Writer
Abroad always thought it would be fun to be a children’s author. It seems like such a creative career--at least in comparison to some of the marketing writing she does on a daily basis. But the
realities of writing for children, as she learned from an author at the Chicago Lit Fest this month,
seem otherwise.
This
particular debut author/illustrator had to go through 70 revisions of her
200-word picture book once it got to the publisher—70 illustration revisions—in
addition to text revisions. She said by the end, the only part of the book that
was hers from the original version was the last page—and that she had had to
fight to keep the ending less than happy. Percentage wise, she quoted 1 percent
of the book was truly hers.
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| There's a lot to learn at the Chicago Lit Fest, which is held every June. |
And there's a reason for that: Apparently
the marketing department at this author's large publisher kept pushing for the characters
to be more like a particular Disney character, since that character was popular
the summer her book was coming out. Apparently the marketing department was in
charge of basically everything.
Now along with being a freelance writer and author, Writer Abroad works in the advertising and marketing industry. She considers it a plus
to do so because she normally enjoys it, and also because it informs her pure creative writing work. The reality is that knowing what kind of
writing sells and how to sell it matters. A lot.
But if it
comes to the point where a 200-word picture book has none of the 200 words or illustrations originally suggested by the author in it, then is writing a book for a big publisher no more
creative than writing for advertising, where often every word is at the whim of
clients?
It appears
that in some cases at least, the only way to be completely in creative control as an author is to be your own publisher. Especially when you consider beautiful and successfully independently published children's books like the Lost My Name series (which Writer Abroad's daughter loves).
That’s why
for the time being anyway, Writer Abroad is pretty happy with her balance of
writing for business and writing for the pure creativity of it. Somehow, keeping her corporate writing separate from her book writing, yet controlling both via her own writing and publishing company—is the
perfect balance of writing for industry and writing for pure creativity.
It’s
something to consider when a writer considers her alternatives. And these days,
there are a lot of them.