Author Archives

Cathy C. Hallhttps://cathychall.wordpress.com/I write, write, write. Then I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. THEN I submit all those polished-up words out into the world and sell 'em. It's a plan that's worked pretty well.

Picture Yourself Winning the ABC Competition!

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No more excuses. If you have a great children’s picture book story, give it a quick polish and send it into the ABC’s Fifth Annual Competition!

Here’s how it works: You send your manuscript of 1,000 words or less that will appeal to ages 2 thru 8 years. The brilliant folks over at ABC Books will take a look to see if your story has potential. If they judge your story to be a winning possibility, they slap it onto their website, choose an illustrator to draw a scene, then ask viewers/readers to vote on your story. If you win the most votes, they publish 1,000 copies of your book!

Ah, but here’s the rub. If you don’t win, your story has been published. And maybe you had a simply splendiferous story that you didn’t do such a good job marketing. Sort of like the hard, cruel world of publishing. So, if you’re not the self-promoting type, this contest may not be for you.

On the other hand, if you’re not the self-promoting type, you may never get a book published. Period.

(Check it out anyway here. And please let me know if your story makes it. I’d love to vote for you!)

Finding Something Friday Finds Christina Katz and Christmas Miracles

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Technically, I did not find the Writer Mama, Christina Katz. But, I did find her latest book, Get Known Before the Book Deal, in my mailbox. (Oh, and Writer Mama, too!) And I plan to read it, maybe share a few tips with you. Now, if I just didn’t have all this pesky writing to do…

Here’s some pesky writing you may want to consider. Cecil Murphey and Marley Gibson are looking for true Christmas Miracle stories for their book…wait for it…Christmas Miracles! It’s planned for a late 2009 release, so those miracle stories need to be written, polished and submitted by December 24th. The good news is, you will be paid. And you only need 900 to 1200 nicely polished words. The bad news is, your story must involve a miracle and the Christmas season.

That’s kinda tough, isn’t it? I wonder if Cecil and Marley will count getting Christmas shopping done, a scrumptious feast prepared, a gorgeous tree put up, everybody to church on time, and sharing the holidays without at least one major blowout as a Christmas miracle? Not that I’ve ever actually accomplished that.

But maybe you have. Or maybe you have something even better. Check out all the details here if you want to write about your Christmas miracle. I think I’ll just read Christina’s book.