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I blogged last week about jump-starting your writing resolutions with Julie Hedlund’s wonderful 12X12 in 2013 program for picture book authors, but here’s some further news that includes yours truly…

Next week, from January 23-25th, I’ll be offering FREE query critiques for members of the 12X12 in 2013 program. If you’re a children’s book author and you haven’t already signed up for 12X12, now’s the time to do so, since registration closes in just a few weeks. And if you do it this week, you’ll get access to my free query critique session AND a special offer to join the Children’s Book Hub for just $5 for the first month!

Here’s what Julie has to say about it from her blog:

“NYT bestselling, award-winning author Emma Walton Hamilton will conduct a multi-day query critique session, January
23-25, on the 12 x 12 Membership Forum. Little GOLDen Book and Shel SILVERstein members will be able to submit one
query for Emma’s review and comment, with LGB member queries taking priority if there is not enough time to get
through all the queries.

Those of you who have attended Emma’s similar sessions during WriteOnCon know how invaluable her feedback is and
how much you learn, even from her comments on others’ queries. But you have to be a 12 x 12 member, so sign up
today and don’t miss the chance to get your query in shipshape for submissions in 2013!

Emma is also offering a special deal for 12 x 12 members interested in joining the Children’s Book Hub. Details will
be provided next week on the Membership Forum!”

To find out more and register for the 12X12 experience as well as my free critique session, click here: 12 X 12 in 2013

One of the things I love best about being a member of the children’s lit industry is the spirit of community with which we support one another. Unlike many other businesses, almost everyone who writes, illustrates, edits, publishes, markets, sells or otherwise works with children’s books puts their love of kids and reading first. This makes for an environment in which everyone encourages everyone else, and all in the interest of getting more kids reading – and loving – books.

This was something Katie Davis and I chatted about this week, when she invited me to be a guest on her terrific podcast series, Brain Burps About Books. (You can listen to the interview here: http://katiedavis.com/emma-walton-hamilton). Katie and I had a great time talking about various aspects of writing for kids, and she was enormously generous in putting the word out about my various creative efforts, such as The Children Book Hub, my Just Write for Kids online course in writing picture books and the Southampton Childrens Literature Conference. In return, I offered her listeners a special introductory rate to join the Hub (you’ll have to listen to the interview to access it!) and invited her to be an Expert Interviewee on the Childrens Book Hub in March. I’m really looking forward to that, since Katie has just published a fabulous resource for childrens book authors and illustrators, How to Promote Your Childrens Book. It’s chock full of invaluable information, and a thoroughly enjoyable read, being written (and illustrated!) in Katie’s fun, accessible style. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I am also touched and honored to be “In the Spotlight” this week on Beth Stilborn’s excellent blog, By Word of Beth.  I have had the pleasure of working with Beth editorially on several different projects (she’s a terrific writer  with a shared commitment to the arts and literacy), and we now collaborate as co-administrators of the Childrens Book Hub Facebook page (check it out – it’s not limited to members of the Hub, but welcomes all children’s authors, illustrators and editors, whether published or aspiring). I’ve watched Beth’s passion for children’s literature grow into a thriving platform that now serves the industry in numerous wonderful ways. Beth is giving away two copies of my book Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment this week – to be eligible for the draw, go here: http://www.bethstilborn.com/wednesday-worthy-emma-walton-hamilton/

As I watch our politicians (among others) take one pot shot after another at each other, I continue to be grateful to be a member of this warm and supportive community.

We’ve been talking about editing this month on the Children’s Book Hub. Even though I myself am a freelance children’s book editor as well as an author, I rely heavily on my collaborations with editors – at our publishing house, as well as on a freelance basis.

My mother and I are fortunate to work with truly gifted editors at our publishing houses – but for my own independent projects I always seek feedback from a freelance editor (such as Emma D. Dryden, whom I interviewed this month for the Hub).  You see, I’m not very good at editing myself.

There are many good reasons to work with a freelance editor in today’s publishing world – but here is perhaps the most compelling one:  Once a manuscript has been rejected, it will seldom be reconsidered by that same publisher… even if you rewrite it.  So it’s very important to get it as polished as we can be before the submission process begins, and the best way I know to do that is to hire a freelance editor.

That said, there are a number of things we can do to become better self-editors, to get our manuscripts into the best possible shape even before we submit them to a freelance editor… and I thought, given this month’s focus on editing, I’d explore some of them. Here’s one for those of you who use Microsoft Word:

Use the Find and Replace and Thesaurus tools.

“Find and replace” is the most efficient way to replace overused words. For instance, I tend to overuse the word “wonderful”. It crops up all the time in what I’m writing and it drives me insane. What I do is write, write, write – and when I’m done, I click “Find” (under the Edit tab), type in the word “wonderful” and each time the tool pulls it up in the manuscript I choose a better word to replace it with (using the “Thesaurus” tool – or the real, bound Thesaurus if I get stuck!)

If you want to change a character’s name, you can use the find and replace tool to pull up all the “Mickey’s” and change them to “Mikey” in one mouse click. You can click “find next” and walk through the manuscript word by word, or you can click “find all” and do a global replace on a word or name.

Among the things you might want to ‘find and replace’ (with better choices from your Thesaurus!) are:

• Cheap or cheesy modifiers (very, just, etc.)
• Passive verbs / tentative or weak sentence construction (was going, been having, seemed, felt etc.)
• Words you use too often (wonderful, like, suddenly, little)
• Adverbs that prop up weak verbs
• A character’s name (Replace All)

Lots of fun publishing news out the last couple days, so I thought I’d compile it for you:

Thomas Nelson has launched its science-fiction fantasy Chaos series for young adults with Invasion by Jon S. Lewis. Here’s the jacket cover:

When sixteen-year-old Colt McAllister’s parents are killed in a car crash, he learns it was no accident — his mother, a journalist, was writing an expose of the powerful biotech corporation Trident Industries.  Now, Colt has been targeted, and he and his friends Oz and Danielle find themselves battling the same sinister forces that took his parents’ lives.  A gateway between worlds has been opened, and Earth is in mortal danger.

Thomas Nelson says Invasion has “crackling plot twists, cliffhanger chapter endings, cyber attacks, alien invaders, and an undercurrent of teen romance.” As a sci-fi fan and writer, sounds good to me!

New York Times best-selling author Emma Walton Hamilton has launches the children’s writers’ salon Children’s Book Hub, a membership-based forum to provide information, resources and support for aspiring and established children’s book authors. There is a fee, $19.95, and members will reportedly have access to regular teleseminars with authors, editors, agents and other members of the children’s book industry. The site also will offer monthly newsletters, a members’ forum and lists of publishers that accept unsolicited manuscripts, among others. The industry has lots of other places to get info and support, but another can’t hurt.

And in September, I wrote about the MeeGenius contest. They’ve now picked their winners:

Grand Prize: Pajama Girl by Sarah Perry and Ingvard the Terrible

1st Runner Up: The Cat Just Sat in the Chair by D.T. Walsh

2nd Runner Up: Floppity Phillip Flaut, words by Gary Guthrie, illustrations by Sunyoung Kim, characters by Taylor Lewis Guthrie

3rd Runner Up: Who Is the Most Beautiful Bird in the Barnyard? by Sharon Mann

and 4th Runner Up: The Little Green Bubbles by Kevin Malone, illustrated by Lee Hadziyianis.

Congratulations!

Got any news to share?

Write On!

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