Well, it has actually happened--my second book, Starting the Colt, is out! It even arrived earlier than expected from the printer. Now it's time to take off my writer's hat and put on my marketer's hat--not my favorite hat. I'd much rather be spending more time with my cowboy hat, but that's not going to happen for awhile, what with winter cold and snow. So it's a good time of year to be selling books in my spare time.
I am an introvert--I don't enjoy publicity or the process of publicizing my books, but I am trying to balance the side of me that would prefer to remain invisible. Every time I take a load of books to the post office, the rewards of marketing outweigh the challenges. Starting the Colt is now at the library and available in over half a dozen stores across northern Nevada. I just barely got it in at the Western Folklife Center in Elko before the week of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
My hard-working publisher, Janet Muirhead Hill, at Raven Publishing,
has Starting the Colt up on Amazon.com, both as a paperback and
as a Kindle book. She has been so great to work with--promptly answering
my many questions, always making good suggestions and guiding our
projects in the right direction.
As I have been subbing, I have shared with students the progress of my book in its journey toward publication and had a few opportunities to give mini-author talks or short readings. I love talking to students about reading and writing.
Other projects include tweaking my website (www.janyoungauthor.com) and placing the curriculum unit that I wrote last summer on TeachersPayTeachers.com. I have spent the past month and a half familiarizing myself with TpT--the products, the descriptions, and the process of formatting and uploading a digital product. Here, teachers can easily access the CU for an affordable price, and even download a free introductory mini-unit. Visit my TpT store to find "STARTING THE COLT Curriculum Unit Common Core Aligned" and "STARTING THE COLT Mini-Curriculum Unit Common Core Aligned."
Showing posts with label Raven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raven. Show all posts
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Starting the Colt is going to the printer, and the last-minute emails are flying back and forth between myself and my publisher, Janet Muirhead Hill, of Raven Publishing, as we make corrections and suggestions and critique each other's ideas. We both want everything to be just right. I am excited and stressed--so glad it's the weekend and not a hectic work day.
At the same time, marketing has already begun! We are offering a pre-publication ordering discount, so I've been designing mailings as well as changes and additions to my website. Because this is now my second time around, I have greater confidence about what I need to be doing. There is so much more to writing a book than just writing a book!
At the same time, marketing has already begun! We are offering a pre-publication ordering discount, so I've been designing mailings as well as changes and additions to my website. Because this is now my second time around, I have greater confidence about what I need to be doing. There is so much more to writing a book than just writing a book!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Actually quite a bit has been going on in the "Writer's Corner" of my life--yes, it only is one corner, not the main thing, which is why it takes me so long to get things accomplished. Two big things:
1) As a follow-up on my November blogpost, over the next few months, I contacted an administrator, several teachers, and various resource people in the school district to learn more about the Common Core Standards and how I might incorporate them into my existing Curriculum Unit for The Orange Slipknot. I ended up cutting some of my original material, rewording much of what remained, adding a few new things, and then inserting numbers to indicate which standard was met by each activity. My goal was to finish this by the end of summer, which I did. The second edition will be a great improvement! (It is not yet available.)
2) My second book, Starting the Colt, is in the works and is slated for release this coming spring! I recently finished editing and proof-reading the "page layout" version, in which the pages on my screen actually look like book pages--kind of exciting to get that visual of the finished product. I was amazed, in my editing, at how many things jumped out at me that needed fixed, clarified, or just improved. There was much less editing needed than in The Orange Slipknot, hopefully because I learned so much about writing from that experience that I did a better job in my initial writing of this one. But my publisher will now do further editing before creating the galleys, so I guess that remains to be seen.
Now that those two biggies are behind me, I have two more biggies to tackle. One involves marketing: Every year I contact all the Nevada fourth grade teachers for whom I can find email addresses (a very time-consuming project) to make them aware of The Orange Slipknot-plus-Curriculum Unit as a great social studies tool. The other involves writing: Now that I'm up to speed on the Common Core Curriculum, I need to craft a CU for Starting the Colt. This should take me much less time and work than the first one did.
One of the purposes of this blog has been to demonstrate what is involved in being a writer. First you write and self-edit the manuscript. Then you must market and sell the manuscript; however, I managed to skip this step with my second book, because my original publisher, Raven Publishing, was interested in my sequel. There is much involved in the publishing process--editing, proof-reading, galleys (preliminary unfinished copies), artwork and cover design, deadlines. Then you market and sell the book, which includes flyers, phone calls, emails, presentations, etc. And yes, blogging. Since I procrastinated so badly on my blogging, I am making up for it by posting twice in one day!
Oh yes, and don't forget websites--finding a host and learning your way around their technology, creating and updating your website, then repairing the things you screw up...which I was just reminded of as I tried to post this. In posting my earlier entry today and updating the link on my "janyoungauthor.com" home page, I found I had accidentally wiped out my entire home page. Instead I had somehow uploaded the wrong home page: the one from "jackyoungclinics.com"! I will admit to a few moments of panic as I tried unsuccessfully to get the right page to come up, until I finally figured out what had happened, and got everything back to normal. Sometimes I love playing with websites, but when things don't go right, well...let's just say the problem is not always fixed this easily!
1) As a follow-up on my November blogpost, over the next few months, I contacted an administrator, several teachers, and various resource people in the school district to learn more about the Common Core Standards and how I might incorporate them into my existing Curriculum Unit for The Orange Slipknot. I ended up cutting some of my original material, rewording much of what remained, adding a few new things, and then inserting numbers to indicate which standard was met by each activity. My goal was to finish this by the end of summer, which I did. The second edition will be a great improvement! (It is not yet available.)
2) My second book, Starting the Colt, is in the works and is slated for release this coming spring! I recently finished editing and proof-reading the "page layout" version, in which the pages on my screen actually look like book pages--kind of exciting to get that visual of the finished product. I was amazed, in my editing, at how many things jumped out at me that needed fixed, clarified, or just improved. There was much less editing needed than in The Orange Slipknot, hopefully because I learned so much about writing from that experience that I did a better job in my initial writing of this one. But my publisher will now do further editing before creating the galleys, so I guess that remains to be seen.
Now that those two biggies are behind me, I have two more biggies to tackle. One involves marketing: Every year I contact all the Nevada fourth grade teachers for whom I can find email addresses (a very time-consuming project) to make them aware of The Orange Slipknot-plus-Curriculum Unit as a great social studies tool. The other involves writing: Now that I'm up to speed on the Common Core Curriculum, I need to craft a CU for Starting the Colt. This should take me much less time and work than the first one did.
One of the purposes of this blog has been to demonstrate what is involved in being a writer. First you write and self-edit the manuscript. Then you must market and sell the manuscript; however, I managed to skip this step with my second book, because my original publisher, Raven Publishing, was interested in my sequel. There is much involved in the publishing process--editing, proof-reading, galleys (preliminary unfinished copies), artwork and cover design, deadlines. Then you market and sell the book, which includes flyers, phone calls, emails, presentations, etc. And yes, blogging. Since I procrastinated so badly on my blogging, I am making up for it by posting twice in one day!
Oh yes, and don't forget websites--finding a host and learning your way around their technology, creating and updating your website, then repairing the things you screw up...which I was just reminded of as I tried to post this. In posting my earlier entry today and updating the link on my "janyoungauthor.com" home page, I found I had accidentally wiped out my entire home page. Instead I had somehow uploaded the wrong home page: the one from "jackyoungclinics.com"! I will admit to a few moments of panic as I tried unsuccessfully to get the right page to come up, until I finally figured out what had happened, and got everything back to normal. Sometimes I love playing with websites, but when things don't go right, well...let's just say the problem is not always fixed this easily!
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Lately I have been working on the Nevada pages of the curriculum unit. I wrote The Orange Slipknot because I wanted to share my love of Nevada--not the glitz of Las Vegas, but the beauty and uniqueness of buckaroo country. I grew up in California, so Nevada is my adopted state. I was a town girl, not a country girl. I never imagined I would grow up to marry a cowboy and raise my kids 50 miles from a town. Life here was so different from what I had known. My letters home to family and friends were filled with adventures and anecdotes that had them shaking their heads. More than once I was told I should write a book. Those letters contained the seeds of stories to come.
When I started my journey into writing, I began by reading books about writing for children. They all advised, "Write about what you know and feel passionately about." I knew I would write about kids growing up in Nevada. My first piece of writing was called "The Best Thing About Nevada," in which a boy tells about all the things he loves about living in Nevada and cowboying with his dad. I didn't know it then, but it was "Ben" in disguise! So many elements from that essay found their way into The Orange Slipknot years later.
Not too long after that I took a course on writing for children. Several of my assignments became Nevada pieces of one sort or another. The first piece that I sold was a magazine article about kids and horses. It would be a few years before I came up with a story that I thought I could develop into a book, but this book was destined to be about growing up in Nevada's cowboy country.
Cowboy country is ranching country, and ranching means beef cattle. As I got more and more interested in sharing my ideas with kids unfamiliar with this lifestyle, I began to realize that many kids don't even know where hamburger comes from. I got involved with Ag in the Classroom and started reading Range magazine. I began to think about how I could use stories to help educate kids about agriculture while entertaining them with cowboy tales.
Agricultural roots were once strong in this country, but now most people are so far from that lifestyle that they have little concept of the relationship between ranching and our food supply. Much of what people do hear about ranching is filtered through the environmentalist view that ranching on public lands is evil and that ranchers are rich free-loaders. Many people probably associate cowboys with either the past or with rodeos, not realizing that this lifestyle is still alive and well in the contemporary West.
I was fairly sure that few juvenile publishers were interested in my topic, preferring urban and multi-cultural settings. When I found Raven Publishing's website and read that the publisher was from a ranching background, my hopes rose. Finally I found a publisher who shared my values!
When I started my journey into writing, I began by reading books about writing for children. They all advised, "Write about what you know and feel passionately about." I knew I would write about kids growing up in Nevada. My first piece of writing was called "The Best Thing About Nevada," in which a boy tells about all the things he loves about living in Nevada and cowboying with his dad. I didn't know it then, but it was "Ben" in disguise! So many elements from that essay found their way into The Orange Slipknot years later.
Not too long after that I took a course on writing for children. Several of my assignments became Nevada pieces of one sort or another. The first piece that I sold was a magazine article about kids and horses. It would be a few years before I came up with a story that I thought I could develop into a book, but this book was destined to be about growing up in Nevada's cowboy country.
Cowboy country is ranching country, and ranching means beef cattle. As I got more and more interested in sharing my ideas with kids unfamiliar with this lifestyle, I began to realize that many kids don't even know where hamburger comes from. I got involved with Ag in the Classroom and started reading Range magazine. I began to think about how I could use stories to help educate kids about agriculture while entertaining them with cowboy tales.
Agricultural roots were once strong in this country, but now most people are so far from that lifestyle that they have little concept of the relationship between ranching and our food supply. Much of what people do hear about ranching is filtered through the environmentalist view that ranching on public lands is evil and that ranchers are rich free-loaders. Many people probably associate cowboys with either the past or with rodeos, not realizing that this lifestyle is still alive and well in the contemporary West.
I was fairly sure that few juvenile publishers were interested in my topic, preferring urban and multi-cultural settings. When I found Raven Publishing's website and read that the publisher was from a ranching background, my hopes rose. Finally I found a publisher who shared my values!
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