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Check out my new marketing consultations!

In this episode you’ll hear

• a review from Julie Falatko: Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists with a forward by Leonard Marcus
• a Take5 Marketing Tip from Dianne de Las Casas: Zite
• a reminder about my effort to divide my personal from my professional interests on Facebook
• a bit about my new marketing consultations
• a correction from Suzanne Morgan Williams regarding last week’s episode with Jason Low

In the interview you’ll hear

• how working in The Container Store can be creative
• a video of Jonah talking about his book
• about the animated book trailer that enticed me
• why Jonah is going to send me a blue ribbon
• why just imagining that you’re a child will make you more creative
• the best way to give a critique, rather than brainstorm
• about a school in New Orleans called NOCCA
• why proximity to other people is important to creativity
• how outsider thinking will help your creativity

Download Jonah’s 5 Tips on Reaching Your Creative Potential

• She read all my books – even the out of print ones – to the kids for weeks.
• She conducted an author study.
• She got the kids excited about books.
• She and her staff sold over 100 books (yes, in this economy).
• She integrated the books into other areas of learning: the kids made pillows with their own characters painted on them, inspired by Who Hops?

Brought to you by Audible.com – click here for a FREE trial … don’t you want a free audio book and help support the podcast at the same time?

Check out my new job title here!

In this episode you’ll hear

• an interview with Jason Low, publisher at Lee & Low Books
• a review by John Schu of the graphic novel, Lunch Lady and the Mutant Mathletes by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

• a Take5 Marketing Tip by Dianne de Las Casas: Twitter Engage
• my new Marketing Consultations service
• Reminding you about Operation Unfriend…But Like!

In the interview you’ll hear

• the learning process, even for a publisher
• how shy people can learn to market their books
• the imbalance of books published by people of color
• the imbalance between characters of color and caucasian ones
• a fab article by Suzanne Morgan Williams in the SCBWI bulletin (May/June 2012)
• New Voices award
• about Lee & Low’s acquisitions
  

  Tu Books Spring 2012

• about Tu Publishing
• racism in picture books like Tikki Tikki Tembo
• It Jes Happened – a children’s biography on Bill Traylor, who started drawing at the age of eighty-five and became one of America’s most important outsider artists.

Check out my new job title here!

Brought to you by Audible.com – click here for a FREE trial … don’t you want a free audio book and help support the podcast at the same time?

Check out my new job title here!

In this episode you’ll hear

• a Julie Falatko (World of Julie) review: Same Same But Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw
• a Take5 Marketing tip from Dianne de Las Casas: Twitter content
• how you can get four chapters of my ebook, How to Promote Your Children’s Book
• a reminder about the monthly tweetchat: first Wednesday of the month 9-10pm ET #kidlitbiz
• Little Brown Editor Alvina Ling’s Ode to Twitter
• How to Participate in Twitter chats Greg Pincus’ “Who Can See My Tweets?
• Tweet Chat Schedules
• 4over4.com and Willywalt.com
• Tom Bissell Explains How a Great Film Editor Can Help Writers
• me answer the following questions, among others:

Which is more important for promoting a new book and author: A blog or a website?
How do I create a Facebook Fan Page?
What are the most effective (and cost effective) ways of targeting my book to the right audience and getting it noticed?
How do I use my Facebook Author Page to link to my individual Facebook Book Pages (and vice versa)?
I have not even started a Facebook acct for myself due to all kinds of fears of liability (I am a teacher).
I do not know why anyone uses twitter…who cares if I had toast for breakfast? How do all these tools help me as a writer
How do I create a Facebook Fan Page? (Here is are the step-by-steps):

1. Go to Facebook.com
2. Enter the info (name, email, etc).
3. Use letters, cases, and numbers for your password for best security. For example: ILOVeSCbWi2012
4. Click create a page.
5. Click “Artist, Band or Public Figure”
6. Choose your category
7. If you don’t have a Facebook account, fill in the info, confirm when you get the email.
8. When you confirm, pick a bio photo and be consistent with your other social media.Play around, add other images and watch this video!

Thanks Katie!
Keep up the great work!!!

Sincerely,
Joe Mohr
www.PoemsofJoeMs.com

Hi, Joe,

Thanks so much for the kind words! I really don’t have time, but even if I did, the only time I critique work is when I’m on faculty at a writing conference, like the Highlights Foundation Founders Workshops or SCBWI. There are, however, many who do critiques. I don’t know what the going rate is these days, but I suggest you click on some of the links under Editors over there to the right. There are also people like my dear friend, the talented Esther Hershenhorn whom you should definitely check out.

Good luck!

Katie

Follow Irene on Twitter
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Birmingham Arts Journal

Here is Irene’s poetry post:

Those who don’t write poetry often wonder why anyone would spend time on a market so unpopular and little read. It’s not for the fame-hounds or money-hungry, that’s for sure. Even when you are lucky enough to have a book of poems.

Consider these quotes:
“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.” – Robert Graves

“Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” – Don Marquis

Yet, to me, poetry is absolutely essential. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. It’s short.

You can write an entire poem in a day – or at least several drafts of a poem. This makes it perfect for the time-challenged, young mothers, over-extended. Unlike a novel which takes hours upon hours, you can crank out a first draft of a poem in minutes. You can hand your lines to a reader and experience immediate gratification.

2. Word play is fun.

When every syllable matters, things get intense. But that’s where the joy is. That’s where assonance and meter and rhyme come in. Writing poetry is about playing with language. You can even make words up, if you want to. And oh, the satisfaction when you find Just The Right Word — is there a better feeling in the world?

3. It makes you a life-long student of the world.

When you write poetry, you approach life with curiosity and wonder. Leaves don’t ever merely fall to the ground. Some dive, some twist, some jet, some dawdle. Poets are keen observers. We are constantly on the lookout for analogies, patterns and oddities in nature and in relationships. We see things, hear things others don’t. Because those are the things we want to put into our poems.

4. It gives you permission to explore all emotional terrain in a safe way.

Poetry is compressed emotion. The whole point is to create an emotional experience for yourself and for readers. If you have fears about death, you can put them in a poem. Anger, sadness, joy, despair… poetry is the place for the most sustaining and destructive emotions. Your job to be passionate. This passion is the vehicle that will take you toward your own emotional truths.

5. Different is good.

Unlike many other areas of life, when you write poetry you are expected to be a little odd. You might even be celebrated for this oddness. You can embrace all that is eccentric about yourself — and even cultivate new eccentricities. You can do this on the page or in real life, and no one blinks. Because you’re a Poet. And poetry is not bound by a strict set of rules. (The only rule is there are no rules.) It’s quite liberating, actually. And allows you to invest more fully in the best poem of all: You, Your Life.

Don’t miss Greg’s site! Nor his social media focused site here.
His original Fib post (that went viral and features that same first Fib) is here.
Greg’s brand spanking new poetry e-book is here!

I’m not much of a poetry formalist, I admit. In fact, I normally write funny, rhyming verses of no set form. Writing villanelles makes me cry.  Sonnets cause sobbing. Yet, from time to time, I do love playing around with form, and I always love trying new ideas. That’s how I started telling Fibs.

In this case, Fibs are not lies, small or large. Instead, they’re six line, 20 syllable poems based on the Fibonacci sequence. Oh, I know. I know. No one told you there would be math today. But trust me. It won’t hurt.

The Fibonacci sequence, named for the 12^th century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, is a series of numbers where each one is the sum of the two before it. The classic sequence starts with 0 and 1 and builds from there: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and on and on and on.  I decided to make zero a moment of silence then stop writing after the 8 syllable line. Here’s the first Fib I wrote:

One
Small,
Precise,
Poetic,
Spiraling mixture:
Math plus poetry yields the Fib.

While I am far, far, far from the first to write based on Fibonacci – people have long written books, poems, and songs among other things – I might’ve been the first to call these short poems based on it Fibs. I started off writing them as kind of a warm up exercise, and I still write them today. This form, at least for me, is sticky.

Somewhat to my surprise, I have found that kids love playing with Fibs, even when I add in my one “rule” – the one syllable lines can’t have an article or conjunction, meaning “the” “and” and other place fillers aren’t allowed.  Frequently, we start off with one of my animal Fibs as an example…

CAT

Purr.

Purr.

I’m Cat.

Stretch and groom.

Sleep deep… and then zooooom,

Chasing something only I know.

… then the kids race off and create.

Personally, I think you should follow their example – start telling Fibs. They’re good for you. Honest!