Your chances are as good as ever...

In response to my last post, Kath lamented that getting published in NZ today as a newcomer seems impossible. What are the chances?

From where I sit Kath I have to say the chances seem as good as ever. Chances were never good, but newcomers still do get published every year. In the wake of the recession, publishing lists were cut and several boutique publishers (Mallinson Rendel, Longacre) were absorbed by a couple of the big international publishing names (Penguin and Random respectively). Publishers across the board were tightening purse strings and Scholastic NZ, the biggest children's-only publisher here closed to unsolicited submissions, an uncommon position in this country. And it certainly may appear that the same names are turning up on the covers of the books in the bookshops.

However if you know your local authors well you can spot the new ones too. Anna Gowan and Leonie Agnew are new faces in the junior novel area. Juliette MacIver is new in picture books as is Chris Gurney and Belynda Smith. I'm sure there are others that have slipped my mind.

Several avenues exist for new writers such as the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon and Tessa Duder Awards for junior and YA fiction. You cannot enter for these awards if you are previously published. While the Joy Cowley Award for a picture book is open to the previously published, this is how many new writers are noticed by Scholastic who participate in judging the entries and publish the winners of the Joy Cowley and Tom Fitzgibbon (Harper Collins publish the winner of the Tessa Duder Award). Scholastic have published the books of other finalists as well. I was twice a finalist in the Joy Cowley Award and while this didn't result directly in publication of my entries at the time, it was a huge boost for me as a writer and resulted in some fantastic feedback which has seen both stories being published more recently. Entries close on October 31st for these Awards every year.

And we now have new boutique publishers springing up. David Ling's Duck Creek Press  has taken on a new picture book writer and new illustrators in the last few years and Pear Jam Books, just launched by author Jill Marshall, is publishing 14 titles this year of which 5 are by previously unpublished authors and another couple are by newish authors.

I got my break with Learning Media and Australia's School Journal who first published several short stories I had written during a Writing for Children paper I did at Massey University as part of my English Degree. One of the most important things I did to help myself along was join several writer's organisations (Storylines, NZSA, Kiwiwrite4kidz) which introduced me to other people experiencing the same difficulties and challenges that I was on my quest for publication. We share triumphs, disappointments and tales of survival. We also share tips and information that make our journey easier.

So don't despair. A blog I follow in the UK by the much published author Nicola Morgan recently featured a post in which she spoke about her twenty year journey to publication. She was first published well before the global recession but it still took her twenty years to reach that first contract. It is very tough to get published. Sometimes it takes a while to find your niche, your voice, your style. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right story for the right time - the one that starts you off. If you are serious about being published as a children's author then you have to hang in there. Keep writing. Take heart. Join with the rest of us and we can hang in there together.

Instant success, just add water and stir...

It was, I thought, a good idea. A company wanting to provide some free children's story downloads to customers for long car trips. Authors would receive a free audio file professionally produced to use as they saw fit. They would retain all rights and get some free promotion through folk being able to listen to their stories (a huge bonus when promotion can be such a hard slog). But the company hadn't planned to 'pay' for the stories they chose to record. Fair enough, I thought, they are not selling them. I thought about the stories I had written that might fit the bill and sent them in. But I was somewhat surprised to hear some folk thought this was a terrible idea. As far as I can tell its not a scam. I always think of a scam as the situation where things are nothing like you think they are. Or where you have to pay them to accept your story. Neither of these things was true in this instance. If my stories made the cut I would be getting a return on them but not one instantly quantifiable in dollar terms.

I believe I should be paid for the creative work I produce, but it is hard to know what I am worth. Who decides? The market? The market is saturated with books; many very, very good ones. Plenty of great writers get ignored by the market and it has nothing to do with the quality of their work. Publishers? They want to reward writers but must do so at the behest of the market. They are, after all, commercial operations. Award judges? Sure! They select stories they believe are of a high quality and it can only help to be talked about in this way. But ultimately it is the everyday purchasing reader I have to impress. In my opinion I have to earn the reputation I want to be rewarded for. This doesn't happen overnight. I can't wash it in Pantene and have instant success. Sometimes it does happen overnight to people (I want the shampoo they're using) and good on them but it hasn't happened to me. I have to write the best stories I can and send them out into the world. And then I have to keep doing it. Because if someone does find one of my books among the many, many others and then discovers they like it, I want them to like my next book even more. They might remember my name. Next time they venture out to the bookshop or the library or onto Amazon they might ask if there are any other books by me. When a new one comes out they might get that too. Building a readership can be a slow painstaking process. I have to win people over with my writing cos most of the time that's all they see of me. I can't make them love me. And with children it can be extra challenging as our target readers are always growing up and moving on. "Hey, I just won you over, stay 8 a few years longer!" And then we have to do it all over again with a whole new group and who knows what they will like. If having a story on audio helps win people over to my writing then that sounds pretty good to me. And having that recording to help sell my other stories sounds even better. I like the idea of expanding the formats my stories are available in. That's part of the reason I signed up for The Half Life of Ryan Davis to be published by Pear Jam Books. It's already in 2 formats and a third is in the pipelines. Four formats is the goal for all Pear Jam Books.

So I am willing to give my story to that company to help build my name. So its building their name as well? Good for them. I know how important that is. And if I get no financial return on a short story today its not the end of the world. If one kid likes my story on a car trip who knows where it might lead.