Over the years, I’ve been asked many times what I look for when I assess nonfiction writing for the TFCB imprint. My answer is pretty much always the same. Here’s my take on what makes good–and likely-to-be-published–nonfiction writing: –it grabs my attention with its personality and lively tone. Any piece of writing, whether fiction or […]Read more "What Makes Good Nonfiction?"

By Bob RaczkaAction Figures author The top ten things you may not know about Action Figures: Paintings of Fun, Daring and Adventure, straight from the author’s mouth: 10. This is the thirteenth book in my ongoing series, Bob Raczka’s Art Adventures, which is amazing to me. As you might guess, I do not consider the […]Read more "Action Figures Top Ten"

[Here’s a tidbit from Jennifer Garske about her trip to Maine] Sometimes you find your job really does bleed into every part of your life—in the best way possible, I mean. Recently, I was lucky enough to take a vacation to Maine. I went with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law to celebrate a birthday. As we […]Read more "Maine Tripping"

In my last Lerner blog post and in another post on the Carolrhoda blog, I wrote about social networking for authors. Social networks being, well, social, this led to some questions and comments. One astute commenter (on the syndication of this blog that runs on my personal Facebook) made many good points, and I’d like […]Read more "Addressing some more social networking questions"

[I asked Jean Reynolds to guest blog about working with Milton Meltzer, who passed away on September 19 after a long, successful career.] We publishers always know the age of our authors. It is not that we’re nosy, but we must use the author’s birth date when we apply to the Library of Congress for […]Read more "On Milton Meltzer"

[Kellie Hultgren gives us her perspective on creating layouts in the TFCB list.] If a picture really is worth the proverbial thousand words, then I’m thrilled to be in charge of between sixty and a hundred thousand words per TFCB title—not including captions! Images are almost as important to a TFCB book as the words: […]Read more "The Invisible Word Count"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press Each of Lerner’s imprints has its own identity and defining characteristics. One part of Millbrook’s identity is that its books may be illustrated with photos, original artwork, or a combination of the two. Having these options is great, but it also means that we have an important decision to […]Read more "Photos, Artwork, or Both?"

By Sara Hoffmann, Managing Editor One of my favorite things about editing is the aesthetics of it. Sure, researching different subjects is interesting, and looking things up in the Chicago Manual of Style is (oddly) fun for me. But what I really love is choosing words so that a sentence has a certain flow and shaping […]Read more "The Aesthetics of Editing"

In preparation for a SCBWI talk I’m giving, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about social networks recently. My talk is going to focus on surviving as a socially networked author, and I’m sure I’ll touch on these two points. 1. Blogging means more than writing blog posts. It means commenting and linking, of […]Read more "More social networking thoughts for authors and illustrators"