All the Buzz about Children’s Books by Dianne Bates

Guest Post by Dianne Bates It’s a new year. Time to plan your goals and schedule your bookish events. Get yourself well-immersed in the industry and keep abreast of all the current news. For anyone involved in the Australian children’s book world, one service you might consider is subscribing to the popular Buzz Words online […]

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Six Top Tips on How to Write Children’s Manuscript Pitches – That Editors Want to Read

You’ve spent countless hours pouring your thoughts, heart and soul, and even blood, sweat and tears into your manuscript. It’s taken months, if not years, to perfect it. It’s been on it’s own journey around and around, reimagined and rejigged many times over. And now it’s ready to be sent off into the world of […]

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Pitch It! Competition Shortlist

Coming to a consensus between different judges with differing opinions isn’t always an easy feat. But there are certain aspects of quality storytelling that are undeniable. Yes, writing a pitch is like writing a story. It needs to be engaging, evoke an emotion, and concise with each word carefully put into place. You have limited […]

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Pitch It! Competition Longlist

The Pitch It! Competition team have been absolutely blown away by the sheer success of Just Write For Kids’ first writing competition! The judges particularly made note of the wide variety and quality of entries, submitted by many talented writers across a range of genres from picture books, junior fiction to young adult. We had […]

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A Publisher’s Perspective by Dianne Bates

Guest Post by Dianne Bates Publisher, editor, author and Lady Cutler Prize award-winner, Dianne Bates, has so generously shared her insider knowledge on what’s hot, and what’s not, from a publisher’s perspective. A fascinating account! Thanks so much, Di! 😊 ———————————— In 2016, I established a children’s book imprint, About Kids Books publishing junior novels for […]

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Writers Action Matrix

I thought the beginning of the year was an apt time to put together a visual writer’s action matrix for those who want to progress on their writing path this year. These are all actions that have progressed my writing, my understanding of the industry and my sense of belonging to a supportive community of […]

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FIVE TOP TIPS From Inside the Publishing House

At the end of October I attended the Emerging Writers Festival event ‘Inside the Publishing House’ at Hachette, Sydney. It was the week of Halloween and they had cool decorations and a table full of lollies!     But even more importantly, we all got something to take away – and I’m not talking about […]

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The Symphony of Words

    With all the awards and announcements of shortlists and winners in the last few months I am genuinely thrilled to celebrate with my author colleagues. I like to shout their success through social media and scatter smiley emoticons liberally. But sometimes the glare of my computer screen shines a spotlight on an area […]

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Working with an Awesome Publisher

Guest Post By Dianne (Di) Bates Dianne (Di) Bates, award-winning author of over 120 books for children, recipient of The Lady Cutler Award 2008, and founder of the popular Buzz Words e-zine, reflects on her most recent publishing experience with Big Sky Publishing. Working with Australian publisher Big Sky Publishing to produce my two latest books, […]

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The Write Opportunity

The children’s writing world is full of opportunities for you to experiment and practice the craft of writing – to ‘sharpen the pencil’ as I wrote about last month (here). It helps, firstly, if you have a way to find out about the opportunities.  Being linked in to the writing community is imperative. Writer’s centres, […]

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