To begin my Canadian Children’s Book Week tour I spent most of the day traveling. First by car, then by VIA train. Kind of appropriate seeing as I’m touring about a book on transportation.
Best Sights Seen from the Train
A flock of wild turkeys
Feral apple trees, with lots of apples on them! (Why doesn’t someone pick them and make applesauce? Only 1 year did the wild apple tree near me bear fruit and it was the best applesauce I’ve ever tasted.)
A hawk in flight
A turquoise vinyl three-seater sofa plunked in a field and facing the train tracks (cheap entertainment???)
Are you wanting to work for hire? From my perspective, you should ask yourself these questions:
Can you meet deadlines? Your deadline is critical, and you may only have a month or so to get the job done. The packager needs you to meet your deadline because they have to put your words together with the visuals in the design. They are likely putting together several titles in a series at once and it all has to come together by the deadline they have with the publisher. You cannot hold up the process.
Do you like doing research? Nonfiction titles will most definitely involve research. Know your way around a library? Not scared away by academic texts? Can you tell a reliable source from a not-so-reliable one? Excellent! Are you able to distill a big concept into an age appropriate package? You need to be aware of expectations in sentence length, the use of contractions or not, and vocabulary. Look at the book Children’s Writer’s Word Book for a solid overview. Also be aware of what concepts kids are taught at different grades so you’ll know which ideas/facts should be known and which are not. Look up your local provincial or state board of education and you’ll probably find the curriculum expectations all laid out.
Can you write quickly and clearly? There is little room for creative license in this type of writing. Plain and direct language is needed. Example: In my creative writing I might describe a con trail as “jets chalking the sky.” In educational work for hire it’s just a con trail with the definition to follow or written in a glossary.
Are you a team player? This is the publisher’s and/or the packager’s vision for a final product. You yourself might approach the whole topic in a differenet way, but that’s not what you were hired to do. You have to carry out someone else’s direction. You need to understand that a topic expert, an educational expert, and someone at the publisher as well as your editor at the packaging company are all going to comment on and have input into your work. All these views need to be incorporated into the final text.
If you answer yes to all those questions then give it a try. With a background in a particular science or other disipline, you might start there by looking for publishers who specialize in science or who produce books on history. Try writing some nonfiction for magazines to build up your writing resume. When you’re ready for work for hire book work, SCBWI maintains a list of educational pubilshers and a list of packagers for members. You can also find this type of info in Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market. Good luck!
One of the great things about doing work for hire is being able to spend time researching topics that fascinate me. The Renaissance is endlessly interesting to me because it was such a pivotal point in history. My two books are part of a whole series, so my topics were
Cities and Statecraft in the Renaissance
and
Religion in the Renaissance.
When I do work for hire I always like to find something within my realm of experience to bring to the project. This doesn’t have to be large, but I find it helps me as a starting point to connect to the topic on a more personal level. I mean, I’m trying to connect kids wtih the topic so hopefully I myself connect to it first.
With this series I spent time remembering my trip to Europe some decades ago. I strolled those streets in Florence, often considered the birthplace of the Renaissance. I visited the cathedrals there and in Rome and many other major cities. This is my photo of the Duomo in Florence. Photos don’t do the detail on it justice. One of the things that fascinated me most while I was pretty much anywhere in Europe was the History, and I do mean that with a capital H. Everywhere there were places or buildings that had existed for centuries, and they were simply a part of the everyday lives of the people who lived there. That’s not something many North Americans experience in the same way.
I remember the marble cathedral steps worn down in the middle by the passage of thousands of feet through time…the bronze polished by hundreds of hands wanting their own little bit of good luck. Yes, that’s me getting some good luck from the boar in the Florence market.
It’s very satisfying to see this project finished. I worked with Bender Richardson White for Crabtree Publishing. I hope these books help to hook some kids onto a small piece of history.
Anyone who writes seriously knows that it’s very difficult to make enough money at this gig to support yourself let alone a family. Most of us have other jobs or do other writing related things to bring in some income (or have gainfully employed and understanding spouses).
One of the options available to a writer to earn a little more money is work for hire. I’ve done a lot of that this past year. In fact, I have six books just out or about to come out (I’ll post them here in the next few days but you can also see them on my website now). I sound prolific when I say that. I’m not, really. That’s all part of work for hire. What does it mean when I work for hire? In my case, a packager I met at a conference has approached me to write book(s) that are: on a specific topic for a specific publisher with a specific page length and an age, vocabulary/concept target for a set fee. These books are designed to be used in a classroom and are usually part of a series specifically designed to meet a school curriculum requirement. Yes, they’re usually nonfiction books (although there are packagers who produce fiction series).
I go do the job I was hired to do, I get paid, and that’s it. Not many of these types of books make it onto awards lists or get shelved in bookstores. There’s little glory. But they are used in classrooms, they do make it into libraries, and they really help kids with school.
My background in writing on the job (magazine writing) really helps here. No, work for hire is often not particularly creative, but it does require skill. And I can still pursue my own creative ideas separately as well. It just means I have to work extra hard to carve out the creative time.
