Tag: Lisa Bullard

Posted in Educational Nonfiction, Nonfiction

Thankful Thursday: Yay for Experts

Posted on by beckylevine

One of the things I’m getting better at as I get older is finding experts to help me along my way. Sometimes, as with my accountant, this means asking someone with a skill to do something I’m not only lousy at, but that I truly hate. At other times, it’s a matter of finding someone further along a path I actually want to go down, and getting some professional advice.

Which is what I did this month.

I’ve talked a few times about wanting to break into writing nonfiction educational books for kids. I’ve written some samples that I’m pretty happy with, but when I was getting ready to put a package together to submit, I started thinking. And what I thought was this

  • I think I can guess at how I might want to put this all together.
  • I’m pretty sure I can write a decent and basically professional cover letter.
  • I can take a stab at which samples I should submit.

And then I thought: Hey, I could get some help on this.

So I went to Mentors for Rent.

Laura Purdie Salas and Lisa Bullard have both been writing educational books for years, and they’ve started a new service where they are offering to help out us beginners…via Skype. Their prices are more than reasonable, especially when you consider you’re getting the benefit of two writers’ knowledge & experience.

I had some very specific things I wanted to accomplish, mostly around the best way to package what I have and who I am. We went back & forth a few times by email on how best to organize our time around my needs, and Laura & Lisa were more than helpful in working this out. I ended up sending them my whole package–including samples, cover letter, and resume. They spent half “our” time critiquing the pieces, then sent me back the critiques before our Skype meeting, so I could figure out what questions I had. Then we Skyped for the rest of the scheduled time.

How did it go? Beautifully. The critiques hit on some points that are really going to improve my package, and our Skype session helped me see the best way to present myself, to (hopefully!) move me and my submissions to the top of the editors’ slush piles, to show that I’m someone they definitely want to work with. Laura & Lisa helped me understand how “pushy” I can and probably should be, which is a tough point for me to get to. They talked to me about the industry and what editors are looking for and helped me realize that 1) I fit into that picture and that 2) It’s way more than okay to demonstrate that in my letter.

Was my session worth the time and money? Definitely! Laura and Lisa’s service is the perfect example of the right time to invest in productivity and efficiency, to take a “shortcut” around all that waffling we do on our own when we’re stepping into something new. Knowing I would be asking for their help got me moving to pull everything together, and getting that help brought me the focus to move forward with much more confident steps.

So, BIG thanks and an even bigger recommendation for Mentors for Rent!

Posted in Critiquing, Skype

Would You Want to Skype a Critique?

Posted on by beckylevine

Today’s blog is sort of a mini-survey. Along with my own writing, I’m still doing plenty of critiques for other writers these days. What with the nature of the world, I do a lot of my work online, via email and with much neater feedback in Word than I could ever do with my own handwriting. 🙂 I typically make plenty of comments in the manuscript margins, and I type up the overall critique in a separate file.

Pretty much like I talk about in The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide.

But I’ve been wondering. I know there are plenty of writers who critique together online. I’ve started doing that myself, on top of my in-person critique group, and it works well for me. I only miss the coffeehouse atmosphere a little. On the other hand, I think there are still writers who are most comfortable face-to-face, actually hearing their critique delivered out loud, even if it’s the same one they take home on paper to look at later, during revision. I think they feel more happy with the chance to ask immediate questions, get things clarified, and do a bit of brainstorming about specific problems that have been worrying them.

So then I thought…Skype.

I hear wonderful things about Skype school visits. I’m getting close to hiring Laura Purdie Salas and Lisa Bullard at Mentors for Rent, to help me pull together some samples I want to send out. That consulting session will be via Skype, and I’m looking forward to it. Both Lisa and Laura are “there” at the conference, and I think it’ll be much easier to have a three-way conversation when I can sort of see who’s talking when. Easier, more relaxed, and–I’m guessing–very helpful. Skype mentoring.

And maybe Skype critiquing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s make it all hypothetical. If you were going to hire a freelance editor to critique part or all of your book, would you like the idea of being able to talk to them in person, as well as get their written feedback? Would you, if you were already paying a page-rate for the critique, think it worthwhile to pay for an additional hour of time, to get that face-to-face delivery of the critique? Or would you just feel like it was more technology you  had to figure out and equip yourself for?

Please do leave a comment with your thoughts. All opinions welcome!