Welcome to the Childrens-Writers List!

This page contains information about the childrens-writers mailing list.

This mailing list is for discussion about writing for children, including writing techniques, research, marketing and self-promotion, and other topics relating to the art and business of children's writing. It is a place for authors and wanna-be authors to discuss all aspects of children's writing. The range of topics can be extremely broad.

The Rules

Following a few simple guidelines will help keep the list interesting and useful for all:
  1. Remember that your posts will be read by many people, some of whom have to pay for mail messages. Think about what you want to say, and say it as clearly and concisely as you can.
  2. Be nice.
  3. Reread rule 2!
To send mail to the list, simply address your message to childrens-writers@egroups.com. Note that only list subscribers will be able to send mail to the list.

News

List in "reply to sender" mode
As of 8/28/98, this list is working in "reply to sender" mode. This means that if you simply use your mail reader's "reply" function to respond to a post on the list, your reply will only go to the individual who posted that message. To direct your reply to the entire list, be sure to send it to childrens-writers@egroups.com. Many people use their mail readers' "Reply to all" function to reply to the list and the original poster. The original poster will receive this mail twice.

Subscribing and Unsubscribing

If you should want to remove yourself from this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to childrens-writers-unsubscribe@egroups.com.

To re-join the list, send a blank e-mail to childrens-writers-subscribe@egroups.com.

There is also a digest version of this list. Subscribers to the digest get the same messages, but instead of getting them one at a time, the messages are rolled up into a large digest which is sent roughly once a day. If you prefer the digest version, you can switch by visiting the Web site at http://www.egroups.com/group/childrens-writers. You may have to register using your e-mail address to be identified as a subscriber to the list.

The Illustrators List

There is also an e-mail list for illustrators. It's not specific to children's illustrators, but many of the list participants are involved in or interested in children's literature, etc. For more information, see http://www.pfdstudio.com/illo-info.html.

Common Problems

If you think you're not getting all the messages you should be, check your status on the http://www.egroups.com/group/childrens-writers Web site. You will have to register with your e-mail address. Then check your profile to determine if you're in e-mail mode (as opposed to digest or Web only mode, and that you're active as opposed to bouncing. Bouncing means that eGroups.com was getting errors from trying to send mail to your address. This must be cleared manually in your profile. Check with your system administrators if the problem persists.

In certain cases, eGroups.com will forward a message to the moderator for approval. This seems to happen primarily for these reasons:

Unrecognized Sender

 
Only subscribers to the childrens-writers list allowed to post to the list.  This radically reduces the amount of "spam" and noise that we're subjected to.  However, it means that all your postings must come from the same e-mail address with which you subscribed.  This is more of a problem than it appears.  Some people have more than one e-mail account, and want to post from either one.  In other cases, your Internet service provider (ISP) may cause different "From:" addresses to appear in your outgoing mail at different times.  If this is a persistent problem, contact your ISP about how to make sure your outgoing mail address is consistent.  Most modern e-mail programs allow you to set the "From:" address in some way.
As an alternative, you can subscribe from several e-mail addresses, and set all but one of them to "Web only" mode. This means that only one address will receive e-mail, though postings from the others will be permitted.
Duplicate Message

 
If you send a message to the list more than once, or you send it to several eGroups.com lists at once, it may be withheld pending moderator approval. This is to deter spammers from blanketing several mailing lists at once.
Daily Message Limit Exceeded

 
eGroups.com imposes a limit on the number of messages that can pass on a given list in a single day. The default is 100. The limit for the childrens-writers list is currently set to 300. Still, when heated discussions arise, we may hit this limit. In this case, messages will be forwarded to the moderator for approval.
Enjoy!
-pd