Coaching KidLit Episode 42: Demystifying Middle Grade Series with Guest Matt McMann

In this episode of Coaching KidLit, host Sharon Skinner welcomes Matt McMann, USA Today bestselling author of the middle grade spooky mystery series Monsterious. Matt shares his unique writing journey—from winning school writing contests as a kid, to a long career as a musician, and finally returning to writing with encouragement and guidance from his wife, bestselling author Lisa McMann.

Matt discusses the ups and downs of his path to publication, including multiple book rejections before finding success with Monsterious. He explains the difference between dynamic, static, and anthology series and why he chose the anthology format for his books, allowing each story to feature different characters and monsters. Matt emphasizes the importance of perseverance and ongoing practice in developing writing craft.

Visit Matt online at mattmcmann.com, and follow him on Instagram @matt_mcmann

Key Topics Covered:

Developing a Middle Grade Series
Types of Series Structures
Finding Inspiration for Stories
The Importance of Mentorship and Community
Tips for Marketing Middle Grade Books

Books and Resources Mentioned:

Monsterious series (written by Matt McMann)
- Escape from Grimstone Manor
- The Snatcher of Raven Hollow
- Terror in Shadow Canyon
- The Beast of Skull Rock
- Trapped in the Horror Dome
Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine

Listen:

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing

[00:00:05] Christy Yaros: Good KidLit. We dig into various aspects of writing craft through a KidLit lens and provide inspiration and clear actionable items to help writers like you move forward on their KidLit writing journeys.

[00:00:17] Sharon Skinner: I’m Sharon Skinner. Author Accelerator, certified book coach and author of Speculative Fiction and KidLit, including picture books, middle grade and young adult.

[00:00:31] Christy Yaros: And I’m Christy Yaros, author accelerator, certified book coach and story editor focusing on KidLit, including middle grade and young adult.

[00:00:41] Sharon Skinner: Hello listeners, it’s Sharon again and I have another special guest this month, and I’m very excited to introduce him to you. As a professional musician, USA today bestselling author Matt McMann, played an NFL stadium, a cruise ship, and the International Twins Convention. Now he writes the kind of spooky mystery adventure books he loved as a kid, including the Monsterious series.

He’s hiked the Pacific Northwest, cruised Loch Ness, and chased a ghost on a mountain. And while he missed Bigfoot and Nessie, he caught the ghost. He enjoys brainstorming new books with his wife, New York Times best bestselling author, Lisa McMann. We’re gonna try and get her on the podcast later this year, viewing his son Killian McMann’s artwork and watching his daughter actor Kennedy McMann on television. They are one busy, exciting, creative family. You can visit Matt online at MattMcMann.com and follow him on Instagram at Matt_McMann and those social media handles will be in our show notes. So without further ado, welcome Matt McMann to our show.

Matt, it’s so good to have you here.

[00:01:51] Matt McMann: Thanks so much for having me, Sharon. It’s a blast to be able to. Chat with you today.

[00:01:55] Sharon Skinner: Well, I’m excited to talk to you because you have a really interesting writing journey and you are writing series, which we haven’t talked about as much on the show, thus far. So you are writing a middle grade series Monsterious, which I like to tell people is the new goosebumps.

[00:02:13] Matt McMann: That’s very kind.

[00:02:14] Sharon Skinner: That’s how I see it and I think that’s how it seems to be landing in the publishing realm and in the reader’s realm. So I’m excited for you on that. But do you wanna tell us a little bit, maybe something that wasn’t in your bio about your writing journey and how you came to write Monsterious

[00:02:30] Matt McMann: Yeah. well my writing journey started when I was 12 years old. Our English teacher, passed out a picture of a creepy looking house and he said, okay, I want everybody in the class to write a short story based on that picture. So I wrote my very first spooky short story ’cause it kind of looked like a haunted house.

And it was terrible. It was a terrible story, but I had a blast writing it. Then in seventh grade we had a creative writing contest where everybody in the seventh grade had to write a short story, and I won the contest. Much to my surprise, eighth grade, we had the contest. Again, everybody in the eighth grade writes a short story.

I won again, and this time my English teacher read the introduction of the story out loud to the class and he said if the rest of the story had been as good as the beginning of the story, which it totally was not, he’d suggest it be published. I thought, wow, writing stories is really fun and my teacher thinks I’m good at it.

When I grow up. I want to be an author. But then in high school, I got really into music and I ended up studying music in college. Became a professional musician for 26 years, but then I burned out on doing music. And my wife Lisa, wonderful author as well. she said, Hey, you used to like to write stories when you were younger.

What do you think about writing books? And I thought, oh. That sounds really good, but what kind of books do I even really wanna write? And that’s when I remembered something about my childhood. I was a really scared kid. I was afraid of almost everything. I was afraid of the dark bullies, the woods, the basement.

But I loved spooky stories. And I would go to my elementary school library and check out every book on Bigfoot and the abominable Snowman, the Loch ness monster vampires, werewolves, you name it. Because when I would read these spooky stories. It allowed me to experience fear in a safe, fun way. And when I saw the characters in the books facing their fears, it gave me courage to face my own.

So fast forward to this decision where I’m going as an adult, ah, I wanna write books, but what kind of books do I wanna write? That’s when I remembered those kinds of spooky, monster mystery books that I loved when I was younger, and I thought, yeah, that’s what I wanna write because I want to give kids today.

That same spooky fun and that same courage that I found in those books when I was that age. So I wrote my very first book, and it did not go well, and I like to over plan, so I was thinking and plotting and planning before I would actually put pen to paper. And Lisa actually. Kidnapped me for the weekend, took me to, a hotel for us to do a staycation for the weekend and said, we’re not going home until you write the first chapter.

So she forced me to get going, which was the kick that I needed. And fortunately, because of her connections and at this time she had already, published quite a few books and she had a long-term relationship with her literary agent, Michael Bourret, from Dystel, Goderich and Bourret, and while I’m in the process of crafting my first book, which was a middle grade kind of fantasy adventure at that point, that had some spooky stuff in it.

She said, Hey, when we go through LA on this trip that we have coming up, we are gonna have dinner with Michael, her agent. And she said, sometime over the course of dinner, he’s gonna turn to you and say, so Matt, what are you doing these days? And you’re going to say. I’m writing the middle grade book and he’s gonna say, so tell me about it and you’re gonna have a pitch ready.

So I went, yes ma’am. So I crafted this little two sentence pitch for this work in progress that I was doing, and we go into LA and have dinner with Michael and sure enough, exactly like she said it, he turns to me over dinner and says, so Matt, what are you doing these days? And I said, I’m writing a middle grade novel.

And he rolled his eyes and he is like, yeah, you and everybody else,

[00:06:02] Sharon Skinner: Oh, ouch.

[00:06:03] Matt McMann: ouch. I know. And he’s like, okay, go ahead, pitch it to me. And I’m like, no, you don’t have no, you don’t have to hear this. And he is like, no, that’s okay. It’s what I do all day long. Come on, go ahead. Pitch it to me. So I gave him my prepared pitch and he went, hmm.

That actually sounds kinda like the stuff that I like. Okay. When the manuscript’s done, go ahead and send it to me. So I finish the manuscript, I send it to him. while later he calls me and he’s like, okay, this has potential, but it needs a lot of work. If you’re willing to do some work on it, I’m willing to read it again.

And I was like, absolutely. And then something happened that never happens. So, to all of your listeners, I realize how incredibly fortunate this is. This never happens when you’re pitching, trying to get a literary agent. He proceeded to spend the next hour telling me everything that he thought was wrong with the book.

[00:06:55] Sharon Skinner: Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah. Well, it helps to know people of course.

[00:07:00] Matt McMann: It totally does. I was the luckiest, aspiring author in the world to have Lisa McMann as my

writing coach

[00:07:05] Sharon Skinner: And mentor. Yes.

[00:07:07] Matt McMann: and mentor. Absolutely. So I took copious notes over that phone call and I just did everything he suggested that I do with the manuscript. I sent it back to him, he reread it, he called me and.

Said, okay, this is in good shape. And he offered me representation. And so we went out, with an exclusive, submission, which for your listeners, so there’s different ways to go out. Typically, you go out wide to multiple editors, but he wanted to go out on exclusive submission, offering it to just one particular editor that he knew at Simon Schuster.

And so we went out with it with an exclusive submission. She liked it. She had some suggestions. I made some more tweaks. She ended up taking it to acquisitions, got all the way up the chain to acquisitions, and then it died.

[00:07:49] Sharon Skinner: ouch. Again.

[00:07:50] Matt McMann: So I was thinking, this is amazing. My very first book that I thought was gonna be a throwaway practice novel not only got me a literary agent, it’s gonna get me my first book, deal with my first editor that has pitched you and then it didn’t.

And I thought, well, if it got that close with the first editor, when it goes out wide, it’s gonna get snatched up. So it went out wide on a first wave at all. Rejections. Second wave, all rejections, third wave, all rejections. It was on submission for over a year, never sold. So in the meantime, I was taking the advice of my wife Lisa gives me, which is you can’t control the speed of how things move in publishing, but you can control when you write.

So always be working on your next thing. So while Book one was out on sub I wrote book two. So when Book one didn’t go anywhere, my agent sent out book two on submission and nothing but rejections on that one. While that one was out on sub, I wrote a third book, gave that to my agent, and he said, but the second half of the book is the best thing you’ve ever written.

The first half needs a lot of work. And while he was reading book three. I was feeling very despondent at this point, feeling like this is never gonna happen. I’m never gonna break through. And Lisa, was reading an article out loud to me one evening and she mispronounced the word mysterious and said, Monsterious instead.

And I went, oh, that would be a fun title for a middle grade book. And she went, no, it’s a whole series and you should write it. I went monsterious monsters, mysteries kind of crammed together. I like both of those things. I’m gonna try to write a series a middle grade series called Monsterious and I had the unique opportunity at that point.

You know, you’d mentioned talking about writing of a series earlier. I had a unique opportunity at that moment to. Decide, well, what kind of series do I want this to be? Because normally you start with an idea for a story and you write a book, a story, and then you go, well, does this have series potential?

But I was approaching it from a different perspective because I had an idea for a series with no ideas for stories. So I thought, well, what kind of series do I wanna write? And. there are three typical types of series. There’s a dynamic series, a static series, and an anthology series. So a dynamic series is the one that we think of most often when we think of a series.

It’s a consistent cast of characters that goes through a multi-book story arc, like Lord of the Rings. Or there’s a static series, which is where you have consistent characters that go through episodic adventures like Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew. Then you have an anthology style series, which is where the books are connected by a place or an idea or a theme.

But each book has a unique cast of characters and isn’t a standalone adventure, like goosebumps. And I thought, you know what? I’m really drawn to this anthology idea for this monsterious series because. One, it’s the least common of the three types of series. So I was hoping, well, maybe that’ll make it stand out to an editor and their slush pile.

and also I was really drawn to the idea of an anthology style series would allow me to write about any monster, any kid, anywhere, without having to. Somehow come up with a plausible explanation of why is the same. kid keep running into all these different types of monsters. And so I sat down and decided to write a anthology style series, and as I’d had my experience with rejection of my first standalone books, and I was so committed to this idea of this anthology style series, I decided, you know what?

I’m gonna pitch this one differently than I pitched my others. because the series idea itself was so integral to the concept of what I wanted monsterious to be. So normally when you pitch, with your agent to an editor, you’re pitching a single manuscript, and often it’ll be a single book with series potential. But this is why I wanted to do something different. So I actually came up with a different concept of how to pitch the story, or how to pitch the series. And so I wrote one full manuscript. I wrote two complete outlines for two additional books. I came up with five more ideas for books, one paragraph each that could all live in this monsterious world.

And I put that all together in a package and I sent that to my agent. And when he read that, he said, whoa, timeout. Okay, let’s stop going out with book two. We’d already abandoned book one. Stop going out with book two on submission. Let’s not go out with book three at all. And I think this one might have legs.

Let’s go out with this one. And he sent it out on an exclusive submission to Penguin Random House, and it Sold immediately in a four book deal.

[00:12:26] Sharon Skinner: That’s fabulous. I like to hear that your journey was different, but I also hear a lot of, yes, There’s a lot of good coaching that you got and mentoring that you got from Lisa. Lisa who knows the industry. She’s been doing this for decades. She’s, very well published.

She’s written across, categories and somewhat different genre, so she knows her business and she’s very savvy. I, I’ve always known this about her, and I love to hear that you approached this from that perspective. I know that the first book was the book that you felt passionate to write. It’s a story you really wanted to write, and I always coach my clients, write the story of your heart, right?

Write what you’re passionate about. At least that first book, those, that first book, second book, that’s where we wanna come from because we wanted the joy of this. Was there any point during this process where you felt like, my goodness, maybe this is not for me? Or were you just enjoying the writing so much that you wanted to keep going? How did that work for you?

[00:13:23] Matt McMann: Oh, that’s a great question. I subscribe to, shelf Awareness, which is a newsletter. for industry trade and Publishers Weekly, another trade magazine. So I kept reading reports. Some those newsletters have reports on here’s the latest deals.

This person got this deal with, this publisher, this person got this deal with this publisher, and it, as they were picture in it, and they’re a little write up and all that stuff. And as, time went on, ’cause this is taking years now from the time I started. To write my first book to getting the agent first book rejection, second book, rejection, all that.

I’m reading Publishers weekly and seeing, all these deals, and I just felt so despondent. I can remember one specific night sitting in bed with Lisa, reading publishers weekly, reading all the rights reports of the latest things and going, it’s hopeless. This is hopeless. I will never see my picture there.

I will never break through, but the advice that I got that really helped me, not only from Lisa, but from a number of writer friends that we had who were published was a consistent one. And the consistent advice that I heard from many authors was this, the main thing that separates an aspiring author from a published author is that the published author never gave up.

[00:14:40] Sharon Skinner: Right. It’s perseverance. It’s that ability to continue and to take rejection and to move forward and to, as you, did, write that next book, write that next book, and to let your creative juices run when that idea comes. Right. So monsterious, I mean, that’s just a. Trick of the, tongue that took place and it generated all these ideas.

But if you hadn’t been writing along the way, if you hadn’t been constantly thinking about story and these kids that you were writing about and the coming at it from the fear aspect and all of that, would that have sparked that creative juice?

Maybe not.

[00:15:18] Matt McMann: I think you’re exactly right. it’s one of the things when I, do a lot of school visits where I’m talking with elementary school kids about, the writing craft. And that’s one of the things that I try to communicate with kids is writing is a skill. I mean, there has to be some natural talent there.

Sure. But what I say to the kids is, okay, if you wanna be a professional basketball player, what do you need to do?

Practice basketball. You wanna be a professional musician? What do you need to do? Practice. If you wanna be a professional writer, what do you need to do? Practice, you have to practice the writing craft and you’re exactly right.

And I definitely saw my progression. Poor Lisa, she was so patient with me. early on she had so much coaching to, to do with me and from those, that early manuscript and then into the second manuscript. And each time I was learning and getting better. And like you said, till when that moment of inspiration struck.

I not only had an idea then that I could run with, but I had developed my skill and the craft enough to the point where I could take that idea and produce a work that was of high enough quality that it got the deal.

[00:16:23] Sharon Skinner: Right. And then you were able to sell series on proposal, which not everybody gets to do.

you were in a great space to be able to do it. I mean, things very much aligned for that, which is really exciting. It doesn’t always happen. And I want our listeners to understand that this is a bit of an unusual journey, but, honestly, relationships matter in this business,

you happen to have a really solid relationship to begin with, and that helped. And a coach or a mentor or someone who can help you with your writing, whether that’s your critique group or your beta readers, or someone like me who you work with, or a fellow writer who’s willing to swap manuscripts, all of those things are really important. because building those skills leveling up, and one of the things that I, like to say is that when you work with someone like me, my hope and what makes my heart. Swell is when you come in the door and we work together. And on the way out the door, you have really elevated your writing skills.

And I just did that with a client and it made me so happy. It made us both happy to be honest with you, but it makes me so happy. So I know lisa Had a lot of joy in what you were doing together. Not just poor Lisa had to put up with it, but she was doing something to help you do what you wanted to do, but also something she enjoys. So if she’s anything like me, I know that there was a lot of joy there for her. I loved that you laid it out for us, the different types of series, because a lot of times when we’re writing, like I wrote a trilogy and I’ve written a duology, those are both stories that it was a story of my heart and then. My readers wanted more. And so I was like, oh, that’s great. They want more now what do I do? . So that was for the trilogy and that was very difficult to write because I didn’t plan it as a trilogy. And we’re gonna talk about planning in a second here. And then the Duology is just a second book where I just had another idea for a story for those two kids, and I wrote it And the reason that I really wanted to get it out in the world is because reluctant readers were loving that first book. And I had parents coming back and saying, do you have any more? And so I was like, I gotta have something more.

Right. So that’s, that’s a good reason to, go out and write multiple books if you have stories that you want to tell, but you planned Monsterious Really well ahead of time, and I wanna talk a little bit about that because a lot of times we don’t plan out that far. And with series, I think it’s important that you have a number of ideas, especially anthology series like yours, where you probably need to have multiple stories in order to keep going.

So let’s talk a little bit about that process, because it sounds to me like you came a little bit from the planning process, the over-planning, the plotting rather than the characters in the story.

[00:19:14] Matt McMann: Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, starting there. I am more of a plot writer than a character writer. Some people start with a character and think of, I have this character in my head, and they’re like, I am understanding their voice and their personality and their background and their skills and their foibles and their obstacles.

So, so it’s now it’s like, okay, what, story? Can I bring this character that’s in my head through, I don’t work that way. My brain doesn’t work that way. And that’s another thing to be clear to your listeners as well, is there’s no one right way to write a story. Approach it if you’re a pantser or a plotter, or you, dive into a story idea first, or if you’re character driven.

It doesn’t matter. You just need to figure out what works for you. But I definitely approached it more from a plot standpoint and because when I approached it monsterious because it was an anthology style series, by definition, the characters don’t carry over from one book to the next. So I was very much focused on, okay, what kind of story.

Do I wanna tell? What kind of stories do I want to tell? And then, okay, if this is the story, what kind of characters can inhabit this story and walk through this plot that is running around inside of my brain? So that is kind of how I approached it from an anthology style series. And for me, I ended up getting, this is a weird sidebar, but.

You had mentioned goosebumps earlier. One of the coolest experiences that I’ve had in the last year and a half, ’cause I’m still relatively new. My first books came out in May of 2023, so I’m, you know, about a year and a half into my publishing journey. But I’ve been able to do a lot of cool things, and one of the things I’ve been able to do was hang out with RL Stein, who is the author of Goosebumps.

And so I’ve been at multiple festivals with him, where we’ve been on panels together, which is crazy. Rookie newbie, nobody, me literally sitting next to RL Stein would doing

author panels.

[00:21:14] Sharon Skinner: I have the same experience. ’cause I was on a panel with him at the San diego State University Writers Conference one year. And we were on a panel together. And when we first met, he was like, oh, just call me Bob. Right? And it’s like, oh, okay. Wow. Gosh. And I was the new kid. I was one of, you know, new kid on the block still. And I just love that you and I have that same experience ’cause I felt the same way.

[00:21:37] Matt McMann: hilarious. I had no idea that you knew him as well. Been on panels with. Well, one of the things that happened, one reason that came into my brain was because we’re talking about, how to come up with the planning part of the series and we were doing a panel

together. And somehow he has a way of hijacking the conversation and the panel and just talking about whatever he wants to talk about, which he gets to do because he’s RL Stein.

[00:21:58] Sharon Skinner: Right.

[00:21:59] Matt McMann: He started talking about, well, I come up with ideas for my books from titles. I just get a title in my head. That’s the thing that sparks the idea for that particular book. And he turns to me, he is like, Matt, how do you come up with ideas for your books? And for me, my answer to that in that panel is, places, locations, settings are the things that typically have inspired.

Books for me. So there’s five books in the Monsterious series. Four of those books were inspired completely by settings. And so like the first book in my series was called Escape from Grimstone Manner. And this was shortly after I’d had this idea for the mysterious series, like, okay, it’s gonna be an anthology style monster mystery series.

That’s all I had. And I thought, well, what kind of stories do I want to tell? And while I was brainstorming story ideas, I saw a photo of a gargoyle statue in front of a roller coaster. And I thought, oh, this is odd. What is this? And it turned out to be an advertisement for a spooky amusement park ride.

And I thought, oh, that would be a cool setting. For a monsterious book, a haunted house, amusement park ride. But a setting’s not a story, right? So I had to think, well, okay, well what’s something that’s interesting or spooky or strange that could happen in that cool setting that would make a good story? And so I thought, well, okay, it’s an amusement park ride.

What if the ride broke down? Okay, that’s a start, but it’s not very interesting. What else? What if the kids somehow got trapped inside the haunted house ride overnight? Oh that’s more interesting. Oh, what if they were trying to run around, trying to find their way out? They discover a hidden staircase that leads to this creepy basement hidden beneath the ride that’s full of all this creepy stuff.

Oh, that’s cool. Oh wait, what if all that creepy stuff somehow came to life and started chasing them around and it was at that point that I thought, yeah, that’s when I knew I had a story. And that’s what became the first book in the series. Escape from Grimstone Manor. But the whole. Book started with me literally seeing a picture of a gargoyle statue in front of a rollercoaster, and so it was that kind of inspiration that really helped me craft the series. And then yet another setting was, I went hiking in Vancouver, Canada and it was kinda this creepy forest. And I’m walking through this forest and like, oh, that tree has really unusual root structures and all these weird rocks, what is going on? And this stream flowing out of a cave.

And I thought, oh, this is such a cool setting. Maybe this could be a book in the Monsterious series. And by the end of the hike, I had already roughed out a rough plot for what became Terror and Shadow Canyon, which is a book about five hikers who are lost in a remote wilderness, who are stalked by a monster.

And so the same thing happened with, the fourth book in the series, the Beast of Skull Rock. I read an article online about a museum in Paris that had a lot of taxidermy creatures. And I thought, oh, that’d be a cool setting for mysterious book, a spooky museum with a lot of taxidermy stuff, and maybe one of those taxidermy animals comes to life or something.

And that became the beast of Skull Rock, about twins, Jade and Simon, who tried to save their grandfather’s spooky museum from a rampaging were hyena.

[00:25:01] Sharon Skinner: I love that you’re coming at it from that perspective. That first of all, process is personal. I say it all the time to my writers process is personal and even how you are inspired and how you take those ideas and move them forward. I. That’s part of the process. And brains are amazing.

They’re weird, but they’re amazing. Right.

And I’m always telling my writers that one of the reasons I tell them to read broadly and widely and voraciously is because we’re trying to fill the hopper. I consider the brain this hopper, that once you fill it with all these things, then it will organically come out in your stories and it will help to inspire you.

But if you don’t have anything to put in there,

[00:25:40] Matt McMann: Yeah.

[00:25:41] Sharon Skinner: Then where are you gonna come up with your ideas? Right?

least that’s how it. Works for me.

[00:25:46] Matt McMann: I love it.

[00:25:46] Sharon Skinner: So I love hearing that you are reading articles or going places and paying attention and learning things, and because you’re really feeding that side of your brain that is going to take that and churn it into something really wonderful.

[00:26:00] Matt McMann: Exactly.

[00:26:01] Sharon Skinner: So Matt, do you wanna talk a little bit about, some of the marketing that you are doing along with getting the books out? Because I, want our listeners to understand that yes, you get the. Agent, you get the deal, you get the book published, but it doesn’t stop there.

Not only are you writing the next book, but you are living and breathing the books that are out in order to make sure readers are aware. So do you wanna talk a little bit about what’s required of you or the, things that you do in addition to your publisher to make sure the books are out and get in the hands of your target readers?

[00:26:34] Matt McMann: Great question, great point. And this was one of the hardest lessons, that I think new published authors have to learn is by and large the marketing of your books is on you. And that’s a better pill to swallow because you think once , you’ve spent so much time and energy in crafting these stories, making the best book you can, you finally break through and you get an agent, you finally break through and you get a book deal and you think, oh my gosh, finally I’ve arrived and now my publisher is gonna market this book and make it a success in the world. Sometimes that happens. In very rare cases, your publisher will totally run with it and do all the marketing, or you’ve established a platform to the degree where your books sell themselves on your name. But for the vast majority of us especially, is when we get started, the promotion of your book is on you.

So that’s just something to be prepared for, for your aspiring authors out there. One of the things that I, again, had the huge benefit of, was watching my wife Lisa’s career for all of those years before I made my attempt to jump in. And one of the things that I always admired about Lisa is she’s not only the most creative person that I’ve ever met, she’s got 32 books published with More in the hopper coming down the line.

But. She’s also got a great business sense and a great marketing brain. So for example, some of the things I learned from her that I then started to incorporate was, number one, when you’re targeting a middle grade market, a eight to 12 year olds, that’s an interesting beast because typically you’re marketing to a target reader who doesn’t make their own typical buying decisions, and they certainly aren’t usually shelling out the cash for it. So you have to find, okay, what are ways that I can market directly to my target reader, and what are ways that I can market directly to.

The gatekeepers, who are your teachers, your librarians, your booksellers, your parents. So in terms of marketing directly to the target reader, the thing by far and a way that has been the most successful marketing is doing elementary school and middle school Visits. So where you go into a school and you talk to kids directly about your books, about writing, get them excited, and then hopefully they’re ordering the books, for you to sign when you get there and you’re promoting a bookstore event.

So that has been the most. Successful marketing strategy for both Lisa and myself in our middle grade books is going into those schools. And that’s a whole topic in and of itself that we could do a whole podcast on marketing but basically, you know, start where you are, wherever you are.

We’ve literally like just looked up the elementary schools in our driving range. Got on their website, figured out who their librarian was, got an email address, and then have crafted a Hi, I’m Matt McMann, local author of this series. I love to talk to kids about writing. Here’s some info about my books.

I would love to come and talk to your school, to your kids and sending out cold emails to librarians. And get that thing going. and so I’ve created whole tours locally in, the Phoenix area where we’re based, just by going out and grinding and getting these, things done myself. And so that is one way to market directly to your kids.

And then here’s a tip. That has been very successful for us that Lisa came up with. We were having a hard time getting kids. The kids would get very excited when we come into the schools. and then we’d say, we’re gonna be at Changing Hands Bookstore or Barnes and Noble Bookstore in your area tomorrow night or Friday night or whatever, come out.

And they’re all excited and then they don’t show up to the bookstore event. And the disconnect that we were realizing was kids. Can get excited, but they don’t retain facts. So for them to go home to their parents and their parents go, what would you do today? Oh, always. Oh, this great author, and they’re gonna be at this store.

I wanna go, great. Who’s the author? I don’t know what store? I don’t remember what day. I dunno. So you get a kid excited, but if they don’t have the ability to communicate the information that’s needed to the person that will actually get them to the event and pay for them to buy a book, then it’s not gonna happen.

So she came up with this idea of literally doing physical printed postcards that we made in advance of our school visits. with our book covers on one side and then a party invitation on the back that has all the details about the event, where we’re gonna be, when it is, where it is, all that stuff.

And we bundle ’em in rubber band bundles of 30 before we show up and we give ’em to the librarian to disperse to the teachers, and then we do the event The teachers distribute the postcards to the kids, and then the kids go, I wanna go to this.

And our attendance at our events shot up after that. So that was a great marketing tip

for your listeners.

[00:31:22] Sharon Skinner: That is a great tip for the listeners. Anybody who is planning on doing school visits or who’s in the process of setting up school visits, take that away because that is brilliant and it just makes sense. Right. But if you don’t know, you don’t know what you don’t know.

So. Listeners, if you take nothing else away from this, but there was so much to take away from this conversation with Matt. if that’s the only thing, hang on to that. Use that. Matt, I’ve really enjoyed having a conversation with you. I always enjoy our talks. but we’re coming to the end of our time. And as you know, we like to give our listeners an action item, something actionable that they can take away from each, episode of the podcast. So Matt, what action item do you have for our listeners today?

[00:32:06] Matt McMann: I’m gonna tag back to something that we touched on earlier, which is use inspiring settings to inspire your stories. So for me, it’s. Going to places, keeping your antenna up wherever you are thinking about settings that are inspiring to you and see how you can allow those cool settings to inspire stories like I spoke on earlier.

You know, my first book came from the idea of a, spooky amusement park ride. My second book, came from the idea of a hike that I had taken in a park. Third thing came from an article I read about Paris, France. And they can be things that even from your past. So my most recent book in the series is called Trapped in the Horror Dome.

It’s about a seventh grade science club, field trip to a scientific research facility in a biodome that turns into a nightmare when a monster escapes from a secret lab. So that book was actually inspired even though it just came out in August of 24. That book was inspired. By me going to, when our daughter was 12, which was many years ago, I went with her on a school field trip to, what’s called Biosphere two in Tucson, Arizona, which is a scientific research facility in a biodome out in the middle of the desert.

And it was such a cool place because It’s this geodesic dome of steel and glass out in the middle of the desert. It looks like Mars. and it’s such a cool place ’cause it’s got all these different environments inside of it. It’s got a swamp, it’s got a miniature ocean, it’s got a tundra, it’s got all these cool miniature environments.

And I thought, man, this place is so cool. And when again, I was fast forward 18 years and I’m thinking about. Settings for Monsterious books. I remembered that Biodome and I thought, oh, that would be a cool place to set a book. And that became my most recent book. So that’s my tip is at least one that’s worked really well for me is allow settings to inspire stories.

[00:34:05] Sharon Skinner: that’s a great tip and I love that you talked about biosphere, ’cause I’ve been there multiple times because it’s so fascinating. It’s such a great place. And now if you go, if you get a chance to go back now, ‘ cause it’s years later, it’s super overgrown. Like the rainforest is super grown up and yeah, it’s, very different than it was when it first. opened up to the public. So listeners go to the biosphere. If you’re in Arizona, it’s a great place to visit. It’s not the sort of Grand Canyon thing that you hear about, but it’s fascinating. Matt that’s a great tip. For my takeaway. I want to encourage our listeners to find those mentors and those coaches in their lives that can help them. Lisa’s been a great help to you, and it just made me think about how important that is. When I first started writing, I was struggling. I didn’t know who to turn to. I had written my first middle grade. Novel, which was awful, but I was so excited about it, but I didn’t know how to fix it and I didn’t know how to turn it into a book.

And so I started attending conferences and workshops and then ultimately ended up getting my, master’s in creative writing and things like that so that I could understand all of that structure. I spent years doing that and there’s nothing wrong with that process and taking it in that way, but if you can find a mentor or Someone who’s been there, done that, or who really has some writing chops who can help you find those people in your life that can do that. You know, for me, one of my first readers was my mom, and she was not a good reader for me. She was not helpful yep. And not in the way that you probably think. She was brutal.

It was bad, but, find those people that you can trust that can help mentor and coach you. And if you don’t have those people in your life, find your community. join SCBWI, Society of Children, book Writers and illustrators, or an organization of that nature where you can find your peeps.

Find those people that are already on the path and listen to podcasts like this because hey, we’re sharing all kinds of great information. Matt, I can’t thank you enough for coming on here and sharing all of this great information about middle grade series and your process and your writing journey. It’s been fabulous having you here. Before we go, do you want to share your social media handles with our listeners one more time?

[00:36:22] Matt McMann: Yeah. best way to get ahold of me is on Instagram, I’m Matt underscore McMann M-C-M-A-N-N, or my website, Matt McMann.com.

[00:36:32] Sharon Skinner: Thanks for being here

[00:36:33] Matt McMann: It was my pleasure. It was so fun talking with you again, Sharon.

[00:36:37] Christy Yaros: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their KidLit writing game.

[00:36:44] Sharon Skinner: For more about us and to discover what a book coach could do for you, check out coaching KidLit dot com and follow us on social media.

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For more information about Sharon Skinner, visit bookcoachingbysharon.com or follow her on Instagram @sharon_skinner_author_bookcoach

For more information about Christy Yaros, visit christyyaros.com or follow her on Instagram and Twitter @ChristyYaros.

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Want to know more about working with a Book Coach on your KidLit book? Check out my KidLit Coaching Page or fill out my inquiry form to schedule a FREE Consult call and let’s get started!