Coaching KidLit Episode 54: Breaking Into Work for Hire with Guest Aubre Andrus

Host Sharon Skinner chats with Aubre Andrus, an award-winning author and ghostwriter of over 50 children’s books, about building a writing career through work for hire projects. They discuss the ins and outs of work for hire, self-publishing, balancing passive and direct income, and the importance of networking directly with editors. Aubre shares tips on negotiating contracts without an agent, managing deadlines, and developing the versatile skill set required for writing in established brands and series. Actionable advice is offered for writers seeking to break into work for hire, emphasizing strategy, networking, and continual skill development.

Connect with Aubre Online:

Website: https://www.aubreandrus.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aubreandrus/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/aubreandrus.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AubreAndrusLLC

Grab Aubre’s Handout: 10 Real Work for Hire Book Projects

Topics Covered

00:00 Discovering work for hire projects
09:04 Work for hire contract tips
11:58 Exploring work-for-hire opportunities
14:06 Transitioning to writing work for hire
18:58 Authors doing work for hire projects
24:45 Leveraging work for hire projects
26:29 Navigating work for hire publishing

Books Mentioned

The Look Up series by Aubre Andrus
Chi Chi’s Story by Aubre Andrus, published by Scholastic
America Celebrates: The Most Incredible and Influential People, Places and Events of the Last 250 Years by Aubre Andrus, published by Quarto
Smart Girl’s Guides (series by American Girl)
Descendants by Melissa de la Cruz (tied to Disney)
Disney Twisted Tales (series)
Gradchanted and Promchanted (by Morgan Matson, for Disney)
Marvel and DC superhero books (Marie Lu, Rainbow Rowell noted to have written in these worlds)

Other Resources/Mentions:

How I Built a Career in Children’s Publishing Webinar Sign-up

Listen:

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing 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. 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] Hello, listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Coaching KidLit. Today,

[00:00:35] our guest is Aubre Andrus. Aubre is the award-winning author and ghostwriter of more than 50 books for kids published by American Girl, National Geographic Kids, Lonely Planet Kids, Disney, Scholastic, and more.

[00:00:51] She’s a former American Girl magazine editor and is also the author of The Look Up Series, a career book series for kids featuring real modern women in ridiculously fun STEM careers, which she published herself. Her most recent books include Chi Chi’s Story from Scholastic, a narrative nonfiction middle-grade novel based on a true story, and America Celebrates!, the most incredible and influential people, places, and events of the last 250 years from Quarto. Both projects were works for hire, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.

[00:01:27] So welcome, Aubre. I’m excited to have you here.

[00:01:32] Aubre Andrus: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here

[00:01:34] Sharon Skinner: you have 50 books. That’s a lot of books. You’ve written a lot of books,

[00:01:39] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, I think it’s even more. I just lost count.

[00:01:42] Sharon Skinner: so tell us a little bit how you got here

[00:01:44] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. So I started as an editor at American Girl magazine, and honestly, within my first month of working there, we sat next to the book department, the nonfiction, contemporary, like, advice and activity type books, different from historical fiction, if anyone’s, familiar with American Girl.

[00:02:00] And I just noticed that they were developing projects in-house, with help from the marketing department, and then hiring former editors at American Girl to write these books. And I didn’t know it was called work for hire at the time, but I was seeing these projects get developed with help from marketing, ideas they knew would sell, and then just bringing in a freelance writer to execute it.

[00:02:23] And so I was very intrigued. And so flash forward a bit, and I left American Girl, took a new job, but also was interested in freelancing on the side. My dream was to be a children’s book author. so slowly but surely, I did get, a couple projects from American Girl writing books, and it was super exciting.

[00:02:43] But I didn’t really know where to go from there because American Girl is in Middleton, Wisconsin. They’re very sectioned off from the rest of the publishing industry. Years later, they would have some partnerships with other publishers, but this was before that time. I didn’t live in New York. I lived in Wisconsin and Chicago, and so I really had to start, networking with editors to try to get more work-for-hire projects, and that’s sort of what my whole career has been based on now.

[00:03:12] So I’ve had so much fun doing it that I just haven’t really stopped.

[00:03:15] Sharon Skinner: That’s awesome. you’ve also done some self-publishing. Tell us a little bit about why you jumped into that

[00:03:21] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, through my work-for-hire projects, I started to learn a lot about publishing over the years, and I felt very comfortable with my knowledge. And, I had worked with so many different publishers, so many different editors on so many different topics, which is a benefit of work for hire. And I really wanted to put my knowledge to the test, and I had this idea.

[00:03:41] I’d, always been interested in self-publishing, so I’d been researching it for probably 10 years, but, just never knew what I wanted to dive in with. And I was pregnant with my second daughter. And I didn’t really know how to get, career women in front of them, like role models.

[00:03:56] Like, I signed my daughter up for a female pediatrician and a female dentist and, really went out of my way to do that. But I just didn’t know, how this would work in the future. So I sort of wrote the book series that I wish I had on two parts. One as a mom, and then two as a kid, because I really wanted to be, an Imagineer when I was growing up.

[00:04:14] Basically, I thought I would be a theme park engineer for Disney, and that never happened. And it was kind of like, “Why didn’t this happen?” One day I was pulling onto the Disney publishing campus, and to my right, I saw the Imagineering building, and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m here.”

[00:04:28] “I’m here, but I’m not going into that building. I’m going into the publishing building.” Why? What was missing, you know? So it was kind of twofold, this idea, and I just got really jazzed about it and went for it. And, yeah, it was so eye-opening. It really demystified publishing for me ’cause

[00:04:44] Some of my books had been, submitted for awards, and I won them, which was really great. But sometimes my books wouldn’t be submitted for awards. I wasn’t really sure how that all worked. And so now having my own series, I got to peek behind the curtain, and see how certain things like award nominations and wins work, and come to find out it was super easy to apply and not expensive and I won a couple awards for my book series.

[00:05:08] So it was like, “Oh, I feel like as an author, you’re kept in the dark. This is actually not that hard and not that complicated and not even that expensive.” So it was just really refreshing to get that angle, into the true behind the scenes of publishing as an author, ’cause I do feel like we’re often very much kept in the dark, and I felt very empowered.

[00:05:28] Sharon Skinner: Well, congratulations on the award.

[00:05:29] Aubre Andrus: Thank you.

[00:05:30] Sharon Skinner: I– would like to dig in a little bit to the difference now, because you’ve also continued to do work for hire. So now you kind of had a sneak peek behind the curtain, but you’re still doing work for hire

[00:05:43] So let’s dig into why that’s still of value

[00:05:46] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. I love to talk about career strategy, and I feel like that doesn’t come up a lot with writers. For me, it’s diversifying my income. I really loved work for hire, but I did feel a bit like a hamster on a wheel just in general as a freelance writer. Writing a book is exhausting. You have to do it over and over again. There was one year before I had kids where I wrote 14 books, I think. And they were not all long books, some of them were early readers, but, like, that was a lot.

[00:06:12] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, that’s a lot

[00:06:14] Aubre Andrus: So I was, I was feeling burned out, so I wanted some passive income. I was able to pump out those projects really fast. I rapid released five books before my daughter was born, and for me, that was, what I felt like would be passive income during my maternity leave. Which was a good idea in theory, but it turns out marketing a book series is very hard.

[00:06:33] So, it certainly, was a bit of passive income. And I continue to market that book series and try to break in, ’cause it is so hard to break through the specifically on Amazon. Beating the algorithm on Amazon is very hard.

[00:06:49] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, that’s true. The challenge is that you as an author need to do your own marketing Now here’s the difference, right? So two things I wanna touch on. So first of all, passive income versus, direct income, right? So passive income being that with your self-publishing, you get to receive income ongoing.

[00:07:11] You get the royalties, all of it’s yours because you put everything up front into it. But with work for hire, you typically get what? A single payment

[00:07:22] Aubre Andrus: Yes, you do get a single flat fee. I will say though, I have gotten royalties on quite a few projects. I think that is a big misconception with work for hire, that there’s no such thing as royalties, and that has not been true for me. But those royalties eventually dry up. You know, if a book stops being published, you’re not getting royalties on it anymore, and that is a very likely scenario for most books

[00:07:42] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, and do you have an agent that you go through or has this all been direct for you because you’ve got to know the editors as you said before?

[00:07:49] Aubre Andrus: No agent, and that is my big thing I love to talk about is that– and don’t get me wrong, I think agents are great. They’re wonderful people and an absolute necessity for certain paths to publishing, and can offer you huge career guidance and strategy in your career that you could not find on your own.

[00:08:07] But for me, I started without an agent and have not needed one. I’ve just done all the networking on my own and, I find it funny when I go to writer’s conferences, or retreats because the agents always get hounded. Everyone wants to talk to the agents, and there’s usually a handful of editors there too, and nobody talks to them.

[00:08:26] And it’s just funny to me because that’s who I’m talking to because they are not only– At the end of the day, they’re the ones who are gonna be buying your projects. Of course, You gotta get the agent first who’s then gonna sell it to an editor. But there is such a thing as writers networking directly with editors, getting a book deal, and then finding an agent to represent them.

[00:08:43] So, it is always good to know an editor and get to know editors

[00:08:48] Sharon Skinner: So you don’t have an agent. So when you get a contract for a work-for-hire book, do you run it by, someone who is a literary contract expert? Or do you feel that that’s a good step for an author, especially starting out

[00:09:04] Aubre Andrus: There are, publishing lawyers that you can reach out to to review a contract for you. Also, the Authors Guild will review contracts for free, which is great. At some point you get pretty familiar with the contracts and frankly, they’re not gonna change them for you . with these types of projects, the things you can change– and I am not a lawyer, so this is just things that I have changed, might just be like asking for more author copies, asking for a higher payment upfront, adjusting the timeline or the payment schedule, asking for royalties, seeing if, that’s an option.

[00:09:39] And, I sometimes do craft books, so I might be negotiating like if there is a budget for supplies, if I’m doing like a craft or science book, , and that kind of thing. Also where your name is appearing. Is it on the cover? Is it on the spine? Is it on the title page? Is it just in the teeny tiny credits that says, “Text by Aubre Andrus”?

[00:09:57] That’s important for ghostwriting gigs and frankly any gig That’s always something to consider ’cause sometimes it’s a surprise if you didn’t talk it through.

[00:10:05] Sharon Skinner: Right. And, work for hire, they don’t always necessarily put you front and forward, right?

[00:10:11] Aubre Andrus: Right. right?

[00:10:12] Like, for example, for my American Girl books, my name is always just on the inside title page. It’s never on the spine. So it took quite a while for me to get a book, it was a Scholastic, novel where my name was on the front cover a few times, but I really wanted, like, a novel with my name on the spine, and now I’ve got it quite a few times.

[00:10:29] But, so that was a nice accomplishment to get

[00:10:32] Sharon Skinner: let’s circle back because one of the other things that you mentioned earlier that I wanted to touch on was this idea of the marketing. with a work for hire, do you still do marketing like we do with, all the other kinds of publishing that we do?

[00:10:46] Aubre Andrus: What’s interesting, as a work-for-hire author, you do have to stand up for yourself and your time. I have been asked to market books that I don’t get royalties on, and I generally say no to that. Or I ask to be compensated for my time, and if they say, “No, we’re not going to,” then I say, “Well, then I’m not gonna market it.”

[00:11:06] And that’s maybe risky on my part, but as someone who’s writing a lot of books, I think people like to take advantage of writers and they think, “Oh, well, they’re gonna be so excited about this book, they’re gonna do anything.” the main thing I said no to, I was asked to do a radio tour from, like, six in the morning till, two PM.

[00:11:22] You know, just, rapid-fire interviews. And it was just an absurd amount of time and really stressful, and it was for a book I wasn’t getting royalties for, and they weren’t gonna compensate me for my time, and I was just like, “No. Sorry.”

[00:11:36] Sharon Skinner: and no is an option, right?

[00:11:37] and maybe there is a consequence down the road, but no is always an option,

[00:11:41] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, it is

[00:11:42] Sharon Skinner: so, that’s good to know. The other thing that you mentioned and that you said you really like to talk about is making this a career, this writing business that we’re in.

[00:11:51] And we all want that, right? why don’t you fill us in a little bit on your views of what that looks like or could look like?

[00:11:58] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. I think a lot of writing conferences in particular, they sort of just run through the same shtick over and over again where it’s like you write the book, you get the agent, you get the book deal. What they don’t tell you is that , even after you get the agent, it could take years, and then it could take years to get paid.

[00:12:14] And let’s say you get a six-figure book deal, but they’re gonna give you a two-book deal, which sounds exciting, but it means now it’s a $50,000 book deal, and then you figure in taxes and the two to four year timeline, and it’s just not a lot of money. That’s something that stopped me early on in the beginning following this agent path of writing a book first and not being compensated for my time and not knowing when I would ever get paid for it.

[00:12:36] I really wanted to talk more about how you become a career author and what that looks like and what those different paths are. And so for me, as I mentioned, it was more like diversifying my income. It was, doing these work for hire projects that I realized was a really good skill for a writer to have.

[00:12:54] Like most writing projects in the world are work for hire where you’re writing for someone else’s brand or intellectual property, whether it’s in Hollywood or whether it’s like advertising or marketing. You being able to write in someone else’s world and in their voice is a really good skill to have, and I don’t think it’s talked about enough and it makes me crazy.

[00:13:16] So I love to shout it from the rooftops.

[00:13:19] Sharon Skinner: that is a very specific skill set that you can learn. and I talk about this a lot in, The Craft of Writing, how writing is a skill. It’s something that can be learned. There are a lot of people who think that you have to come at this like there’s some innate ability,

[00:13:34] But I, do believe that it’s something you can learn. If you’re passionate about it and you wanna learn it, it’s a skill that you can learn and you can hone.

[00:13:41] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, and With work-for-hire, I have really appreciated the guardrails it gives me. So not only have I signed a contract and gotten paid just for signing a contract, so now I really need to fulfill, my deadline, but I have these guardrails of these are the characters, every project is different.

[00:13:57] You might just get a title, you might get a more thorough outline, whatever, but you have these guardrails. And so for me, it was like a sandbox that was much easier to play in, whereas like the idea of just like write a novel, was so overwhelming to me. And I got really hung up on like, “Well, what kind of author am I gonna be?

[00:14:13] Am I YA fantasy? Am I middle grade contemporary?” You know, I just like couldn’t make a decision. so this has allowed me to slowly learn these skills, and I started with very simple projects. It was like a math and art activity book, and I’ve worked my way up to like narrative nonfiction novels that are true stories and writing fiction for Disney Princess.

[00:14:34] And, it really was this nice like baby steps into publishing if you feel like you wanna be an author, but you, literally can’t write a book. On your own. You know what I mean? It was basically getting writing prompts, but getting paid for it, so it was really, really helpful for me to grow as a writer.

[00:14:50] Sharon Skinner: So circling back to what you were saying earlier about writing 14 books in a year, work for hire can be very deadline-driven, correct?

[00:14:58] Aubre Andrus: Yes. Quick turnarounds, usually an entire book within three months. And not like you’re actively writing for three months, but your series of drafts are probably happening within, in theory, a three-month deadline.

[00:15:11] Usually editors are running behind, so they might get dragged out. But yeah, it’s quick

[00:15:16] Sharon Skinner: And how many of these are novel length that you’ve done, and how many are more on, ’cause you said you’ve done everything from early readers up, and you get your guardrails, you get your guidance on, what the world is or who the characters are or what the story needs to be.

[00:15:31] But, you’re talking three months. Can you write a novel in three months, or are we talking a little bit longer timeline for a novel maybe?

[00:15:40] Aubre Andrus: I can write very fast. So I think that is another benefit of work for hire. it was refreshing for me to learn that a book doesn’t have to take three years. It can be pumped out in three months, especially if you’re focused and just, rip-roaring ready to go. you can’t delay.

[00:15:58] You know, you’re getting paid for this. It has to get done. I think any freelance writer would tell you this or any freelancer in general or consultant, you need to learn how to find a balance of how many clients you can have at one time. So for me, that’s like three to four.

[00:16:11] So right now, for example, I’m working on a novel. I’m working on a picture book biography that’s, pretty intense where I’m interviewing, this woman, and she’s gonna be heavily involved in the project, and it feels a little high profile. And I also have two more, fun activity book type projects.

[00:16:32] So that’s a good representation of, what I have at any moment where it’s one to two bigger ones, one to two smaller ones. That’s a good balance for me. But you also have to keep the pipeline going, if you want to keep making money. So that is always a struggle.

[00:16:45] So I’m always, always reaching out to editors and reminding them I exist and asking if they have anything coming up. But fall is the busy time. This is when I get all of my

[00:16:54] assignments and go crazy. So this is the go time.

[00:16:58] Sharon Skinner: I know as a book coach that I have to manage my client list and my ongoing work very carefully. I have to know what I can take on, and, sometimes I actually have to ask people to pay me for a space and hold that space later for them because I can’t start them right away. But that’s because, of course, we wanna do our best work.

[00:17:21] We wanna make sure that the projects get the attention they deserve, but we also know that we only have so much bandwidth

[00:17:29] Aubre Andrus: Absolutely. It’s really a delicate balance and takes some time to figure out, and there’s certainly times I’ve been working at night ’cause I overcommitted myself and then there’s times where I turned down a project and regretted it, you know? I’ve been doing this for over 10 years, and I still don’t have it figured out perfectly.

[00:17:46] Sharon Skinner: Well, yeah, it’s freelance, so there’s always gonna be those ups and downs, but there’s ups and downs in publishing anyway. I mean, there are people who sell that first book, and then they sell a second book, and then they sell a third book, and then they can’t sell a book to save themselves, right?

[00:18:01] Aubre Andrus: Right

[00:18:02] Sharon Skinner: I just, had Darcy Pattison on the show, and Darcy was a traditionally published author who was doing just fine. She was doing well, and then all of a sudden she wasn’t, and she just couldn’t hit the right person with the right thing at the right time. And so now she’s one of the most prolific self-published authors that I know of, and she writes mostly nonfiction books that can be used in schools. So you’ve gotta find what works for you career-wise.

[00:18:31] Aubre Andrus: Absolutely. And I do–

[00:18:32] Also think that’s an interesting point to bring up about, you know, traditional, the authors that you think of that do other things or eventually have to do other things, because there are a lot of very high-profile New York Times bestselling authors who do work for hire as well.

[00:18:46] So, like Disney, for example, now I can tell when a project does work for hire, you know? They do all these like twisted tales, they’re called, where they’re taking their characters and their villains and mixing them up. Those are absolutely work for hire. They’re reaching out to a well-known author.

[00:19:00] I think like Melissa de la Cruz did like the Descendants, and I feel like that is a good example of Alloy Entertainment used to come up with book ideas in-house and then turn them into movies. So they’d write a book series knowing it was gonna be a movie and a TV show and/or. So Gossip Girl, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Vampire Diaries, all of those started as like book ideas in-house.

[00:19:20] And so Melissa de la Cruz, I think she wrote Descendants, and I think that was the same idea, where it’s like we’re writing this book series and it’s being turned into a film series. and then, yeah, there’s, Morgan Matson did, Gradchanted and Promchanted. I’m pretty sure that I listened to a podcast interview, and she was asked to be involved with that project

[00:19:37] so a lot of times even if you’ve been published, traditionally as an author, you might get asked to write in somebody else’s world and sandbox, and that’s a nice way to keep your career going.

[00:19:49] Sharon Skinner: We see a lot of that, yeah, especially in speculative fiction too, because we see a lot of the science fiction and fantasy authors and horror authors also who write comics and get engaged in, other realms. Like recently, I think it was Kendare Blake who wrote the Buffy tie-in for the upcoming reboot of Buffy.

[00:20:11] Aubre Andrus: Totally. yeah, Netflix is doing it. There was a book called Damsel based on a, I think it was a movie or TV show. Yeah, there’s so much out there. I know like Marie Lu and Rainbow Rowell, they’ve written in, like for Marvel, I think, maybe it’s DC. But yeah, written in the superhero world, so you never really know where your writing chops can take you

[00:20:31] Sharon Skinner: I see a lot more of it because I know a lot of authors who write in those realms. They write books for those series or for comics or what have you.

[00:20:39] I know one local author, a friend of mine, who writes everything from Western through, Star Trek novels and, just all across the board, and mostly does work for hire. That’s his bread and butter.

[00:20:52] There’s a ton of work for hire. It’s a very broad area. So let’s talk a little bit about how your average writer or a writer who’s thinking about embarking on this could maybe break in.

[00:21:04] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, I think step one is just starting to network with editors. That is, start paying attention to editors and what they’re working on, and particularly what, , in publishing it’s called licensing. So, what brands and IP, intellectual property, is a publisher producing? And is that a property or brands that you would be interested in writing for?

[00:21:28] So for me, I wanted to write for Disney Princess. I thought that would be fun? So I found a way to network with an editor over there. So at, conferences, you can approach an editor. For example, when I was much younger, I, specifically went to a nonfiction middle grade panel that at the time was not popular at all.

[00:21:46] No one was interested in nonfiction or middle grade. It was quite a long time ago. And, I approached her at the end. The, presentation wasn’t about work-for-hire, but I had an inkling that maybe she had some work-for-hire projects since she was specializing in nonfiction middle grade. And I asked her, and she did.

[00:22:03] And we both ended up actually being from the same college, and I got in that way. And like at Disney, I just blindly reached out to someone who I knew via her LinkedIn profile that she was from the Midwest. And we really hit it off and talked on the phone. You have to be good at networking and finding that connection with somebody and then, being respectful of their time and not just reaching out to anybody.

[00:22:25] But you know, “Hey, I see that, Disney is doing these princess stories, and I’m wondering if it’s work-for-hire. And, here’s my, resume or my portfolio.” And there’s so many entry-level projects in work-for-hire that I do think people underestimate how it’s really okay to be, like, a newbie writer,

[00:22:45] And maybe not for, like, Disney, but, there really are a lot of smaller projects out there that need to be written, and an editor might be willing to guide you through that,

[00:22:53] Sharon Skinner: So what would you say are the key things that you might wanna have on that resume or that, writing CV to offer up when you are approaching someone that you’ve decided you wanna network with because they’re doing something you would really like to be a part of?

[00:23:09] What are the key elements that you think would be putting your best foot forward?

[00:23:13] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. I think for me, I found that there was a lot of opportunities in nonfiction, and my background is journalism. So my ability to research and interview and fact-check and that kind of thing was really important to present, to these people when I was first reaching out to projects. So it kinda depends on which project you’re targeting.

[00:23:36] I also Because I was an editor at American Girl magazine, I had a ton of experience doing DIY projects, for the magazine. So I could share that I actually knew how to develop an age-appropriate, safe, successful activity idea for a child. I think another angle people really downplay is if you’re a former teacher or librarian and you have so much experience working with children, that’s something that I was lacking when I started out.

[00:24:04] I got some experience working at American Girl, but I didn’t have kids at the time. I was right out of college, wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t a librarian. So I feel like I have such a deeper breadth of knowledge now that I have a kid in elementary school. And, it’s just so helpful for book ideas, for knowing what’s appropriate for that age level, that reading level, that skill level.

[00:24:24] So those are great things to mention, too. If you were going for fiction, you would obviously probably need to give some writing samples. But, on the nonfiction side, I think it really comes down to the ability to, research and report and, meet deadlines, interview people and that kind of thing.

[00:24:40] Sharon Skinner: Aubre, is there anything else that you wanna touch on that maybe we haven’t talked about yet?

[00:24:45] Aubre Andrus: I just really wanna encourage people to consider what their strategy is for their author career and, what’s the dream project they want, and how could some smaller projects ladder you up to get there? For me, I really wanted to do a novel-length book, and I kind of started with these narrative nonfiction short story, like five-minute bedtime story compilations and worked my way up.

[00:25:12] You know, you kind of, like, gotta step your way up to get there. So I think I just, yeah, wanna emphasize how these work-for-hire projects can really help you build your skills slowly and with oversight directly from an editor while you’re getting paid, and help you reach your career dreams. And nothing’s stopping me from writing a novel right now and getting an agent

[00:25:29] so you can still pursue many different paths of publishing at the same time, including self-publishing. Everything is kinda fair game these days, so you can design the career that makes the most sense for you and have that, goal that you’re reaching toward and use these opportunities to try to help you get there.

[00:25:47] Sharon Skinner: I like what you said about working with an editor because that’s a great experience to have, and A, a lot of writers don’t know what that’s gonna feel like until they get there. But if you’re doing work-for-hire, you get a little more of that interaction. As a book coach, I am basically a freelance editor as well, and so a lot of my clients get that kind of exposure before they end up submitting anywhere or getting a publisher.

[00:26:12] So they have that experience, but a lot of writers don’t. They don’t have that direct editorial feedback and a relationship. And it’s, it is a relationship. It’s not just a one-way, “Here, go rewrite this.” It doesn’t work like that it’s more interactive.

[00:26:29] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, that is such a good point cause I have heard horror stories of even like kind of big names getting a book deal but then having it fall apart because they didn’t understand the editing process and the publishing process and how you’re a member of the team. There’s a lot of people that are dipping their toes into this project.

[00:26:46] It’s not just you. So, I do think that is gold and how else are you getting that experience, ? So it really has been good and it’s great. You get feedback on your writing. From an editor, not from a random, writing partner like another aspiring writer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but like this is a professional who knows, what’s going on in the industry now and you can ask them any questions you want and it’s really amazing to have editors at your fingertips.

[00:27:15] They’re wonderful.

[00:27:17] Sharon Skinner: All right, well, we have come to the point in our discussion where we like to give action items, something actionable to take away for our listeners.

[00:27:25] What have you got for us today, Aubre?

[00:27:27] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, I would say think about like three different, brands or like intellectual property. So when I say that, I mean like TV characters, book characters, movie characters that you would like to write in. What world would you like to write in? And you could use this just as a writing prompt, or you could actually then go try to see which publishers are actually publishing books from this brand or franchise , you can always read credits in a book and try to find an editor’s name or check LinkedIn do your research and try to see if you can find any connection, with this project and throw your name in the hat, for the future

[00:28:03] Sharon Skinner: I think that’s a great idea, and I think, another good way to do that is to visit your local bookstore or library, especially your library, and go through the series. ‘Cause a lot of times work-for-hire is part of a larger series and you’re looking at , writing books in those series.

[00:28:21] And go through those and look for who’s handling that and find a way to connect or network in

[00:28:29] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. Well, and that’s a good point. Series themselves sometimes become brands. So think of like the Who It Is biography series or think of Little Golden Books. Those are also, quote-unquote, “brands” or IP that you could write under. So sometimes publishers create their own super successful series, and you can be a part of those.

[00:28:46] I wrote an American Girl advice and activity book. They have this whole line of those. The Smart Girls Guides they’re called. And that was so cool to be a part of that series. I’m sure there’s at least one series that you love and that you could possibly get your foot in the door for

[00:29:01] Sharon Skinner: Well, and we were talking earlier, and for my action item, I want to revisit this, because we were talking earlier that you have a handout or a guide that you have produced that’s 10 types of projects that are work-for-hire,

[00:29:16] Aubre Andrus: Yes

[00:29:17] Sharon Skinner: and you can offer us a link to that

[00:29:20] Aubre Andrus: Yeah. So if you go to my website, it’s aubreandrus.com/podcast. So I’ll spell my name for you. It’s A-U-B-R-E-A-N-D-R-U-S.com/podcast. I’ll have a little download that has 10 types of work-for-hire projects, you can peruse that and see where your skills would best fit.

[00:29:41] ‘Cause there is a wide range of these types of projects, from fiction to nonfiction and,, early readers to, more advanced, scientific middle grade, heavily researched books. So, I’m sure there’s something on that list that might pique your interest and that can maybe help you further your career.

[00:29:59] Sharon Skinner: And that’s my action item. I’m kind of stealing from Aubre to do an action item this month, but my action item is go download that list. If you’re interested in work for hire, Aubre’s done the work. She’s been here, done that, been doing it for some time. She’s got this nice list of projects that you can peruse, and I think you also have a webinar about this topic?

[00:30:20] Aubre Andrus: I do, yeah. I can, include the link there as well where I kinda deep dive into why I love work for hire so much. So yeah, I can share that link as well. If you head over to my website, you should be able to find it, but if you go to Aubreandrus.com/podcast, I’ll make sure to include the link to both the webinar and the, download.

[00:30:39] Sharon Skinner: So Aubre, where else can we find you online?

[00:30:43] Aubre Andrus: So as I mentioned, my website, Aubreandrus.com. The webinar, that you mentioned is at Aubreandrus.com/wfh if you wanna find the webinar directly. I’m on Instagram @Aubreandrus and at Blue Sky, all the places.

[00:31:00] Trying not to be on them too much though lately.

[00:31:03] I’m trying to focus on just writing my books.

[00:31:06] Sharon Skinner: Awesome. we’ll go ahead and include those in the show notes . Aubre, it’s been great talking to you. This is a great topic. I think that our listeners will have a lot to think about and a lot to take away from this. So thank you so much for being here.

[00:31:21] It’s been such a joy to talk to you about work-for-hire

[00:31:24] Aubre Andrus: Yeah, this has been so much fun. Thank you for chatting with me and sharing the love.

[00:31:29] Sharon Skinner: Bye for now.

[00:31:30] Aubre Andrus: right, bye

[00:31:31] Sharon Skinner: We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their kid lit game. For more episodes, visit coachingkidlit.com. And to find out more about what a book coach can do for you, visit my website, bookcoachingbysharon.com.

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#kidlit, #writingcraft, #bookcoaching, #selfpublishing, #workforhire, #childrensbooks, #freelancewriting, #networking, #authorcareer, #publishingindustry

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

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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!

Keywords: kid lit, writing craft, book coaching, children’s books, self publishing, work for hire, networking with editors, freelance writing, American Girl, Disney publishing, Scholastic, National Geographic Kids, middle grade books, picture books, young adult books, passive income, royalties, literary agents, contract negotiation, author career strategy, marketing books, deadline management, diversifying income, narrative nonfiction, activity books, ghostwriting, intellectual property, publishing industry, award nominations, career women role models, series books