As the season of gratitude approaches, I have too many blessings to count. And one of my biggest blessings is you, dear Kidlit reader. You have been with me for over ten years, along for the ride on the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows. You make what I do on the blog (and Good Story Company and YouTube and Good Story Podcast and on every other free avenue that you can find me) worthwhile.

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know that I provide content for writers. That’s my passion, and what I do best. You may also know that I don’t do a lot of selling. There has never been an ad on this blog, and the only things I sell are my own projects, whether that’s my book or a webinar or the Manuscript Submission Blueprint. That was a collaboration brought to me by Children’s Book Insider, and I sampled several of their classes before agreeing to make one. I loved it, and I poured my all into the class I created. I’m still very proud of it! I also think it’s offered at a kickass price point that gives a ton of value for your hard-earned dollar.

Keeping this type of integrity in a culture of “monetization” has been hard. I get advertising requests every single day for this blog because it has been around a long time, because a lot of people come to it, and because my email lists and social feeds have a lot of followers. Over and over, I say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Even my own mother keeps asking, “When are you gonna monetize that blog?”

Sorry, Mom! I will not “put the good stuff behind a paywall.” I will not launch a subscription model where I make a quick buck off of you when you forget to cancel for a few months. I feel very strongly about this, and always have. If you read my blog and have never given me one red cent, thank you! Welcome! I’m so happy to have you! My editorial practice is thriving and I’m having my best year ever, with a team of eight wonderful employees. (I know, right?!) Please enjoy the things I share with writers for free. I mean it.

Now. What’s the apology for? Well, a few months ago, a very prominent writing teacher approached me to do a collaboration. My response was in line with my values (the names have been redacted):

I was very grateful to have an opportunity to collaborate with a famous writing teacher. But my audience was and still is my first concern. So in the above response, I wanted to make sure that my writers would be respected, along with their valuable time.

The teacher called me and reassured me over the phone that “the webinar is very content rich and only the last ten minutes are spent selling.” The product was a course from this writer. This teacher said “most people don’t even notice the sales pitch.” We had a great talk and I completely gave this teacher the benefit of the doubt.

But when the webinar rolled around, I’m afraid my expectations were not met. There was valuable content, indeed, and I learned a few things, but there was also a lot of selling. Blatant, in-your-face selling. There was even discussion of the finer points of a financing option. I watched on, very disappointed, but I had been taken off as a presenter for the duration of the webinar, so I literally couldn’t come back on the line. We were on this teacher’s webinar software, not mine. And would I want to interrupt and make a scene? I was in a very uncomfortable position. I felt that my trust had been broken and that I had been taken advantage of, but I was left not knowing how to handle it as it was happening.

The great news is, my readers are smart, tough, savvy, and honest. Almost immediately, I started hearing about how people did not appreciate this webinar. I reassured those who wrote to me directly, and this led to some really good conversations. I am so grateful that my readership trusts me enough to be honest with me, even when they need to tell me something tough. People wrote me some brave emails, and I’m so honored to have gotten to engage with my readers on that level. That means you guys care, and that level of engagement is so hard to find in today’s busy world.

Initially, the writing teacher expected me to send four follow-up emails, but after the content of the webinar, I decided that I didn’t want to engage further. I sent one email, reluctantly, after prodding from their team. But the backlash from my readers kept coming. Even now, almost two weeks later, I’m hearing about it. So I knew I had to take a tougher and more honest stand.

I wrote to Teacher and Co. and gave them a taste of the feedback. I expressed my disappointment and reminded them of our initial conversations about the balance of content and selling. Staying silent about it would’ve been perhaps more diplomatic. After all, I’m not here to start beef or make enemies. That’s why I’m not referring to the teacher or the event by name. The people who attended this webinar and were disappointed will know what I mean. But staying mostly silent while dealing with it behind the scenes did not feel right. It also allows this predatory marketing practice to continue.

So now I’m apologizing to you.

You, my dear reader. Your time, your attention, your support—these precious things mean everything to me. I am sorry to those who joined this webinar and were disappointed. You trusted me, and I steered you in the wrong direction. We all make mistakes sometimes, and all I can hope for is your forgiveness. I was operating on the best information I had at the time.

For those who took this webinar and happened to buy the class, I do want you to enjoy it. I do not want you to regret your decision after this post. I do hope that it’s a valuable resource because—again—I think this writing teacher has a lot of good things to say. I still think this teacher’s book is a valuable resource. (This teacher may not think I’m so hot after this, though!) I hope that the payoff in all of this is that you get some good tools for your toolbox. I can only hope that it has been created with integrity and attention to detail.

Safe to say, it will be a long, long time before I entertain another collaboration.

The questions of whether or not to write this post, and write to the teacher, have been weighing on me for two weeks. I know I can’t feed my family “integrity” for dinner, but I feel a lot better to have been open and honest with you. In life, there’s the easy thing, and the right thing, and they’re often not the same. Thank you so much for hearing me out!

Full disclosure: I was offered a revenue sharing arrangement for this webinar, which is standard for this kind of collaboration. I have declined any royalties and have been paid absolutely nothing. In 2020, I do plan to launch a very specific paid course (for aspiring editors) and an ebook, both of which will be offered for sale. I will also offer a few one-off paid classes for a well-known online learning platform. But all of these are being produced by me—up to my high standards—to be as content-rich as humanly possible. I continue to offer a few paid webinars per year that include manuscript critique as a justification for the payment. Any links you see to content on Amazon or Manuscript Blueprints are affiliate links that give me a small royalty payment—at no additional cost to the reader. I shoulder over $100 of web hosting costs per month to keep several websites running, and this allows me to offset some of that investment. Other than that, I make my living as a freelance editor, by being paid for my services.

For over a year, I have been working with Laura and Jon over at Writing Blueprints to create the Manuscript Submission Blueprint, a system of information that gives you everything you need to know to assemble a manuscript submission to literary agents and/or publishers.

Now, you may or may not know the following about me: I do not commercialize this blog lightly. I get requests oh, probably every day for guest posts, contributor posts, advertising links, blah blah blah. The blog gets a lot of traffic and is prominent in the children’s book space, so plenty of people find it … and they all want me to help them sell stuff to you.

In 99.99% of cases, I say no. In fact, I only directly sell three things on this blog (and I try to keep it as unobtrusive as possible): My book, my editorial services, and any webinars, events, or conferences I’m personally involved in. You will notice that all of these are my things. I also use affiliate links to Amazon and Writing Blueprints. But that’s it. Otherwise, I only recommend a book or a resource if I find it myself and love it. Never because someone else asks me to boost it.

Why? Integrity. Because I genuinely love writers. I genuinely love to teach and be a helpful resource. And I genuinely love to help children’s book writers make their dreams come true. I also really care about having your trust. I can’t do that if I’m shilling for anyone who emails me. Instead, I write long and (I hope) enriching craft articles for “nothing” in return and that’s exactly how I like it. I could’ve monetized this blog halfway to Mars by now with ads and guest posts. But that money wouldn’t be worth it because the blog wouldn’t be true to itself, true to you, or true to who I am.

So when Laura and Jon approached me to create the Manuscript Submission Blueprint, I was naturally skeptical. Were these Blueprints good stuff? Truly helpful and informative to writers? Were they fairly priced? Did writers get good value for their investment? Was there a ton of useful information, and was it quality? Was the system easy to use? I took a few of the classes and … loved them! Like, I was blown away by what was being offered for the price. In short, Writing Blueprints met all of my fussy criteria, so I agreed to develop the Manuscript Submission Blueprint.

What’s Writing Blueprints?

You may know Writing Blueprints from using one of their other products. They are the same brand as the Children’s Book Insider newsletter, and offer interactive online processes for writing middle grade and young adult (taught by the amazing Alice Kuipers), writing picture books (from Laura Backes), self-publishing (from Theresa Funke) and more.

What is the Manuscript Submission Blueprint?

The Manuscript Submission Blueprint is ALL ABOUT MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION TO AGENTS AND PUBLISHERS. From the process of researching your market, to composing a query letter, to putting together various submission requirements, to actually getting out into the world. It is everything writers in any category and with any kind of project (not just children’s!) need to know to get their work out into the world, told from the perspective of yours truly, a former literary agent with ten plus years in the publishing business.

Practically, it is a longform class that you can take at your leisure in your own home. It consists of videos, written materials, handouts, even a spreadsheet. It’s set up like an online course that you can start and stop whenever you want. (In fact, the interface they use is one of the things that really drew me to creating a Writing Blueprints system. It was really easy for me to use as I test drove some of their other Blueprints.) You pay one price to buy it, and then you own access to it forever. You can use it and watch it and rewatch it.

This has been a labor of love I started in November 2017 (watch out for several different haircuts, ha!). I recorded about ten hours of video instruction, wrote 35+ handouts, interviewed the amazing John Cusick for bonus material, gave feedback on sample query letters, developed two webinars, and much more.

Now it is FINALLY available. I really put a ton of work into it, and I am very proud of how it turned out. I hope you enjoy the Manuscript Submission Blueprint!