Tips on Writing Middle Grade

 

 

Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Ghostwriter, Editor, and Coach

 In a webinar I attended, Literary agent Andrea Somberg discussed the basics of writing middle grade (MG).

The agent first made it clear that while MG was popular over the last decade, it’s now slowing down. Publishers are much more picky about these manuscripts now. It seems that graphic MG is picking up. In fact, it’s becoming one of the fastest-growing genres in the industry.

The reason is probably the same as when kids would read comic books years ago. With fewer words because of the heavy illustrations, it’s an easy read for the reluctant reader.

MG Age Range

Interestingly, I recently had a conversation with a client about the range for the middle grade genre.

He wanted an MG with the protagonist starting at thirteen. And he wanted the protagonist to grow into manhood.

I had to explain that the age range for MG is 9 to12. It could go as high as thirteen for upper MG, but definitely not high school ages.

We ended up turning the time frame from 13 to18, making it a young adult.
Okay, back to the MG.

While the age range is 9 to12, there is also a younger MG for the 8-10 reader. And there’s the upper MG for the 12- to 13-year-old reader.

The Protagonist’s Age

It’s important to keep in mind that young readers read up. So, having an 8-year-old protagonist won’t work because an 8-year-old reader will want to read about a 10-year-old protagonist, or at least a 9-year-old.

Along with this, the 14-year-old reader is too old. A 14-year-old will want to read about a 15 or 16-year-old, and that’s beyond the scope of the middle grade.

A key point for the protagonist is that they must have strong feelings about their surroundings.

It’s a good idea for them to be opinionated at the beginning of the book, then grow and change their views based on their experience in the book.

While they should be opinionated, they shouldn’t be introspective. That’s more of a young adult thing.

Structure and Prose

•    As with all fiction writing, it’s about keeping the story moving forward using character actions and interactions. You should also include the world around them.
•    Descriptive paragraphs and long sentences should be avoided, as well as adjectives and adverbs.
•    Write active sentences rather than passive ones, and avoid big words. Don’t make the reader scan over a passage because he doesn’t know what a word is.
•    It’s also a good idea to have the chapters end in some type of cliffhanger; it doesn’t have to be a life-or-death scenario. You want the reader to be motivated enough to turn to the next chapter to find out what happens.
•    And don’t have ambiguous endings.

I have another client writing a series who wants to end each book with a full-out cliffhanger. Before I attended this webinar, I knew this wasn’t a good idea. Kids like things neatly tied up. They want a satisfying ending. Each book in an MG series should ends the story satisfyingly and tie up all loose ends.

I explained to the client that the story’s merit and the reader’s involvement with the characters will make him want to read another story about those characters.

The Story’s Voice

Unless you’re privy to ‘real’ conversations of the age group of the protagonist, it will be challenging to pull the voice off.

A way to overcome this is to read a lot of traditionally published MG. You can also watch YouTube videos for the age group. If you can interact with the desired reader age group, do so. It will give your book authenticity. Being aware of the modulation and inflection is also a good idea.

Along with how MG kids talk, you’ll need to capture their unique pressures of today. I’m sure a 12-year-old today can’t imagine life without a cell phone or tablet. I know this is true because my older grandsons are 12 and 14. It’s a different world than it was even 10 years ago. Your characters’ pressures, daily life, and lifestyles should reflect this.

Another tip: avoid trending words. You want your story to be timeless. Editors want contemporary books unless you’re writing historical fiction, fantasy, or sci-fi.

The Storyline

Publishers are looking for bestsellers.

Your book should be unique, even if it’s a story that’s been told before. It needs to be intriguing. And it needs a clear sense of the stakes.
For this age group, it doesn’t have to be life or death, but it could be a move, the loss of a friend, or circumstances that would evoke strong feelings in a child/tween.

That’s it for the story writing part. The next post will deal with querying agents (and publishers).

You can check out Andrea Somberg’s website here: https://andreasomberg.com/aslitagent/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

 

 

 Karen Cioffi is a children’s author, ghostwriter, editor, and self-publishing consultant. If you’d like to learn more about writing for children or need help with your story, visit Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi. 

You can check out Karen’s books HERE.

And you can connect with Karen on SOCIAL MEDIA. 

“Good Trouble” as in “Good Awful Grammar”

                                                                     

                                                      Turning Lousy Grammar into an Asset

Excerpted (and adapted) from my soon-to-be published 
Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success
published by Modern History Press

“Beware grammar rules that interfere with your choice to write believable dialogue—or limit your creativity. Play with rules. Destroy rules. Learn new ways to get around rules. It’s lots of  fun! And your storytelling improves.”-CHJ

“It’s complicated” 

We hear it everywhere these days.

When it comes to language, the trick is to keep an open mind about “rules” that have been imposed on us from, what? Kindergarten? I didn’t encounter a class that acknowledged rules could fluctuate from genre to genre until I risked enrolling in a graduate seminar in writing while I was still a Freshman. That’s where I heard that some rules were never rules at all and that the “never-break-a-rule-mentality” we learned to practice so assiduously is likely to confuse, even destroy creativity.

Language is a beautiful, growing thing that sets us apart from other lifeforms and brings us closer to the things in life we love. Poets have been creating (making up) words, probably since before writing was invented. Writers are doing better at accepting the realities of language as it’s practiced than we once did. Even journalists are using more storytelling including authentic-sounding dialogue in their reporting.

Choice is a beautiful thing, too. Every technical quirk we use (or know the name of) can have its moment when it solves a problem, makes your writing sparkle, or lets you discard a rule for whatever good reason you have ascertained is the best thing  for the project you are working on.

To keep moving in a positive direction, dare to learn from the best. Making language rules that never allows for exceptions instills fear in students rather than confidence or creativity. Seek your resources—you know, mentors, teachers, institutions—that accept and share the differences between voice and publishing preferences. Think MFA (Master Fine Arts programs at accredited universities, the ones inclusive enough to teach techniques for writing internal thought and risk the ire of the establishment (and maybe you!) by telling you those techniques are effective enough for readers who have, after all, practiced reading for some time. Truly. They don’t need codes like italics as cues that your internal dialogue isn’t being spoken aloud and often don’t need repetitive (and ugly!) dialogue tags to discern that either!

So, are you really expected to write poor grammar if you are writing dialogue for a character who happens to talk that way? Expected? No. But you’ll make better choices if you know you can, if you know your character might not be fully-drawn if you don’t know that it’s “right” or at least “okay” to do so. Now you know, you might choose to exercise this freedom. If so, here is an entry from my soon-to-be released little dictionary of writer-specific words to help you get started—this one specifically that helps you avoid two of the most annoying grammar “rules” for writing and formatting internal thought—rules that even the most experienced (and independent!) writers tend to adhere to no matter how many times they hear from credible resources that they could be limiting opportunities to find acceptance from what we fondly—or not so fondly—refer to as “The New York Big Five.” Two writer-related vocabulary words are closely connnected anacoluthon and internal thought are entries in Chapter Four of that book:

Anacoluthon (an-uh-kuh-LOO’-thuhn) is borrowed from 16th Century Greek which explains why the plural is anacolutha. Anacolutha are useful to show emotion and internal thought. But it might also appear show up looking more like extended typos or bad editing. Recognizing it helps you edit it or consciously use it for characterization in your dialogue or internal thought.

Like “Good trouble” popularized by John Lewis the American civil rights activist and US Congressman, “good lousy grammar” can be made useful, too. Here comes a starter course in recognizing its danger signals in your own copy and then turning them to the advantage of the story you’re telling. This is advanced stuff you need to identify before you can decide to edit what might be classified as awful grammar for clarity, keep it as is, ditch it entirely, or use for characterization. Google gives us an example of an easily identified anacolutha.

"I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall―I will do such things, What they are, yet I know not."

 Here’s my picky edit: I wouldn’t touch it. You’ll notice it is spoken aloud because of the quotation marks

Of course it could be translated into perfect English of the new millennium, but it would lose what this speaker (or writer) has captured: The tone of a distraught, indecisive, highly emotional, and angry person. The speaker is almost certainly a man of Roman times; his frustration is indicated by his word choice or lack thereof and the long dash without its partner to indicate a sudden shift of thought that suggests he might think he has succeeded or just recognizes defeat. His confusion is literally reflected by fractured sentences and erratic punctuation.

Because it defies strict grammar norms, those who use anacoluthon effectively might find themselves defending its use to gatekeepers and sharp-eyed editors. One of the big problems is that anacoluthon isn’t easily identified by editors, either. That makes it difficult to decide if the piece you are editing is suited to its use by time, place, genre, emotion or if it feels unintentionally more like oncoming insanity, dementia revealing itself, or merely an extended typo. Of course, it could be used to indicate those very states of mind in which case it isn’t merely poor writing or a mistake. Because it so often feels familiar, readers often don’t find it needs clarification. They can feel it just as it is.

Here’s how to identify anacoluthon if you aren’t using idiosyncratic speech for characterization or if you’re just intent on catching your own typos or regional speech structure when the occasion calls out for some carefully considered editing.

1.     Long sentences using conjunctions, or lots of clauses and/or commas are suspect (or indicators).

2.     Run-on sentences and fragments. Can you logically explain how and why you used them? Are they punctuated correctly? Are they in logical order? Do they reveal confused thought patterns? It’s up to you whether they’re working—either subconsciously or intentionally—to create what you intended for your character or if Word’s grammar correction feature is overriding your natural genius for observation.

3.     When you use clauses in your nonfictional prose, make sure they “match” and “flow” in terms of letting the subjects and verbs imitate one another in logical ways. The principal writer of the US  constitution and its amendments Thomas Jefferson was so proficient with that formality that even John Adams, known for his competitive nature, admitted Jefferson’s superb use of parallelism made him the better writer and so forfeited his natural inclination to do it himself.

4.     Examine each use of em dashes (double dashes) and parenthetical phrases in your copy. Are they lengthening the sentence unnecessarily? Would dividing a sentence into shorter ones help or would you lose tone or voice you are trying to achieve?

5.     Watch for abrupt shifts in topic. Evidence of that is a shift in the subject from clause to clause within a single sentence.

6.     Watch for “ing” words otherwise known at gerunds. They often are guilty of producing unnecessary or unwanted anacolutha. “Growing up, I…” frequently sets authors’ onto ungrammatical (and over-used) path in the opening sentences of their query letters.

7.     An easy fix is to make as many full sentences of your suspected anacolutha as possible and then delete the unnecessary ones mercilessly or—if they’re keepers—insert erratic punctuation to heighten the emotion you are after.

8.     Oh, yeah. Make yourself an expert by reading June Casagrande’s smart (and fun!) Joy of Syntax.

 

MORE ABOUT YOUR #WRITERSONTHEMOVE CONTRIBUTOR

 Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related with Karen Cioffi’s WritersontheMove subscribers and visitors hoping she might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative.) The third edition of The Frugal Editor  from Modern History Press includes contact list magic. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. Find the entire series on Amazon’s new buy-page for series where the e-book is offered with one click in online’s version of a set of books. (The availability—free—of that new page for authors with book series that appear on KDP’s pages is another of her #FrugalBookPromoterTips.) The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales. Please also watch for her new book on—you guessed it—a vocabulary for authors that might surprise you! 

Series Writers: Chart the Details, Part III

The Pur-r-rfect Costume is a bilingual picture book
written in English and Spanish, translated by
Adriana Botero, illustrated and formatted by
1000 Storybooks. It will be available soon.

By Linda Wilson  

This month concludes my mini-series on series writing. For the first two posts please visit: Is Series Writing for You? and Three Tips on Starting a Series.

The Challenge is in the Details

It's best to begin your series by creating worksheets to keep track of the details. If that isn't possible, create your worksheets as soon as you can. This will help avoid the pitfalls of time spent having to flip back to previous books for small (or large) details that may have escaped you. Preparing your series worksheets isn't much different than keeping track of the details for each of your writing projects. To accomplish this for each individual book project:

1. Keep a separate notebook for each book.

2. In each notebook, preferably during the first stage, create a chart of the following important information. This will take time but will be worth it. The information will be at your fingertips to tweak as you go along, and also to use for school visits, your blog, etc.

• Age group                              

• Genre

• Verb tense

• Point of View 

• Mood or tone      

• Setting

• Time span

• Character list, role played in your story and profiles

• Theme

• List of Scenes or contents of chapters

• Concept sentence           

• Why you wrote your book

• Where your idea came from

• Research: what you researched, what file it's kept in, sources you've cited

• Books by other authors that are similar to your book or that you used as models

• A list of your favorite authors, your favorite books and the authors' bios

Ideas on how to Organize your Series

Keep a separate section or separate notebook if you've created a series. A series organizational chart can contain information similar to the charts for your books.

• Series title

• Genre

• List of characters and how this list changes from book to book

• How the books tie together

• How your characters grow and change as the series progresses

• Series timeline

• Settings

• Keep track of the series books you've read and notes you've taken

• Most important: write down how your series will end

• Also: keep track of special information pertaining to your story, such as in my MG mystery, the chapter(s) and page numbers of when the ghost appears.

Join the Fun

One of the most fun parts of writing a series for me has been reading popular and well-loved series by other authors.

• Take notes on the books you've read and on how the series are connected.

• Note who the main character is and how the they change and grow

• Are there new characters introduced? Which ones stay the same in each book?

What's so intriguing is the difference in how the books are connected from series to series. In the Stepping Stones series of chapter books about ghosts by Marion Dane Bauer, each book has a different main character and other characters; the connection is that each book is about a ghost of a different color: The Blue Ghost, The Green Ghost, The Red Ghost, The Golden Ghost.  And the delightful Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, in which sweet Princess Magnolia must handle a monster problem when her glitter-stone ring rings. Out bursts the Princess in Black for her next adventure, which is different in each book.

When I first realized that my Abi Wunder project could become a series I was intimidated. But, after studying the nature of series writing I've come to realize that planning is key. You can create your plan right away, or your plan can emerge sometime during the revision stage. I began my project by following the advice of authors who have shared their expertise and experiences. I hope this information will help you, too. 

Treasure Chest of Sources on Series Writing 

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2011/11/02/writing-a-series-continuation-issues/

http://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-book-series/ 

http://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-a-series-mistakes/

http://www.nownovel.com/blog/six-secrets-to-writing-a-series/

Writing the Fiction Series: The Complete Guide for Novels and Novellas

A fourth-grade boy once
advised me to always
have animals in my
stories. Great advice that
I've never forgotten!

Linda's latest release is Secret in the Mist, the second book in the Abi Wunder trilogy, illustrated by Danika Corrall, cover art and formatting by 100 Covers, published December 2025. Two other new releases are the award-winning Botas Altas, the Spanish version of Tall Boots, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, translated by Graciela Moreno and Adriana Botero; and Cuna en la Naturaleza, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, the Spanish version of Cradle in the Wild, translated by Adriana Botero. Linda's newest books will be released sometime this year: The Pur-r-rfect Costume, a bilingual picture book in English and Spanish, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, translated by Adriana Botero; and A Home Run Friendship, a middle grade book, cover art and formatting by 100 Covers. Click the link for Linda's Website. 

Why Expansion Feels Like Danger (And What That Tells You)

 by Suzanne Lieurance

Something strange happens in the body when a writer moves toward a genuinely bigger project: it often feels less like excitement and more like threat. Racing thoughts. A tightness in the chest. An urge to retreat to something smaller and more familiar, dressed up as "being realistic."

This Isn't a Sign That Something is Wrong

It's a sign that your nervous system doesn't distinguish especially well between danger and growth. Both register as a departure from the known. Both trigger the same basic alarm.

Understanding this reframes the sensation entirely. The tightness you feel when you consider the bigger project isn't necessarily telling you to stop. It's telling you that you're at the edge of what's familiar — which is precisely where expansion happens. A project that produced no version of that response would very likely be too small to be the expansion you're actually looking for.

Every Uncomfortable Feeling Does Not Need to Be Overridden

There's a difference between the activation of growth and the activation of a genuine mismatch — a project that's wrong for you, not just bigger than what you're used to. The growth version tends to come with curiosity underneath the fear: a pull toward the project even as your body resists it. The mismatch version tends to come with dread and nothing else — no pull, no curiosity, just resistance.

If you notice pull and fear together, that combination is usually a good sign, not a warning. It means part of you wants this badly enough to be afraid of losing it. The task isn't to make the fear disappear before you begin. It's to let the fear ride along while you begin anyway — treating it as evidence you're moving in the right direction, not as a verdict on whether you should.

Your body will not send you a signal that says clearly, "this is growth, proceed." It will send you the same signal it sends for danger. Learning to tell the two apart — by checking for the presence of pull, not the absence of fear — is one of the most useful skills a writer attempting something bigger can develop.

For more tips to help you expand your life as a writer, get your free subscription to The Morning Nudge at www.morningnudge.com.  

And visit www.writebythesea.com for even more writing tips and resources.

 

 

 

 

Beef Up Your Proposal Marketing Section

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

When writers take personality tests, the majority are introverts. They prefer to write more articles or books instead of spending the time to market their books. Yet the marketing section of your book proposal can be the difference between rejection and acceptance. Every writer has to learn these marketing skills.

PT Barnum said, “Without promotion, something terrible happens. Nothing.” Publishers create well-designed and well-edited books that they distribute to bookstores. These companies make large investments in the production of these books. Yet the sale of these books or moving them from the booktore into the hands of readers is largely up to the author.

If you self-publish, then you have all of this responsibility. Even if you self-publish, you still need to craft a book proposal (nonfiction or fiction). This proposal is your business plan of how you are going to put together your book. From my years in publishing, I know the critical nature of this document and in particular the marketing section.

As an author, you have to show your passion through action. Successful authors will continue to market and promote their book long after others have given up. For example, I’m still promoting and marketing radio interviews about  my Billy Graham biography even though it released in November 2014.  I continue to market this book every day.

Here’s several ideas for the marketing section of your proposal:

--Create practical plans which you can execute on your own timetable. From my book, I pulled 10 Facts about Billy Graham into an info-graphic. These facts became a bookmark on one side and the other side includes the book cover and a brief endorsement. Can you create this type of practical tool for your book then distribute the bookmark to bookstores for bag stuffers?  

--Read book marketing books like 1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer or The Book Marketing Coach by Brent Sampson or then apply what you are learning to the marketing section of your proposal.

--Every publisher is going to want to see how many readers you can directly reach. Social media numbers are good but do you have an email list? How large is that email list? The larger the number for your email list you can include  the better. 

--Commit to tell others about your book every week. Most authors do nothing so if you are actively talking about your book, your efforts will pay off. As marketing expert Sarah Bolem says, “Consumers generally need to be exposed to a new product seven to twelve times before they will purchase it.” 

--Who can you get to write the foreword for your book? Do you know people who can endorse the book (in your target market). Include this information in the marketing section of your proposal. The right endorsement for your target reader will help you sell books and the attention of a publisher.

If you build these types of marketing plans into your proposal, it will standout to editors and agents. Which method are you going to add into your proposal or author activity? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

Editors and literary agents are looking for authors who will market their books. This bestselling author explains how to beef up the marketing section of your proposal. #pubtip #thewritinglife (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. Get Terry’s newsletter and a 87-page FREE ebook packed with writing insights. Just follow this link to subscribe. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including  Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Risks and AI-Generated Children's Books

 

Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Writer

 Artificial intelligence is in nearly every industry, and writing is no exception. For many writers, this shift has been unsettling. Some have already seen a decline in work, and many more anticipate that opportunities will continue to disappear.

This information is based on a study conducted by Gotham Ghostwriters and Josh Bernoff of 1,190 writing professionals and 291 fiction authors. 

On the flip side, AI can be helpful to writers for things such as search, titles, outlines, and idea generation. The problem is that it’s being used as a replacement for human writing to create books. 

And that’s where the real problem begins.

The Hidden Problems with AI-Generated Content

At first glance, AI-generated writing may seem good, even impressive. But beneath the surface, there are serious issues that writers, publishers, and especially children’s authors shouldn’t ignore.

1. AI Hallucinates

AI gathers information from cyberspace, including vast amounts of unverified and private data. One of its most well-known flaws is ‘hallucination.’ It produces information that is inaccurate, misleading, or entirely fabricated.

If AI can’t find reliable information, it may simply invent it.

Far worse than that, once this incorrect information enters cyberspace, it can linger, be picked up by other prompts and queries, and be used as valid information.

That can be a dangerous feedback loop.

2. Nothing AI Produces Is Truly Original

AI does not create in the human sense. It trains on existing content: books, articles, blogs, and websites written by real people.

When you give AI a prompt such as “Write a story about a ballerina reaching her goal,” it doesn’t imagine a new story. It assembles patterns from what others have already written.

It doesn’t go beyond what already exists, and writers have no way of knowing whose work has been gathered and reshaped to generate the content requested.  

This lack of transparency should give any author pause, especially if planning to publish.

3. AI Is Limited to What Has Come Before

AI is a machine. While it can generate text and images, its output is fixed within the boundaries of its training data. It does not invent or discover.

4. Plagiarism: AI May Inadvertently Use Copyrighted Material

Because AI models are trained on vast amounts of data, plagiarism becomes a concern. There is a high risk that the content for the story might inadvertently contain copyright material. This could lead to infringement claims.

5. AI Content Cannot be Copyrighted

As mentioned in number 2, nothing AI creates is original. Because of the lack of originality and possible plagiarism, the U.S. Copyright Office does not allow books generated entirely by AI to be copyrighted.

However, if you've contributed to the book, or significantly rewritten portions of it, you may be able to copyright the portions you created by registering them with the relevant copyright authority.  

WHAT AI LACKS MATTERS WHEN WRITING CHILDREN'S FICTION

Perhaps the most significant weaknesses of AI become most obvious in children’s literature.

Imagination Is Missing

Albert Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Writing for young readers is about sparking their imaginations. They want to be taken on an adventure, explore new worlds...  

If imagination is lacking or mechanical, young readers won’t get to where they want to be (to where they should be)—lost in the story.

Thinking Outside the Box Is Missing

AI follows patterns, but children’s stories thrive when those patterns are bent, stretched, or broken in surprising ways. 

Quirky characters, unexpected solutions, and playful language are often what make a story memorable. Those elements rarely emerge from machine-generated text without heavy human intervention.

Compassion and Empathy Are Simulated—Not Felt

AI does not have emotions. It does not feel compassion, empathy, fear, joy, or hope.

Yes, it can simulate these qualities because it has been trained on human writing that expresses them. But simulation is not the same as understanding.

Is that enough, though? 

That’s a question every children's author must seriously consider.

Confidentiality Is Missing

This is a major concern for ghostwriters. Anything entered into an online AI tool may be used for training unless strict safeguards are in place. This includes writing for hire agreements. Even then, nothing is guaranteed.

For professional writers, that’s not a small issue; it’s a deal breaker.

SUMMING IT UP

As a children’s ghostwriter, nearly every client I work with wants to pass on a meaningful lesson to a child. AI can assist in small, controlled ways. It may help with brainstorming or refining a scene. But relying on it to generate an entire children’s story is risky.

There are too many concerns: hallucinations, ethical issues, security, and more.

If you’ve created a children’s story using AI and plan to publish it, I strongly recommend having it professionally reviewed first. AI alone is almost never good enough.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, ghostwriter, editor, and author self-publishing consultant and more. If you’d like to learn more about writing for children or need help with your story, visit Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi. 

You can check out Karen’s books HERE.

Connect with Karen on SOCIAL MEDIA. 

 

Writers: Continue to Learn from the Newbies

Learning from the Newbies 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning series of books for Writers including Third Editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor

I love writing books that will help authors avoid some of the pitfalls I fell into back when the millennium was new and so was something we called POD (print-on-demand) was burgeoning—even for traditional publishers who found lots of useful things to do with it all while many were denigrating it.

There was so much new to learn—and to share! But I’ve noticed lately there was also so much I missed, especially about computer-related stuff. I’m finding the questions new authors have in places like Facebook’s groups great ways to learn more…and to help others more. So I went to work finding other resources I might have been glibly overlooking including advertisements that come to my email box—some uninvited! 

I’ve been sharing these tips and ideas with my own new Facebook group mostly consisting of loyal writing friends, former students from the classes I taught at UCLA, from seminars where I presented and sometimes even my Facebook and Linked-In streams, sometimes using the easily identified hashtag #TheFrugalBookPromoterTips. 

So, I’m keeping it short so you’ll see what I mean and then maybe even take my recommendation to buy a  great new charger for your phone to replace an old one that doesn’t know all the new tricks this one does! (Keep reading for that!). 

Here are a couple of reminders I gleaned by opening an e-mail telling me it was time to pay my monstrously expensive bill for the use of my iPhone from Verizon. (I usually skip it because I know only too well the deadline for that bill is coming up!).

#TheFrugalBookPromoterTips: Keep your battery between 30% and 80%. (30%!! Really??)

#TheFrugalBookPromoterTips: Don’t leave your phone in direct sunlight or charge it when it’s cold. 

#TheFrugalBookPromoterTips: Need a battery checkup. No extra cost if you’re a Verizon customer. Find link here: https://my.asurion.com/device-care/os-selection. They deserve a little praise after that rude comment about their fees! Ahem!

#TheFrugalBookPromoterTips: Save your iPhone battery. Avoid Overnight charging.

I told you they were pretty basic; try to guess the one I hadn’t been using myself for the many decades of caring for my iPhones—and obviously not doing a very good job of it!

One last tip you might (or might not!) appreciate or need. When I finally absorbed (!)these much-needed tips (or readjusted what I had been doing!), I bought a new charger without any recommendation of advice other than Amazon’s Alexa just because it was old. She is the one AI person I use and trust; she saves me tons of time; and she recommended INIU.  Their tag line is “Beyond Safe, Beyond Fast” and it’s no exaggeration. Their icon is an adorable light-up doggy paw that visually hints at what it’s doing and how long its own charge has lasted!

Here’s the major reason I love INUI: It automatically prevents me from overcharging my phone even if I inadvertently leave it doing its work overnight. It stops at that magic 80% number and won’t finish till I’m awake in the morning and decide my day is so full of appointments I might need the full 100%.

 

Tips and Tidbits or More #TheFrugalBookPromoterTips! (This box is where Carolyn occasionally lists a Tidbit that will help authors write or promote better. She also includes a Tip to help readers find a treasure among long-neglected books or a sapphire among the newly-published.)   Writers' Tidbit: : Writers of all stripes will enjoy the quick-reading experience of my booklet full of tips I’ve found to correct many of my clients do wrong. It’s the Great Little Last Minute Edits full of word trippers that sometimes confuse you, or you don’t remember, or a few you never learned. It includes tips on wordiness and lots on style choices. It was inspired by my winningest book The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success.Find both on Amazon’s new buy page especially designed to make quick work of ordering e-books though it is available in paperback and hardcover as well.  Readers' Tip: I love June Casagrande’s book Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies(www.budurl.com/GrammarSnobs). It is irreverent and reminds us how much fun grammar (and language in general) could have been if only teachers had the freedom to teach those topics as living, breathing entities—which they are. And yes, she believes in breaking rules, too.