Jump to content

saskatoonauthor

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    18

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by saskatoonauthor

    YA Authors

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Thank you for your reply, Mr.Cummings. Maybe it's our fault: we make your agents think our country wouldn't appreciate your works. We should try and convince them they are wrong.

    Foreign rights are a big part of publishing - the Frankfurt Book Fair is a foreign rights fair - everything gets pitched to publishers by agents and it's a waiting game to see if a book deal can come of it. Literary agents don't need any motivation to sell, really, it's an issue of what a particular book had sold in its country of origin and whether a publisher sees there would be any opportunity for that same book to sell in their own country.

    YA Authors

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I have a question for all the authors who kindly joined this forum. In your opinion, why most of YA books are not published here in Italy? Do you think it's a "wrong place" for YA literature? I work with teenagers and it's always difficult to find a good book for them, a good story who can "talk" to them. Harry Potter, Hunger Games and some Chambers books are on our shelves, obviously, but most of the authors - I'm really sorry to admit it - are completely unknown here. We don't even have a name for YA books.. they're just books without genre. Is it a problem of culture or mainly of translation?

      A lot of that has to do with our literary agents selling the foreign rights to our books. I think we'd all love to be published in Italy!!!

    YA - Dislikes and Wishes!

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Authors, what do you think has been overdone, and what do you think are the up and coming trends in YA?

     

     

    Overdone would be anything featuring a love triangle - the YA Bluewater reading group made that abundantly clear when I visited them in September. I think vampires are done like dinner as well as shape-shifting werethings and the girls who love them. I'm starting to think that "disease of the week" stories fueled by the success of The Fault in our Stars are done. Dystopian stuff is done. Zombie stuff isn't done - everyone loves a good story with zombies. Post-apocalyptic is far from done, I think. Contemporary is making a big splash this year. I think bona-fide mystery stories could become the next big deal. Horror is growing in popularity ... and ... I think that urban fantasy is actually losing its luster in YA due to the fact that it has been co-opted by paranormal romance.

    Ask the authors...

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Great questions, chesil, and interesting answers, thank you! :)

     

    I have a question, but I fear it's not really to do with the YA aspect, but it's more a general question (or a series of related questions) I would love to ask all authors, and now that I have the opportunity, I shall :)

     

     

    Are you an avid reader yourself, and if so, have you always been? And what kinds of books do you enjoy reading the most?

     

    Also (and this just occurred to me): do any of you have a young adult as a sounding board for your ideas? How much 'help' do you get from young adults themselves when it comes to the whole process of writing a book?

     

    I did have a young adult as a sounding board for my book POLTERGEEKS - my daughter Mary-Kate. I dedicated the book to her,actually.  I wrote the sequel STUDENT BODIES without really seeking her input because by then, I knew I'd captured a genuine teen voice. Another project my agent is currently shopping was done without her help as she's not a huge zombie fan.

     

    Am I an avid reader? Yes - I read every day before I go to bed. And I generally read what I like to write, so urban fantasy in all its incarnations. I just finished Ben Aaronovitch's BROKEN HOMES and right now I'm reading one of Simon R. Green's Ghosthunter books.

    The Writing and Publishing Process

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I'm extremely curious about being an author and becoming published. I'm currently only in high school, but I'd like to start writing stories and maybe even novels. 

     

    My question is, is there some type of writers notebook that you use for ideas? Are there days where no writing happens, but only brainstorming? Do some characters, all characters, or no characters come from personal experience? 

     

    How many projects are typically worked on at once?

     

     

    Good questions. I know writers who use their smartphone as a notepad, some use their voice recorder to record ideas and some just use a small pocket note pad to scrawl down their thoughts. For me, I have an 8 GB flash drive that is about 1/3 full now. It's filled with ideas, paragraphs, partial chapters, openings ... you name it. That's my ideas drive where things I'm tinkering with wind up - I go back to it on a regular basis for ideas for new projects. For example, a YA Zombie Apocalypse novel my agent is now beginning to shop started out as a chapter on that flash drive. So really, every writer is different in what they use but I think it's a good sign that you want to record these ideas down because that shows you're taking writing seriously.

     

    Are there days when no writing happens? Yup. Usually when I'm distracted by a good football match - but I try to keep that under control. Writing is a craft - you must always be writing to hone your craft. I think with the self publishing phenomenon the craft aspect of writing is going town the toilet as writers rush to get their project up on Amazon, complete with eye bleedingly terrible cover art. My recommendation for someone starting out is my one hour/day rule. Sit down and write ... something . anything for one hour a day. Do this for one month. If you can commit that hour each day to writing for 30 days and you still feel the same about writing, then you've now introduced the concept of strict discipline in terms of a daily writing regime to your life. Now you're well on your way.

     

    I can't speak for other authors .. for me, I create characters that are usually an amalgam of characteristics from people I know. So I don't have one character is really my friend George. That character has aspects of George, Barb, Larry, Pete and Tom. And sometimes I just come up with characters off the top of my head. I'm a firm believer that character development is a natural extension of the flow and pace of your writing. When you;re digging into a manuscript .... you just, I don't know .... you just get into a groove. The story works. The words are flying out of your brain and into your word processor. That's when you are actually at your most creative and for me, that's where most of my characters come from.

    YA Authors

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

     

     

    Hello Sean, want to tell us more about your two books? :smile: I'm already intrigued by the titles.

     

    Hi Chrissy: I write urban fantasy and POLTERGEEKS is about teen witch Julie Richardson, her dorky boyfriend Marcus who secretly carries a torch for her and a race against time to save Julie's mother from the nasty business of having been on the receiving end of a dark spell that rips her soul from her body, leaving her in a supernatural coma. There's poltergeist activity going on all over town and it's linked to a puppet master working in the shadows - someone with a keen interest in Julie and her powers. The sequel, STUDENT BODIES is a very dark book - someone has tried to kill one of the most popular kids in school - that's how the book starts out. He's covered with soul worms: supernatural larvae that feed on the victim's humanity. There's a plot to kill all the kids at school during the upcoming Christmas dance, and Julie has to enlist the help of some powerful friends to save them.

     

     

    Hi Sean, I have Poltergeeks on my Kobo but haven't gotten around to it yet, what age would you say it's for as I have a 12 year old daughter and a 14 year old son?

     

    I wrote both books specifically for that age group. There is some mild swearing, no sex and a heck of a lot of action from the first page on in both books.

    The Writing and Publishing Process

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I live in Canada - I have a day job. First rule of being a published author: don't quit your day job because the vast majority of us don't earn out on our advance on royalties. I go to work at 6AM. I am up at 3AM to write for two hours each day. I do this every day. That's the other thing about getting published - you have to write every day because if you don't, you won't. Let's say you finally complete your manuscript. Cool. Now sit down and write it again after you've printed it off and gone through it with a fine toothed comb. Once that's done, you've got a second draft. Now get a group of beta readers - two or three - people who are not family members or friends - people who will be objective. Give them your manuscript. Then after a couple of months take a look at their notes and recommendations. Now take a look at your manuscript. What can you change? What should you change? Are you showing and not telling? Are there grammatical and punctuation errors littered throughout? Fix them all. Then when you are completely satisfied that it is a clean story, you need to draft a query letter and find an agent. 

     

    I don't want to slam the self-publishing option because a lot of people are doing it these days but the vast majority of self published books are crap. Poorly edited, poorly conceived, badly written. I recommend finding an agent because of two things:

     

    1) They have professional resources that will help you become a better writer

    2) They have access to royalty paying publishers with distribution worldwide.

     

    Oh ... and they have an interest in selling your project because that's how they make their money - they get a percentage. They also provide guidance, insight, support, encouragement ... AND they know the market better than you could ever hope to. So yeah .. find an agent.

     

    Once that's done and your project sells ... you sign a contract and you work with your editor revising your project under a strict time frame. Then you have to promote it like crazy and hope for the best once the day of publication arrives.

    Should YA books include swearing, sex etc?

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Try to imagine a book industry where YA as a genre didn't exist. It's not that long ago, actually. I'm 46 years old in four days. 30 years ago when I was sixteen, there was no YA. So what did I read? Everything else. I read Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul but also pulp fiction with a lot of sex, violence and swearing. If my friends were reading, they were reading something that grabbed their eye at the library or at a bookstore and I don't recall there ever being concern about the content of a book or whether it might be age appropriate for a teenager. There are times, I think, when we think too much about what young people should or shouldn't be reading.

    Ask the authors...

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I have a few questions, if you don't mind.

     

    • Did you make a conscious decision to write YA from the outset? Or did you write a novel that someone through the publishing process suggested would fit into the YA market?
    • Do you only write for YA, or have you/will you written for younger/older readers?
    • Do you find you have to defend yourself as a writer of YA, and that other writers/journalists/publishers consider it easier/less important than popular or literary fiction?

    Thanks in advance! :)

    I write what comes into my head and that's pretty much it. I think that any writer with serious aspirations of getting published should focus on their story and not what the market might or might not want because all the professionals in the publishing industry truly don't have a clue what the next big thing will be. My first three books were adult urban fantasy, the next two, POLTERGEEKS and STUDENT BODIES are YA but my agent has two completed projects she is about to begin shopping - an adult urban fantasy and a YA post-apocalyptic project. None of these projects were written with a mind for what might possibly sell because the reality of the publishing industry is that it takes up to three years from the sale of a project to the time it makes it to a bookstore.

     

    As for defending myself as a writer of YA - I don't think I've ever had to do that but what I can tell you is that mainstream media will only report on big established brands or new wild trends as evidenced by the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon. 

×
×
  • Create New...