5 Great Reasons to Join the CWCC Today
by Terri Forehand
Writing for children is fun and rewarding. It is also hard work. The road to publication can be downright frustrating. Many authors find a writing coach or writing club to help them on the journey. Here are 5 great reasons to choose the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club Club for your journey into writing for children.
1. Improve writing skills so you get published. The CWCC offers weekly teleclasses given by Suzanne Lieurance and her team of talented and published authors. These classes focus on the variety of skills it takes to succeed as a children’s writer and to continue to hone your writing skills. Examples of what you may learn include:
Finding a niche
Writing exciting action
Revising and cutting unnecessary words
Show, don’t tell
Character development
Creating realistic dialog
2. Grow as an author. The CWCC offers critiques for your work giving club members concrete ideas on how to grow as a children’s author. Each month there are additional writing assignments that focus on a topic to help the member improve, pushing their talent beyond what they might accomplish on their own. The critique of your work teaches not only how to accept criticism but how to improve. The feedback is constructive and members soon begin to write tighter. It shows in the number of acceptances our members boast after only a few months in the club.
3. Set goals and a plan for success. The club requirements include setting realistic writing goals and actions to reach those goals. The encouragement offered by club members will go a long way to help each writer set challenging goals and design a set of actions to reach those goals.
4. Exposure for your work. As a club member you have many opportunities to present your writing to the group. Your work can be presented on a personal blog, as a guest post on another member’s blog, as an e-book for others, through affiliate programs on the sites of other authors, through contacts available from other club members, agents and publishers who frequent the club sites, or through other instructors who present for the club. Club members have access to contests, agents, publishing sites, and other potential contacts that would not otherwise be available for their work.
5. Networking and Marketing. Club members develop a marketing plan through club assignments and learn the skills for promoting their work. Club members write weekly marketing plans for promoting and begin early on to network on social media sites in preparation for their first (or next) published children’s book. Members can participate in virtual book tours for other published children’s authors and develop techniques to build a writing platform for their own work. Lifelong relationships are built between club members, many who are published or have valuable connections to the publishing world.
As you can see, there are numerous benefits when you join the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club. As a four year member with my first prayer book coming out in February, I can promise you a fun and successful learning experience if you choose to join.
