Selling Stories

Introduction

Welcome to “Selling Chicken Soup Stories!” Get a nice cup of tea or coffee and get comfortable while we explore how you can turn your cherished memories, personal triumphs, and funniest stories into the sort of essays featured in the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Keep one thing in mind as we begin our journey: this course isn’t only about writing, it’s about you -- your hopes, dreams, values, beliefs and experiences! Because whether you are a fourteen year old soccer star, fifty year old gardening grandma, or sports fan who uses baseball to unwind you’ve got a story other people want to hear.

Everyone has moments and memories that guide him or her down the pathway of life. And like all adventurers we can lighten our load, improve our efficiency, and reach our desired destination if we learn from those who have gone before. All of us have defining moments in our lives that prove to be benchmarks, turning points, and memories that gain us strength. Whether we are nineteen or ninety, we all know what it is to laugh, cry, love, learn, feel, and change. It’s the "kernel of universal" in our unique experiences that’s the soul of a Chicken Soup story. And this course is designed to help you find that kernel.

Of course, getting a story into the Chicken Soup series is far from easy. In fact, gamblers might tell you the odds are against you.

Stephanie Thatcher, Marketing and PR Coordinator at Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises, explained in the material I received prior to the release of Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul:

“Competition was tough! We did radio talk shows, sent out press releases to magazines and newspapers across the U.S., and went global on the Internet soliciting hundreds of stories. We received over 5,000 stories from around the world, and every single one was read by at least one co-author.

Those stories with 'soup potential' were edited and submitted to co-authors for grading on a scale of 1-10. Stories that received over a 9 were re-edited and submitted to a team of two to five readers at Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises. Stories that THEY graded over a 9.5 were assembled into a manuscript of 180 stories. That 'reader's manuscript' went out to 40 people all over the country, who graded the stories AGAIN. Anything that scored below a 9.25 was dropped, leaving us with about 150 stories. Balancing scores with the need for a good mix of subjects, style, etc., we painfully whittled the stories down to the 101 finalists.

See how good you had to be to get into this book!”

And this course can help you be that good.

During the lessons we’ll look at how to avoid three main errors that get writers an automatic reject. And, whether you want to tell the world the story of the choir director who changed your life or what your three year old taught you -- or if your ambitions lean toward selling more material to a variety of magazines -- these are things the course addresses!

We’ll go through some interesting exercises so you can refine your message. Many writers write the story before they know what they want to say. The more you know about you, the easier it is to know your message.

We will look at the Chicken Soup series to see what "soup stories" have in common! In the process you’ll learn a proven method of analyzing series, newsletters, and magazines to see what & where to submit.

Most importantly, you'll discover writing a Chicken Soup story requires two elements: craft and soul. You have the soul; this course will teach you the craft!

So, if you have a drawer filled with unfinished essays languishing because you haven’t a clue what to do with them or where to send them, this course is for you! Some of the skills you’ll pick up will stand you in good stead if you'd like to try your hand at writing narrative genealogy or memory books for children / grandchildren.

In short, you should find the skills taught as interesting and useful as I have. What you are about to learn is exactly what I did to write the three pieces I’ve sold to Chicken Soup books as well as the others that made it to the final selection.

I’m also going to dispel a myth: that a “Chicken Soup” story is all sweetness and light, full of enough sugar to send a diabetic into a coma. Nothing could be further from the truth! What makes these books best sellers is the excellent editorial skills that create a mix of heartwarming, bittersweet, unabashedly upbeat, funny, and filled-with-attitude stories. Which brings me to the core of the course: everyone has a Chicken Soup story to tell, including you!

You have been intrigued by the Chicken Soup books. Have you read any of them? Do you have some stories for upcoming books in the series? Now you can learn how to write that kind of story. Let Diane Goldberg tell you how.Traute Klein, biogardener