Marc Luber: Hey everyone - welcome to Careers Out There where we help you find a career
that fits you. I'm Marc Luber, the host, and today we're talking to successful writer Brad
Herzog. Brad, thanks for joining us at Careers Out There.
Brad Herzog: Happy to be here.
Marc Luber: So what you're all watching now is a short version of this interview. To learn
more abouut being a writer, you can check out the full version of the interview at Careers
Out There dot com. Brad's a successful writer with over 2 dozen published children's books.
He also has a career as a freelance magazine writer, he's a professional blogger and he's
a critically acclaimed author of 3 travel memoirs. His most recent book is Turn Left
At the Trojan Horse. Let's learn now from Brad. Lets talk about how you have a career,
how someone can have a career as a children’s author.
Brad Herzog: I think luck and timing play a big role. I happen to know some editors
at Sports Illustrated For Kids. One of them started publishing my Sports Illustrated For
Kids Books. She went over to MacMilan another publishing company and published my first
book for adults when I had a conversation over lunch with her about a book idea that
I had. That’s just luck – there’s some cultivating – making your own luck aspect
to it obviously.
Marc Luber: Yeah for sure.
Brad Herzog: But I think luck and timing are a big part of it. So children’s writing
I started writing for Sports Illustrated For Kids – I don’t find it difficult to write
for kids. I found a publisher called Sleeping Bear Press that publishes all these wonderful
alphabet books for kids – picture books that are beautifully illustrated on all sorts
of subjects. And I knew that they were doing a bunch of sports books. So we found each
other. And now I’ve written 9 books for them. Eight of them are about sports and one
is about the environment, called S Is For Save The Planet. So we sort of found each
other and I did a good job with my first book.
Marc Luber: What age group, when we say children, what age group would you say your books are
for?
Brad Herzog: Well these books are for 5 to 10 year olds. Children’s writing just like
magazine freelancing can mean so many different things. You can write books that are read
to kids. You can write middle grade chapter books. You can write young adult novels which
are huge now. Within each form of writing there so many different possibilities. And
you have to figure out what you're good at, and what you like and what’s needed in the
market. There are many people out there, many, many, many people, who have or want to write
children’s books. Most of them I think can do it. But then there's that gauntlet...
Marc Luber: Is it just getting in with the right people? Is that the biggest struggle?
Because I’ve know plenty of people who tried to write children’s books and they have
not succeeded.
Brad Herzog: There’s a gauntlet you have to go through. You have to find a literary
agent who will help you sell your book. I have, I’m on my 3rd literary agent right
now, for various different reasons but I really like this one – she does adult’s books
and children’s books. But you want to find an agent who represents the kind of writing
that you want to do. Often the way to find one is to go to a book store and let’s say
you want to write a middle grade mystery chapter book – you want to find that kind of a book
in a book store or a library. And often in the acknowledgement section an author might
thank their agent. So you know that that agent works with that kind of genre, and maybe sort
of pursue that agent. It’s really hard to get a response from an agent – it’s really
hard to get an address. Even when they are your agent, you are their client – it’s
hard to get them responding to you. I’ve had situations with publishers where it’s
been a nightmare trying to get them to respond to me. The Sleeping Bear Press I work with
for my children’s books – they’re wonderful – they’re like a family. I really like
the editors there – I consider them my friends and I’m cultivating ideas with them. It’s
really how I envisioned the writer-editor relationship to be – but that’s the exception
to the rule. And It can be a very frustrating industry for various reasons: financially,
spiritually in a way, all kinds of things.
Marc Luber: Let’s run with the financial thing because that’s what everybody wants
to know. What can someone make writing children’s books?
Brad Herzog: It varies, I mean I have yet to make the big bucks, I’ll tell you that.
You get an advance – generally how it works is you get an advance against royalties – which
means you get a certain amount of money and your book is published and if your book earns
enough money to earn out that advance then you start getting paid per book sold. Most
of my books with Sleeping Bear Press have at some point earned out the advance but then
it hasn’t been a huge amount beyond that. And the advances are pretty small. I mean
I could not make a living just writing my children’s books, no way. So that’s why
I do many different things, that’s why I wear many different hats
Marc Luber:Hey everyone - to learn more about the different ways to have a writing career,
you can watch the full interview at Careers Out There dot com. Brad's going to share how
to find work as a writer, what the money's like, what the lifestyle is like, the biggest
challenges of the career path, some keys to success and much more. Brad, thanks again
for joining us.
Brad Herzog: My pleasure, Marc.
Marc Luber: Thanks for watching, everyone. I'm Marc Luber and I look forward to seeing
you again soon. Take care.
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