The year before last, the wonderful Jennifer Lawler invited me to speak to her students about editing horror for children and teenagers and of course I jumped at the chance! I love talking about children’s books, I love talking about horror and I love talking about editing – it’s truly my dream job – so I was delighted to be asked. Jennifer kindly sent me the transcript from the conversation to share here, so if you’re an aspiring children’s book…

If you work with me (or someone else) on a critique or edit, you might decide to continue your publishing journey with another editor. There are several types of professional editing available and they all happen at different stages in the process. You might decide to stop after your manuscript critique or you may choose to take your book through each stage. Your publishing goals and budget will dictate what’s right for you. Copyediting focuses on sentence level issues like…

Handing your manuscript over to a stranger is scary, I absolutely get it. That’s why I have a really detailed but easy to read, jargon-free contract that I’ll ask you to sign before we work together. That way, you know exactly what you’re getting out of our work together and you’ll know you’re protected. Here is my contract template for you to read through now, with an imaginary client and manuscript slotted in. This is a contract for The Monster; contracts…

If you struggle to pin down your book’s genre or don’t really understand why it matters when it comes to children’s books, this is the course for you! It comes with an interactive workbook, downloadable genre guide (a more detailed and up-to-date version of this one!) and genre bingo cards which are super fun. I’m massively excited about this one because I’ve poured so much of my experience, expertise, passion and research into it. Give readers what they’re expecting and…

Editing and developing your craft can be super expensive investments. Trust me, I know! I’ve paid for more writing and editing courses than I can count, plus I’ve hired professional editors for my own work and none of them were cheap. So I get how important it is to understand upfront how and when you’re going to be expected to pay for a service. That’s why I wanted to give a bit of detail about the payment process I use.…

Hey, genre fans! Welcome to a new series on the blog: kidlit genre battle! The two questions that crop up most often in the emails and enquiries I receive are: is my book middle grade or YA? what genre is my book? I also work with a lot of authors who find it hard to find comp titles because they’re not really sure where their own manuscript sits, so how can they possibly find books that are similar? Recently I…

I’m so excited to be launching a new course! An Introduction to Writing  Middle Grade and YA Fiction covers so many of the questions I’ve been asked by new and emerging kidlit authors over the years and addresses lots of the most common mistakes and challenges I come across when editing manuscripts. If you’re thinking about writing novels for children or teens, this course will help clear up confusion and misconceptions around middle grade and young adult fiction so you…

Sometimes, even though they’re aimed at a completely different age group, picture books contain perfect, concise little examples of storytelling techniques that we can apply to middle grade and YA. Luckily, I get through a heck of a lot of picture books at home: my husband and I read Caeden three books a night at bedtime plus we go to the library at least once a week (we currently have about 60 books on loan 😬) so I often come across lovely demonstrations of writing craft and get super excited mid-story.