Q & A With Meg Dendler

When I learned about Meg Dendler’s award-winning Cats in the Mirror series, I was interested in learning more. As a cat owner, I was curious to see how she developed cat personalities in a chapter book format. Animal lovers will definitely connect with Meg’s imaginative tale of a world where alien cats openly communicate with one another. Today, you can learn more about Meg’s background, her writing style, and tips on self publishing. Later in the week, I will review her books. 

In exchange for an honest review, Meg sent me copies of her first two books. 

Commenters to this blog will be eligible for a book giveaway. See Below.

I really had not intended for this to be a series. Book 1 started out as a short story. Then it became a early-reader type of book. As I let the characters and story develop, it kept growing and growing until I realized that there could be many adventures for not only the characters I started out with but the ones who they come into contact with along the way. Book 3, “Miss Fatty Cat’s Revenge,” is on schedule to come out in September. I have ideas for several other books beyond that, but I’m not sure how it will all fall into place after the trilogy of these first three books. There are some other projects on the horizon that I want to spend some time on. Then we will just see what happens.

The Cats in the Mirror books are most definitely based on what I know. The majority of the characters in the series are based on real cats in my life, and they reflect their personalities and behavior to a huge extent. Even when one of them is doing something they have never done in real life, it’s not a big stretch to imagine how they would react in that moment because I know them so well.

I do enjoy some science fiction, but I think I slant into the fantasy world more often. Anne McCaffrey is one of my very favorite authors. I never read dark, dystopian stuff, so kids books work well for me. My mom, however, was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club back in the ’70s–long before it was cool or normal. My memory is that she told me about a story she read where alien cats communicate with Earth cats through mirrors in their houses, but she doesn’t remember this at all. I grew up with the idea of cats being aliens. When Kimba came into our lives, it was super-easy to imagine that she was an alien. She is just a really wonky and weird cat. No matter how the series evolves, Kimba will always be at the heart of it.

I very purposely throw in some vocabulary words in each chapter, but I am careful to use words that kids would know or can move past without it mattering whether they know exactly what it means. I’m sure my years of teaching came into play there, along with years of reading books to kids in class. There are some programs you can use to tell you the reading level of your book. I have never used them, but I edit with that in mind. I always read things aloud to myself in the end, and my daughters have alerted me to words that might be challenging a couple of times. You don’t want to have the language be boring, but kids will stop reading if they don’t know what half of the words mean. The feedback has been good readability-wise, so it must all be working.

I just want it to sound normal. I read it aloud and make sure that it feels like that flow is there. It should sound like a conversation, and you should always be clear about who is talking. I don’t know that I have a magical answer for how to do that well. The cats don’t talk that differently from the humans, so the same rules apply.

I wanted the reader to see what the real cats looked like, and it is important for kid’s books to have photos or illustrations of some kind. They love that visual attachment to what they are reading. Once I knew I was going to self-publish, using real photos was the most cost-effective route to go. Some reviewers have not liked it and felt it distracted from the story, but I’ve never had a child tell me they didn’t like it. That’s the only audience I really care about in the end.

Getting a book picked up by one of the big, New York publishers is nearly impossible these days, and it doesn’t necessarily translate into success of any kind. The whole game is changing. I didn’t want to spend months and months, if not years, waiting to find someone to buy my  manuscript. I was ready to go. Companies like Amazon/Createspace make it so easy to get a book into reader’s hands, but it is still important to take the process seriously.

My attitude was that I wanted my books to look exactly like every other professionally published book in any bookstore. No one should look at them and know it was self-published. That requires several things, and part of that is a financial investment. You can just throw a book out there with a cover you design yourself, but it’s going to look like that’s exactly what you did. I hired a cover designer, someone to format the inside, and ebook formatters. Above all, I hired professional editors. My mom was a tech writer for decades and I taught English, but I still hired someone and she always found more than I did.

I am beginning to purchased an upgraded computer and some of the systems required to do the formatting myself, but all of that still has to be part of the process. Self-publishing should mean that the author is taking on every single job that a traditional publisher would do. That includes the marketing and sales process, but that’s a whole different conversation. Be professional and take it seriously.

1. Take part in a critique group or enlist beta readers that you trust. Listen to their suggestions. Getting critiques at SCBWI conferences is an excellent resource.

2. Be very familiar with the genre you are publishing. Read what other people are writing in that same genre. Make friends with them, even if it’s just on Facebook and twitter.

3. And you must be on Facebook and twitter–and Linkedin and Goodreads and have a blog and a web site. You are going to need all of that to promote yourself and your writing, so get the accounts set up and begin networking right away.

4. Hire an editor. I have lost track of how many self-published books I have gotten that are just a mess. I never read past the first page if there are big, obvious errors. It just screams “I didn’t really work that hard on this book!!” and no reader has time to waste on a book the author didn’t have time to get right.

5. Be prepared to spend several hours a day selling and promoting yourself and your book. Just putting it up on amazon will not amount to anything, no matter how good it is. There are over 600,000 books in the same categories as my Cats in the Mirror series. There are too many choices. Be ready to sell, sell, sell.

Book 3 in the Cats in the Mirror series will be out in September. After that (or over the summer as well) I will be working on getting an adult book called “At The Corner of Magnetic and Main” published. I would love to work with a small publishing house here in Arkansas on that project, but I may end up self-publishing that as well.

• Why Kimba Saved the World– Silver Mom’s Choice Award & Moonbeam Children’s Book Award as “Best First Book — Chapter Book,” Bronze Medal. 
• Vacation Hiro– Silver Mom’s Choice Award

Anyone who leaves a comment on this blog by Sunday, May 11 will be eligible for a book giveaway. The randomly selected winner will be sent an autographed copy of one of Meg Dendler’s books.

Related Blogs:

Q & A with Ben Mikaelsen

Q & A With Laura DeBruce, Author of The Riddle of Prague

Q & A With Frank Nappi, Mickey Tussler Series

Multicultural Picture Book- Benjamin of Tudela

Time Traveling Back to the Dreyfus Affair

Sandra’s Bio