a little less about eels and more about traditional publishing, forgive me
I know this is usually about eels at the beginning, but it’s also going to be about writing. If you are really here for the Eel Content™ and Eel Content™ alone, here is a beautiful tin of gourmet baby eels in olive oil:
This is where I admit that I am not a huge fan of canned fish. Maybe this Eel Report will become a spin off of a horribly produced video series of me eating tinned fish delicacies. Probably not.
Maybe you’re not here for eels at all, but are interested in writing and children’s literature. I promise, we will get there. Maybe you’re not interested in any of the above, but you are supportive of me and my weird endeavors. Thank you for your ongoing support and for being here.
Swapping Eels for Writing Thrills
Sometimes writers like to talk about voice, like it’s this undefinable thing but you know it when you read it. But so much of voice is the rhythm and cadence of the sentences, the word choice and how the words are put together. This is not to be confused with grammar. Grammar is *shudders* something else.
I feel like voice is something that comes up often in writing circles and workshops. Voice is something readers want. Does the story have voice? We can’t always say what voice is, but we know we want it! And we know when we hear it!
Which is why I was delighted to read this article about eels (okay, Eel Content™, here we gooo!) which feels like it should be read in a movie trailer voice with explosions in the background. The title alone is amazing. I think it’s a delightful example of voice, informative and informal writing, and keeping your audience in mind.
I personally loved the “Swapping Guts for Gonads” sub-header. I did not know that eels’ anuses shrink to prevent water loss as they journey back to the ocean to breed. Learn something new everyday, a minuscule eel anus factoid for you this morning. Minuscule eel anus is really hard to say. You should try saying it four times fast.
I think it’d be a fun writing exercise to take a story, an idea, or something you are working on and write a pitch that is to be read in an exciting movie trailer voice, and then write it again like it will be a lifetime movie special, and then write it like it’s the end of a pharmaceutical ad and speed read it. I wouldn’t spend too much time on this, maybe a couple minutes each, just to see how the writing shifts and changes. Maybe in a later newsletter, I will do all of these with Crocodile Hungry. We’ll see.
Event Announcements
I have a virtual book launch with some wonderful friends, Lisa Riddiough and Jonathan Hillman, moderated by the brilliant Aimee Lucido. Red Balloon Bookshop, based out of St. Paul, Minnesota, is hosting the event on February 16, 2022. Mark your calendar, save the date, and practice your time-change math skills!
If you order Crocodile Hungry from Red Balloon, I’ll be sending them book plates with my author signature. If you DO order books from Red Balloon, and you want the book personalized, please let them know when you order, and I’ll coordinate with the wonderful staff at Red Balloon Bookshop.
Lisa, Jonathan, Aimee, and I are all Hamline University grads from different graduating classes, so this is gonna be like a smorgasbord of Hamline kidlit support and love. If you do attend, I suggest planning on eating cake. Every Red Balloon event I’ve ever been to involves cake. I know virtual events make this more of a challenge, but I had a spice cake around the holidays that I am still thinking about, so maybe I will have a spice cake to celebrate.
I have an in-person event, hosted by Book People of Moscow, at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center on March 5th in Moscow, Idaho. If you’re local, save the date! And maybe Omicron will be more of an Omicant by then. Hahaha, I am so sorry.
Book People of Moscow is my beloved local bookstore, and whether you’ll be able to make it to the event or not, they’re the place to pick up signed copies of Crocodile Hungry!
A Little Story about Making a Book
I’ve had a few people ask about the process of making a book or publishing a book, so I thought I’d share a little bit about my experience in The Making of a Traditionally Published Picture Book.
I wrote a first draft of Crocodile Hungry probably in 2013. There was a time when I tried to illustrate this story, but we don’t talk about drawing, no no. We don’t talk about drawing!! Nooooo. Encanto is on a constant loop over here and it is amazing, my ability to illustrate, less so.
And then I kept writing other stories. And writing and revising more stories. And when I felt like my writing had improved and that I had enough picture books to query literary agents, I started to query literary agents. A query is sending out a letter and pitch introducing yourself and your writing along with a picture book manuscript, hitting send, and then pacing around the neighborhood and sweating profusely. Again, just my experience.
If an agent likes the picture book manuscript that a writer queries with, then the literary agent will usually request more picture book manuscripts to read before offering representation. As far as I’m aware, this is industry standard, and a picture book writer should have at least 4-6 polished picture manuscripts before querying agents. I think I shared 10 (TEN!) picture book manuscripts with my agent before she offered to represent me because either I am an overachiever or because my writing is all over the place so my agent needed to see a wider range of stories. Award winning author, Laura Ruby, once said very kindly, that my body of writing had range, so let’s go with that one, although I freely admit that my writing is all over the place. It can be both, I’ve decided.
Anyway, my agent offered to represent me and my writing back in January 2019 and then I revised Crocodile Hungry with my agent to get it ready to go out on submission.
Being on submission is like the querying process all over again, but instead of querying agents, your agent is submitting your manuscript to editors at different publishing houses.
It’s exciting and stressful and an illogical amount of inbox refreshing. There is also a decent amount of rejection. You simultaneously develop a thick skin and also a creeping sense of self doubt. Walking around the neighborhood helps. I don’t know if profusely sweating helps.
My editor from Tundra Books offered to acquire my manuscript— there’s a lot more involved here with acquisition meetings within the publishing house and comparison analysis on potential market and sales but that’s the editorial and publishing side of things— and then my agent called me on a sunny day and we yelled into our phones for a bit while I walked around my neighborhood. Again, more profusely sweating. That was in April 2019.
My editor thought John Martz would be the perfect illustrator for Crocodile Hungry and he is, like I can’t wait for readers to find all the funny gags and great details hidden in the illustrations. I worked with my editor to revise the text, and John began work on the development of the characters and the visual story.
There were proofs and a little more revising, a few small changes to the text and the art, an internal review and report (I cried when I read this, I’ve never been more proud and/or seen as a writer), and then everything went to print in the summer of 2021.
And that’s the story and (my) experience with the traditional publishing of a picture book! And it’ll be a real physical book on shelves all over North America in just over two weeks.
If you are reading this and you live in Australia, I am so sorry, but you’ll have to wait until April 18, 2022, for Crocodile Hungry. Maybe we can all agree to meet in Australia after April 18, 2022 so we can say that we’ve seen Crocodile Hungry in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres which feels like a big deal.
Books I Read and Loved this Month
I like to list all the books mentioned in this newsletter in an Eel Report BookShop page, so it’s all nicely cataloged and easy to reference. Also there’s a book list for a ghost newsletter that was never sent in September & October, which I find mysterious and elusive, like what happened to that newsletter?! It lives in draft form only, but the booklist lives on! Such is writing sometimes. A week ago, the American Library Association held the Youth Media Awards and that’s such a fun place to build a reading list heading into the new year to pick up celebrated titles. The Genius Under the Table and Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued both received honors from the ALA last week.
Happy reading, writing, and learning about whatever keeps you curious!