Work for Hire: From Pitches to Paychecks
Mar 09, 2024
Online event
Learn where to find publishers and work-for-hire assignments, how to perfect your queries, research strategies and tips, and review the business side of things—contracts, fees, and building your resume/portfolio. Register by 9pm PST on March 6.
Event Info
When: Saturday, March 9 10:00-11:30am PST
Where: Virtual Zoom event
Price: $15 members, $20 non-members
Registration closes March 6 at 9pm PST
Work-for-hire can be a good way to supplement your writer's income. You'll establish relationships with editors (especially if you turn in your manuscript ahead of deadline!) and potentially have a pipeline to more projects, you'll see your name in print a lot faster than with traditional publishing, you'll experience working with different timelines and publishers, and you may land some exciting and fascinating assignments.
Between them, presenters Stacia Deutsch, Natasha Yim, and Janie Havemeyer have written about topics as varied as Pocahontas, Amelia Earhart, the Lunar New Year, Sacajawea, space, technology, smallpox, Charles Darwin, and movie tie-ins and intellectual properties such as Batman, Lego, Barbie, Mulan, Turning Red, and Lightyear. In this webinar, they'll show you how and where to find publishers and work-for-hire assignments, how to perfect your queries, offer research strategies and tips, and review the business side of things—contracts, fees, and building your resume/portfolio.
Presenters:
Stacia Deutsch
STACIA DEUTSCH is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 300 children’s books. Her career started with the original, award winning, Blast to the Past series, about four kids who time travel and meet famous people in history. Stacia's first movie novelization was Batman: The Dark Knight and since then she has written many more movie and TV tie-ins, including The Friendship Code for Girls Who Code (Penguin Random House), and seven novels for Spirit: Riding Free (Little Brown/Dreamworks). When she isn’t writing, Stacia lives on a Temecula, CA, ranch with 4 horses and 2 dogs.
Natasha Yim
NATASHA YIM is the author of 11 picture books, including the award winning Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas and Luna’s Yum Yum Dim Sum (Charlesbridge Publishing). She has done work-for-hire projects for Disney Press (Mulan’s Lunar New Year), Disney/Pixar (Turning Red ‘s Like Mother, Light Daughter & Lightyear), the UK-based Quarto Books (Lunar New Year), and Jump! Publishing. She is currently working on her first work-for-hire board book for the Chicken Soup for the Soul Babies series with Charlesbridge Publishing. Her upcoming picture book Luna and the Case of the Missing Mooncakes, a Storytelling Math book, illustrated by Violet Kim, will be released in 2025 by Charlesbridge Publishing. Natasha also serves as the co-Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI SF North & East Bay Region. She lives in rural Mendocino County with her family.
Janie Havemeyer
JANIE HAVEMEYER has been writing non-fiction books for the school and library market since 2018. Her first assignment was the book Should Kids Wear School Uniforms? – part of a series that explored important issues that kids face. She has written over two dozen non-fiction titles for educational publishers like The Child’s World, BrightPoint Press, Capstone Press, Kaleidoscope Publishing and Jump!. Janie’s first trade picture book, Motorcycle Queen: The Life of Bessie Stingfield, will be published by The Creative Company in 2024. Janie lives in San Francisco, and has worked as an elementary school teacher, a museum educator and a literary tutor. She holds a Masters in Education from Bank Street College in New York.
After registering, click on your MEMBER HOME > EVENTS to access the ZOOM LINK for the webinar. A video recording will be posted to the SCBWI website 48 hours after the event concludes and will be accessible for 30 days.
This event is non-refundable.
Questions? Contact: Natasha Yim
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