So, a last-minute/day/week reminder to ready your entry for #TheNorthStreetBookPrize. As you can see from below, leaders in the industry recommend it/support it/sponsor it because of the many value-added opportunities included with your entry fee. My favorite? The critique. It’s a worth the entry all by itself! Here’s just part of their recent shoutout! And why not sign up for their free newsletter so you never miss their vetted feature articles and ads.
| Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of The Frugal Book Promoter. She will conduct a marketing analysis and one-hour phone consultation with our grand prize winner and each category winner. "Carolyn Howard-Johnson has a trove of experiences and knowledge to share. I got a great deal out of our meeting." -Steve Wolfson, 2023 North Street children's picture book winner |
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| BookBaby offers comprehensive services to help you design, edit, print, and sell your book. Along with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, they have sponsored the North Street Book Prize from the very beginning. Our grand prize winner will receive a $500 credit from BookBaby. Each category winner will receive a $300 credit. |
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| Gatekeeper offers easy, affordable self-publishing. Our grand prize winner will receive free developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading. If your book has 100,000 words, that's a $5,500 benefit! Each category winner will be eligible for 50% off developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading. |
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| Book Award Pro matches your book with its best award opportunities. Our grand prize winner will receive three months of Pro service (a $207 value) and a $250 account credit. Each category winner and honorable mention will receive three months of Pro service. |
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| Laura Duffy provides professional book cover design services for indie authors. She offers our grand prize winner a cover consultation (a $1,100 value) that can be assigned to their current book or a future book. Each category winner will receive a design for a custom merchandise item based on their book cover. |
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| Self-Publishing Made Simple |
April Cox provides courses, resources, and coaching for authors, specializing in children's picture books. The winner and honorable mention in our children's picture book category will each receive a phone consultation with April (a $289 value) and access to Authorpreneur Summit sessions (an $89 value).
As you can see, they are generous with the sharing of their winners and sponsors! Thank you, Winning Writers. |
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MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T/ ) of books for writers including "The Frugal Book Promoter" (https://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromoIII), and "The Frugal Editor" both offered in their third editions by Modern History Press. Others in that series are "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically," and two booklets, both in their second editions also from Modern History Press. The booklets, "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" (https://bit.ly/LastMinuteEditsII) and "Great First Impression Book Proposals" (https://bit.ly/BookProposalsII) are career boosters in mini doses and both make ideal thank you gifts for authors. The one on writing book proposals is also available as an Audio Book. "The Frugal Editor "(https://tinyurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), was recently released in its third edition. It is the winningest book in this series for writers.
Carolyn also has three frugal books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them understand what is needed to convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques" (https://bit.ly/RetailersGuide). In addition to this blog, Carolyn helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at https://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (https://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com). Learn more and follow it to get news on her new releases directly from Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile.
Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Writer
As with anything you attempt to do, it’s essential to know what you’re doing.
My father was a contractor—he built homes.
How structurally sound do you think those homes would have been if he didn’t know what he was doing or didn’t know how to read blueprints?
Or what about a musician who didn’t learn how to play an instrument. Or one who knew the basics but never practiced. Would you attend a concert that this musician was giving?
Well, the same thing applies to writing for children.
It’s true that a self-published author can publish a poorly written book; no one will stop him. But do you think that’s fair to the reader and those authors who produce quality books?
The answer is NO on both accounts.
A common problem I see with new children’s authors is that they’re not familiar with the different genres.
I’ll see 2,000-word picture book drafts or 9,000-word middle-grade drafts.
I’ll also see things like an intended middle-grade draft with inappropriate content for the age group.
This also applies to the words you use in your story. Everything must be age-appropriate when writing for children.
And there must be a main character (protagonist).
A story I recently reviewed didn't have a main character. It didn’t have a story arc, either.
This is common for some new authors. They have a message they want to convey but don’t realize it needs to be within the boundaries of a good fiction story.
Another biggie I notice is middle-grade stories with multiple points of view (POV), even going so far as to change POVs within a chapter. That's usually not a good thing no matter the genre. However, if it's upper middle grade, you can get away with more than one POV, just not within the same chapter. It's best to keep things simple.
I realize that many people think writing for children is easy.
How hard can it be, right?
Well, it’s actually a tricky genre to write in.
When writing for children, you must adhere to the industry’s standard guidelines. In other words, you need to know what you’re doing … you need to play by the rules.
Some elements that pertain to playing by the rules are:
1. Word count
2. Sentence and chapter length
3. Story length
4. Age-appropriate content
5. Point of view
6. Protagonist
7. Character and story arcs
So, before you jump into a children’s story, read a many, many books in the genre you want to write. Be sure they’re well-written, though. A good way to do this is to read recently traditionally published books by top publishers, such as Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Chronicle Books.
There are good self-published books out there, but it’s sometimes a guessing game as to which are well-written and which are poorly written. You wouldn’t want to learn or model poorly written books.
Traditionally published books will be up to the current publishing guidelines and well-edited.
It'd also be a good idea to take a few online children’s writing courses, read books on writing for children, and possibly get a children’s writing coach to help you overcome the hurdles of writing a publishable book. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen
Cioffi is an
award-winning children’s author, ghostwriter, rewriter, and coach with clients
worldwide. If you need help with your children’s story, please visit Karen Cioffi Writing for
Children.
Karen
also offers:
HOW TOWRITE A CHILDREN’S FICTION BOOK.
A 250+
book that will help you start or finish your children’s book
PICTUREBOOK, CHAPTER BOOK, MIDDLE GRADE COACHING
Four to
twelve-week coaching programs.
FICTIONWRITING FOR CHILDREN eCOURSE
4-Weeks /
8 Sections Guided Self-Study Mentoring Program
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in the right column of this blog lets you subscribe to #SharingwithWriters so
you don’t miss any of Karen’s posts on writing for children.
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MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T/ ) of books for writers including "The Frugal Book Promoter" (https://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromoIII), and "The Frugal Editor" both offered in their third editions by Modern History Press. Others in that series are "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically," and two booklets, both in their second editions also from Modern History Press. The booklets, "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" (https://bit.ly/LastMinuteEditsII) and "Great First Impression Book Proposals" (https://bit.ly/BookProposalsII) are career boosters in mini doses and both make ideal thank you gifts for authors. The one on writing book proposals is also available as an Audio Book. "The Frugal Editor "(https://tinyurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), was recently released in its third edition. It is the winningest book in this series for writers.
Carolyn also has three frugal books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them understand what is needed to convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques" (https://bit.ly/RetailersGuide). In addition to this blog, Carolyn helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at https://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (https://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com). Learn more and follow it to get news on her new releases directly from Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile.
Code Words Served Batman:
They Can Serve Self-Editors, Too
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson This article is excerpted from the winningest book in my HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for Writers. It’s from one of my daring departures, a little one-page essay on editing or…mmm…maybe a two-page diatribe like this one on an aspect of editing no one ever bothers to tell you. My publisher and I came up with the rather sedate title of “The Frugal Editor’s Extra, all twenty of them numbered sequentially. (This one is number six.) They get placed sporadically at the end of selected chapters. Come have some fun with me.
 Using codes isn’t—strictly speaking—one of Word’s fancy schmancy editing tools. It is a handy tactic when you prefer not to tackle any of Word’s techy offerings. Codes let Word’s search power work for me when…well, here’s a deep dark secret: Sometimes my memory fails. If you occasionally have the same trouble, you won’t need to spend time researching the computer skills you once knew but have changed since the last time you used them or by asking all the knowledgeable people in your life about a word too arcane for a search engine to find with the synonyms and keywords you can recall. It works because our brains have a way of eventually remembering what we thought we forgot. Here’s how to use codes to designate an elusive word or concept:
· Use a code name. Anything will do. Author JayCe Crawford couldn’t think of the name for an old-time restaurant called DuPar’s Deli in Glendale, California, a Los Angeles area community. She used Jerry’s as a temporary substitute every time she wanted to refer to the restaurant by name. When she finally remembered, she used the Find Function to replace Jerry’s with Dupar’s. One of the advantages to this method is that if you never recall the name and can’t find it in research, the name you’ve used as code might do just as well.
· Instead of a code word, you might use a series of XXXs. I prefer this method because it’s easy to see three capital Xs, even without any help from the computer’s find function. It’s also easy to run a Find on three Xs. Your computer won’t waste much if any time landing on possible fixes…even some you don’t need.
· Of course, the easiest method is to ask your husband…or the girl sitting next to you at Starbucks. One question can save you a whole lot of time. Another advantage: A new friend might turn out to be a fellow writer or avid reader. I’ve found lots of new friends with similar interests this way. Ice cream counters. Even the prescription lines at Rite-Aid. MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER 
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T/ ) of books for writers including "The Frugal Book Promoter" (https://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromoIII), and "The Frugal Editor" both offered in their third editions by Modern History Press. Others in that series are "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically," and two booklets, both in their second editions also from Modern History Press. The booklets, "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" (https://bit.ly/LastMinuteEditsII) and "Great First Impression Book Proposals" (https://bit.ly/BookProposalsII) are career boosters in mini doses and both make ideal thank you gifts for authors. The one on writing book proposals is also available as an Audio Book. "The Frugal Editor "(https://tinyurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), was recently released in its third edition. It is the winningest book in this series for writers.
Carolyn also has three frugal books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them understand what is needed to convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques" (https://bit.ly/RetailersGuide). In addition to this blog, Carolyn helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at https://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com.
She also blogs all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (https://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com).
Learn more and follow this Amazon Author Page to get news on her new releases directly from Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile.
Valerie Allen is one of my favorite authors’ advocates. Let’s explore this podcast together! And while you’re at it, join her AuthorsforAuthors group on Facebook. It’s full of authors--yep, helping one another!
Write, Publish, Sell! 2 ed
Beyond the Inkblots: Confusion to Harmony Understanding Mental Illness: A Guide for Family and Friends
Amazing Grace
Sins of the Father
The Prodigal Son
Stories for the Man in Your Life Love Stories for Your Valentine A Gift for Mom: Short Story Collection 'Tis Herself: Short Story Volume One 'Tis Herself: Short Story Volume Two 'Tis Herself: Short Story Volume Three
The Sun and The Moon My Precious Little Kitty Cat Summer School for Smarties
Go to the Guidance Office and Ask the Counselor
MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T/ ) of books for writers including "The Frugal Book Promoter" (https://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromoIII), and "The Frugal Editor" both offered in their third editions by Modern History Press. Others in that series are "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically," and two booklets, both in their second editions also from Modern History Press. The booklets, "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" (https://bit.ly/LastMinuteEditsII) and "Great First Impression Book Proposals" (https://bit.ly/BookProposalsII) are career boosters in mini doses and both make ideal thank you gifts for authors. The one on writing book proposals is also available as an Audio Book. "The Frugal Editor "(https://tinyurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), was recently released in its third edition. It is the winningest book in this series for writers.
Carolyn also has three frugal books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them understand what is needed to convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques" (https://bit.ly/RetailersGuide). In addition to this blog, Carolyn helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at https://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (https://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com). Learn more and follow it to get news on her new releases directly from Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile.
You’ll thank me for this quick tip. It’s Author/Podcaster’s regular interviews with literary and artistic geniuses of our time--as a resource and for inspiration. This month he gave me goose bumps with Sir Ridley Scott, cinematic storyteller on call! I care enough about the entertainment value in addition to what my fellow authors can learn from this to sponsor it! Here’s more on the series that comes to you from author/podcaster Dr. Randy Overbeck!
ShoresIn this episode, you'll discover--- how Sir Ridley Scott went from advertising mogul to major movie director
- how even though he ranks among the top grossing directors of all time, he had to wait half his life for his chance to direct a his first major motion picture
- how so many of his films, which were not appreciated initially, became cult and fan favorites
- how. like so many great storytellers, he had to overcome dramatic challenges to accomplish success
Check out the backstories you never knew about the storytellers you love. Learn More About Randy: Media
More About the Podcaster Speaking Contact Books & Reviews About Randy
MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T/ ) of books for writers including "The Frugal Book Promoter" (https://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromoIII), and "The Frugal Editor" both offered in their third editions by Modern History Press. Others in that series are "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically," and two booklets, both in their second editions also from Modern History Press. The booklets, "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" (https://bit.ly/LastMinuteEditsII) and "Great First Impression Book Proposals" (https://bit.ly/BookProposalsII) are career boosters in mini doses and both make ideal thank you gifts for authors. The one on writing book proposals is also available as an Audio Book. "The Frugal Editor "(https://tinyurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), was recently released in its third edition. It is the winningest book in this series for writers.
Carolyn also has three frugal books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them understand what is needed to convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques" (https://bit.ly/RetailersGuide).
In addition to this blog, Carolyn helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at https://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (https://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com). Learn more and follow it to get news on her new releases directly from Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile.
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