Writing for Children and Teensby Cynthea Liu

Here you’ll find a comprehensive list of links to my favorite resources. These are the sites or things I use to further my own writing career. Check them out!

To make it to this list, I must personally use the resource often.

Writing (basic/mechanics)

• Elements of Style
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (a C LIU favorite)
• RhymeZone (an online dictionary, thesaurus, and rhyming lookup tool all-in-one)

Writing (advanced/theory)

• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Stein on Writing by Sol Stein (a C LIU favorite)

Research children’s books

• Renaissance Learning - for word counts and book levels
• Amazon.com - for first pages of many novels
• Google Book Search - for a great inside look of many books

Buy children’s books (cheap!)

• Amazon.com children’s books(significant discount off the cover price, they usually have everything you can think of)
• Save Up To 80% Everyday On Childrens Books At Overstock.com! (often cheaper than Amazon, low flat-rate $2.95 shipping for unlimited books)

Research children’s book publishers

• CBC
• CWIM
• SCBWI publications
• Reputable publisher websites
• Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Bookshelf Newsletter (PW - fabulous and free newsletter!)
• Publisher’s Lunch (PL - not always children’s stuff but still great coverage of recent children’s book deal information)
• Jacketflap.com (a searchable database of children’s books and more)

Research children’s book editors

• read post, monster list of children's book editor interviews, blogs, and more
• SCBWI publications
• Google
• Google Book Search - search the editor’s name
• Robin Friedman (a great collection of detailed editor interviews)
• Scholastic Editor articles editors discuss books they’ve edited

Research children’s literary agents

• CWIM
• SCBWI publications
• Google
• AgentQuery (online)
• Preditors and Editors
• Guide to Literary Agents Blog - Children’s Writing category (online)

Meet other children’s writers

• Blue Board (Verla’s)
• Children’s Writers group on Yahoo (CW List)
• TeenLitAuthors group on Yahoo
• Livejournal
• SCBWI national and chapter events, associated distribution lists and message boards

Keep up with children’s book market news

• Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Bookshelf Newsletter (PW - fabulous and free newsletter!)
• Publisher’s Lunch (PL - not always children’s stuff but still great coverage of recent children’s book deal information)
• Author Anastasia Suen’s blog Create-Relate
• Author Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog Cynsations
• The CWIM blog by Alice Pope (a perfect companion to the book - look here for updates and more)

Self-publishing resources (read post, should I self-publish my children's book?)

• iUniverse
• BookSurge
• Lulu

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