After you experience the benefits of this type of professional review, you may, at your option, take advantage of additional review opportunities at the modest fee of about $45 each.

      You’ll also have exclusive opportunities to share self-editing tips and techniques with other writers through the use of our website.

Bird Crash 911

      “To me, the title of a piece is the most important element,” writes Carolyn Yoder, Senior Editor at Highlights for Children. In Workshop 7: Hooking Your Reader (and Editor), you’ll discover how to turn dull article titles and leads into exciting ones (example: “Saving Birds” becomes “Bird Crash 911”). 

      In Reshaping a Story, Workshop 1, you’ll learn how to improve the “grab” factor of your story openings, recognize and avoid middle sag, and craft strong, satisfying endings. 

      Workshops 5 and 9 will enable you to develop a leaner, more concise style for your work, and you’ll discover how to adjust your story or article appropriately in style and length to three age groups: 3 to 7, 8 to 12, 12 and up.

Officer! Arrest that minor character!

      In Workshop 2: Focusing on Characterization, you’ll learn how to decide which characters are essential to your story and which should be retired in the interests of focus and story length. If you have a cheerleader named Ermintrude dating a violin prodigy named Duke, you’ll want to check the section on effective naming.

     You’ll get valuable insights on the use of character names, appearance, possessions, and gestures to vividly present a character’s personality. You’ll discover how to avoid cliché characters and when to use inner narrative to show how your protagonist is thinking and feeling.

      Other workshops show you how to add color and detail to your writing, strengthen and enliven your dialogue so it moves your story ahead, and revise your story or article to better meet a specific magazine’s needs. . .

Put magic into your writing

      Together with your 278-page Self-Editing Workshop Manual, you will receive Word Magic for Writers: Your Source to Powerful Language That Enchants, Convinces, and Wins Readers. 

      This unique book gives you fascinating glimpses into how successful writers use words to tell a gripping story or bring facts to vivid life. You’ll absorb proven techniques to increase the range and elegance with which you express yourself.  In addition . .

You’ll know what and where to submit

      Your third course text is the latest edition of the Institute’s Magazine Markets for Children’s Writers. This uniquely comprehensive guide has detailed listings of hundreds of magazines that buy freelance material.

      Each listing describes the magazine and its readership, analyzes its content, and gives directions for submitting. Magazine Markets for Children’s Writers has been a gateway to publication for thousands of Institute students and graduates.

      With the help of Self-Editing, your chances for success are even greater.

Why editors say “No”

      Magazine editors know that they’re competing with iPads, iPhones, computers, and other diversions for youngsters’ attention. In Workshop 10, Revising for Submission, you’ll absorb four major reasons for rejection slips.

      You’ll learn how to effectively trim and stretch to meet word-count requirements, how to write effective query and cover letters, how and when to add sidebars and what to put in them, and much more.

Hook, grab, and hold

      You’ll become expert at targeting your market, revamping lackluster leads into riveting “hooks,” matching vocabulary to your reader’s age, using fiction techniques to pump energy and drama into nonfiction, hooking, grabbing, and holding your reader all the way . . .

Say goodbye to time-wasting seesawing and killer doubts about what your manuscript needs.

      The Self-Editing immersion workshops will give you the tools and the confidence to revise with energy, enthusiasm, and increased hope of—and a real chance for—publishing success.

      The self-training workshops can be taken in sequence to build a master plan repertoire of self-editing skills that covers the full spectrum of writing for publication in children's magazines. Or, you can absorb and apply workshops individually to help change a single piece's status from “not for us” to “just what we're looking for.” 

      In the process, you’ll find that rewriting doesn’t have to be drudgery—it can actually be fun!
 
      And the potential pay-off from your improved expertise is the most fun of all.

What students say. . . 

“This is more than a course for me,” says Nick Searle of Santa Rosa, California, a cartoonist and greeting card illustrator who is working on an 18,000 word short story. “My formal education is limited so this is my own version of college. When I’m through I expect to write better, more intelligently and more interestingly. I’ve written many short stories, all rejected, and now I’m beginning to see why. I’d be writing a scene in a kitchen and I'd throw in a recipe for Mexican pancakes. Nothing to do with anything! But now the course is beginning to take hold. I'm beginning to be able to fix my own writing.”

“I’m so excited about this course,” says PollyAnna Covert of Otway, Ohio. “It’s already helped me immensely. I’m learning how to reevaluate my work objectively so I can polish and tune the fine points. My instructor is great—and I’ve had three excellent instructors from the Institute before her. She’s very specific. When she points out a flaw I think, Why didn’t I see that! and now I’m beginning to see them myself.”

“I’m taking the workshops to learn the rules, learn how to follow the rules, find out what editors want and how they think,” says Peggy Rifleman of San Antonio, Texas. “I’m on my third assignment now and I already know that my instructor is very thorough and accurate, which appeals to me with my passion for science and mathematics. She gets through to me. I don’t know what she’s making but she deserves a raise.”

      With your order you pay only a small deposit, and every cent is refundable to you after your 30-day free examination.

      And you get a professional coach’s critique of one of your revised manuscripts at no additional fee.

Free Book—Just for looking!

      You’ll receive a FREE copy of Witness by Newbery Medal winner (and Institute graduate) Karen Hesse. This gift book is yours to keep, whether or not you choose to continue with Revise to Publish.

EXTRA FREE BONUS

      One of our nationally published writers/instructors will edit and critique any one of the assignments you select and return it with a detailed letter about your writing and an evaluation of the market you have chosen for it. FREE!

      If you’d like to receive Revise to Publish for a 30-day, no-risk examination, simply click Order Now.

      Sincerely,
      Pamela G. Kelly
      Director of Instruction
      Institute of Children’s Literature