Welcome to our new bloggers!

We are so excited to welcome three new bloggers to MG Minded! Meet them below. And be on the look out for their posts coming soon!

Stephanie Bearce

Stephanie Bearce is a history detective and a science nerd who loves turning her discoveries into books for kids. As the award-winning author of 24 children’s books, Stephanie is a frequent presenter at education conferences, kidlit festivals, schools, and libraries. When she's not writing books she likes to spend time exploring haunted castles, wandering in bone filled catacombs, and adding to her extensive fossil collection.
Stephanie lives in Missouri with her rocket-scientist husband, but she is always planning her next adventure. Her goal is to visit every continent and all 50 states. She's only five states and three continents away from that goal!
You can learn more about Stephanie and her books at www.stephaniebearce.com
Her nonfiction work is represented by Stacey Graham of Red Sofa Literary and her fiction work is represented by Heather Cashman of Storm Literary.

Amanda Hoving

Amanda is a teacher and a writer who thinks middle grade literature is the best of all! She enjoys reading and writing funny stuff that has heart (and maybe a little magic). When she’s not reading or writing, Amanda loves to laugh, watch baseball, play the guitar and laugh some more. She is not a good cook, and she wouldn’t mind being a hermit someday.

Originally from the plains of the Chicago suburbs, Amanda and her family now live in the hills of northeastern New Jersey, where they always keep their bear whistle handy. 
You can find Amanda’s miscellaneous tomfoolery at her blog and on Twitter.
 


Kelly K. Clarke

A former Big Four management consultant turned mom, Kelly decided that creative truths and magical worldbuilding were more fun to use in children’s books vs an office anyway. In line with her emotional maturity level and probably unhealthy obsessions with glitter, unicorns, and cryptids, Kelly writes Middle Grade fantasy with sci-fi elements and main characters who share her children’s Afro-Caribbean/white American heritage.

Kelly is a Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient (humor her and say it was all about merit), longtime SCBWI member, and contributor to the Kidlit Exchange review network.

Kelly lives between the feral strip malls of suburban Fort Lauderdale, FL with her husband, flatulent superhero son, and diva daughter. When she isn’t nagging her children about homework or sneaking writing in around her job as a marketing technology project manager, Kelly is in the PTA office swilling energy drinks.

Follow Kelly on Twitter @KidlitUndrGrnd and check out her Blog at KidlitUnderground.com.

How are we doing?

Our first blog post went live a little over four years ago. Since then we have amassed 360 blog posts with over 1200 comments. And we are quickly approaching 2,700 followers on twitter and 200,000 page views. But I don't spout these numbers to make your head spin or to toot our own horn, I bring them up to show the incredible community that has been built around the Middle Grade Minded Blog.

I don't think the group of us who banded together in 2013 to form this MG community, ever imagined we'd be here today let alone see this blog grow into what it has. I've been here since the blog's inception, but I know none of this would have been possible without our bloggers and without each and every one of our readers. So for that, first and foremost, I want to say thank you! Thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks for making me think in new and different ways.

 

And because of that, I wanted to reach out to the readers of this blog and see what you all were thinking. We've seen a lot over the four years, bloggers moving on, new ones joining us, signing with agents, book deals, cover reveals, book reviews, author and agent interviews and so much more. So I ask the readers now...

How are we doing?

1. What do you enjoy most about the blog?
2. Is there anything we aren't doing that you'd like to see?
3. Is there anything you don't enjoy as much?
4. Are there any additional thoughts you want to share with the MG Minded team?

Sounds off in the comments with your thoughts, or email us at MGMinded at gmail dot com.

And from the bottom of my heart, again, thank you for stopping by the blog, reading our posts, commenting, sharing them, and making this an awesome place to share our love of Middle Grade Books. Here's to many more years of sharing that MG Love.

 

Should you blog?

I think you should blog if you've got something important or entertaining to share with your readers and only if you've really got the time to do it.

I wanted to blog, really, but the fact is, I'm primary caregiver to seven beautiful little souls. My children are 12 and under and I'm currently homeschooling the oldest five. And while I do find the time to write, I've missed two appointed blog post times in the past three months. That's unacceptable.

My peers at MGminded do an excellent job of writing informative and often funny posts. Thanks for teaching me and including me in the team, MGminded, but now I need to get out of your way and get back to my kids and my manuscripts.

Perhaps I'll be back with a guest post now and then, but right now, it's 5:27 a.m. and somebody'll be awake and calling for food soon. Besides, there's other voices I keep "hearing", and they need attention too.

God bless,

Rob

WANTED: Middle Grade Online Communities

Happy Monday, everyone! Here's a little trivia for you: I'm one of those people you hate who love Mondays and wake up happy (way too happy, according my family). I spent this past weekend in Houston at the Houston Book Rave. I had a fabulous time, as always. Meeting readers and seeing my writing friends is priceless!

On to what I’m blogging about today… MGM received a great question from a follower:

“Why are there so few middle grade online writer communities (and so much less information in general)?”

That’s the middle-grade million-dollar-question! I have one legit answer and lots of hunches, so here we go.

The Legit Answer…

Several months prior to the release of my first middle-grade novel, I asked my agent (the effervescent Holly Root) about marketing for the first book in a series with Aladdin M!X (blog tours, book signings, release day events, etc.).  What she said makes sense, even if you don't like it. And, yes, I'm totally paraphrasing. Whatever she said was much more sparkly.

We (authors) try to market our books to our target audience (middle graders), but that's where we go wrong with middle grade fiction. It's unlikely that our target audience is trolling blogs, tweeting about their new favorite book, or checking Goodreads to see the next great book. And even if they are, they aren't holding the purse strings to buy books without a parent's involvement. 

Middle-grade readers get information about books from four different places: friends, parents, teachers, and librarians.  

That's who you have to reach online.

Makes perfect sense, right? But I've yet to find Middle Grade Marketing for Dummies, so I'm winging it. For me, the process is evolving, and I never quite feel like I'm where I need to be. You know what they call that? Frustrating!

I do believe, however, that Holly's answer explains why there's such little middle-grade online presence. 

My Hunches…

• THE PAY OFF: Middle grade publishers don’t invest as much money as we'd like into marketing middle-grade fiction because it doesn't pay off. The general belief is that the best marketing comes from having the book on a Barnes & Noble (or other such brick & mortar booksellers) shelf. 
• IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT MONEY: When's the last time you saw a middle-grade novel hit BIG? As in, Diary of a Wimpy Kid big. It's been a while. Too long, if you ask me. Publishers invest marketing dollars on books they think will give them the biggest return on their money. That book is rarely in the middle-grade section of the store. The bottom line: It's a business. And a cutthroat one at that. 
• BLOGGERS: Some bloggers only review young adult novels. Some bloggers only review middle grade novels. And some bloggers offer both young adult and middle grade fiction reviews. There are more middle-grade bloggers out there than you think. The key is finding the bloggers who take their blog seriously and post regularly. The ones who do offer reviews on middle-grade novels are precious to authors. They're the link that often connects authors and their books to readers.
• FOR WRITERS: There is virtually no online presence for writers of middle-grade fiction. And that's a tragedy because authors need each other. We learn from one another and sometimes need to connect with someone that just "gets it." It would be fabulous if someone would create the middle-grade version of Women's Fiction Writers' Association. Yes, I know all about SCBWI, but I'm thinking of something even more narrow than that... namely, middle-grade fiction. Maybe something like Middle-Grade Writers' Association. MGWA. Looks okay to me!

So... now that the million-dollar middle-grade question has (kind of) been answered, let's move on to the new one.

Who's going to start MGWA? 

We Want You... To Join our Team

Do you write Middle Grade literature?

Do you like to share writing knowledge and experiences?

Do you like interviewing others?

Do you like reviewing Middle Grade books?

Do you like blogging?

Would you be willing to write one blog post a month?

If you answered yes to most if not all of those questions then you might be the perfect addition to the Middle Grade Minded team!

We are currently looking for additional bloggers to write posts on writing craft and experiences, review middle grade literature, and/or perform interviews with agents, authors, editors, teachers, and even middle grade readers. If you are interested in joining the team please answer the questions below and send them to mgminded@gmail.com with the subject line "I want to blog for Middle Grade Minded"

Name:

1.) Do you write? If so what age group/genre?

2.) Why do you want to blog for Middle Grade Minded? 

3.) What kinds of things would you most like to blog about?

4.) What do you hope to bring to the Middle Grade Minded team

5.) Do you currently have a personal blog? If so please link us to it.

6.) What social media platforms are you on? Please include handles or links.

We look forward to hearing from you!