Why should writers be writing for all age groups? You may be saying they shouldn't and that's a valid viewpoint. However, join me with an open mind and find out why I think it is important for any writer.
Why should writers be writing for all age groups? You may be saying they shouldn't and that's a valid viewpoint. However, join me with an open mind and find out why I think it is important for any writer.
Hi, and welcome to the writing and Marketing Show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. It's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast, so it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to Episode 76 of the writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur Wendy H. Jones. Here we are Episode 76, which I feel is no the down slope. As we screech up to the 100th episode, I didn't think that when I started, I would make it to Episode 76. But here I am looking forward to Episode 100. And I'm glad I'm continuing to do it. This week isn't titled from the cradle to the grave, which is talking about writing books for all ages. And in different genres. I wanted to give a perspective of why I do that and why it's good for an author. Okay, there are different ways of doing things. But I believe why I believe it's good for an author to write books for different ages. Before that, I would like to say it's an absolute pleasure to bring you the show every week. And I do it willingly. And I enjoy it. However, it does take time out of my writing life. And if you would like to support that time, you can do so by going to patreon.com forward slash Wendy h Jones. And you can do so for just $3 a month, which is the price of a tea or coffee. And I would be very grateful it would let me know that you're enjoying what I'm doing and that you want me to continue doing it way past the 100th episode. So what was happening in life? Well, first of all, we're opening up and opening up is fantastic because it means that we're getting out again, we can get more book signings done, and I'm now doing events and book signings. I had a fabulous event with the globe bookshop and Motherwell last week. And they made me very welcome. I then went and did a book signing in Dundee at the wellgate Centre on Saturday. This Saturday, I'm going to be in Britain, doing a book signing at the northern hotel. And then the following week, I'm going to be at the Dundee design project and the wellgate again, and I'm going to be doing a book signing there. So life is picking up on things are picking up. And I'm glad that's happening because author events and visits are important. So if you didn't bring him in listening to this, you can come and see me Say hi, on Saturday, this Saturday, if you're not then Saturday, the 10th of July 2021. I will be in the Dundee design project, and I'm hoping that killers curse will be out by then it got a bit delayed because of my computer problems. I now have no longer have computer problems. And to be honest, I've learned a salutary lesson in the last few weeks. We are so reliant on technology and when things go wrong, and you can't get them fixed, it's so frustrating. Anyway, To cut a long story short, I now have a brand new spanking new Apple mark, which is blue collared, if you're interested. I did want green but in the end, I could only get blue and I was more excited about getting a mark than that worked than I was about the colour. Anyway, not only does it look stunning, is working absolutely beautifully. It's as fast it's lightning fast. And I'm clicking on gas again, I'm back to writing, I'm back to doing all the different things that I did before the computer issues, and I no longer spend all my time on the phone to Apple. Anyway, that's a bit of a digression. So I said I will talk to you about why you should write for different age groups. Now I started off as an adult writer. And the reason for that was that I wanted to write crime books. I love crime books, and I knew that that was going to be my passion. And why I want why I thought I would write crime because I know the tropes I know what's happening. And I know how it should be shaped and how to put clues in. So I started out with my adult crime books which I love my Detective Inspector Shauna Mackenzie mysteries, and I would not be without that for the world. I love that series that will continue. But if things can begin to get stale. In the meantime, I was asked to write a series of young adult mysteries, which I did and again, I did willingly I loved it, but it made me think in a different way. It made me use a different bit of my brain. It made me explore different ways of thinking. It made me think about how teenagers would act and react and it made me stretch my writing cape. abilities. And it also gave me the opportunity to find out what I could do, could I write for a different age group? Could I write books that teenagers would find interesting. And of course involved a lot of research involved a lot of reading about writing for that age group involved watching YouTube videos about writing for that age group, and doing courses. So it made me laugh, it made me grow and expand as a writer, and I'm so glad I did it. Now, The Fergus and Flora Mysteries that are two of them, they're going to be coming out with a new publisher, the third one will be coming out as well, they're still going to be called the facts and Flora mysteries, but of getting brand new, fabulous covers, and the titles are changing. So it's going to be called The Mystery of the Curse Dagger, The Mystery of the Haunted Broch, and The Mystery of the Terracotta Warrior. So, they're going to have new titles and the covers are fabulous. But again, it made me think about what attracts that age group, my original covers, I mean, the covers were lovely, but I don't think they were attracting that age group quite so much as they could have done. And I think the new cover as well, and my publishers have picked up on this. And the titles, we change the titles because the the they need to be changed when they move publisher. But I think I mean, I chose the original titles, but I think that the new ones give a better flavour of what it's about, because they've all got the mystery. And so I've learned a lot about young adult books for 10 to 14 year olds. And I learned a lot about what attracts them, and what you can do to encourage them to read. So I don't regret a minute of it ever loved all of it. And I'm looking forward to the new books coming out with more come down and said academic publishing. Then I wanted to write some books for writers because I wanted to share my experiences started with a marketing book, which I was asked to write because I do a lot of talks on marketing. And that goes alongside that. And there's a new one out, it's called marketing matters. But I also wrote a motivational book because I'm NLP trained. And again, I wanted to see how I could stretch myself to use my NLP skills to help others. So the book, motivation matters is very much based on NLP. And it is the NLP techniques will help you to write every day. So again, it was it was a way for me to stretch myself as a writer, it was a way for me to explore new avenues to explore new ways of thinking, to explore again, a different audience, because this was a nonfiction writing audience to explore what they would like to explore what they needed to know what they wanted to know, and what to explore what they didn't know, they needed to know. In other words, so it pushed me It helped me push the boundaries, and stretch what I was doing as an author. And I would encourage you to do that as well. Then I was asked to write a children's picture book. And to be honest, I thought, well, I don't know a lot about children's picture books, but I was a children's nurse. I do I did have nieces that older. No, but I have nieces who were younger, a lot of friends with children. And I've read a lot of children's picture books. And at first I was a bit hesitant, but then I thought well, why not? Because I can write it. And if I don't get a publisher, then I'll know that things are not quite so good as I thought they could have been. So again, I explored a lot of things I went and I bought a lot of children's picture books. I went and sat in the children's library in central in Dundee where I am in the central library. And I spent a couple of hours reading children's picture books and taking notes. I took notes on the rhyme and metre, what worked repetition, all the different things you need to know. I also did a course on writing children's books, and I bought a couple of books and read those. And they helped me to realise that writing picture books could be possible. And again, it was I did it because I wanted to see what I could do. And again, it allowed me to explore new audiences new ways of thinking again, and it allowed me to tap into a different part of my creativity. I almost had to become a child again. And I think it's important for us as writers that we explore all the different avenues of our creativity. Now I'm not an artist. I would never propose to be an artist, but I'm sure artists try out all different types of medium before they settle on one that they particularly enjoy. And I wanted to do this Say I wanted to explore all the different things I could do. I wanted to explore different ways of thinking I wanted to explore different ways of writing. And I wanted to explore the ways in which that could be done. And I wanted to learn, because while I was doing all this, not only was I learning about these new ways of writing and thinking, I was learning about how I could shape the books I'm already writing. So it helped me to become a more well rounded writer, as well as hone my skills down to make me a better overall writer. Now, again, I was asked to write a historical book, and I've talked about this before, and I was I've never thought of writing a historical book at all. I love history, I visit all the different historical sites when I go on holiday, no matter where I am in the world. I read historical fiction, I read historical nonfiction. And so it's an interest of mine. But I've never ever thought about writing historical books. And I thought, well, why not? Why not do it, I can give it a go. Well, I first discovered that writing historical books is much more difficult, even if it's fiction is much more difficult than writing contemporary. Because every detail in your book has to be correct, factually, for that time, down to the words that your protagonist would use. So is involved a phenomenal, phenomenal amount of research. But you know, what I've enjoyed every minute of it, the research process is fascinating, the research process is enjoyable. And the research process research process helps you with any type of writing, even though you're writing historical fiction, the research that you're doing will help you understand where your contemporary characters are, where contemporary life came from, how it grew and developed and you get a deeper understanding of it. I have loved researching and writing about Thomas Graham and early 19th century Scotland, and I'm getting a really good picture of what it was like then. But then I started writing the book and starting to write the book, you get to think well, this is more tricky, again than you think. Because writing humorous fiction, which I do human is crime fiction, or writing gritty crime fiction, or nonfiction, or children's books, they all have different tropes, they all have different ways of writing, they all have different words you would use. Now, with historical, you want to make it accessible to your contemporary reader. But you need to give a flavour of the language of the time as well. So I have having to balance the way I'm writing it, I need to change it from the breezy way of writing that I use for my contemporary ones. And I'm having to think about things a lot more closely. And again, this is making me a better an overall better writer, because I am thinking about the way I'm writing and thinking about sentence structure, I'm thinking about what choices. And this makes me think what I'm doing when I'm writing my contemporary ones as well. So I think exploring all of these and pushing the boundaries of what I can do, and of what is possible, is extremely helpful. It's also made me read in different ways, because although I did read a lot of historical fiction, a lot of historical nonfiction, I am opening my mind up to new possibilities, because I am reading at different things, I'm focusing it down to a certain time period, I'm focusing it down. So when I do that, I'm reading authors from that time, not from that time period, although I am reading authors from that time period, but authors who write about that time period, and I'm focusing it down to people who write about Scotland, and also about people who write about the Royal Navy during that time, because my character joins the Royal Navy, and people who write about about medicine and medical education at that time. And that's extremely important because it's focusing down from my character. But it's opening my mind up to new possibilities. It's opening my mind up to new authors. I am reading authors I've never read before and discovering that I love them. And this is a really good way of broadening your horizons because, again, as authors, we can get very, very fixed and focused on just reading crime or just reading nonfiction or just reading history. Article, but we can't focus things down and things will improve. So it's important to be open to new things and to new possibilities. Sorry, I got a frog in my throat and had to find a drink because I didn't bring one with me. So it does open you up to different possibilities. And it stretches you as a writer. Now with my historical book that's very firmly for adults, but I think my chart would be of interest to younger readers as well. So here's the thought, right from this, I could write a book, I could write a book series of books for adults, I could write a series of books for young adults, I could write a series of books for chapter books for the age range between seven and 10, or seven and 12. I could write children's picture books about it. I can also do nonfiction books, because my non my chap was an accomplished poet. So I could bring out poetry books about him, I could bring out a nonfiction book about his life, a factual book, I could bring out nonfiction books about life at the time. So just one idea, shapes itself to many different iterations, many different ways of producing work, many different ways of reaching new audiences. And when you start to write for different audiences, one of the questions that is always asked is, should you use a different name? Should you use a pseudonym, because you will get things mixed up? Well, I've used my nets, same name for everything. And there's a good reason for that. The reason I've done it is so that people will see that I write different things. So they might say, well, I've got to buy Christmas presents. And I know that Annie, Maggie loves, loves historical. So I will get her a couple of the historical books. But my mom loves crime books. So I'll get a couple of the train books. But then I've got to buy, we do see a present or she'd love Betty the Buffalo. So she buys the Betty the buffalo picture books. And then you might say, oh, but Darren loves picture books, but he also loves colouring in. So you would buy him the picture book and the colouring book because there's a colouring book for Bertie, the Buffalo. So there's matching dice possibilities with children's books. And what you will find is that people will buy multiple different books from you, because they know that different age groups in their family will like the books that you're producing. So it becomes a family thing, really. And so you you really are reaching new audiences all the time, because people will come and if you're doing a book signing, they will come and look at one thing, and may lead with others as well. They won't just leave with the one thing that caught their attention in the first instance. So I guess what I'm saying to summarise that read to explore, I want you to think about exploring, writing for different age groups. And I think a good exercise for you to do would be to sit down once you've listened to this podcast, look at the book, one of the books you've written or a series of books you've written, and look at how those could be adapted for different age groups. Now, if you're writing serial killer books, which my do Shawna Mackenzie mysteries are, you may have a different version of that for maybe young adults. But you're not going to be wanting to write a picture book about that, really. But what other possibilities Can you explore for different age groups from what you are writing? Because you might find that there is a lot more you can do than you actually think. And I have had people on here who have read have written books, and I firmly believe that there could be adapted to different age groups as well. Now I'm going to give a shout out to one of them. Her name is se Skillman. So hi Sheila se Skillman has written a book called paranormal workshop. Now, that's a brilliant book. Absolutely brilliant. But do you know what with it could be adapted into a series of ghost stories or even a ghost story book for younger readers. And, you know, that's the sort of thing that you can think about, because there are younger people who would be attracted by that as well. And it's, so think about it. That's just one example of what you could do. So I'm going to leave you now to get on and think about how you could adapt your books for different ages for different readers. And I'm going to ask you to have a fabulous week, whatever you're doing and I will see you back here next week with another episode of the writing and Marketing Show with me Wendy H. Jones. That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy h Jones. And you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy h Jones. I'm also went h Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing. Keep reading and keep learning