Children’s Writing Web Journal

Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. We'll be updating the blog on a daily basis, with plenty of exclusive tips, articles and goodies for aspiring children's book writers. So why not subscribe now and have easy access any time you'd like!

Here’s a really nice collection of publishing terms that can help demystify things for the newer writers amongst you (and the not-so-new, too).    Internalize this and you can sling the lingo  with the best of ‘em.

(Hat tip to our pal Anastasia Suen for finding this one.)

You’ve labored over your manuscript for months. It’s a polished, spell-checked, one-of-a-kind manuscript. Now it’s time to approach an editor. Does the editor want to see a complete manuscript with a cover letter, or a query letter? Either way, you’ll have about ten seconds to get his or her attention.

What is a cover letter?

A cover letter is a business letter introducing a particular piece of writing, which accompanies the letter, to an editor or agent. It should be concise, informative and professional. Professional does not mean stuffy. This letter is your representative. Let your own personality come across. The letter should contain all the necessary information…and nothing more. (more…)

Some cool links…..

Big Universe - Online children’s bookshop where you can read and purchase electronic picture books, or create your own for online publication.  Their URL is http://www.biguniverse.com   Here’s a recent piece from Publisher’s Weekly about the site. 

JacketFlap - Terrific social networking site for children’s book writers, illustrators, librarians and publishing professionals.  Free and very easy to use.  Highly recommended.  http://jacketflap.com   (And, after you sign up,  visit our JacketFlap page to become added as one of our friends.)

drop.io - Awesome free tool that allows you fax any document from your computer - without fax software.  Lots of other neat ways to share files, too.  http://drop.io/

Authonomy - A new site, now in beta testing, from HarperCollins that has industry folks buzzing.  It will be a social network site that will allow writers to upload manuscripts, which will be read and judged by other members of the network.  The site will use “the public’s recommendations to search out the cream of the crop – and showcase those titles to the book world at large”.   The actual site will be at http://www.authonomy.com/   There’s a company blog up now which addresses common questions.  Here’s some of what the rest of the blogosphere is saying.

Snopes - Every day I get a forwarded message from some well-meaning person.  Bill Gates is giving money away…Barack Obama is this….John McCain is that….a new computer virus will suck your soul out of your body.  It usually takes me all of 3 seconds to determine that it’s a hoax, thanks to the venerable Snopes.com database of urban myths.  If you get a forwarded message, before you drop your entire address book’s contents into the CC: section and hit send, please, please, please check it out on Snopes first.  (Also, for writers, the site is a hoot — filled with all kinds of wildly imaginative stuff that you can you use to spark your own ideas.  Just be sure to put them in your next book rather than your next mass e-mail!)  http://www.snopes.com