Sue Copsey's Blog

When your average 7���12-year-old is faced with a wall of books, say at school or in a bookshop, their default choice will probably be David Walliams, Andy Griffiths, or Jeff Kinney. (Are you nodding?) It���s not difficult to work out why. Bright, cartoony covers; fun internal illustrations; font styles and sizes to welcome the reader in, and stories that are easy to read, that bowl along at a cracking pace. Above all, they are fun.

But are they ���good��� for your child? Are they worthy?

Yes! Dismiss fun reads at your peril. If you have children this age, you���ll be aware they���re constantly being assessed on their reading ability, so it���s all too easy for them to associate reading with hard work, stress, homework, maybe even failure. If that���s your experience of reading, why on earth would you choose it as something to do in your spare time, when there are so many alternative forms of entertainment?

Parent: ���You���ve been on that thing for ages. Why don���t you read a book?���
Child [switching off device]: ���Okay, great idea!���

No, me neither.

I was going to do my usual 2017 editing highlights post, but somehow instead I���ve ended up editing a chunk of a Famous Five book. How did that happen? But ��� golly gosh this was fun!

I imagined, what if I was asked by Enid Blyton for an assessment/edit of a sample of a Famous Five. Here���s my email response to her, and the sample edit. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Time and again I read an article by a successful indie author on how to market, how to sell, how to do all the clever things. And I think, Hm, I can see how that would work in the US, but here in NZ? And for children���s books?

The children���s book market is different (read ���small���) here in NZ, so our approach to production and marketing needs to be different too (see my earlier blog post on indie publishing junior fiction in NZ). Along with the challenges presented by a small market, factor in that we���re thousands of kilometres from the offshore printers we use to get a reasonable price per copy, so shipping costs add to high unit costs = small profit per copy sold, and you���ll understand why it���s so difficult to make this work.

But people do make it work. How? I asked seven successful NZ indie children���s authors to share their biggest ���do��� and their biggest ���don���t���. These authors are all award-winners, and/or their books have made it into NZ���s best-seller lists.

Time and again I read an article by a successful indie author on how to market, how to sell, how to do all the clever things. And I think, Hm, I can see how that would work in the US, but here in NZ? And for children���s books?

The children���s book market is different (read ���small���) here in NZ, so our approach to production and marketing needs to be different too (see my earlier blog post on indie publishing junior fiction in NZ). Along with the challenges presented by a small market, factor in that we���re thousands of kilometres from the offshore printers we use to get a reasonable price per copy, so shipping costs add to high unit costs = small profit per copy sold, and you���ll understand why it���s so difficult to make this work.

But people do make it work. How? I asked six successful NZ indie children���s authors to share their biggest ���do��� and their biggest ���don���t���. These authors are all award-winners, and/or their books have made it into NZ���s best-seller lists.

This is a guest post I recently wrote for Aussie editor Kate Foster���s blog. Kate is a Pitch Wars mentor - if you���re an aspiring junior fiction/middle-grade author, you should check out this competition (look for the #pitchwars hashtag on Twitter), which ultimately aims to get your manuscript in front of US agents and publishers.

You know using an editor will give your manuscript that professional edge, that polish that sets it apart from the heap of shonky DIY books festering in the Amazon swamp. But how can you justify the expense? That sort of lolly would pay for a trip to the Gold Coast or a whole month���s groceries, right?

Not necessarily. It doesn���t have to cost the earth. Here���s how you can employ a professional editor without clearing out your savings account. (Note the key word there ��� professional editor, i.e. not your English teacher friend who���s the boss at grammar, or a fellow author. That may be incredibly cheap ��� free, even ��� but it won���t get you out of the swamp.)

For this to work, you need to employ an editor who charges by the hour, not by the word or page. That���s because a ���light edit��� can take only half as long as a ���heavy edit���. (I allow 30 mins per 1,000 words for a light edit, and 1 hour per 1,000 words for a heavy edit. Most of my clients fall somewhere in between.)

So how do you get your manuscript to the stage where it will need only a light edit?

1. Take a creative writing course, even if you���ve already written your book. In my experience, new authors make the same mistakes, every time: repetition, wordiness, changing point of view, wrongly punctuated dialogue, too much backstory, no immediate hook, etc. These are things you need to learn about, they don���t come naturally, even if you have bucketloads of talent. And grappling with these issues really bumps up the editor���s hours. If your manuscript includes none of the above, it���ll be knocked into shape in no time, and you will have money left for a show-stopping cover.

2. Do without ���development��� editing and go straight to copy editing. BUT! If you do, you���ll need some top-notch feedback instead. Some ideas:

��� Join a writing group ��� local (recommended, often includes cake) or online. Or use beta readers ��� people (usually other authors) who will give feedback on an early draft. If you join a writing group, make sure there are one or two experienced, published (preferably) writers ready and willing to give you honest feedback on your manuscript. Learn to distinguish between those who genuinely want to help you, and the smartypants show-offs who think it���s clever to point out every mistake. The latter can make newbie authors want to curl up and die, but kind, generous authors who think you have potential will be invaluable.

��� Ask friends and family for feedback. As you can imagine, this can be fraught. Choose carefully, and choose only people who love to read your genre. If you know they���ll find being honest a challenge, try giving them a list of questions ��� this might make it easier for them. For example: ���On a scale of 1-10 (1 being ���zzzzz���, 10 being ���still reading at 2am���) how did you find the pace of the book?���

��� If you���re a children���s author, ask your local school���s librarian if you can put a print-out of your manuscript in the school library with a feedback form for students to fill in.

3 Give your manuscript a rest ��� at least a month sitting quietly on your computer, unopened. Or even
better, print it off and put it away in a drawer for a while. (It���s amazing the things you notice once the
words appear on actual paper.) Best of all, leave it while you go away on holiday ��� there���s nothing like
time away to give you fresh perspective. When you come back to it again after several weeks, you���ll
be astonished at the things you notice. It could be whole swathes of superfluous description; a plot
hole the size of that crater in Arizona, or a character whose mannerisms drive you potty. Rewrite to
get rid.

4 Finally, do a really close edit. A few things to watch out for:

��� Is your dialogue punctuated correctly? It���s not difficult to check ��� grab the nearest novel to hand.
Ooh, that���s where you put the comma!

��� Have you been consistent, e.g. if you use the word ���okay��� a lot, have you always spelt it that way, or
are there Oks and OKs?

��� Take a scalpel to words that you don���t need. A test ��� which word don���t I need in the last
sentence? Yep ��� ���that���.

��� Are you repeating yourself? Have you used the same adjective twice in two sentences? Is a phrase
overused? (I recently had 46 instances of raised eyebrows in one, otherwise excellent manuscript.)

And now you have your sixth (seventh, tenth, fifteenth) draft and if you look back at your first draft you will blush. But I get so many of those first drafts for editing, and it can take me up to 70, 80, 90 hours to get them to publishable standard. The author pays a sizeable fee, which he or she is unlikely ever to recoup in sales. (By the way, I���m not unscrupulous ��� no, really! I do gently suggest most of these writers use an assessor, or do some self-editing before resubmitting, but some just want the manuscript off their desk and onto mine, especially if it���s non-fiction and they aren���t claiming to be a great writer.)

So here���s a brief recap on how to keep your editing costs down, plus a couple more tips:

1. Learn the craft of writing so you don���t make basic mistakes.

2. Give your manuscript time. Edit, re-edit, let it sit a while, edit again, before showing it to anyone.

3. Then get feedback from people who know what they���re doing ��� preferably a manuscript assessor, or join a critique group or use beta readers.

4. Learn how to edit your own work. Is your word count suitable for your target audience? In novels, watch out for repetition, head-hopping, timeline problems, plot holes. Check your dialogue is correctly punctuated. Are you using UK style, or US? Make sure this is consistent.

5. Look for an editor who charges by the hour, and ask for a sample edit. This will give both of you an idea of whether a light or heavy edit is needed. Make sure that if the editor goes over the estimated number of hours, you won���t be charged for those hours (i.e. the fee is capped).

6. Also, plan ahead. The best editors get booked up months in advance, and if you are happy to wait then they may offer you a ���thanks for waiting��� discount (I do!).

7. One more tip: join an organisation that gets you discounts on publishing services. In NZ, many editors offer discounted rates to members of the New Zealand Society of Authors (see link below).

Lists of recommended editors

Tip: when researching editors, look for those who have worked for publishing houses, preferably in-house, and then become freelance, rather than going straight from a publishing course to self-employed. And be wary of publishing and printing services that include editing ��� if you use one, check the editors��� (and designers���) professional credentials.

New Zealand: NZSA list of assessors and editors: http://authors.org.nz/list-of-assessors-and-editors/

International: Joanna Penn���s list of recommended editors (and some useful articles on editing): http://www.thecreativepenn.com/editors/

The best book editors and how to select them on Kindlepreneur: https://kindlepreneur.com/book-editors/

You know how midwives often have a wall covered in photos of newborn babies they helped into the world? My equivalent are the shelves of books I���ve edited. I gaze fondly on them as I work. Some were easy labours, needing only a little encouragement, while others took many painful hours (NCEA Level 3 Biology comes to mind). There are weighty academic tomes, cute little picture books, and bouncing junior fiction; angst-filled YA, inspiring biographies and travel books.

In 2016 so far, I���ve edited 35 books. I know! I can hardly believe it myself. And a quick tot up, because I can���t resist: a grand total of 2.3 million words. Oh yes, and I wrote and published my own book too, and re-edited, redesigned and republished my first junior fiction. Hell���s teeth ��� no wonder my hair���s sticking out at funny angles.

Over the past few years, as NZ���s publishing landscape has changed, my typical annual workload has flipped from mostly traditionally published books with a couple of indies fitted around them, to a heap of indie books and less than a dozen traditionally published. Before NZ���s publishing, um, transition (okay, meltdown) I���d edit around 15���20 books a year, usually as part of a large team of publishing professionals. Now the number is double that, it���s often just me and a designer ��� and yet my income has dropped. Go figure! But I don���t mind; no, really I don���t. There are so many other sorts of rewards that come from working directly with authors, including lovely new friendships, and the whole midwife thing of helping authors bring their books to life; seeing them beaming at their book launches and knowing I helped.








And I���ve been spreading my wings. This year I���ve worked with two excellent US authors, one a retired US Navy commander, who I���ve had the greatest email conversations with - you can imagine, what with the goings on this year.

And the other type of reward, the professional nod ��� when someone whose writing you bow down to in awe (Steve Braunias, publisher of Jane Bloomfield���s Lily Max books, since you ask) says your work is: ���sensitive and exquisite, full of understanding and good common-sense thinking ��� a model of expert literary editing.��� Gosh.

Above is a selection from my baby wall of books I���ve edited this year. Aren���t they glorious? Here���s hoping 2017 brings me a similar haul of lovely projects to work on.

Sometimes we may quietly write our frustrations into our stories without even realising it. Last summer, while I was writing The Ghosts of Moonlight Creek, our neighbours bought two puppies. They are now sensible grown-up dogs, but boy did we all go through hell while they were getting there? Yapping every time someone passed by the fence (there is a SCHOOL the other side of the fence), yapping at the slightest whiff of a cat (did every neighbourhood cat sit on the fence and laugh at them? Yes.) Yapping for no apparent reason. Yap yap yap.

This week was my first NZ Book Council Writers in Schools visit. Three hour-long gigs, back to back.

Daunted? Just a bit.

It wasn���t my first experience of speaking to groups of schoolchildren, but it was the first time a school had chosen me from The List ��� a list that includes many illustrious names, the names that invite imposter syndrome. But the school librarian told me the children had voted for The Ghosts of Tarawera in the NZ Book Awards Children���s Choice, so Excitement was slugging it out with Imposter and Nerves as I donned my ghost earrings and set off through Auckland���s rush hour traffic. And whizzed straight past the turnoff I needed, then sat at the next set of traffic lights peering at my iPad trying to work out what to do about it. I managed to make it on time ��� just ��� and pretended not to be flustered. Note for next time: allow an extra 15-min getting lost time, on top of the 15-min getting lost time already allowed.

���Why am I even doing this?��� I asked myself as I then fumbled with a tangle of leads, attempting to get the photos on my iPad to appear on the TV screen at the front of the library.

Three hours later I left the school with a big smile on my face. Of course I did. And as I drove home again I reflected on why I write for children. During question time, one girl had asked, ���Why do you write children���s books and not adult books?��� As I answered, I thought, It really is time I wrote a blog post about this.

Rewind to the 1990s. There I was, in my first job in publishing. I���d been a project editor in the children���s department of Dorling Kindersley for about a year, and my managing editor was telling me she���d be fine with my moving over to Adults, if that was what I wanted. It seemed there was a vacancy I was being considered for.

There seemed to be an expectation that I would be wanting this. I was genuinely nonplussed. ���Why would I want to do that?���

With perhaps foolish disregard for future management opportunities and pay rises, I proceeded to explain why I���d rather stay in children���s. A book that is loved by a child will be picked up again and again, I said, like a favourite teddy. It���s more than the sum of its cover, pages, and words, it���s a being, a world. An adult book will more than likely be read just once (if that ��� many DK books were coffee table books and no doubt went straight from Christmas wrapping paper to shelf, with merely a crack of the spine) whereas a children���s book may be visited a hundred times or more, and if it is a favourite it will stay with that child perhaps for life, always there on the shelf, an old friend. And if it gets lost somewhere along the way, it will still hold a special place in that person���s memory.

Or words to that effect.
���Well, if you���re sure?���
���I am.���

When I was about seven or eight, Mum bought me Insects: A Little Guide in Colour (see pic). I set out to put a tick next to every wee beastie in that book. Unfortunately, neither Mum nor I noticed that this was a US edition. Heaven knows how it made it into Overs of Rugby (our much-loved local bookshop). I spent many a long hour searching for praying mantises and purple emperor butterflies, poor fool. But what hours they were, spent in the meadows with a butterfly net and a jam jar. And that book is still a dear old friend, and I smile as I look at the ticks and This is Thomas Green (name changed, you never know) written beside the stink bug illustration.

Likewise my copies of the Moomin books, the Enid Blytons, the Paddingtons, and the Noel Streatfeilds all resonate in a way a favourite adult book never could. On the shelf just here, as I write, is my battered copy of The Wind in the Willows, which Dad bought for me when I had measles. And nearby is Rosemary Manning���s Green Smoke, which sent me on dragon-hunting quests when we visited Cornwall. I read this book to my own daughter when she was six or seven, and she assumed the dragon was real, too. (You just do.) And when we visited Cornwall a few years ago, we bought a bag of buns (the dragon loves buns) and went looking for his cave. He wasn���t home, so we built a sand dragon and wrote in the sand that we���d been to visit, and had brought buns and were sorry we���d missed him.

And there you have it. Now why on earth would I want to write for adults?

A lot of indie authors are saying to me, okay, now I have my professionally edited book, what next? The switched-on ones will already have looked into printing and distribution options, and will have investigated marketing. But so much of the information out there on the internet just isn���t helpful for New Zealand authors. So I thought it might be useful to list our particular hurdles and my thoughts on how to clear them. (Most apply to self-pubbing authors, but some may be useful to traditionally published authors too.)

Hurdle 1: The NZ market is tiny by international standards. A self-published book that sells 1000+ is considered to be doing well; a traditional publisher is aiming for well over 2000 copies sold. Overseas publishers look at those figures and say, ���How in the dickens can anyone make money from that?��� Of course, many traditional NZ publishers don���t, and several have closed down in the last few years, with others becoming little more than distribution outlets for overseas titles.

Solution? Two options here:

��� forget the tiny NZ market and aim global, or
��� target NZ, and if you achieve reasonable sales, go global on the back of your NZ success.

My opinion? It is extremely difficult for little-known authors to achieve significant global sales for junior fiction (ebooks and print-on-demand), so I���d recommend tailoring your marketing to NZ. If your book is good, that small market size will work to your advantage, because word spreads quickly. The other benefit is that there is less competition. In a large market like the UK, you will be competing with thousands of other authors for sales, and in competitions and awards. In NZ the numbers are comparatively small, so if your book is good it is relatively easy to stand out. And if it does well, then it may make its way overseas. My latest junior fiction, and Sarah Johnson���s The Bold Ship Phenomenal, have both just received Storylines Notable Book awards, and on the back of those an agent is taking them to the Bologna Book Fair (cool!).

Hurdle 2: It���s a long way from anywhere. A very long way. Why does this matter? SHIPPING! If you���re printing a good-sized run overseas, the cost per book can be pretty low, but when you add in freight the cost of a print-on-demand version from Amazon doubles, and for copies printed in China it���s another $0.50 or so per copy plus customs fees and tax that you can be pinged for.

Solution? If sales volume isn���t hugely important to you (e.g. you���re a newbie author who���s going to sell only via the internet) then a print-on-demand (digital) facility like Ingram or Amazon Createspace is probably the way to go. Without the distributor fee (see below) you can make a reasonable profit per copy sold. Local printing is another option for small print runs; your per-copy cost will be comparatively high, so again you���ll need to sell and distribute yourself to make a profit from this. Plenty of people do! They are generally authors who have cracked the marketing side of things and have a particular niche.

But if you���re aiming to sell anything over 500 copies, then offset printing overseas is the way to go. Without a distributor you will need a lot of space for stacking boxes, and healthy optimism that you can shift that number of books yourself. If you���re going to use a distributor you almost certainly need to print 750+ copies to make a profit.

Actual solution: What we really need in NZ is a good-quality print-on-demand facility with prices on a par with Amazon Createspace. Hello out there?

Hurdle 3: distribution costs. Distributors are unlikely to take your book unless they expect to sell at least 1,000. And if they do take your book, they are going to keep up to 70% of your cover price. (Did you gasp?) This means you���ll be lucky to break even once you���ve paid for editing, layout, cover design and printing (and if you don���t use professionals for these, you���re unlikely to find a distributor). My latest junior fiction retails at $20, meaning I make about $1 profit per book sold through my distributor. I also sell direct from my website, but the numbers are tiny ��� I need my distributor!

Solution: don���t use a distributor! But ��� good luck with that. If you have the time and the energy, and are confident at hand-selling into bookshops and cold calling etc, then you could make this work well for you.

Hurdle 4: Marketing: Our target market is kids! As we are all (perhaps painfully) aware, marketing is the key to selling books, whether traditionally or self-published. And these days that means a successful social media strategy. But hang on ��� you have to be 13 to have a Facebook account (okay you���re supposed to be 13) and most 8-year-olds aren���t spending time on Twitter and Instagram. This isn���t an NZ-only problem, it���s a recognised stumbling block for middle-grade/junior fiction authors everywhere.

Solution: In New Zealand, the key to selling junior fiction is connecting with teachers, librarians, booksellers and parents, so bear this audience in mind when setting up your author Facebook page, Instagram account etc, and think what would interest them (i.e. definitely not just ���buy my book!���). To make headway with this group you need author credibility, so your book must be up there with the traditionally published competition. It needs to be professionally designed and edited, and the production (printing) needs to be good quality. Really, you shouldn���t be able to tell the difference between a SP book and a trad published book. If you are confident it is this good, then aim for reviews on blogs and in magazines read by teachers, librarians and booksellers. Put your book in for competitions and awards, and if it���s shortlisted then make the most of this on social media and in your marketing material.

Another tip for junior fiction success: write a series. The second, third and so on will boost sales of earlier books, and eventually (give it time ��� it���s always glacial in publishing) you should have reasonable sales. I thought the first in my ghost story series (The Ghosts of Young Nick���s Head) had had its day, with discounted copies gathering dust on the bookshelves at Whitcoulls. But when I released the follow-up, I had orders for 100+ of the first book within weeks. I���d heard that this worked, but was quite honestly amazed when it did!

Now I���m going to go and eat a hot cross bun. Happy writing (and Easter) all!