Sunday, January 10, 2010

Meet author Elysabeth Eldering


I’d like to welcome children’s author, Elysabeth Eldering, to my blog today. Elysabeth is the author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad series. The first book, “State of Wilderness,” and second book, “State of Quarries” are available through 4RV Publishing.


Katie: Tell us about the Junior Geography Detective Squad series. What inspired it?


Elysabeth: Well Katie, the series came about when I started writing in 2005. I was challenged by a friend to enter Armchair Interviews' first "fan mystery" contest (well, their first contest ever). We were both reviewers for the site at the time. The contest came about from the upcoming anthology "Silence of the Loons", where thirteen Minnesotan authors came together, came up with a list of words and decided to write a mystery using at least four of the eight words in their stories. The fans were given the same list of words - a page from the dictionary, the sound of a train whistle, the scent of Obsession, footprints in the snow, a headless Barbie, a wig, a tattoo and a soiled ballet slipper. I was challenged to write for the contest but was trying to get out of it.


One weekend while on a mother-daughter trip with my daughter's girls' church group to Stone Mountain (that's in Georgia, by the way and may show up in the book about Georgia but not sure yet -lol), I was telling the other mothers about the contest and one of the girls in the group popped up and said, "I know, you could write it like a scavenger hunt on a train with the mystery being where they are heading." I thought about it and wrote the story. Matt and Guy came about in that story. I used the items as clues to a another item and a clue to the secret destination. After placing second place, I sent the story to an editor with SCBWI (that's the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) and got her advice on which direction to take the story in making a series. She gave me lots of reference info and some great advice. That is the best $50 I've spent on my writing so far.


Katie: Oh, what’s this? Matt wants to talk? Who’s Matt? Oh, that Matt – you know, the one in your first book, “State of Wilderness.” Okay, Matt, what do you want to tell us?


Elysabeth: Well, he doesn't really have anything to say. He can be put in his room if he wants to be rude, but I know my characters aren't rude or I'd hope they had some manners. So, I guess I'll let him have a small say.


Matt: Well, Ms. Katie, I would just like to say that the game is fun. We are learning lots of things so far. I know being in a book can be fun and I'm glad my best bud is there with me. He's smart most of the time except when he's around Jolene, well I guess I am too, but that's a whole other story. I hope that all the schools get the books so the students can learn like we are doing - something fun and stuff we never knew.


Katie: Don’t you have a friend named “Guy” who is playing with the game, too? Guy, what do you think about the game? Is it too hard, too easy?


Guy: I don't know. It's just a game and when we hang out together, we just play the game. We use it to study sometimes, but we never know which state is going to pop up.


Katie: Matt and Guy, it was great to hear from you. I’m going to bounce the questions back to Elysabeth now.


Katie: The geography book thing is really cool – your characters have to decipher clues to figure out which state you’re showcasing in that book. How did you happen upon this concept?



Elysabeth: Since the first story, Train of Clues, was the predecessor for the series concept and the clues were to a mystery destination, I wanted to continue in that manner, only making each state the mystery of each book.


Katie: Okay, let’s get down to the skinny here: how many query letters did you send out, how many rejections did you get, and how did you deal with the inevitable rejections?


Elysabeth: Query letters? I didn't send any out. I originally had seen a call for submission for mysteries to be used on a 5-Minute Mystery site that would eventually be used for schools. I asked them if the mysteries had to be murder or if I could use my geography stories as the mystery. They were very enthusiastic about the idea. I tried several different ideas to condense the stories down to 1500 words, keeping them in that 5-minute time limit to read and solve. The only problem I had was that all three ways I tried to get the stories down to that short a limit the guys who came up with this concept of the 5-minute mysteries and I weren't really meeting in the middle, so I decided to put it back on the burner for a bit. I tried different formats but nothing was really working at the time. A few weeks after that failure with the 5-minute mystery attempt, I met Aidana through a forum. Checked out her profile and especially her portfolio of her drawings. I emailed her about one in particular that really caught my eye. We started chatting. The next thing she tells me is that she was thinking of becoming an agent for authors. The next thing I knew I had a contract. Things happened rather quickly but no rejections, no query letters just immediate contracts offered.



Katie: Aren’t there teacher’s guides to go along with this series of books? How did you come up with the ideas you use in your teacher’s guides? How many schools are participating with you at this time?


Elysabeth: Yes, I am writing the teacher's guide as I finish the book. I had wanted to have varying puzzles in the books for the readers to have some fun after reading, so I kept that idea. I had never written a teacher's guide nor really seen anything. The closest thing I could come up with was the Weekly Reader's teacher guide given to me from one of the teachers who is a band parent. The research/discussion questions expand out a few of the more interesting clues in the book. I'm trying to have a science experiment in each guide or maybe I'll switch to some math related problems in some that are related to a clue, and then to wrap it up, I have some end-of-book questions (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank and T/F). The bibliography will be in both the books and the teacher's guides so all readers will benefit from the plethora of information I have gathered for further reading or papers or whatever the need is.


As far as schools participating with me at this time, none. I have been visiting a sixth grade class in Utah via the computer and working with them in their "writing workshop" class and it's been a blast. I will be working more with schools this spring (fingers crossed the government repeals this stupid CPSIA of 2008 and works on it targeting the people meant to be targeted and not the books and clothing for kids) by setting up school visits. I've been talking to several people I know who are teachers and getting them to at least pass out some info to the appropriate people to try to get me in but with the economy, no one wants to pay for school visits. I don't mind doing some for free but as an author, we all know that the money comes from the extras not the books so much. The royalties earned are very low so we have to make money somehow and that means we have to do presentations and hold workshops that will bring in some income.


Katie: Winding down now, is there anything you would like us to know about the Junior Geography Detective Squad books that we haven’t covered?


Elysabeth: I hope everyone checks out my blog, and orders copies of the book. Books are available through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com as well but you can order directly from me and get signed copies. Direct contact can be made via email - eeldering@gmail.com.


Katie: Elysabeth’s books can be ordered from the publisher, 4RV Publishing here or for special orders, via Vivian Zabel at president@4rvpublishingllc.com.

15 comments:

Unknown said...

That was a very interesting interview, Katie. You were fortunate to meet Aidana and Vivian. Seems like you were destined to publish your book with 4RV. Congrats.

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

No query letters and no rejections - you are going to be the envy of every author around! I enjoyed the interview and hearing from Matt and Guy.

Janet Ann Collins said...

Elysabeth sounds like a very interesting person. Thanks for letting us know her through this interview. The books sound good, too.

Lea Schizas - Author/Editor said...

Personally, I think that every school board should or consider this series for their schools. Educational, fun, and mystery all rolled into one neat series.

Tons of best wishes going out to you.

Margaret Fieland said...

Katie, thanks for the fascinating interview. Elysabeth, that's really interesting about your daughter's friend's comment sparking the idea behind the first book. Just goes to show, I guess, that great ideas are all around us if we keep our ears open.

Margaret Fieland
http://www.margaretfieland.com

Vivian Zabel said...

Excellent interview and post. Thanks, Katie and Elysabeth.

Elysabeth doesn't realize what went on behind the scenes between Aidana and me, though. Aidana did the job as agent well.

Karen Cioffi said...

What a great interview. The series is a wonderful concept. Kids love mysteries - it's a great way to teach geography.

I still can't get over how you landed a contract!

Thanks, Katie and Elysabeth.

Karen Cioffi

elysabeth said...

Thanks for having me Katie.

Karen, really there was more behind the scenes that I wasn't aware of.

I'm happy with my contract and hopefully the books will start coming out like originally planned, now that we are over a small hump. I can't wait to get to writing several more (if only I could get my fingers unfrozen). Viv says my fourth one is my best one so far. Maybe they will keep getting better, who knows? I will keep ya'll updated as the series progresses.

Thanks for coming by everyone. Sorry I didn't get here earlier. E :)

Carolyn Howard-Johnson said...

This is so much fun. I wish it as much success as the Nancy Drews I devoured as a child!
Best,
Carolyn
Tweeting tips and resources for writers @frugalbookpromo

elysabeth said...

Thanks, Carolyn. I hope the series will be as successful as the books of our time.

Lea, I forgot to mention - I would love to have the books in all the schools but I think it may take a while to catch on since only two books are available at the moment. Maybe in the next couple of years when more books are available the series will catch on and be in every school district at least - lol - E :)

Cheryl said...

Great interview ladies. I've read the first two books of this series and have shared them with our daughter's school, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

Best of luck with your JGDS, Elysabeth. You know where to find me if you need anything.

Cheryl

Joylene Nowell Butler said...

Thank you. This is a wonderful interview. I'm more-than-comtemplating the idea of writing a children's books. Isn't it amazing that everyday I run into inspiring children authors like Elysabeth.

elysabeth said...

Thanks Cheryl and Joylene. Joylene, there are many interesting children's authors out there. I hope my series will catch on in the school systems and that will be my big break.

Whoever's catch phrase is "Just do it", I say go for it. Write your story or stories and then work on the other aspects later. There is a wonderful network of folks out here to help you along and there is a plethora of information available at the asking. Good luck with the books.

Thanks for stopping by everyone. I look forward to writing more in the series and getting them out there. E :)

kanishk said...
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elysabeth said...
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