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Another wonderful interview, Shelli!

Thanks, Jennifer. I enjoyed learning more about your book club and appreciate your wonderful online presence advice. :-)

Great interview, Shelli and Jennifer!

Love the interview! Sounds like great advice!

Jenn is so cool. I agree with her, if you love twitter, then tweet away!

But if not, then it totally shows. :)

good~ keep sharing with us, please....I will waiting your up date everyday!! Have a nice day........................................

Great interview, just another reminder why Jennifer is on my top 5 list to query when I'm ready. Thanks as always!

Great interview guys! Jennifer, I so want to attend your NYMBC events! They sound fabulous.

Another great interview, Shelli. I actually follow Literaticat, although I've been doing a lot more writing than tweeting the last few months :) My class ends tomorrow so I'm looking forward to joining in on kidlitchats again next week.

I'm curious -- I know of one writer who used Twitter to help her get an agent. Has Jennifer ever "discovered" someone online?

People throw stones only at trees with fruit on them.......................................................

THANKS LADIES!

I read a recent interview that Ms. Laughren gave over at the lovely TEXAS SWEETHEARTS some days ago. I was very impressed that this lady is so incredibly APPROACHABLE - not scary at all!!! Quite human in fact... That was my first impression.

My second impression is that I LOVE Ms. Laughren's opinion about the blogging-Tweeting-FACEBOOK etc world. Not to do a thing if it doesn't suit you sounds pretty logical and obvious right? Wrong - these days with all the networking frenzy that goes on, if you don't do ALL of the aforementioned networking aids - it's kind of like never having heard of Harry Potter or Twilight...."what, you don't have a blog?!?..don't tweet?!? GASP!"

Thirdly, I have a VERY specific question for you, Ms. Laughren:

At the moment I'm writing a YA reality based fantasy story. I see that most agents are full with this age group and genre. I have notes on a project suitable for middle grade bordering into young adult. It's a humorous project based on the life of an accident prone girl...disasters just seem to follow her EVERYWHERE. Some examples are when she decides to run away into the Australian Bush...with an enormous female pig...well, she couldn't open the stable door to release her pony...so, a pig's got 4 legs - right? Another couple of crazy things she does is,
1)Set the house on fire almost killing her parents and sibling whilst doing experiments with burning underwear...
2)Brings a calf into the kitchen after her mother tells her she should start to bring friends home for cookies and milk...havoc ensues of course.....
All these things I HAVE DONE and an awful LOT more so it's a kind of hilarious memoir, too. Is it commercially viable?

Anyway - you asked if we wanted to ask anything SPECIFICALLY - so I did, even though I'm not sure if it's appropriate...APOLOGIES if it's not!

THANK YOU for the post Ladies!

Thanks Jennifer for sharing all that wonderful info! And thanks Shelli for having her on you blog.

Great insight, ladies. The NYMBC sounds like the coolest thing for teens ever. What an awesome (yet time consuming) thing to do!

And I too notice when blogs are made just to promote the writer--they are the least fun ones to visit for sure.

Thanks, ladies!

Great interview. Wow what timing. Jennifer was this month's MSFV secret agent.

Great advice regarding blogging/social networking. Thanks for sharing this!
Carmela
TeachingAuthors

Hi Jennifer and Shelli, thank you for a wonderful interview. I always love hearing about Jennifer Laughran and her clients (of which I know several).

I have a specific question: I read somewhere about a year ago and I cannot remember *where* that you grew up in Louisiana? Is that true or am I totally out to lunch?

I have a reason for asking, but I won't make this comment super long . . . thanks!

Response to Solvang Sherri: I haven't discovered a writer via Twitter, per se, but I have certainly gotten to know writers who I might not have, and either asked them to query me, or else am watching with interest for when they are ready to query.

Response to Ann Marie: I think that middle grade and YA memoir is tough to sell, you'd probably be better off calling it fiction.

Response to Kimberley: Yes (sort of - my family is from Louisiana and I grew up there and Los Angeles).

And yes, I am already aware of your book. :)

Great interview, Shelli. I like Jennifer's take on focusing on the writing while pointing out that if you do sell a book that you will probably shoulder most of the promotion but if you don't spend time writing the best book you can, then you might not have anything to promote or market.

Thanks, Jennifer! Yay! Mandee Vega, my publicist at Scholastic, said she was going to have the sales reps reach out to Books Inc. I'm from San Francisco originally and will be in the East Bay Area in early November speaking at my sister's school and she's throwing me a book party at her house so I thought about coming across the bridge for a signing. :-)

P.S. I met Jamie Weiss Chilton two weeks ago at our local SCBWI conference and she's a darling and did a GREAT job!

Great interview. I would have loved to have a job at a bookstore as a kid. Jennifer's book club sounds so awesome.

I have a question for Jennifer. What would you consider an unique fantasy story? Are you looking for more fantasy for middle grade?

GREAT interview. Loved the details about how to promote yourself (for now and later). ;--)

Jenn is awesome at so many things! I love these interviews!

Wonderful interview! Thanks for the links. :)