Sandi Greene » For YA Writers

Great PW Article and Book Review

Sandi Greene — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:28:26 +0000

If you write CBA YA fiction or read it (or just want to know more about the market), there was an excellent Publisher’s Weekly article this week on YA in the CBA market, and how it’s growing and changing (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/451714-Fiction_Publishers_Exploit_Digital_Media_for_New_Growth.php)
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And while we’re discussing CBA YA, I have to put a plug in for a book. I’ve been reading quite a few CBA YA books right now for a contest, and I just finished “Beautiful” by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma (Thomas Nelson). I have to say this is the best CBA YA book I have read in a long time. I am not usually a fan of much of what the CBA market puts out right now, because the books feel so far behind the times of general market YA. But this was different. It had an interesting, contemporary plot, contemporary, I liked the characters, and it was a little edgy. And yet, it was clean. I could recommend it to a girl at church and not have to question if she’ll be offended by the content. Great book.
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Happy Friday! Sandi

Books and Thoughts on Form Letters

Sandi Greene — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:33:56 +0000

A Couple of Recommendations
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I apologize for the font on this page. I only recently realized it’s gray and a little small. So I’m working on getting it fixed.
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Books first.
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I am reading a ton of YA right now because I’m judging a contest. I can’t say which one, but it’s keeping me busy. So all my other YA to-read books are temporarily shelved. However, I did manage to finish my first Ellen Hopkins book “Crank” (in one sitting). I have to say that woman is an absolute genius. (And she is super nice…I got to meet her last year at the SCBWI conference). I will read every book she’s ever written or will write. Very powerful stuff. Pick one up if you haven’t already.
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I also finished “Lipstick Apology,” which I loved, mainly because it reminded me of the type of writing I do—contemporary romance, but with a unique hook. Nice reason to love it, huh? But really, I would suggest this debut author as well.
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Thoughts on Form Letters
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Last week I received a request for my full manuscript from an agent. The difference from all the others I’ve ever received, however, was that it was very personal. The agent took the time to be very specific in what she liked about my book. In the past, not only have I gotten form rejections, but I’ve gotten form “request for more” emails. Even if this agent doesn’t end up taking me on, her email made my day (and my week, and month, maybe year!).
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Since I teach hundreds of online students at any given time, I know the value of a form email. I understand from an agent’s perspective—who is getting hundreds of submissions a day—why a form response is necessary. And I would definitely rather receive a form response than no response at all.
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But I do notice a huge difference from my students when I use a personal response. They are grateful, and it seems to make a difference in their attitude. It’s during those times that I realize how valuable a personal response can be.
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Of course I get that this isn’t always realistic. For those of us whose jobs include dealing with mass quantities of individuals, giving personal responses to everyone would be a joke—we’d never get anything done.
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But I do think that once in a while we should consider that we are not robots nor are the individuals on the other side of the computer robots, and personal responses can make a world of difference in their lives. While it’s not always possible, we should strive to make it happen when our gut tells us we should.

Just some thoughts for you today
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Have a great week!

YA Contests

Sandi Greene — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:02:55 +0000

A few contests going on:

Amazon Breakthrough Novel now has a YA category: http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011

KidLit blog (sorry, this one ends today, but she often has contests going on): http://kidlit.com/kidlit-contest/

Sourcebooks contest: http://teenfire.ning.com/

And, associated with that is a really cool YA ning community where they talk all YA happenings and they’ll help you with your ms’s: http://yalitchat.ning.com/

Contest for YA Writers

Sandi Greene — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:13:01 +0000

I’m getting ready to launch a new website which has a built-in blog. I’m trying to figure out if this blog can merge with that one. It’s complicated, so I haven’t been on here much.

In the meantime, there is a cool contest going over at the KidLit blog: http://kidlit.com/kidlit-contest/

There are some others I’ve heard of, but I keep forgetting to post them. I hope it won’t be too long before I’m back on. Happy writing!
Sandi

Last week in book news… (and some book reviews)

Sandi Greene — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:18:43 +0000

I thought “New Moon” was great. I liked it much more than the first movie. It seems everyone thought it would do well opening weekend, but no one expected it to do this well. It broke all kinds of records.

The big story in publishing last week was Harlequin announcing it was launching a self-publishing side. Many authors and organizations (including RWA) are not too happy about it.

I have no problem with self-publishing provided that (1) the author has a platform—a sure way to sell the books, and (2) the author really, really, truly understands what he/she is getting into. The majority of the time, an author doesn’t meet both those criteria and things end up going a way they didn’t expect.

Times have been changing, especially with the economy and the Internet, so I think we need to know that these publishing companies are going to be changing as well. We can fight against it all we want (and we should to an extent), but it will still change. As for the companies, I feel they would be better off doing separate names, websites, etc… This would probably help the authors, editors, and the rest of the publishing community not get so upset. I think I did hear that Harlequin was considering changing the name of the new self-publishing imprint.

Book Reviews

“Story of a Girl” by Sara Zarr
2008
Little, Brown

I’m sorry to say that I have just now read my first Sara Zarr book. I have wanted to for awhile. “Story of a Girl” is a poignant tale of a girl who gets caught (by her dad!) having sex with an older guy when she was thirteen. Now, a few years later, she struggles through the pain and those who won’t forgive her (and the fact that she can’t forgive herself). A very fast read with a complex character. I look forward to reading more of Zarr’s books.

“When You Reach Me” by Rebecca Stead
2009
Random House

I hardly ever read Middle Grade. Actually, come to think of it, I never read MG. But I had heard good things about this one, so I thought I’d check it out. The story takes place in the 70s, and shows a girl dealing with her game show obsessed mom and the loss of her best friend. Along the way strange things are happening, and she starts getting notes from someone. I really enjoyed the mystery in this. It kept the pages turning for me. Compelling book with some good character development and interactions. I can’t tell much about it without giving the plot away. It’s gotten great reviews, and I suspect it will do well.

Miley Raps, CBA Publishing Buzz, and Other Random News

Sandi Greene — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:05:53 +0000

I’m a little behind on blogging this week. Part of the problem was that I wasted almost an entire day watching the balloon boy thing on the news. Yes, I’m a sucker for sensationalist news (and I kept thinking, “Man, this would make a great novel.”)

Miley Raps—Or at Least Tries

I love Miley Cyrus. I’m not even a teen (no, I won’t tell you how old I am, but I recently exited my 20s), and yet I love her movies and music. When she quit Twitter with more than 1 million followers, I was disappointed. There were rumors she quit because her boyfriend told her to. Then she clarified in, um, a rap video (yes, a rap video) that she quit because she wants her privacy. If she wants her privacy she shouldn’t be putting out rap videos! Here it is for your viewing enjoyment:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSOTQPUQoU]

Thank you to Jenny B. Jones who told me about the Jimmy Falon spoof, which I was sorry I missed but glad I could find it online.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmtB0fx6mQ]

News for Writers

So the buzz/arguments/blogs this week in the CBA publishing world surrounded the fact that the biggest CBA publisher there is, Thomas Nelson, has added a self-publishing imprint. It’s controversial because, well, somewhere along the lines we got this idea that self-published books were garbage. It’s also controversial because the imprint name they are using was used at one time for some well-known authors. A few years ago they switched those authors under the Thomas Nelson imprint, but still, not some happy authors out there.

Personally—other than the imprint name problem—I think it’s a great idea. It’s a way to make money, and the face of publishing is changing dramatically. It should be an option for those who want it, and Thomas Nelson will offer a nice product for those authors (mostly non-fiction writers, although I am still waiting for the day when some fiction author self-publishes a teen novel and makes a ton of money because (1) teens live online, and (2) teens don’t care what a book’s imprint is).

Anyway, you can read a balanced response to the move on agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog.

In Other News

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about teens in the news, failing to post any positive stories. Then I read this great article about a new book coming out (“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”) telling the story of a teen in Africa who changed his community. Very touching and heart-warming story that you can read here.
If you are a teen author, you should join two awesome groups that I’ve recently joined. One is the YA RWA (YARWA) chapter. They have a fun loop, and since they are new they have a lot of other things planned for the future. The second is TeenLitAuthors, a Yahoo group that discusses everything YA. They often have guest agents and authors on the loop to answer questions.

Have a great weekend!
Sandi

A Writing Contest (with a YA Category)

Sandi Greene — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:07:00 +0000

I have a section on my blog with writing contests that have YA categories. Today I’m adding another. I’m part of a writing group in Phoenix and they are launching a contest of their own.

The group is the Christian Writers of the West. The contest is for unpublished writers. The categories are:

Contemporary fiction
Historical fiction
Suspense/thriller/mystery
Sci-fi/fantasy/allegory
Young adult
Women’s fiction

There is a $20 fee per entry, and we have some awesome editors and agents who will be serving as final round judges.

To find out more or to enter see: http://joyfulhutch.googlepages.com/rattlerscontest

Website: RWA Young Adult Chapter

Sandi Greene — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:49:01 +0000

At the end of August, Romance Writers of America (RWA) opened a Young Adult chapter. Titled YARWA for short, it’s a chapter specific to YA authors. Dues are only $15. It looks like for now they have an author’s links page, and plan to have more in the near future. To check it out see: http://yarwa.com/

Blog Favorites: Rachelle Gardner

Sandi Greene — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:39:00 +0000

So this was an interesting week for me. One day I get an exciting email telling me I’m a finalist in a writing contest with my book, “A Dance in the Rain” (I can’t say yet which contest until they officially release the announcement, but it’s an RWA chapter). So I’m thinking, “Sweet! This book is going great.” Then, the very next day, I get another email, this one from my agent telling me we got a rejection for the same book from a publishing house, one of my favorites that I was really hoping for.

I was totally bummed. I feel like I can’t win with this dang book! One day I get a great piece of news, the next I get a rejection. (Hopefully, as a writer you know that having an agent isn’t the end all. It doesn’t mean your book will easily get published once you sign. I think that’s a misconception out there).

Anyway, it was interesting because that same day I read a blog from Rachelle Gardner. She is an agent and has one of the best blogs out there on writing (I’m not the only one who feels this way; the blog was voted a 101 top website for writers by Writer’s Digest). The blog discussed how subjective writing is. Often writers complain about how many garbage books get published (I know I’ve done this). To which she made an excellent point that there’s music we don’t like, clothes we won’t wear, food we won’t eat, and so on. Writing is subjective. What is art to one person might be trash to another.

And so, even with the rejections coming, as a writer you have to keep going, knowing that someday someone will see what you see in your writing and they’ll want to buy it. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. What about you? What do you tell yourself when you receive those rejections? What keeps you going? I’d like to hear J

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Sandi

P.S. Rachelle is running a great contest right now. Write your pitch in a 100 words. The top 10 will get opportunities to blog on her site, which has huge traffic! Check her blog out!

Don’t Over Share

Sandi Greene — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:16:03 +0000

I was sitting around yesterday, trying to figure out what in the world I’m going to blog about in the next few weeks, and I realized, duh, I just got back from a writer’s conference and should have plenty to talk about. When I was at the SCBWI conference, I took only a few notes. I used to be an over-the-top, write-every-single-detail-down note-taker, but I’m not any more. (Maybe it reminds me too much of college or something). So I’ll do the best I can on this with what I have. (And my roomie and a friend I made both took excellent notes that they’ve allowed me to share).

So (I promise this has to do with today’s topic) I’m so excited because I am getting a new website! My blog and website will be in one place, and an awesome designer named Dineen Miller is going to make the design similar to my business cards (you can see the cards she did for me here…just scroll down about half way). Hopefully it will launch in another month or two.

Anyway, one of the speakers I really enjoyed was Delacorte Executive Editor Wendy Loggia. In her session she noted how important it is to watch what you say on the Internet because editors look you up sometimes! As soon as she said this, my mind started to reel through my website, my Facebook, my Twitter, my MySpace, and so forth, wondering if all my content is appropriate.

She said that editors don’t want to work with certain types of people – and I’m sure you can figure out those types. Rude, self-centered, gossipy, etc… So she will actually check author’s pages before signing them on. This served as a good reminder that you should be careful what you put out there, what you say, and how you say it. Don’t talk bad about other agents, publishers, authors, etc… Just be nice. It could make a difference in whether an editor picks you up or not.

Some pics to share of me at the conference (hopefully this isn’t over sharing! HA!):

Yep, me and my Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel. Every writer has to be a coffee drinker.

Writer’s conferences are so much fun! You have to try one if you haven’t already!

Me and my new and very cool friend Romina at the Blue Moon Ball

Me and my awesome roomy Stephanie at the Blue Moon Ball

Me and some new friends I made at the wine and cheese reception.