News and Information about me
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News:
July 13, 2010: I've added a new excerpt from the Idiot's Guide: part of Chapter 22, So How Does It All Work?, covering the "best practices" for contacting editors.
July 12, 2010: There are a couple of new items on the Who's Moving Where page, and the #cigpcb Tweet Project continues--both to promote my CIG to Publishing Children's Books and send out into the world a lot of nuggets of advice and information. We are just over halfway through, so it's not to late to join in.
June 21, 2010: I've set up an "Editor Profiles" page, with so far two profiles, of Margaret McElderry and Arianne Lewin. These are supplements to one of the chapters in my Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books.
I've also added a few more updates to the Who's Moving Where page, and done a pretty thorough update of my Visual Resources (pictures and maps) links page. Suggested links for that page are welcome, of course.
In other news, Eileen Robinson and I have set up a tutorial version of our Kid's Book Revision Class, which allows you to work with us for three rounds of revision on a schedule that fits your needs.
June 6, 2010: Starting on the 8th, I'll be tweeting quotes and excerpts and more from every chapter of my Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books. More information at the #cigpcb Tweet Project.
June 5, 2010: The big news this time is that I've added a piece called A Book Is Not a CD, exploring one factor that I believe means that the digital transition in book publishing will not work the same as it did in the music industry.
I've also updated the Who's Moving Where page, added some resource links to my article on the acquisition process, and put my fall conferences, in Philadelphia, Nevada, and western Louisiana, on my conference schedule.
May 16, 2010: I've posted a blog piece on The Odds of Getting Published and Why They Don't Matter, written Five Reasons Why You Don't Need an Agent, and updated the Who's Moving Where page.
You'll notice on that page and on this that I've also changed the layout of an ad for Bookcloseouts.com: this company sells remaindered and other discounted new books. I've bought from them myself and like their service (they are a small company). They are an inexpensive way for writers, teachers, and librarians to find useful books, and they pay good commissions to The Purple Crayon if you use the links on this site. Please keep them in mind.
April 14, 2010: I've finished posting Chapter 8 from my book, by posting the second section, on Picture Books and Easy Readers, and the third section, on Novels and Collections, with a few words on gatekeepers.
I've also updated the Who's Moving Where page.
And I've posted some short notes on last year's BookExpo America, which might be useful if you are considering attending this year.
March 7, 2010: I've started a project to post more materials from my book, starting with "Book Formats and Age Levels," which is Chapter 8. I've got one piece up so far, and will be putting the rest of it up gradually.
I've also posted some recommended websites, books, and pages from The Purple Crayon, based on a handout I created for a recent conference, intended to help beginners figure out where to start when confronted by the overwhelming range of resources available. So please point any beginners you know in their direction!
February 8, 2010: I've added more news to the Who's Moving Where page, and started to update my Links pages, beginning with the Children's Books one. I'm not done with that one. It has many old links, and I'm happy to get suggestions for new ones.
One last reminder: Eileen Robinson and I are taking registrations for the February-May Kid's Book Revisions class.
January 30, 2010: I have finished updating the Children's Book Awards section; 2010 winners and honor books are now listed on the Coretta Scott King, Lifetime Achievement, Pura Belpré, Young Adult, and Sibert Award pages. Where I have come across them, I've also added links to useful resources; note in particular the Coretta Scott King Book Award Online Curriculum Resource Center, a great new resource created by the TeachingBooks.Net people, which features audio recordings of CSK authors and illustrators and other materials.
January 20, 2010: There is some news on the Who's Moving Where page.
I've also started to update the Children's Book Awards section, so far with the recent Scott O'Dell Award winner, the Newbery Medal and Honor books, and the Caldecott Medal and Honor books.
January 6, 2010: The hack mentioned below has been completely dealt with, and I've posted a blog note about it with details: How the Site Was Hacked, and Fixed.
I've also posted an interesting message I received from Donna Spurlock at Charlesbridge about what they expect of authors and illustrators when it comes to social networking. I'd asked for her comments as I prepared for a conference.
And of course there have been a few additions to the Who's Moving Where page over the last month.
Finally, Eileen Robinson and I are now taking registrations for a new session of our Kid's Book Revisions class, running from late February to late May. Full details can be found by following the link.
December 27, 2009: The Purple Crayon is under attack by a hacker of the "Cialis Canadian Pharm" species, who has succeeded in tricking search engines to show a spam page instead of the site's home page. Other pages are not affected and visitors coming to the site via links, bookmarks, or directly typing in the URL will not see this garbage. It's annoying but harmless; I'm aware of the problem, am working on it, and will post more when I get the problem completely solved. For now, just don't come to the site that way.
December 11, 2009: I've revised my "classic" article, "Getting Out of the Slush Pile," to clarify a few points and update some others. The changes aren't big, but I did read through carefully to make sure the whole piece is relevant.
December 5, 2009: I've been away from the site for some time, due to a death in the family. I'm now gradually catching up.
I've set myself up on Twitter. Please follow me there for more frequent news of Purple Crayon updates, news about my book, tidbits of publishing news, links, and opinion, and occasional news of my activities, such as conferences. I promise not to tweet about doing the dishes or picking up some milk on the way home from work.
And as part of getting back to the site, I've updated the Who's Moving Where page, and also finished the 2009 updates to my Award-Winning Children's Books section.
To support the site when you do your holiday shopping, the lists of books in that area could be useful, or take a look at this list of writer's how-tos I compiled. Otherwise, you can just start on the Purple Crayon Bookstores page, and thanks.
August 30, 2009: This has been a busy month for me, leaving me little time for the site. But I've made some updates around the site, most notably adding new editions of market guides to my Reference Books and Books about Agents pages. If you're shopping for the latest, note that some of them have yet to be released, though they can be preordered. I've also fleshed out my comments on the new edition of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market
More to come soon.
August 3, 2009: My big news is that I wrote a detailed article on The Acquisitions Process for the 2010 edition of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, which is now available. Since the book is out, I've posted the article on my site, and you can reach it via the earlier link. Please note that this is not a rewrite or expansion of my earlier piece on acquisitions: this is entirely new, and I've renamed the earlier piece Acquisition Basics.
There are also several pieces of news on the Who's Moving Where page.
And I have two bits of business: BookCloseouts is having a summer children's books sale. There are several thousand titles on sale: some junk, but if you browse around you'll find some good stuff. This is a good opportunity to get some books cheap, for your own reading or for use in a classroom or library. Also, Eileen Robinson and I are now taking registrations for the next session of the Kid's Book Revision class.
June 27, 2009: I've made a number of updates over the past couple of months, but haven't listed them here. Here they are:
- A number of new items on the Who's Moving Where page.
- I've thoroughly updated my comments on Children's Books and the Economy, and added links to the accompanying Resources page.
- I've added a list of Canadian style guides to the Canadian Children's Book Publishing page, courtesy of Bev Cooke.
- I've joined the American Bookseller's Association's new IndieBound program, and put up links to it around the site--you'll find more information on the Bookstores page.
April 19, 2009: And now the Coretta Scott King, Lifetime Achievement, Pura Belpré, and Scott O'Dell Award pages are done.
April 15, 2009: I have now updated the page with the Caldecott Medal and Honor Books.
April 9, 2009: I have started to update the pages listing children's book awards with 2009 winners, starting with the Newbery Medal.
March 31, 2009: I'm catching up after a move to a new apartment in February. Lots of updates on the Who's Moving Where page.
I also was interviewed for my thoughts on ebooks (part of a larger piece on Technology and Reading--follow the links in the interview), and my thoughts on marketing. I'll link to these from my Interviews page too.
And my class with Eileen Robinson, in which students revise a manuscript while working with us, has a new web site: Kid's Book Revisions, which provides information about our next class, starting at the end of April.
January 14, 2009: The holidays as usual were a busy time. Over the past several weeks I have been keeping the Who's Moving Where page up-to-date, but haven't had time for much else.
Now I have posted my thoughts on Working in Children's Books and the Recession of 2008-2009. It needs a little polishing but it's ready enough to be read, and I'll revise as comments come in, and events occur that need to be included.
The ALA will soon be announcing a number of awards at their Winter Conference; as usual, I will be updating my children's book awards section shortly after that, but it may take me a while. Check the main awards page to see what's been updated.
On a more mundane note, I've caught up with my reports on the income for the site for 2007 and 2008. Nothing exciting but if the site continues to bring in income I can put my time into it.
And on a practical note, Bookcloseouts is having a Dollar-for-Dollar sale--buy a certain dollar value of books, choose more books up to that value from a special section.
November 23, 2008: I hope that this hasn't affected any of you, but The Purple Crayon was recently "hacked." Someone inserted a small file that diverted visitors coming in from the major search engines to a bogus anti-virus site that planted a destructive program on the computers of anyone who allowed them to download and install their program. If you are a regular, this probably didn't affect you, because if you came to the site via a link or a bookmark, everything would seem fine. The "hack" operated from sometime early in the morning of the 15th until the early afternoon of the 19th. If you think you were affected, please let me know.
Otherwise, just see some updates to the Who's Moving Where page, and explore the links on this page, where I have listed articles that provide information about the state of children's publishing in 2008.
The National Book Award winners have been announced, and I've added the Young People's winner here.
As the holidays approach, you might want to use the code in the Bookcloseouts box to the right, which gets you free shipping on orders of $35 or more.
And see the updates to my Conferences page. You will see that I will be on the faculty at Chautauqua in July, which I am very excited about.
October 19, 2008: The big news is that I've written a review of Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus, a fascinating history of American children's publishing. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about our business.
I've also added some updates to the Who's Moving Where page, and tidied up my old piece Trends in Children's Books, which is now an archived look at some of what was happening in children's publishing in the 1990's.
And I've modified my Conferences page to now cover classes also; I will be teaching with Eileen Robinson in her "Mid-Winter Revision Bootcamp" from January 16 to March 14. Please visit her site, F1rst Pages, for more information.
September 25, 2008: This is more of an update than something new--I've put up my review of the latest edition of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market. I've also updated the books listed on my Resources Listing Literary Agents and Artist's Representatives page by adding 2009 editions--some of which are not available yet, but can be pre-ordered.
September 19, 2008: Summer was busy, and it's been a while since I've made any noteworthy changes or additions to the site. Now I'm back at work. See many updates on the Who's Moving Where page.
Anne Sibley O'Brien's Getting Real takes a look at some common weaknesses in their work that illustrators need to watch for--or get others to watch for.
One reason I have not been working on the site is that I have been reading Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus. It's a wonderfully readable history of the American children's book publishing industry, with a focus on both the big changes over time and the stories of individual editors and publishing companies. I will be reviewing it, but I can say already that I recommend it.
July 16, 2008: I have posted a blog entry made up of Manuscript Submissions Questions and Answers, and updated my Who's Moving Where page. Margot Finke's "Musings" column is on hiatus for the summer.
Older news: This goes all the way back to 1996, if you're interested.
About me and the work I
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