roll in.

Boy, was I wrong! Take my advice. Don’t break out the bubbly too soon. Or at least, don’t break it out all at once because you’ll want to celebrate again after the rest of the hard work is done. If you’re self-published, it should come as no surprise that the hard work is just beginning. But if you’re traditionally published, it might just come as a shock.

After signing my first book contract, I began reading debut author stories, and as I read more and more of these stories, it slowly dawned on me that most of the onus would be on me to market myself and my book. Now was not the time to put my feet up. So I got to work—again.

Here is a list of some of the things I recommend doing after signing your book contract:

1. Build your author platform

It’s never too early to start building your author platform. In fact, it’s one of the first things you should do—preferably before you sell your book.

There’s two things to appreciate when building your platform: Firstly, don’t focus solely on growing your social media followers. You need to work on establishing a connection with your followers, rather than just gathering as many as you can. Secondly, your platform should consist of more than social media. Other things you should consider investing time in are: setting up a website, creating Amazon and Goodreads author pages, getting professional photographs made, writing a bio, build a mailing list, and the list goes on and on. (I told you the hard work was just beginning!)

2. Write a marketing plan

This is a must, and it’s not solely a task for self-published authors. All authors should treat their career as a business, and businesses generally benefit from strategic action plans.

When my Scottish publisher sent out an author questionnaire five months before my first book released, it was a real eye-opener. The questionnaire had a strong marketing focus. As was the case after reading the debut author stories, it brought home to me how much work I needed to put into promoting my book.

In addition to asking things like who I saw as my readership and requesting a list of my local bookshops, I was forced to think about where review copies of my book could be sent, what relevant human interest stories there might be around myself and my book, and what on-line marketing and in-person events I was prepared to do. This questionnaire became the blueprint for my marketing plan which I developed further after reading several “how-to” articles on-line. I suggest if you’re serious about your career as an author that you do the same.

3. Produce educational materials

On the other hand, this is not necessary but it goes a long way in ensuring teachers take notice of your book and use it in the classroom. As a former teacher and librarian, I may be biased, but I truly believe there’s no better way of giving your book a stronger advantage of getting it shared in schools, than by producing free supplemental educational resources. And if you want some tips on how to write a teacher’s activity guide to your book, I’ll be posting on this topic later this month.

4. Plan your book launch party

Two wee lassies at my first book launch

I don’t care how many books you publish, each one deserves a celebration. But the type of celebration you choose may vary from book to book. For my first launch, I wanted a cozy affair with family and friends at the local library where I worked for 10 years. For my second launch, I chose to organize a group launch with other picture book writers, and invite mostly fellow children’s authors. When my third launch happens, I’m hoping to launch it at a school with hundreds of children in attendance.

You may choose a completely different type of launch, but in the end, the preparation for it will be much the same: create a budget, book a venue, choose who to invite, ensure books will be on hand, organise the catering, find a photographer (and it need only be a friend with a reliable camera), invite the press, and plan an entertaining reading. And as a fun bonus for the people attending, you might also want to throw in some giveaway prizes.

5. Stay visible and be of benefit

Once you tell everyone you’ve sold a book, you want to stay visible. But that doesn’t mean tweeting every 5 minutes about your book. That only gets annoying. Why not promote other authors instead? They’ll take far more notice of you if you do, and if you’re lucky they might promote you as well.

Also, I believe in paying it forward and being of benefit. I’ve been on the receiving end of so much helpful advice and career assistance since joining the kid lit community. Consider paying it forward. Whether it’s your conference notes, or news of a pitch fest, or submission guidelines for a new agent or publishing house, or something else entirely, don’t keep it to yourself. Share with others and they’ll share with you. And when one of us benefits, we all benefit. I know it’s hard to believe in these benefits when everyone around you is getting agents and book deals, and you’re not. But trust me, what comes around, goes around, and your day will come. In the meantime, help others if you can.

6. Have fun

And lastly, have fun! Otherwise, what’s the point? For most of us, writing for children is a labour of love. Try to remember that when the tedious, non-writing aspects of the job take over. Remember why you’re doing this and embrace the gift you’ve been given—the gift of bringing joy and happiness to children. Personally, I can’t think of a better way to have fun.

Thank you to Clare Helen Welsh, who inspired and hosted this original post on her blog on August 17, 2015.

Apologies for the long delay in posts. A lot has been going on and I’m making some changes in my life that have temporarily kept me away from the blog and my writing.

Three winners were chosen in May but I’m only able to announce two of the winners now. They are:

Jonathan Humble, in the adult category with his poem DUNG!

and Nicky Anderson in the 11-18 year old category with her poem DRAGONS.

Congratulations to the winners and a big thank you to everyone who took the time to write a poem and enter!

In other news, due to the changes I’ve been making, I’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the giveaways. However, I’ll continue to post on the blog as and when I have news. Thanks for reading!

April is National Poetry Month so it seemed only fitting that to win this month’s giveaways (did you notice the plural?!–giveaways, not giveaway), that you write a poem. It need only be a couplet or a haiku, but it can be longer if you prefer. I’ll leave the length and format up to you. The poem can be for adults or children. Also, the poem can be written by either an adult or a child this month, as I’m giving children an opportunity to win also.

Prizes are the following books on writing:

Prize for the adults age 18 and up

Adults can win this book. Alternatively, they may choose the second book in this series entitled “712 More Things to Write About.”

Or the adults way opt for this prize.

Here’s the prize for 11-18 year olds:

11-18 year old entrants can win this book

And now the prize for 0-10 year olds:

Here’s what 0-10 year olds can win.

I hope you’ll join me in celebrating National Poetry Month by writing a poem. Happy writing!

Rules:
Open worldwide, but poems must be in English. Poems can be in any format and any length. Three books will be given out to three different winners. You can submit either in the comments or via my contact page. Regardless of how you submit, all winners must agree to having their poem and name published on my blog. Proof of age may be required. Entries must be received by Saturday, May 20, 2017 at 11.59pm GMT.

I’ve just chosen the winner for the February giveaway, and it’s Eszter Molnar. Congratulations, Eszter!

And thank you to everyone who participated! It was a tough decision. If you want to read the entries for the first line contest, they can be found in the comments of the previous blog post.

Now it’s time to move on to March’s giveaway. This is a quick Rafflecopter entry for a £10 (or $12 USD) Amazon Gift Card. Rules are as follows:

One entry per person. Open worldwide, HOWEVER, the gift card will only be purchased through Amazon.com OR Amazon.co.uk. Closes 11 April, 2017 at 1159pm GMT.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another month, another giveaway! But first, if you’re wondering who won the lucky draw for the waterproof notebook and smart bracelet last month, it was Jenny S.

This month I thought we’d try a skill comp. One of the suggestions was to have a first line contest, and as I think that’s a brilliant idea, that’s what we’re going to do.

If you want to enter, all you need to do is share the first line of your picture book in the comments below. One sentence—no more, no less. Whoever does the best job of hooking me with their first line will be the winner. She or he can choose from a basic picture book manuscript critique, a query letter critique, or a signed copy of either of my published books.

Anyone in the world can enter, but you’re only allowed one entry per person. The competition closes on St. Patrick’s Day, Friday, 17 March at 11:59pm, Greenwich Mean Time.

I look forward to reading your entries!

Today I’m revealing the cover of my forthcoming book, MOTOR GOOSE (Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan, July 2017) over at Lynne Marie’s My Word Playground. If you’d like to see the cover, read the interview, and/or be in with the chance of winning a picture book manuscript critique, then be sure to stop by. Here’s the link: http://literallylynnemarie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/cover-reveal-and-under-cover-with.html

I love competitions! It all started when I was in elementary school and my mother made me enter a Daughters’ of the American Revolution (DAR) writing contest. Although I enjoyed writing songs and poems at that age, the idea of writing a story–and a historical-based one at that–held no appeal. But the more I researched facts for my story, the more interesting the task became and to make a long story short, I won the contest. What a thrill! The DAR gave me prize money and a free lunch with their local chapter. (Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?!)

Over the years I went on to enter more writing contests, as well as lucky draw competitions that didn’t require a creative task. Sometimes I’d win and sometimes I’d lose, but on those days that I won, that overpowering thrill would come back. While I’m not a gambling woman (except for the occasional small bets with family members), I do like to satisfy my thrill of gaining more than I started with by entering competitions.

By now you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this (or are at least saying to yourself, “Get on with it, woman!”). It’s because I also love the thrill that comes with giving to others, and this year I plan on spending the entire year doing just that. Every month on my blog, there will be a new giveaway. Some of the giveaways will be lucky draws and some of the giveaways will require you to do a creative task, such as write a poem, story pitch, etc. The plan is to have a mix of competitions.

As January is more than half way through, let’s get the ball rolling. I have two items to giveaway to one lucky winner: a TW64 Bluetooth Smart Bracelet and a Chartwell waterproof notebook.

If you haven’t used a waterproof notebook before, you’re missing out. They’re great for taking notes while walking in the rain, or for jotting down ideas while in the bath. Living in England, I walk in the rain a lot, so having a notebook that won’t get soggy is a must!

A must for jotting down ideas in the bath!

To be in with a chance to win, just enter the Rafflecopter below.

This month is purely a lucky draw but watch out for next month when I’m going to ask you to put in a bit of effort to win. If you want to be the first one to hear of my giveaways each month, then be sure to sign up for my newsletter (and confirm the subscription, or you won’t be signed up).

There’s one entry per person and the giveaway runs worldwide, finishing at 11.59 GMT on Monday, 20 February.

PS If you follow my blog, you’ll know that my daughters entered a “Create a Gingerbread Cottage” competition in December to win a holiday voucher. I’m pleased to say they won! Just one more reason for me to give back to the universe this year. But remember, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Christmas is nearly here and it’s time to give out presents–or in my case, prizes! Earlier today I drew the names of the two lucky winners of my Christmas is Coming Query Letter Critique Competition. The winners are Linda H and Jen W. Congratulation, ladies! You should both have received an email from me by now.

Thank you to everyone who entered and be sure to keep checking the blog next year as I plan to run several giveaways in 2017!