Blog

Writing for Kids (While Raising Them)

Blog & website of children's book author Tara Lazar, February 22, 2009

As a children's book author and mother of two, I'm pushing a stroller along the path to publication. I collect shiny doodads on the journey and share them here. You've found a kidlit treasure box.

Editorial Anonymous provided a great explanation of basic picture book construction a few months ago.

At that time, I skimmed the info. Today, I’m studying it.

Why? An editor asked me to make page breaks on my current manuscript. And know what? I had more page breaks than a 32-page picture book would allow! Whoops. I knew that my manuscript had to fall within the 500- to 800-word length, but I had neglected to pay attention to logical page breaks.

The editor said, “Page turns can make or break a book, and it can be helpful to an editor to see how you envision the text.”

In a 32-page picture book, you don’t actually have 32 pages for your story. You only have 24 pages since 8 are used for the book ends, copyright and title. And 24 pages translates to 12 spreads (an illustration that spans the two opened pages in a book).

Self-ended means that the printed book block serves not only for the story, but also for the end pages. No additional paper is used to form the book. The printed book block is pasted directly onto the cover.

Another common format is colored ends. This means colored paper (different from the printed book block) is used for the end pages. With colored ends, you’ll gain an additional 2 1/2 spreads since more of the printed book block is available for story.

Some picture books have single-page illustrations instead of spreads. One of my favorite devices is when a group of three things are illustrated on one page. But this isn’t done on every page. A debut author’s work might be laid out only in spreads to save on costs (it’s less illustrations to produce), so you may want to think mostly in spreads. As always, publishing is a subjective industry, so this will vary by editor.

You may be asking, why do I need to know this? Won’t the editor and illustrator figure out the page breaks? Sure, they will. Some may not even ask for your page-break input. However, you can write a more appealing picture book if you understand the format for which you’re writing. Knowing the page turns will improve your story’s pacing. You’ll realize which scenes may have too much text. You can make page turns surprising and fun.

So give it a try. Take your current PB and plug it into the format. Does it fit?

I just took a random sampling of 7 picture books from my collection. Interestingly, none had self-ended construction. They all had colored ends. Here’s how they broke down:

I don’t think I’ll ever look at a picture book the same way again. My kids are going to be frustrated if I count spreads while I read to them!

It’s interesting to note that Cowboy Camp and Spaghetti Eddie are both by debut authors. Cowboy Camp is illustrated in spreads, whereas Spaghetti Eddie is told with mostly single-page illustrations. This “illustrates” that publisher preferences vary (as do manuscripts)!

Keep in mind that when you submit your manuscript, you should do so in the standard format, unless the submission guidelines specifically request that you mark page breaks.

Some editors will never ask you for page breaks, some will insist upon them. Remember that this is a subjective industry where there are many rules to follow but many places to break them, too.

for the BookBaby Blog April 20, 2018

Mr. Pants Series by Scott Mccormick and R. H. Lazzell  A laugh-out-loud comic hybrid series about the antics of three goofball cats, perfect for beginning readers and fans of Bad Kitty and Squish.

Maybe you don’t need panic-induced adrenaline to write, but I do. That’s why my agent’s submission deadlines were the best thing for my book series.

My agent called. “Scott, good news. Your publisher wants two more Mr. Pants books.” To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. After all, my first book, Mr. Pants: It’s Go Time, hadn’t even been published yet. “The only thing is,” he continued, “they need a finished manuscript in two weeks.”

It had taken me three months to write book two, and I hadn’t even started from scratch. I had started from a few short stories I had left over from writing book one. But here I was, with just two weeks to write a book, and I didn’t have any (good) Mr. Pants stories in the tank; just a discarded attempt at a book that was tentatively called The Camping Catastrophe.

So: Two weeks to produce a 128-page graphic novel from scratch? There was no way.

Then the panic set in. It felt great.

“No problem,” I said.

Panic as a motivator

Hemmingway wrote every morning. Most successful authors seem to have similar habits. I can’t. I’ve tried. I just get frustrated.

Sometimes I get lucky and an idea will just come to me and I’ll rush over to my computer (or whip out my phone) and start banging away until I have taken the idea as far as I can. But those moments of inspiration are rare.

Instead, I need a deadline. I discovered this in college. I wrote every single paper at the last minute — not because I was procrastinating, but because I literally couldn’t write unless I was in a state of panic.

When I’m calm and happy, it’s hard for me to push myself to write creatively. But when I’ve got just two hours to come up with a major ad campaign for my whale of a client? The adrenaline kicks in, the ideas start flowing, and my mind goes to weird places.

Knowing this, I tell my clients to give me a hard, short deadline for everything. Sometimes they forget, or they tell me there’s no rush. “That won’t work,” I tell them. “Lie to me. Tell me you need it Tuesday. Bonus points if you use the phrase ‘mission-critical.’”

After hanging up with my agent, I thought about the amount of money I could potentially blow if I didn’t turn my manuscript in on time. It was a glorious thought. I was giddy from panic.

My mind zipped from idea to idea. All of them were terrible. Then, out of nowhere, my mind went to one of those glorious weird places. I thought of Dawn of the Dead, the 1978 zombie classic that was so gory the MPAA threatened to give it an X-rating, forcing George Romero to release it without a rating. It was one of my favorite movies.

“That,” I said, fully embracing the state of panic-logic, “would make a great children’s book.”

Running out of time

My editor called me the next day to discuss my ideas. I told her about Camping Catastrophe, since that was the concept I was closest to having finished. In the day since hanging up with my agent I had figured out everything I needed to finish that book: I had the basic concept and I knew the arcs for all of my characters. All that was left for me to do was, you know, write the book. But I knew I’d be able to get that done in time. After all, I was in panic mode.

My editor liked the camping idea, but she worried about the publication date. Book three was scheduled to come out in the fall, and she was concerned that this story would be more suited to a summer release, when more people camp. She asked me what else I had.

I had nothing else. But I couldn’t say that. And before I could stop myself, I said, “Have you seen Dawn of the Dead?”

In the movie, the main characters are trapped in a mall. As a tween, when I first saw the film, I remembered loving that whole notion of having a mall as my personal playground. So, I launched into a spiel about how it might be fun to have Mr. Pants and family trapped somewhere like a mall, or, as I suggested, an airport.

I was walking a fine line. I was trying to make it sound like I had another good idea when I didn’t, but at the same time, I was trying to make it sound like this idea was worse than Camping Catastrophe, because I had no idea how to build a story around this idea.

To my chagrin, she liked the airport idea. I asked her to like the camping idea.

We ended the call with her saying she’d run the two concepts by her boss and get back to me. But I was running out of time.

All thanks to panic

Unfortunately, agents aren’t often calling me with these tight deadlines. In fact, it’s happened exactly once.

But I still need that sense of panic to write. So, if I want to write something creative, something that doesn’t have any actual deadlines, I have to find ways to trick myself.

One trick I have used in the past is to write with a partner. That’s how the Mr. Pants books came into being, I teamed up with an illustrator friend of mine and I made him give me deadlines.

But I’ve also learned to team up with other writers, even if we’re not working on the same project. They write their book, I write mine, and we check in with each other at the same time each week to share what we’ve been writing. I usually put off writing anything until 5 pm on the day before our meeting. I have an alarm on my phone, which gives me that, “Oh crap! It’s Tuesday already?” feeling so my mind can go where it needs to go.

Knowing that someone else is depending on me is enough to give me a reason to panic.

I didn’t have time to wait to hear back from my editor, so I decided to finish Camping Catastrophe. It took me about six days or so to write the first draft and another two days to for the rewrite.

I was rather happy with it.

My editor called. She said exactly what I knew she would say. They definitely wanted the airport story.

“How’s it coming?” she asked.

“I finished Camping Catastrophe,” I said.

“Good. Send that one too.”

I had four days left, and I had nothing to work with but some vague notion that my characters would be trapped in an airport.

Full-on panic mode.

I spent a day and a half trying to figure out one important thing: Why were they at the airport? Where were they going to? Or coming from? More importantly, what did Mr. Pants want?

In (basically) every work of fiction, your protagonist needs a goal. That’s what drives the story forward. In book one Mr. Pants’ goal is to play laser tag. In book two he wants to make a movie. In Camping Catastrophe he wants to join a Boy-Scout-type organization. But I struggled to figure out what he wanted or needed in this airport.

I couldn’t think of anything. I had a bunch of false starts, but they were all terrible.

I was way beyond panicked. I was losing it.

Frantically searching for ideas, I went back to the reason why my editor didn’t want Camping Catastrophe. Timing. Book three was scheduled to come out in the fall, and she had thought the camping story would be more appropriate for the summer, which is when book four would come out. OK, I thought, what else happens in the fall?

And then it hit me: Halloween.

That one word unleashed a torrent of answers. At once I knew why my characters were at the airport. I knew what Mr. Pants wanted. I even knew how to get in a nice shout-out to Dawn of the Dead, by having my characters play an airport-wide game of zombie tag. It all came together, and I was able to finish my manuscript in just four days. My editor loved it. Mr. Pants: Trick or Feet was published a year and a half later and even got a write up in the New York Times Magazine.

All thanks to panic.

Maybe you don’t need panic-induced adrenaline to write. That’s great. But if you’re feeling uninspired or you just want to try something new, give it a shot. Set up a deadline somehow. Make the consequences of failure significant. Embrace the panic. Let your mind go to weird places. And start writing.

SCOTT MCCORMICK AND R.H. LAZZELL: ALL THE WONDERS, EPISODE 262

In All, All The Wonders Podcast, Podcasts by Matthew Winner, May 31, 2016

Scott McCormick (@I_am_Mr_Pants) and R.H. Lazzell (@rhenrylazz), author and illustrator team behind Mr. Pants: Camping Catastrophe and other books in the Mr. Pants series, stop by the podcast to talk about breaking convention, kids who never read, and how to remain funny.

Thanks for listening to All The Wonders: The Children’s Book Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on the Stitcher radio app. There you’ll find an archive of every episode of the podcast. You’ll also have an opportunity to leave a review or some stars. If you do, hugs and high fives are coming your way. Thanks for inviting us into your ears and for your support!

April 26, 2018 by IngramSpark Staff   You can write the absolute best book in the world, have top-of-the-line book distribution and quality, but another essential part to being a successful publisher is taking the time to invest in expanding your publishing knowledge and expertise, because, at the end of the day, your book’s success needs your input.

Take IngramSpark’s FREE Online Self-Publishing Courses

IngramSpark Academy

We now offer free online self-publishing courses on topics that are most beneficial to your success as a publisher or published author. There aren’t authors or publishers in the world who are publishing a book intended for sales that hope they won’t sell any copies. If you’ve done the work to write and publish a brilliant book, then readers should know about it! There also isn’t an author or publisher anywhere who knows all there is to know about publishing. There’s always more to learn as the publishing landscape changes constantly and so do readers and how they consume your content. Traditional publishers are required to adapt to the market as well, but your advantage as an indie publisher is that you’re more versatile than they’ll ever be. Even if you get just one piece of inspiration from seeking out more information, that’s a piece you didn’t have before and weren’t applying to your book’s potential success, so as an indie publisher, one of our best pieces of advice is to never stop learning and looking for opportunity.

Where to Learn How to Self-Publish

The resources are out there! In an IngramSpark podcast spotlight episode (releasing May 1) we interviewed Jason Pinter, New York Times bestselling author and indie publisher, and he said:

“There’s a responsibility that comes with [indie publishing] because there’s too much information available to you to not be knowledgeable.”

There’s no need to publish a book and simply hope for the best when it’s well within your grasp to actually be the best publisher you can be.

IngramSpark helps close the gap between independent publishing and traditional publishing by allowing authors and publishers access to the same global book distribution and quality enjoyed by traditional publishers at prices self-publishers can afford. But why stop there? Offering access to the information and best practices utilized by traditional publishers to make their books more successful is something you, as an indie publisher, can personalize and optimize on a much different level than even traditional publishers can. So yes, IngramSpark helps you print and distribute your print books and ebooks, but we also offer you the educational aspects to help you and your book succeed – of which IngramSpark Academy is one.

Free Online Self-Publishing Courses

Our online self-publishing courses are on areas of the publishing process that most affect your publishing success and on which you and your fellow authors have indicated you’d love to know more.

How to Build an Author Platform

Building your author platform is essential. There’s a reason why this is one of the main reasons authors are acquired by traditional publishers. Having an author platform ensures that an author has a built-in audience for a publication. Every good book needs an audience and every great author deserves fans. This course offers you a better understanding of how and why people buy books and tips on how to find your audience, target your audience, and how to engage with them.

Take the Author Platform Course

How to Increase Book Sales Potential: Metadata for Books

We can’t stress enough how important your book metadata is to your book’s online discoverability, not only to readers, but also to retailers and librarians. This course offers helpful tips in regards to your book’s most essential metadata such as: keywords, title, book description, author bio, subject codes, trim size, ISBN, price, and publication date.

Take the Book Metadata Course

What’s Next for IngramSpark Academy

We’ve already had an incredible response to our first two online self-publishing courses with hundreds enrolled and several 5-star reviews, and we have more planned! Our next two courses to be released will be Social Media Marketing and How to Self-Publish. While not live just yet, you’re welcome to sign up to be notified when they’re available.

We hope you'll take the opportunity to invest in your publisher education, whether it be through our free courses, podcast, blog, or downloadable resources, or by getting involved in a publishing association or attending a conference. It's your content. Do more with it!

A fun & safe online community where kid readers can: 

Earn Points

and where teachers can get free books!  Bookopolis uses research driven methods to ignite a love of reading.

by Kirsten Oliphant, the author of Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers and the host of the Create If Writing podcast.

My goal is to help writers, bloggers, and creatives like YOU turn readers into raving fans and learn to make a living doing what you love...without being smarmy. Questions? kirsten at kirstenoliphant.com

This Is Post #2 About GDPR And What It Means For Writers And Bloggers In Particular. I’m In The US, So My Thoughts And Take On This Are As Someone NOT In The EU. Here Are Some GDRP FAQS To Help You Understand What You Need To Know!

This post is really going to be a big list with as concise and clear answers as I can give. I’ve got a meatier post that focuses on a few specific aspects of GDPR in more detail and am doing a free training on strategy– particularly how you can use freebies in a post-GDPR world. Now let’s get to those GDPR FAQS!

Note: I’m not a legal expert, nor a lawyer. You should absolutely ask your lawyer or representative for more on this and do your own research as needed to make sure that you are compliant! Also, just know that this is the perspective of someone outside the EU.

GDPR FAQS

WHAT IS GDPR?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and refers to a policy put in place in the EU to harmonize the laws regarding data collection and protection. The goal is to protect private citizens and their data and to hold companies (large and small) more accountable for how they handle data.

WHO DOES IT AFFECT?

Anyone who collects data from people in the EU.

BUT I’M JUST A PERSON! I’M NOT A COMPANY. I’M AN AUTHOR OR BLOGGER. IS THIS THE SAME REQUIREMENT THAT A BIG COMPANY HAS?

Yes and no. A big company will likely have to appoint a specific person in charge of this according to GDPR. The fines are set to be proportionate to size, so if you’re investigated, they will take into account your size, but being small or a solopreneur does NOT give you a pass. Anyone of any size handling data from persons in the EU is under GDPR.

WHAT’S DATA?

Essentially any information: email address, name, or any other information.

BUT I’M LOCATED OUTSIDE OF THE EU. DOES THIS REALLY IMPACT ME THE SAME WAY?

Yes and no. You are responsible for how you handle data from persons inside the EU. This may or may not be a large percentage, but you are still responsible. This means that you either need to make all your forms and policies compliant across the board or find a way to create EU-specific forms that only people in the EU can see. That’s fairly challenging.

WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO IF I IGNORE GDPR?

Probably nothing. But if you have complaints, there are high fines (proportionate to the size of your company). You don’t want to have an investigation or break the trust of your followers by not complying with this. (Even if you don’t like it and don’t live in the EU.) They ARE taking this seriously.

I’M JUST A BLOGGER. WHAT KIND OF DATA DO I EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO?

You might be surprised to learn that it could be a LOT. Many websites (wordpress included) store data in your dashboard in contact forms and even in your comments section. Yikes! You may want to consider a plugin like this GDPR Compliance one to add checkboxes for consent to any places people might enter data.

WHAT OTHER DATA DOES MY WEBSITE COLLECT?

In addition to comments and forms, if you are using Google Analytics or a Facebook pixel for tracking and retargeting, you should be letting people know about that in your privacy policy. If you’ve uploaded your email list to Facebook to run ads to your people or a lookalike audience, that’s also a use of data that GDPR would like for you to have permission to do. Again, be clear in your privacy policy.

NO ONES READS MY PRIVACY POLICY. DOES IT MATTER?

Yes! It’s a legal contract between you and your readers. And now under GDPR, your privacy policy should be linked to in every form where you ask someone to sign up for your email list.

HOW CAN I CREATE A GOOD PRIVACY POLICY?

You can create your own based on great examples you see or templates, but often that may leave you out to dry if you are investigated. GDPR wants it to be in plain language, concise, but also cover all the bases of the ways you use and collect data. If you feel comfortable with that, great! If not, I highly recommend checking out the privacy policy package from Businessese, my fave legal team. I’m an affiliate for their programs because I’ve used them for legal documents! Check out their privacy policy package.

HOW DOES GDPR AFFECT MY EMAIL LIST?

If you are using a trusted provider like ConvertKit, Mailerlite, or Mailchimp (to name a few), you’re likely in good hands. These are what GDPR calls data processors, which means that they have a responsibility with the data you collect for your email list. They will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

If you are NOT using a trusted provider and you are sending out emails via gmail to a mass group or using a service that’s free but no one has heard of, STOP. Get serious about this. There are US laws as well (like the CAN-SPAM Act) that have lots of requirements that these same email service providers help you maintain.

SO WHAT WILL MY EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER DO FOR ME?

That depends on the provider. I use and highly recommend ConvertKit and they have been FABULOUS. They are working to provide checkboxes (more on that in a sec) to help you gain lawful consent. They also created a segment for EU people in the back end of your email so that you can obtain consent from those people already on your list.

• If you aren’t sure which email service provider to use, I’ve got a post that may help you! Read Which Is the Best Email Service Provider for YOU

WAIT, AREN’T THOSE OLD EMAILS GRANDFATHERED IN?

Nope. They aren’t.

SO WHAT THE HECK DO I DO WITH THOSE EMAILS?

Again, some of this depends on your email service provider. Convertkit made it possible for you to send an email just to your EU subscribers, asking them for consent. Contact your provider to see what they are doing.

I GIVE UP. CAN’T I JUST BLOCK EU PEOPLE?

Probably…but do you really want to? Let’s just calm down and try to focus. Your email service provider may also allow you to show the EU forms just to EU people. This can be tricky because of ip addresses and such, but is at least a step, especially if 90% of your audience is not in the EU and you don’t want to have to apply those standards to everything.

SO WHAT DO I NEED ON MY EMAIL SIGN-UP FORMS TO COMPLY WITH GDPR?

A few things. First, you need to link to your privacy policy, as mentioned above. You also need to be incredibly clear about what people receive when they sign up for your email list. This should be ONE thing, not a bundle. In essence, you can’t ask someone to sign up to get your free book AND your marketing emails. Not without a checkbox.

I NEED A CHECKBOX? WHAT? HOW DO I GET THESE?

Yes, you need a checkbox if you want to send people signing up for your freebie other emails AFTER they get the freebie. (This is, to me, the biggest impact and I’ll circle back to this in a minute.) You can’t have the checkbox pre-filled, either. People have to actively consent to the marketing emails. Your email service provider, again, should help take care of this.

WHAT IF PEOPLE DON’T CHECK THE BOX? DO THEY GET MY FREEBIE FOR…FREE?

Yes. This is where a lot of people outside the EU are balking, for good reason. Freebies have long been a way to grow your email list, whether you are an author who is offering a reader magnet or someone giving a free book or offering a free webinar or workshop.

WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO DO THAT?

I feel you. I don’t like this one bit. We are all adults, after all. It seems that communicating clearly on the form would be enough. Not according to GDPR, though. That leaves you with a few options:

1. Add the checkboxes to all forms
2. Try to have the checkboxes show just to EU people (if you are able)
3. Use clear language on the form without a checkbox *non-compliant option
4. Use a follow up sequence to people from the EU who download a freebie, offering them the option to op-in *non-compliant option

ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT I DON’T COMPLY WITH GDPR?

No. But I am saying that for many of us outside of the US, we may have a tiny number of EU subscribers. I checked and mine is personally under 2%. I personally don’t want to have checkboxes on every form I have, meaning people get all my freebies without giving me an email. You need to do what you feel is the best option for you to comply with GDPR but also run your business the way you run your business. (Yes, I know that sounds very American of me. I’m from the US, so yeah. I’m independent and sometimes a bit stubborn.)

I’ve heard raging debates over this from various “experts” and it seems that GDPR has many interpretations. Honestly, until this bad boy is in place and we start seeing how it impacts things, we won’t have a fully clear view. I’m making plans and updating things, but also watching closely to see how this all pans out.

IF I’M INVESTIGATED, HOW CAN I PROVE THAT I COMPLIED?

This is tricky, but double opt-in is a good start. I’ve recommended this anyway, but this is a way that will create a clear proof of the path someone took to get on your list. Read more about double opt-in and permissions and why I recommend double.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I’M USING DOUBLE OPT-IN?

Often it’s the default. Mailchimp made single opt-in the default this year (in a move I can’t wrap my brain around), so you may need to go into each list you have on Mailchimp and check the settings. Always check as well that your forms and signup process are optimized and customized.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER WAYS THAT I GET PEOPLE ONTO MY LIST? HOW DOES GDPR AFFECT THIS?

Well, if you are hosting a webinar, running a virtual summit, offering a reader magnet in the back of an Amazon book, doing a giveaway in exchange for an email, running a quiz that people need to opt into to get their results, giving away a PDF, doing a free workshop, creating bonus content, or any other method where people sign up for one thing and also get a follow-up sequence that leads to your regular emails, YOU NEED TO CONSIDER CONSENT. Go back up to the whole checkboxes thing.

WHAT ABOUT WHEN I GET A BUSINESS CARD AND ADD SOMEONE’S EMAIL TO MY LIST FROM THERE?

Um, you shouldn’t have ever done that. If you have, I’m not shaming you, but that’s not okay. The really great thing about GDPR is that it’s forcing people to market more honestly. Adding someone to your list without permission is not good. Don’t do that. Ever. Okay? Glad we had that talk.

PEOPLE CAN UNSUBSCRIBE IN EVERY EMAIL THROUGH A LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE EMAIL. AM I COVERED?

Not quite. Under GDPR, people have the right to be forgotten, which means that their data isn’t stored at all on the servers. This could be a challenge for you, but if you’re using a trusty email service provider, again–they will do the heavy lifting and make sure you can do this.

WITH THIS WHOLE FACEBOOK/CAMBRIDGE THING, EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT BREACHES. DO I NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT?

If you are using a trusted provider, you need to worry less. We pay them the big bucks to protect that data. And if there is a breach, they’ll help you comply, which means emailing those affected within 72 hours, being clear about what the breach entailed.

IT SOUNDS LIKE AN EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER REALLY IS THE RESPONSIBLE ONE. DOESN’T THE WEIGHT OF THIS FALL ON THEM?

No. Under GDPR, your email service provider is the processor of data, but you are the controller. You decide what you’re doing with the data and communicate that clearly. Thus you are the one who is primarily responsible and accountable. In partnership with a good email service provider (again, I cannot recommend ConvertKit enough), you have a strong position for compliance.

WHAT ABOUT THIRD PARTY CONNECTORS, LIKE LEADPAGES OR SUMOME OR INSTAFREEBIE OR BOOKFUNNEL?

Those are making things more complex. Because they need to talk to your email service provider, there is a chance that they won’t talk well enough to transfer that compliance over. Some of those third-party tools may change their policy or how they collect data or what they do. This may be a good time to streamline your tools, but for sure at the least check their blogs or email them to see what they are doing to help facilitate compliance.

I’M EXHAUSTED AND ANGRY. WHAT DO I DO?

Me too, man. Me too. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Read more in depth about GDPR in this post on how it impacts writers and bloggers where I go a bit deeper.
2. Join me for a free training on strategy for using freebies in a post-GDPR world.
3. Come on into my Facebook group. We can moan or groan about this and then talk about how we are going go comply.

SO…I CAN’T JUST PLUG MY EARS AND SAY LA-LA-LA?

I mean, you CAN. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Take a deep breath. Then start taking steps to comply. Check out my bigger post that has action steps.

MY BIG GDPR TAKEAWAYS

Here are a few things that I like about GDPR (because honestly, much of it makes me very stabby) and what I think we can take away from this regulation.

BE HONEST AND UP FRONT. 

We should be doing this anyway, right? GDPR helps give clarity. If you are signing up for an email list, it’s good to know what that means. We should all be doing this anyway, but GDPR is a great reminder that we should always make our intentions clear.

USE BEST PRACTICES. 

Don’t buy email lists. Don’t add people without permission. Don’t be smarmy!! Use smart marketing tactics that don’t break people’s trust! If it feels gross, you shouldn’t have been doing it anyway. GDPR puts some serious weight behind this.

PAY ATTENTION TO EMAIL. 

I’ve heard people freaking out about this, saying they’re done with email. Calm down, son. Email is still incredibly powerful. We’ll survive GDPR just like we survived Y2K. If nothing else, it’s a great reminder that your email should not be an afterthought. Here are more resources and list-building tips to get you started!

Written by Tom Demers for HubSpot - Marketing

There's nothing quite like a sudden Google algorithm update to leave marketers feeling equal parts confused and concerned. It seems like they wait for you to get all of your ducks in a row and then unleash an update that makes your efforts instantly obsolete.

Sure, they're pretty open about that fact that they're doing this for everyone's own good -- each algorithm tweak brings us one step closer to more relevant search results, after all. However, there is still some secrecy behind exactly how Google evaluates a website and ultimately determines which sites to show for which search queries.

That said, there are a number of tools out there -- some free, some paid -- that help you to look at your own site the way that Google sees it.

Stop wasting time on SEO strategies that don't work with the help of this free PDF guide >>

These tools are critical to your organic search strategy because they allow you to focus on the elements of your site that Google deems important. In this post, we'll walk through 10 such tools that all help you run a site analysis like a marketer ... and a Google bot!

12 SEO Monitoring and Keyword Tools for 2018

1. Google's Webmaster Tools

Cost: Free

Purpose: Site Analysis

Perhaps the best way to understand the way Google sees your site is to ask Google. Google's Webmaster Tools are novice-friendly resources that explain the fundamentals of Google search.

For example, Google's Fetch as Google tool allows you to see a particular URL as Google sees it, which is critical when troubleshooting for poor SEO performance. The information returned can help you modify the page in question for better results, and can even help you isolate problematic code when you believe your site's been hacked.

Another great feature of Google Webmaster Tools is PageSpeed Insights. This SEO tool measures the performance of both your desktop and mobile site in terms of speed. With mobile search queries surpassing desktop searches, page speed is becoming increasingly important to businesses that want to hold on to their visitors.

"PageSpeed Insights evaluates how well a page follows common performance best practices and computes a score from 1-100 that estimates its performance headroom," according to Google Developers. That score can be Good, as in 80 or above; Medium, as in 60 to 79; or Low, as in 0 to 59.

2. SEMrush

Cost: Free

Purpose: Keyword Research

SEMrush is a super elaborate dashboard that reports on the performance of domains as a whole and their specific pages. The website offers numerous toolkits, one of which is an SEO toolkit.

Below is one of the toolkit's flagship features, allowing you to plug in a website page to see for what keywords it's ranking, what the page's rank is for that keyword, the keyword's monthly search volume, and more.

The rest of the SEO toolkit allows you to compare your page performance to competition, analyze backlinks from other websites to your site (also known as link building), research appropriate keywords, and take advantage of similar on-page SEO opportunities.

3. HubSpot's Website Grader

Cost: Free

Purpose: Site Analysis

Back in 2007, HubSpot released a tool called Website Grader that helped businesses uncover search engine optimization opportunities. Because a lot has changed since then, the company has released a new and improved version of the tool.

Website Grader is an online tool that generates personalized reports based on the following key metrics:

• Performance. The tool will analyze your site's page size, requests, speed, and similar key SEO metrics.
• Mobile Readiness. The tool will see if your website is mobile-friendly in terms of responsiveness and viewport settings.
• SEO. The tool will determine if your website is easy to find -- both by humans and bots. This determination will take factors like page titles and meta descriptions into consideration.
• Security. The tool will look for things like an SSL certificate. This serves as a way to prove to visitors that your site is both authentic and safe for contact information submissions.

All you need is your website URL and an email address to get started. Simply plug in your information and you can expect a score (1-100) as well as a detailed report in a matter of seconds.

Aside from Website Grader, HubSpot also has a handful of paid SEO tools to help you better direct your efforts.

For example, within the HubSpot Blogging App, users will find as-you-type SEO suggestions. This helpful inclusion serves as a checklist for content creators of all skill levels. HubSpot customers also have access to the Page Performance App, Sources Report, and the Keyword App. The HubSpot Marketing Platform will provide you with the tools you need to research keywords, monitor their performance, track organic search growth, and diagnose pages that may not be fully optimized.

4. Check My Links

Cost: Free

Purpose: Link Optimization

To ensure that your links on a webpage -- whether external or internal -- actually work, consider Check My Links.

This broken-link checker makes it easy for a publisher or editor to make corrections before a page is live. Think about a site like Wikipedia, for example. The Wikipedia page for the term "marketing" contains a whopping 711 links. Not only was Check My Links able to detect this number in a matter of seconds, but it also found (and highlighted) seven broken links.

The tool highlights all the good links in green, and those that are broken in red, making it easy to spot the ones that don't work or are no longer active.

5. BuzzStream

Cost: Free 14-day trial, then paid plans from $24/mo

Purpose: Link Building

BuzzStream might be the most inexpensive way to manage your outreach to the people who can provide inbound links to your website.

Although backlinks to your website are critical to ranking well on Google, the outreach you do while link building can feel a lot like cold calling. BuzzStream makes it easy to research the appropriate people, come up with effective email messages, and track who's accepted each link request. Your link building queue looks like this:

Image via BuzzStream

BuzzStream helps you identify candidates for outreach based on their industry and how engaged they are across various social networks -- so you know who will be most receptive to your backlink request and boost your ranking on Google.

6. Moz's Pro Tools

Cost: Free 30-day trial, then paid plans from $99/mo

Purpose: Site Analysis

The Moz Pro subscription serves as an all-in-one tool for increasing your business' search ranking. Moz's collection of research tools provides subscribers with the resources they need to identify SEO opportunities, track growth, build reports, and optimize their overall efforts. 

For example, the Crawl Test tool employs Moz's own web crawler, RogerBot, to analyze up to 3,000 links on a given URL. Once completed, users then receive an email report that details the data for each page the site links to.

Image via Moz

This is super helpful if you're looking to identify "crawlability" factors, such as duplicate content and redirects that could be influencing your SEO performance.

7. UpCity's SEO Report Card

Cost: Free

Purpose: Share of Voice

SEO Report Card by UpCity lets you analyze your website to determine how it stacks up against your competitors.

In exchange for a bit of your contact information, SEO Report Card will serve up a report that covers the following:

• Rank Analysis. A snapshot of where your website ranks on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Your ranking is based on the main keyword you select when putting information in to build the report.
• Link Building. A detailed account of the number of websites that link back to your site.
• On-Site Analysis. A look at how successful you were in incorporating your main keyword throughout your site.
• Website Accessibility. A section focused on your site's load time and ease of accessibility for crawlers.
• Trust Metrics. An overview of your site's level of trust or authority.
• Current Indexing. An indication of how many of your site pages have been indexed.

8. Woorank

Cost: Free 14-day trial, then $49/mo for a Pro Plan or $149/mo for a Premium Plan

Purpose: Site Analysis

Woorank's in-depth site analysis helps marketers reveal opportunities for optimization and improvement. This analysis takes into account the performance of existing SEO initiatives, social media, usability, and more.

Each report is divided into eight sections:

• Marketing Checklist
• SEO
• Mobile
• Usability
• Technologies
• Social
• Local
• Visitors

Spanning across 70+ metrics, it would be hard -- if not impossible -- to not uncover opportunities for improvement.

As a bonus, Woorank makes it easy for users to download their reviews as branded PDFs. This makes company-wide distribution and presentation more streamlined than ever.

9. Screaming Frog's SEO Spider

Cost: The LITE version is free (with limitations*), and the paid plan is $160/year

Purpose: Site Analysis

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a search marketer's best friend.

Designed specifically for the SEO-minded, this program crawls the websites you specify, examining the URLs for common SEO issues. This program simplifies and expedites an otherwise time-consuming process -- especially for larger websites. It could take hours or days to manually evaluate the same URLs.

Take a closer look at how it works:

The Java program is fairly intuitive, with easy-to-navigate tabs. Additionally, you can export any or all of the data into Excel for further analysis. So say you're using Optify, Moz, or RavenSEO to monitor your links or rankings for specific keywords -- you could simply create a .csv file from your spreadsheet, make a few adjustments for the proper formatting, and upload it to those tools.

*Pricing limitations include: You can only scan 500 URLs per website, and you don't have full access to configuration options and source code features. To remove these limitations, users can purchase a 12-month license for around $160/year.

10. Found's SEO Audit Tool

Cost: Free

Purpose: Site Analysis

Want to rise above your competitors on search engine results pages?

(Who doesn't?)

The SEO Audit Tool by Found is an easy-to-use tool for marketers looking to identify (and solve) common SEO errors on a website.

Simply enter your URL and receive an instant automated SEO audit of your site. Found's SEO Audit Tool is broken down into three main parts:

• Technical issues. This reports on factors like domain canonicalization and XML sitemaps.
• Content issues. This focuses on influential factors like keywords and meta data.
• External link analysis. This aims to evaluate the quantity and quality of external links.

Similar to Woorank, once you run a report, the tool makes it easy for you to download the results as a PDF to be easily shared within your organization.

11. Remove'em

Cost: $249 per domain or a subscription option starting at $99/mo

Purpose: Link Building

Have you ever purchased links? Spammed the comments section on a string of blogs using the same message and link? If so, we'll forgive your bad judgment just this once ... but Google won't.

Artificial or unnatural links have the potential to seriously hurt your search ranking. To clean them up, check out Remove'em:

This helpful tool scans your backlink profile and turns up a list of contact information for the links and domains you'll need to reach out to for removal. Alternatively, the tool also allows you to export the list if you wish to disavow them using Google's tool. (Essentially, this tool tells Google not to take these links into account when crawling your site.)

12. Varvy's SEO Overview Tool

Cost: Free

Purpose: Site Analysis

This SEO auditing tool provides users with information regarding their domain strength, links, image SEO, social counts and mentions, page/technical SEO, page speed, and more.

The comprehensive report is prepared in less than a minute, and dives deep into different aspects of your website's performance. You'll notice that the tool employs green checks, red Xs, and yellow exclamation points to denote the severity of the issue.

One the our favorite features is the detailed image overview:

This section of the report focuses on the strength of the images your website employs by analyzing the alt text. If you're using too many words, missing alt text, or the alt text appears weak, the tool will notify you so that you can make any necessary changes.

Getting Started

You'll never get a look behind the Google curtain to learn everything they know (or don't know) about your site. But by leveraging SEO best practices and getting the most out of tools like those listed here, you can greatly increase the chances that your website will show up in response to the right search queries.

From the Reedsy "About" page:

Crafting beautiful books is at the heart of everything that Reedsy does. We're changing the way books are published by giving authors and publishers access to talented professionals, powerful tools, and free educational content. Reedsy was founded in the summer of 2014 by Emmanuel Nataf, Ricardo Fayet, Vincent Durand and Matt Cobb. Since then, we’re proud to have built a network of world-class publishing professionals and helped produce over 3,000 books.

Quality, creativity and diversity

Publishers and authors trust us to provide them with quality talent. That’s why we only work with editors, designers, marketers, and ghostwriters who have experience crafting books that land on the New York Times bestseller list. Authors come to us from a range of backgrounds. Maintaining a diverse roster of professionals ensures that authors from all walks of life can find the right people to help. This is our challenge: to allow you to exercise your creativity by making sure our services are perfectly suited to your genre and budget. That’s why you will find that Reedsy professionals come from all across the globe: based in over 30 countries, they have worked with clients of all sizes and sensibilities. Our idea is simple: the more perspectives we can bring to the table, the more unique the books produced on Reedsy will be. We believe that in a world otherwise dominated by a mass-market culture, the need for a diversity of books is greater than ever. To see examples of books created on Reedsy, read our Author Stories.

A full ecosystem for authors and publishing professionals

As you immerse yourself into our ecosystem, you will discover that Reedsy can help at every stage of your publishing journey. Whether you start writing with the Reedsy Book Editor, or polish your prose with assistance from the marketplace, we can provide the support you need to publish your story. For all writers, our blog offers insights into publishing and the writing craft. If you prefer video, you can watch a different publishing professional answer your questions via our Reedsy Live events, which we present every two weeks. And our Reedsy Learning courses are here to help any author through the learning curves in the publishing industry. We provide all these tools for free so that authors can learn and then concentrate on what they do best: writing.

We live the way our community lives

Reedsy is made possible thanks to the incredible professionals who have joined our network. They work from over 600 cities, covering most continents. We are strong believers in the power of remote work. The Reedsy team itself hails from over ten different countries and speaks as many languages. We’re entrepreneurs, designers, writers, hackers, bikers, engineers, runners, developers, soccer analysts, musicians, photographers, readers, travelers, gardeners, knitters, hikers, campers, and hard workers. And we’re here to help you.

Funded by the European Union

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 734046.

We’re doing this because we care

We’re not just building Reedsy to make money and for the occasional feature in a renowned publication. After a few years building the company, it was important to us as founders to give back, which is why we started the #IWriteBecause campaign in May 2017. The campaign has reached over 6.7 million people to date and allowed us to donate to Room to Read, a non-profit organization that provides girls in Africa and Asia with access to education.

Always at your service

If you have a general question for us, just drop us an email at service@reedsy.com. If you want to talk to someone in customer service, just log in to your account and hit the “Help!” button. We’ll get back to you right away. Lastly, if you’re just learning about publishing, please feel free to ask us anything you like, or say, “Hi,” on our blog. We won’t bite! You can also follow along on Twitter @ReedsyHQ, Facebook, Instagram @reedsy_hq and YouTube.

Just a few days after the 55th Bologna Children's Book Fair - a particularly successful edition, confirming its leading role among international children's publishing events - BolognaFiere is once more in the limelight with a new important partnership in the United States.

The new NEW YORK RIGHTS FAIR (NYRF), created by BolognaFiere in partnership with Publishers Weekly and The Combined Book Exhibit, signed an agreement with BOOKEXPO, the American book fair organized by Reed Exhibition, allowing the two events to work together to better serve the publishing industry.

As of 2018, NYRF will thus become the "Official Rights Fair" of BOOKEXPO, i.e. the professional section for trading of copyright.

This joint marketing agreement will allow BookExpo and NYRF to work together and offer the entire publishing industry the perfect gateway to the US publishing market, including increased access to resurgent US bookstores, and more opportunities for rights professionals to embrace the explosion in new media and rights opportunities.

The new relationship will help to bring together all aspects of the publishing industry, providing the strongest foundation for those looking to pursue publishing rights in the US and internationally. 

Find out more

by IngramSpark Staff April 03, 2018

Advances in technology have given writers the power to put their words to paper and publish a book. In the not so distant past, traditional publishing was the only way for authors to get their works printed and distributed with any credibility. Now, aspiring authors can do most of this work on their own and the bias around self-publishing is falling away. If done correctly, self-published books can have the same superior quality and marketability as books that receive treatment from a traditional publisher and here's how.

Most self-publishing authors will need to work with various freelancers to get their manuscript through the book editing, book design, and book publishing phases, all of which are necessary to your book's successful publication.

The Book Editing Process

You've finished your book; the next step is to have your manuscript professionally edited. There are many different types of edits, so consider which you think your book needs before hiring an editor or send your book for an editorial review so an editor can help you decide. Editors do so much more than fix spelling and grammatical errors. They make sure your story is cohesive from start to finish and that your plot and characters make sense throughout. Rates for editing can vary greatly depending on how much work your manuscript requires and what kind of editors your work with.

The Book Design Process

The design process includes book cover design, interior design, and book formatting for print books and ebooks. Contrary to the most famous of idioms, the cover of your book greatly affects its sales potential. The cover should be optimized for all media: print, digital, thumbnails, e-readers, and more. If you have a talent for book design or your own cover image in mind, creating the cover on your own can save you a great deal of money. You can also look for templated designs or book cover design tools to help you. However, if you do not have design skills, you will want to hire a professional. Professional designers vary in cost as well as editors, but you generally get what you pay for as far as cover design. Understanding the significance of your book cover, be sure you invest in getting this particular piece right.

Your interior design is what makes your book readable. It helps orient a reader to where they are in your book and should never distract from the story. Interior design is subtle, but necessary, including things such as the table of contents, chapter openers, page breaks, running heads, and page numbers. Be sure not to miss these standard elements, because nothing says unprofessional book quite like missing the basics of all book design. 

Once the design of your book's cover and interior are complete, you can format your book for both print and digital. Many authors will create a print version because there's a great deal of nostalgia and sense of accomplishment when you get to hold your finished book in your hands, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also create an ebook. There are many reasons to create both versions. By printing only the copies you sell with print on demand and making your book available for purchase online you extend your selling power for maximum results without wasting any time or energy.

ISBNs

If you're publishing your book with the intent of selling it, you will need to purchase and assign it an ISBN. The ISBN identifies your book as its own unique product and allows you to list yourself as the publisher and control the metadataassociated with it. It's important to be wary of "free" ISBNs because assigning one that is provided for you limits your capabilities. You should understand the importance of owning your own ISBN before accepting a "free" one. ISBNs cost $125 for one, or $250 for ten. If you intend to publish your book in multiple formats (meaning perhaps a hardcover version, a paperback version, and an ebook version of the same title), you will need individual ISBNs for each version, in which case, buying a block of ten ISBNs is a much better value.

United States IngramSpark Publishers Receive a Special Discount on Individual ISBNs from Bowker—Login to Your Account to Receive Yours!

Book Distribution

Book distribution used to be the biggest roadblock for self-publishing authors. You could publish a well-written, well-designed book, but there was no way to get it out to the masses. Thankfully, that's no longer true. Self-published books are made available to independent bookstores, chain bookstores (such as Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million), online retailers (such as Amazon, Kobo, and Apple iBooks), libraries, and so much more. With IngramSpark, independent publishers can tap into the same book distribution traditional publishers access, including over 39,000 retailers and libraries and over 70 major online retailers. And not only that, IngramSpark's book distribution is global, connecting your book with a world of readers.

Learn More About IngramSpark's Book Distribution

Book Marketing

Once you've written your book, lined up editors and designers, and determined your publication date, you'll need to be thinking about your book marketing strategy! You'll want to plan your book promotion long before you publish a book, because you want your book to have the best chance of succeeding, right? How can your book succeed if you haven't first told anyone about it? The first step to every good book marketing plan is to determine your audience. It's a mistake to think your book is for everyone because realistically, it's not, and by trying to push your book to everyone, you lose focus and spend a lot of time (and potentially) money targeting the wrong people. Start here, and then check out the marketing and promotion section of the IngramSpark blog for tons of specific book marketing tactics. There are also many experts that help self-publishers learn how to market their books with channels like social media, book review sites, etc, so feel free to pursue that route as well.

There has never been a more exciting time to be an author, and when it comes down to how to self-publish a book, we hope you'll turn to IngramSpark for support along the way. We're probably a bit bias, but we think we're the best option for authors hoping to self-publish a book and we hope you'll allow us to prove that to you! Happy publishing!