Best Money Spent!

When I signed up for the SCBWI conference I also sent in my picture book manuscript. The opportunity to be critiqued by one of the editors or agent was too good of a deal to miss. For $30 I received a page of comments, plus the editor edited my manuscript. True, my manuscript was only three pages, but what I got in return was gold.

All I have to say is if you have an opportunity to have someone in the biz look at your stuff--DO IT! Pay the price, it's worth it!

I've always complained that it's hard to know if you are heading in the right direction with your writing. So, in the romance world, many of us enter contests. The problem with contests is the judges have to follow the score sheet and if someone doesn't like your work you may or may not get appropriate feedback. Then your thoughts are still tainted with the idea that this isn't an industry pro, but simply another writer--and the odds were against you that the writer was even published. All you get for your $30 (average contest fee) are opinions from two or three judges. AND if you are so lucky to final and have your manuscript placed in front of an industry pro, you get ranked. Many times you don't even get any comments.

Back to square one.

What I got for my $30 was a crit by Abigail Samoun of Tricycle Press. This used to be an indy publisher, but was recently purchased by Crown of Random House. Instead of two seasons, they will be expanding into three seasons, which means they will be buying more authors. YAY!

My story could work except I needed to follow the structure for a picture book. This structure is very rigid, since there are only 32 pages to tell the story. It must have an intro, body of the story with ascending conflict, and resolution. Sound familiar? It is the same for almost any book except for the shorter format. She also gave me insights into where I failed in the writing of the piece--the out of character moments for my fly.

But the one gem for my $30 is that I now know what I have to do to make this story salable.

Will I sell it?

The odds are just as bad as it is for other books. Out of 7,500 queries she received last year, she bought three. Do the math. Not great odds.

BUT I have one thing in my arsenal that I didn't have before. I have direction. I have a plan.

And I must confess it is easier to self-edit a three page picture book than a 100,000 page novel.
So, this week, I'm deconstructing three picture books. Typing them out and marking the pages and where they chop the sentences for the format. Observing sentence structure, vocabulary, and subtext.

Then I will do it to my own story. Edit, tweak, edit, tweak, and then start the query process.

So was Ms. Samoun's input valuable? You bet it was! And I'd take another opportunity to do it again in a heartbeat!

Write on!