What do you do as an Author Visiting a Classroom?

I visited an elementary school class and have decided that one of the best things about being an author is visiting a classroom! Here I am on the playground with the students and their teacher (I'm the blonde adult, in case you're wondering).

This was not my first classroom author visit. It was my second! But I felt rather trepidatious--what does an author do when she visits a classroom? I remember a poet visiting my elementary school classroom. But I couldn't tell you what he did, except that I felt so excited to have him--an actual poet--in our classroom. Now that I have two class visits of experience, I will tell you my opinions on How To Visit A Classroom As An Author.

1. Bring something-Not only do kids LOVE to have something to take home with them, but really, this is a great marketing opportunity. These kids just met a real life author. They heard one of your books. They want to have one of their very own. Bring something so they know how to buy one. 

I bring a bookmark. My illustrator made them and they are super adorable. I feel sorry for you authors that don't have an illustrator as a wingman--err, wingwoman in my case. Make sure it's colorful and most importantly, it has contact information: your website (you have one, right? You should!), your email address, and where people can buy your book ("Find my books on Amazon"). Kids will line up to get one. And they will ask you to autograph it. It happened both times. I signed the bookmarks and the students treated me like a rock star. Don't just sign your name. You could. But you're missing an opportunity to be a mentor. I sign things like, "Keep Reading" (great general advice) or the more specific, and these tie into my WantsToBe children's books series: "Accomplish Your Goals" and "Do Hard Things." You are a writer. You can figure out what to write, but be prepared for it. And prepare to enjoy it, it feels very exciting.

I also bring coloring pages. My illustrator made those too. I bring four kinds, and the students pick out their favorite very carefully. So fun!

2. Be prepared to read your book (or a portion of your book, if you've a novel). The classrooms I've been invited to visit had already read my published books. So I bring a pdf of a yet unpublished version. They get pretty excited to see a book that Hasn't Been Published Yet. And one of the students gave me some good feedback that I used before I published it. 

3. Make sure you know the classroom equipment. Both classrooms I visited had a projector and cord so I could just plug in my iPad and everyone could see the book at the same time on the screen. But I don't imagine that all classrooms have that equipment. 

4. If you ask a question, wait for a response. Don't ask rhetorical questions to these students. Think about questions that will add to their lives and this "Meeting an Author" experience. I ask things like, "Have you ever accomplished a goal?" "How did that feel?" Have you ever tried something and failed? Did you keep trying?" These kinds of questions sparked a great discussion and add to this opportunity to actually mentor these kids.

5. If you have time, take the opportunity to teach them to write. The best writing pattern EVER (and I teach writing to kids ages 8 to 18 in a once a week class) is from The Institute For Excellence In Writing. I use All Things Fun and Fascinating to teach Beginning Writing, and U.S. History Volume 1 for Intermediate Writing. So I used the IEW pattern to teach these kids how to write a story of their very own. I "Borrowed a Conflict," which means taking a fairy tale that everyone knows and then changing elements of it to make it your own. We took Little Red Riding Hood and set it in space with Grandma on the far side of an asteroid belt. Yeah, these kids are imaginative and creative and could hardly wait for me to leave so they could start writing their own stories.

I look forward to my next Author Classroom Visit. You can be sure I'll bring coloring pages and bookmarks, and that I'll leave reinvigorated to write some more!

~Valerie Harmon

Second Book in the WantsToBe series: Elephant...Bee

Last week The Elephant Who Wanted To Be A Bee published on Amazon! It's the second book in the WantsToBe series, and the third one is almost ready! Illustrator Carol Stevens and I are on a ROLL!

Newly published The Elephant Who Wanted to Be a Bee

Making a Book Trailer Part 1: Finding Examples

Before I was a children's book author, I was paid to make videos. This experience came in handy as I make book trailers for my own books.

I believe book trailers are useful marketing tools. There is debate about this, some authors don't think book trailers sell books. Well, since I've seen a lot of AWFUL book trailers, so I agree that weak book trailers don't sell books. But coming from 16 years of working in the field of marketing for this company, I see their usefulness in providing content for your blog and author pages on GoodReads and Amazon (see what I'm talking about here and here) and on your Facebook page (I will blog about how to set those up in later posts). Book trailers pique interest in your titles, and they optimize your name and book titles in search engines (making it easier for people to find you and your books).

But your book trailer has to be watchable!!

You can see terrible book trailers at Book Trailers for Readers. Granted, this site is readers making book trailers, not authors or publishers. But really, I found them painful to watch. And there are a lot of self-made book trailers that follow the same patter as Book Trailers for Readers: they use clip art and bad music. I will post later about various sources of free and cheap music for videos (there are some great sources out there), but for now--avoid clip art. Please. And if you must use it, then make sure it all matches in style. I cringe when I see a video that uses cartoonish clip art mashed with photographs. It doesn't visually fit. And it's a video, so visual is vital.

If you're trying to find some book trailer examples to imitate, you can find some good ones at SchoolTube and Slimekids. You can also look for publisher sites. I saw a fun one for The Cloak Society at Harperkids, although it's more complicated than most of us can do on our own. These book trailer examples are focused on children's books, because that's my area of focus, but you can Google "book trailers" and search with your category or publisher-type and find examples in your category too.

I recognize that I am lucky. I have an illustrator who can create backgrounds and animate my beginning and ending sequences (thank you Carol Stevens!). However, watch a bunch of book trailers and you will see that a lot can be done with text, a cover, and maybe some voice over.

This is my first book trailer, for The Snake Who Wanted To Be A Horse:

This is the book trailer for The Elephant Who Wanted To Be A Bee, (our next book in the WantsToBe series that published TODAY for Kindle):

Remember, if you can't make a book trailer visually appealing, then you should consider not making a book trailer at all. But you can do it!

Tell me how your book trailer experience goes, and feel free to link to your book trailer in the comments below.

Look for future posts on tips to making a good book trailer.

Publication Day For Book One: The Snake Who Wanted To Be A Horse

I am now the author of a published book.

I've dreamed for years about becoming a published author. With six children, and knowing my time to raise them is only a small portion of my life (I plan to live long), I've put my writing on the "takes a decade or two to finish a novel" track. And as my eldest children have entered adolescence, my writing has slowed even more.

I've been fine with the slower writing pace. Motherhood is a choice I've made and never regretted, even when it's been difficult. But that doesn't mean the dream dies. It just waits. Patient. Hopeful. And gaining in experience.

While writing as a teen, I felt my lack of experience as an obstacle to a worthy book. And I was probably right. I had only a tinge of adolescent angst, much less than most teens. With an idyllic childhood and the habits of an optimist, I didn't have enough of a story. And without conflict, there is not story. Nothing is more boring to read about than a happy life. That's why "And they lived happily ever after" is an ending, not a beginning.

So I gained in experience. But by the time I had enough experience, I was out of free time.

But then veteran illustrator Carol Stevens calls me up and invites me to write a children's book with her. And here I am, stunned and thrilled. Dinner is unmade, and it's 6:30pm. And I keep staring at my Amazon author page, my Amazon book page, and my GoodReads author page. I keep reading the wonderful supporting comments from my friends on Facebook who are rooting for my success (and over 90 of them were beta readers for this first book--THANK YOU).

And so, today has made it to "The top ten days of my life." Thank you for sharing it.