Saturday, August 10, 2019

Lisa Yee: "You Want Me to do What? An Inside Look at Writing for Hire

Lisa Yee's debut, Millicent Min, Girl Genius, won SCBWI's first Sid Fleischman Humor Award in 2004. Since then, she has written nineteen more novels. Her work includes many types of work-for-hire.

If you want to follow your muse, work-for-hire is not for you.

Kind of work for hire:

  • magazines
  • ghost writing
  • licensed products
  • novels
  • short stories
  • nonfiction 
  • novelizations
  • original stories with established characters 
  • text books

There are many.

Lisa has done a great deal of work in this area for Disney, American Girl, DC Comics, even for theme parks.

With work-for-hire you need to know the parameters of what you are doing. Because of the very specific perimeters, this work really helps you become professional. You also have to know your product and do your research.

You must deliver on time. There are people waiting for you.

Getting hired for work-for-hire is a very mysterious thing, but there are two ways: you seek it out or they seek you out.

Lisa was sought out by both American Girl and DC Comics. They sought her out for very specific reasons.




Once you agree to do work for hire, you do it!

Know that sometimes work-for-hire involves an audition.

Peter Lerganis is prolific in work-for-hire. It took him over 19 years before he wrote his own title.

When you do work-for-hire you learn how to be professional, hone your craft, and meet a deadline.

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