It’s never too early to start marketing your project, and it’s never too young to help out.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending an hour with 60 ten to eleven-year-olds. Earlier this year I got to draft 4 (ish – I’m not good at keeping track) of my latest middle grade manuscript. I’d shared various chapters with my critique group, read and re-read it, chopped it up and sewn it back together. Now I wanted to know what actual, real-life, human children thought of it. Because at the end of the day, that’s the point. If the book never gets further than my daughter’s book shelf, so be it, but I’ve poured over two years into this project to entertain and empower 9 to 12-year-olds. I hope.

So, I decided to find some beta readers. And what better place than in a school? I’m lucky enough to have several teachers in my family, I’ve been a teacher myself, and I have school-age kids. Still, it’s possible for anyone to find beta readers for their project. Belinda Pollard has a great post about How to find a beta reader. One family member was delighted to get some of her students to read my manuscript and answer my questions. After they had gone to the trouble of reading my book and giving me their feedback, I wanted to thank them. So, we set up a Skype call from Canada to England.

Even though I’ve taught children, I was nervous. I searched online to see what tips I could find. I found some cool writing prompts, but nothing about an author lesson plan, certainly not for an emerging writer whose book is still on A4 paper! So, I made my own lesson plan and thought I’d share it for those writers out there who are beginning to share their work with children.

1. Ask them to prepare questions

This gets them invested and helps you think through your answers ahead of time. I asked the teacher to select a few children to read out their questions so it wasn’t me talking all the time. I grouped similar questions together and put them in a logical order.

2. Be human

Tell them about yourself, your family, the things you love, the things you are terrible at. They might not have met a writer before and they may have this idea you are some mythical sort of creature!

3. Prepare your pitch

Always good practise anyway, as you’ll need it for your query letter.

4. Read an excerpt

This is good preparation for book launches, events and has the unexpected side effect of showing up potential issues with your manuscript. Firstly, I had to ask myself why I didn’t want to start with chapter one, but preferred chapter two. Maybe I haven’t started my story in the right place? As you read, you’ll notice awkward phrasing, too many or too few dialogue tags, whether it’s easy to differentiate between characters from their dialogue alone.

5. Explain the publishing process

Don’t get convoluted but tell them writers have to persuade someone else (an agent) to love your story, who in turn has to persuade someone else (an editor) to feel the same way (if we’re talking traditional publishing). I had a beautiful slide show prepared but the screen sharing was spotty so I didn’t spend long on this.

6. Ask them for comparable titles

Ask them what your book reminds them of. I got some new ideas for comp titles.

7. Ask them about their favourite books

I have my summer reading list set now, and discovered some books which are popular in England but I hadn’t seen on the shelves here.

8. Tell them your favourite books

This was one of the questions they’d prepared, so I had time to think it through, because it is one of the hardest questions. Get them to guess your favourites by giving a hint or a word to describe the book, rather than giving the title. Either my hints were too obvious or they were a well-read bunch!

9. Share your writing process

Describe a typical day in your life. Maybe a writing tip or two, your writing rituals.

10. Get them writing

I found some story prompts online but decided to come up with my own activity. When I visited a grade 12 class last year, I gave them a word cloud and simply set a timer for 15 minutes. Since these students were younger, I split the activity into three steps and gave them a few minutes for each stage. They were desperate to share their ideas with me at the end and next time I would leave longer for this exercise. One of their questions had been, ‘where do your ideas come from?’ and my goals was to show they can come from inside your own head. Mission accomplished!

It’s never too early to share your work with readers. It can help inform your editing and kick-start your marketing. What would you do if you had to spend an hour with 60 middle grade kids? I’d love to hear your ideas.