Do you have a theme in all your books?

Sorry I've not been here a lot, but been helping my mum round the house and garden, and then went down with a cold. Still have the cold, but much better now.

Anyway, do you have a theme running through all your books? I do. Mine is hope and second chances. I shall explain more.

With my Guardian Angels series, there is hope for the teen angels, Lizzie and Danny, for redemption by helping other teens on Earth from risking their lives and death, like they did. They give hope to the teens they help by showing them what they can do with their lives if they just try and not give in to boredom. I'm currently writing the fifth and final of the series, where Lizzie and Danny have their last mission to pass and graduate from the school. It doesn't all go to plan like they hoped.

In Geraldine's Gems adult romance series, Geraldine has gone to Heaven after dying and given the chance to redeem herself (she was not nice when alive) by first getting her ex love to be nice again, then going down to Earth to help her relatives get their lives and love back on track. As she is told, One good turn deserves another. So her relatives are given hope and second chance at love.

Then in my dark magical romance series 'Secrets of Singleton' some of the residents whom are single, are given the hope of romance by certain objects who have magical powers given by their descendants.

So there you have my theme of Hope and Second Chances.

I plan to put this theme in non-fiction soon, too. I plan to write and publish a series of short ebooks to help new authors with their writing. The first one is going to be full of writing exercises for all genres, the second one will be more exercises, but will use words and verbs that often get mixed up and confused eg practice/se. (One which I used to get confused with).

You can buy any of the above ebooks at http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034P09WW

Writing for educational and non-fiction publishers

On Tuesday night I went to Piccadilly Circus to the SCBWI Professional Series talk about writing for educational and non-fiction publishers. It is an area I hadn't really thought about approaching but things do change as you will read from this blog. I met Anita and David in Costa Coffee for a bite to eat before the talk. Thankfully they found the right place, despite me giving the wrong coffee name to them on FB. Oops. I did get right where it was - opposite the church. Anyway, here is what I learnt.

The panel was made up of Anita Loughrey who writes educational fiction and non-fiction and Louie Stowell who works and writes for Usborne.

For authors who are starting out in this area, do sent an email/letter to publishers you are interested in writing for, saying you are available for their type of work. Do research the publishers first, though, so you can get a feel for what they write and a feel for their tone of writing. Anita said that now is the best time to get into educational publishing because there is a new curriculum and teachers are still getting used to it. You can download it by Googling it. If you are still not sure how to proceed, Anita suggested asking a teacher for help in writing the book.

Louie writes for Fiction Express. She has written interactive stories for Years 3-4 and Years 5-6. Years 3-4 are 1000 words a chapter, and 5-6 2000 a chapter. It is very quick and you have to interact on a blog with the children, and when they choose the ending of one chapter you only have a couple of days to write the next one. She also writes for Box of Frogs and mentioned Me Books, like Choose Your Adventure books. She said that when you write for these publishers, you have to have your idea thought out as much as possible, know the title, format of it and the name of the illustrator you wish to work with.

For picture books, you have to be v specific. You have to have illustrator notes on each spread. You should find out the background of the publisher and what interests them.

For non-fiction - it is best if you know lots on the subject you want to write about. Anita has written for Discovery Books and got a flat fee. She also mentioned a forum with lots of info called Nibweb. it is best to look at educational publishers who are free to being pitched. Anita mentioned Walker Books, QED and Hopscotch.  Look at publishers lists and find a gap, then pitch. Keep an eye on what will happen in a few years to come eg events and celebrations.

You can write to charities with your CV and ask if they want writers for books for their purpose. Get your name out there. Find charities who have the money, though. Write less than you need to. Look at who and what you know.

There was questions at the end and one question by someone else got me thinking about this area of writing. She asked about publishers who were interested in writing about special needs and mentioned Asperger's Syndrome. Louie mentioned a name and said that if we came to her at the end, she'd give us her card and if we emailed her she'd send us details. This is what I did, because I got excited and decided I wanted to write about AS and other things I know about. So, yesterday morning I emailed Louie. She got back to me and wrote that she will get in touch with her contact, and ask her to contact me. So I am an excited bunny. I feel that this is one way to get published traditionally, and especially if it's about something I know about and can feel make a difference to children. We shall wait and see....