Ask a Publisher: Sarah Odedina, Publisher, Hot Key Books

@sarahodedina talks to @CathJacobNews

This interview was recorded at Hot Key Books
on 13th March 2014.

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Catherine Jacob is an award-winning journalist who has worked for ITV, Five and Sky News. She is also an Honorary Mention for Undiscovered Voices 2014 with her MG novel The Perigree Moonlings. Her first novel was shortlisted for the Northern Writers' Crime Competition 2012 and her short story, Child's Play was shortlisted for the Asham Award 2011. She juggles working with being a mum to two little girls.

Network News: Practically Perfect Pitching in the North East

by Maureen Lynas

Sara O'Connor

I recently faced my technological fears and organised an online event for the SCBWI BI north east group with Sara O’Connor of Hot Key Books.
We authors gathered in the garden room in York library and after a few nail biting techno hiccups we succeeded in seeing and hearing Sara on the rather large whiteboard via a google hangout. Luckily she could also see and hear us.

Top Tip: do a techno check at least an hour before the event if you’re thinking of doing a skype/hangout. Many things can go wrong.

For an hour Sara briefed us on pitching techniques: hooks, straplines, one line pitches, and paragraph pitches. We discussed editorial meetings, sales and marketing meetings and how a good pitch can give a clear picture of the book, and fire publishers with enthusiasm for your work.

Sara also emphasised the importance of the title to an editor attempting to promote a book in a sales meeting.

Bibbles and the Big Bottom hardly says YA. Death on Doomsday doesn’t say picture book.

Then off she went back to her family while we sweated over the tasks she’d left us with. We had three hours to eat, talk, and prepare super duper pitches to present to Sara when she came back online.
Although I wasn’t aiming to pitch to Sara I couldn’t help joining in because pitching is such a useful editing tool. If pitching your book with simplicity and clarity is difficult then maybe you need to think carefully about your book’s goals, stakes and themes.
Some of the authors have generously agreed to share the pitches they worked on. Mine’s at the end.

Lisa Sorrell
Reapers: Before the Storm 

One girl with a unique soul. Two worlds on the brink of obliteration. Would she give her life to save them both?

PARAGRAPH PITCH
Blythe’s new friend Bron is a Reaper - one of many supernatural beings that exist only to ferry souls to the afterlife. Days in to Blythe's revelation, she turns sixteen and her world turns upside down for good; attempts are made on her life, her mother is murdered and her best-friend is almost killed in a school fire. She finds out what happens to her long-lost father, what he really is and ultimately, what she really is, what she is capable of, and the war she is about to cause.

Morag Caunt 
Sarah suggested that as I was writing a collection of short stories for YA, that I should use a 2 level pitch. The first is about the collection and the second about an individual story. So here goes.

The Zone, My Space. 

Teenage Crisis, Teenage Drama

PARAGRAPH PITCH
The Zone is a collection of short stories I have written to encourage teenage reluctant readers. The stories are all based round a Youth Drama Group, The Zone, and each has a different main character and a situation which a teenager might face. For example - abuse, running away, bereavement and bullying.

 A Black Headscarf 

Drama: Teenage Lives. “I rushed out of the room down the corridor until I found a toilet. I spewed my guts out. I splashed my face with cold water; the effect was like a slap."

PARAGRAPH PITCH
Evie and Josh start going out together, then Evie is diagnosed with terminal cancer. They are rummaging in a charity shop and find a black headscarf patterned with skulls which Evie instantly loves and never takes off. One day out walking in the country, Josh gently removes the headscarf from Evie’s head, tells her he loves her and she throws the scarf away. The day after Evie’s funeral, Josh goes out walking to their favourite spot and finds the headscarf stuck in the hedge, his most treasured possession.

Debbie Coope
Escaping Death

A locked door. An empty room. And then there's Jack…

PARAGRAPH PITCH

Sixteen year old Sam is grieving the loss of her parents in a car accident. She discovers a mirror and a Jack-in-the-box hidden in the junk room, but these objects hold more than just reflections and surprise; they trigger nightmares of a man enticing her - 'walk with me,' and the flashbacks of the accident are a reminder of her survivor guilt. She must race against time to release the ghost girl to the 'other side,' and stop her boyfriend from being fully possessed by the devil before he comes for her.


Maureen Lynas
The Best Witch: Witch School Sucks

I’m not a witch, I am an actress.

PARAGRAPH PITCH

Daisy is dumped at Toadspit Towers just three days before she’s due to perform her Bottom. It’s a big part so she’s determined to escape. However, Ms Tremble is just as determined to make her reveal her witch’s hat and save the school. Cornered by the Toadspit Terrors Daisy must embrace her inner witchyness or die.

 

 

 

Thank you to Sara. 

Pitching was fun and we all came away with a clearer view of our stories and the need to be able to say clearly and concisely what they are about. Not just for pitching purposes but so that readers can pick up our books and know the sort of journey we are hoping to take them on. We’re one step nearer to achieving that, thanks to Sara.

Sara O’Connor is an editor at Hot Key Booksand she is also part of the Bookbound Team. 

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 Maureen Lynas is the author of Cupcake Catastrophe!

 and Action Words 

Ask a Publisher - Q&A with Sara O'Connor Editorial Director at Hot Key Books

Publishing expert, Sara O'Connor returns with another set of answers to your questions this month. This time she's focusing on the definition of 'literary, time limits for film options and perhaps Hot Key's favourite 'genre' 'something amazing'!




Happy New Year, Words and Pictures readers. I hope you've all set yourself some New Year's resolutions for writing amazing books, and then sending them into Hot Key.

I read on an agent's wish list that they like a crossover something with a younger protagonist but an older heart like Wonder or My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece - YA subject matter but an MG MC. How easy is it to sell books that don't easily fit into an age group or genre? Are they always 'literary'? And how do you define literary?

I don't know the acquisition story behind WONDER, but I know MY SISTER LIVES ON THE MANTLEPIECE was a title that was fought over by many publishers. And, at Hot Key, we're quite interested in books that don't easily fit into categories. Often, books like that stand out. "Literary" is such a flexible term, often used as an opposite to "commercial" as in "mass market". "Literary" can also be used to mean sophisticated or unusual, complicated and perhaps not quite so plot driven. But your two examples show that the opposition of "literary" versus "commercial" gets lovely and blurred when the out of the box become huge hits. Don't worry too much about the labels - just write something amazing.

When you've given a debut author a two or more book deal how do you decide whether subsequent books are continuations of the debut or further standalones?

Gut reaction, I would say. It depends on the first book, how stand alone it is. We usually decide it at the time of acquisition and work it into the contract.

When you sell film rights is there a time limit for options? For example if production hasn't started within 3 years can another film company buy it? Does the author have any involvement in the process?

This is not at all my area of expertise. My understanding is, yes, there is usually a time limit for options, that can be renewed with an additional payment. But both this and any kind of production requirement clause would have to be stated in the contract. The author's involvement also depends on the contract. Most definitely, there should be an agent or film option contract expert involved in this kind of deal for you!

If you have any questions for Sara, you can either submit them in the comments section below or you can email them to writers@britishscbwi.org.

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Sara O'Connor is the editorial director, print and digital at Hot Key Books, acquiring books like The Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week Shrunk! by Fleur Hitchcock, Tribute by Ellen Renner, Boonie by Richard Masson and Clockwise to Titan by Elon Dann. She looks for books that are brilliantly written, that stand out and that have lovely authors behind them, with a slight preference towards the 9-12 age category.

She's also in charge of the digital strategy for Hot Key, working with a brilliant digital team to produce projects like the interactive iBook of Costa-award-winning Maggot Moon.

Network News: SCBWI South East Scotland is Go!

M Louise Kelly 

We have lift off!  On Saturday 26th October SCBWI South East Scotland met for its inaugural workshop and what a launch it was.

Sheila and Louise (the Network Organisers) had been meeting since spring to critique each others work, then were joined by Sean for a planning coffee in June.  Still finding their way, they called in the troops and corralled a few SCBWI stalwarts from other Networks to join them (thanks Maureen, Morag and co.), and anyone else who was interested, to meet at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.  I think they described it as 'profile raising' but there was as much laughter, chat and coffee as there was work!

At the Edingburgh International Book Festivel

Encouraged by this, in September they put out a proper call for a SCBWI meeting in the City Art Centre in central Edinburgh to see what the local appetite for SCBWI was.

Meeting at the City Art Centre

About 10 people turned up, all looking as pleased to have found 'fellow travellers' as Sheila and Louise were. So we swapped our writing journey stories and planned two events: one on-line event and then our first 'Meeting of Substance.'

The on-line event was a presentation and Q & A  with Sarah O'Connor of Hot Key Books. She talked to us via Google hangout and went through the author experience at Hot Key, introducing us the the team of people an author works with on the journey to publication. She also gave us some tips on what editors look out for in terms of  'Plot' -  which was handy... as that's what our planned face-to-face workshop was on later that week!

After securing a beautiful venue (thanks Rachel!) in the boardroom of Edinburgh City Central Library, we hosted our very first Plot Teach-in Workshop.

Plot teach-in workshop

From the planning meeting we realised that there was a lot of experience within the group that would be worth sharing before we even needed to bring in outside speakers so we took a risk and just asked anyone coming to bring along any resources, ideas or experiences they had relating to 'Plot'.  We didn't really know who would bring what or whether it would work, but boy did it ever.

One member (Christina) who has an agent and has extensive experience working on plot, gave us what can only be described as a Masterclass as she talked us through a classic plot text James Scott Bell's "Plot and Structure" and showed how she'd applied it to her work. Everybody learned tonnes from this, I'm sure, and because of the friendly manner in which she spoke, everybody else at the meeting was at ease enough to contribute too. And did so in spades. It was inspiring.

People were at all sorts of levels with their writing and working in a whole range of styles but everybody had something valuable to say.

All sorts of levels and styles 

We also set aside some time for more informal interaction and people found out more about each others' writing (we're short on illustrators! Anyone out there want to come and join our lone illustrator??).  This is probably key to maintaining the supportive nature of the group, so we'll make sure we cater for that in our Network too.

I don't know whether we'd just found the 12 most friendly writers in the whole of Scotland, but so far, those who've attended our Network meetings seemed immediately supportive and willing to share. It feels like a small miracle. One non-member at the meeting was so enthused that she went away and promptly joined SCBWI! And there's lots of room for more. If you live within travelling distance of area, and you're interested in sharing your ideas on writing or illustrating for children do get in touch. We'd love to have you at our next meeting.

Next meeting 14th December 2-5pm, Edinburgh Central Library (this venue is still TBC, but date is set). Theme: Character teach-in and Christmas Cheer.

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M Louise Kelly lives in Edinburgh and is working on Rules of Sail By, a YA comic coming of age novel set in Valparaiso, Chile, the Antarctic and Scotland. She's also written for 9-12s. Louise gave up a permanent position lecturing in Psychology and Linguistics to follow a portfolio (patchwork) career: writing fiction; working as publicist for Nicola Morgan; teaching Neuropsychology for the Open University; and being a University Dyslexia Adviser. Some of these pay money!

Ask A Publisher - Q&A with Sara O'Connor, Editorial Director at Hot Key Books

Sara O'Connor, Editorial Director, Print and Digital at Hot Key Books, answers yet more of your publishing questions. This month she offers advice on how to choose a publisher, what to include in an author website and whether you need a platform before getting published.

But first, a message from Sara - 'I can’t believe that the summer is almost over! After six months of maternity leave, I’m back to work in two weeks. Your questions have reminded me how much I love my company and what I do, so thank you!'

What should a prospective author look for in a traditional publisher? In an independent publisher?

Great question! But I don't think an author should look for different things depending on whether the publisher is independent or traditional or a bit of both.

- You want an acquiring editor who is utterly passionate about you and your work. It's a long process and you want someone who will be promoting you internally and keeping people excited throughout.
- You want to understand the level of publicity and marketing attention you are going to get, so that expectations are met. The answer may be none, so you'll want to be prepared for that. At a smaller house, it is unlikely that the answer will be none because the list will be smaller and so more manageable for the marketing team, but you still want to know what to expect.
- Look at the front list. Do you want to be in the company of those books? How are those books doing? Check out some of those authors social media and get a sense of how and if their publisher is interacting with them and if the authors are happy.
- Check out the publisher's social media. Do you like how they do it?

It's hard to imagine it but I do think it's better to turn down a deal and remain unpublished if you don't get that great vibe from the people you're talking to. You will be signing over the rights to your work for many years. Make sure you want to do it!

You want an acquiring editor who is utterly passionate about you and your work

Do you help to set up school visits, festival appearances etc. for authors or do they organise these themselves?

Festival appearances are very competitive, so we definitely pitch like crazy for appearances, in competition with all the other publishers. I think it would be quite tricky for an author to pitch themselves to the big festivals. School visits are done by both us and the authors themselves. We'll support any visit by organising books for sale or providing materials. We also pitch for newspaper, TV and radio coverage for our authors.

Do you brainstorm ideas for new titles with existing authors?

Yes! If the author wants to.

Do you look at whether a potential author has a platform or not - twitter, FB, blog, website etc, and does that ever influence whether or not you'd take an author on. Does it matter if a potential author has absolutely no online presence at all? Would you advise an unpublished author to set up a website or is it better to wait until they have a deal? What should they include in the design?

A "platform" can be a bonus, but it isn't necessary. We are happy to get people started if they want, or to plug them into our networks if they are already started. We'd never not acquire a book we love because there is no social media.

I can say, though, that there IS a potential downside. I do Google potential authors and if he or she shows that they might not be a nice person to work with, I would not acquire them.

My advice for setting up a website is to know why you are setting it up/who you are setting it up for. Is it to get published? Then post content with that aim, for publishers to find. To attract your audience? Then it's age-appropriate content you need. Is it to bond with other writers? Then focus on that.

Show your personality, what makes you, you? Whatever you put up, keep it maintained. Don't have a news section if you're not going to update it for six months. I'd recommend a mailing list set up - something free like MailChimp - to capture interested people as they find you, even if you aren't published yet.

A "platform" can be a bonus, but it isn't necessary. 

How would you describe a typical Hot Key author? Are there characteristics that are common to most of your authors? Would you actively seek authors from ethnic minorities or older or younger authors for instance, or is it all about the story or the writing?

It is all about the writing, yes. We do actively seek younger writers with our Young Writers Prize  for 18- to 25-year-olds – but it is most certainly about the books. I think Hot Key authors tend to be lovely people. Just have a look at them on Twitter.Committed, passionate, clever, with something unique to say.

So, my question to you flips the first question around. What do you look for in a publisher?
 
If you have any questions for Sara, you can either submit them in the comments section below or you can email them to writers@britishscbwi.org.  Sara will return with her answers on the 7th October.

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Sara O'Connor is the editorial director, print and digital at Hot Key Books, acquiring books like The Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week Shrunk! by Fleur Hitchcock, Tribute by Ellen Renner, Boonie by Richard Masson and Clockwise to Titan by Elon Dann. She looks for books that are brilliantly written, that stand out and that have lovely authors behind them, with a slight preference towards the 9-12 age category.

She's also in charge of the digital strategy for Hot Key, working with a brilliant digital team to produce projects like the interactive iBook of Costa-award-winning Maggot Moon.

Ask A Publisher - Q&A with Sara O'Connor, Editorial Director at Hot Key Books

Welcome to our monthly Ask A Publisher feature, hosted by Sara O'Connor, Editorial Director, Print and Digital at Hot Key Books.

This month there's a bumper crop because Sara's just received the next list of questions and she's dying to answer them! You'll have to wait til next month to get answers to questions like: what are your options when you are offered a book deal?

With humour a frequent criticism is that there’s no story. Do you do humour at expense of plot or just humour? And what about cross genre - e.g. Ghost story meets humour - where does that go on the shelves?

I don’t hear that frequently. Humour is just another type of voice and a great story has to have both plot and voice. And don’t get caught up in where it sits. That's what your publisher is for! In most bookstores, kids' books are arranged by age, not genre. My familiar refrain: just write something awesome, and readers will find you.

Humour is just another type of voice and a great story has to have both plot and voice. 

Gender: are MG boys and girls reading everything? Is there still a split ie a blue boys shelf and a girls pink shelf?

I think there is a split that publishers market to, yes. There are girl-targeted and boy-targeted books at middle grade. But I think it’s much less than at the 5-8 age range, where it is literally pink and blue.

But a book can’t be pigeonholed, really. Boys love RAINBOW MAGIC and girls love BEAST QUEST. In the YA sphere, Maureen Johnson started a great conversation about “cover flips”. What would it look like if GAME OF THRONES was written by Georgette Martin?

Is there any scope for an author putting together a concept for a packaged series as opposed to a book packager doing that? So that single author would entirely write their own series.

By "packaged" do you just mean series - or do you mean one person plots and the other(s) write for a share or a flat fee? Of course, anyone can set up as a "packager" like Working Partners or Hot House and see if they can recruit writing partners.

If you mean, can one person get a publishing deal for young series fiction on their own? Well, we only have to look to the talented SCBWI-er Paula Harrison who has done just that with her RESCUE PRINCESSES series with Nosy Crow.

One of the big plus points of a single author young reader series is the kids are able to have a conversation with the actual author. Things like school visits can happen and the can be an actual author photo! The disadvantage can be speed – many creators mean lots of books at once.

If you've got a great pitch and great writing, publishers won't care who is putting it together. Maybe Paula will tell us how she did it?

If you've got a great pitch and great writing, publishers won't care who is putting it together.

When everyone’s looking for voice and high level writing, how can I sell my ideas at what you might call a lower literary, formulaic, ‘b’ list, level?

Don't worry about what people might be or say they are looking for. Pitch your idea as it is - you can't make it what it isn't. Even not-so-literary fiction has to stand out; highlight those unique points and, if it's good enough, it should get noticed. (P.S. Don’t call it formulaic!)

Are you illustrating more books now for 10 + age group? What criteria would you use to select which 10+ books to illustrate? Eg status of author, the story, literary level of text …

This is a tricky one - it's mostly a gut instinct at Hot Key. The extremely talented Julian Crouch illustrated MAGGOT MOON and the forthcoming HEAP HOUSE is illustrated by the author. And, from other publishers, there is A MONSTER CALLS that won both the Carnegie and the Greenaway last year - and fully illustrated books like HUGO CABRET... A book like MINA by David Almond is almost illustrated with all the fonts used. I do think they are on the up, and rightly so.

I wish we could illustrate more, but it is expensive. When you look at an individual book's profit and loss statement, there are lots of flat fee costs associated with creating the book (cover art, typesetting, paper, binding, etc) and it's a job for a typical book to become profitable without adding additional costs on top of that. The cost is probably one reason that it tends to be bigger name authors.

I wish we could illustrate more, but it is expensive.

How long does the acquisitions process take?

 This varies hugely from publisher to publisher - and sometimes from book to book. Our standard process is: read a submission. If I like it, we talk about it at an editorial meeting (week 1), then the editorial team will read it and we'll talk about it at the next meeting (week 2). Our publishing meeting is on the next day, so if the editorial team are in agreement, we'll present it to the rest of the team the next day (still week 2).

They will read it over the next week and we'll come together in week 3 to agree to take it on and then move to financials. The numbers should be signed off within the next week. So, a book that is not in a rush will take a month. A book that is in a rush (an auction or a pre-empt) can take a day, if it needs to!

Strategically, it's much better for me as the editor to be able to follow the usual procedure, prime everyone about the book, drop little hints along the way and give everyone the time and space to enjoy it.

Does the ‘something for kids’ pitch still work for you? Does the thing you’re comparing your work to, have to be current? Does the ‘Die Hard meets Rainbow Magic for YA’ sort of pitch still work for you?

Sure! I bought CLOCKWISE TO TITAN by Elon Dann which is billed as The Shawshank Redemption (not current) for kids. The pitch is just to whet the appetite. The book, of course, should stand on its own. I wouldn't advise going for the latest top seller, though. TWILIGHT meets THE HUNGER GAMES will just make me roll my eyes.

And... wow... I'd love to see what Die Hard meets Rainbow Magic looks like. Being quite familiar with both franchises, all sorts of scenes are springing to mind (mini goblins take over a hot air balloon and threaten to crash it into a country house?)

How much input does an author have in the cover design?

That depends on your publisher. With us, quite a fair amount. We show concepts, roughs and finished work to the author. We’ve even completely scrapped a finished cover and started over because the author asked us to. (Though it wasn’t commissioned art we gave up, just the design – it’s harder to scrap entirely when we’ve paid a big art fee.) Other companies, you’ll get practically none. You’ll be sent your cover as final art with the editor desperately hoping you’ll simply say that you love it.

If you don’t love it, my advice would be to proceed with caution and pick your battles. If you are presented with a finished product, know that the jacket has likely been poured over by all the heads of departments and the MD. And know that everyone involved is really committed to finding just the right thing for the market. Don’t throw your toys out of the pram unless you don’t want to sign future deals. Point out calmly what you can’t live with and be as reasonable and unemotional as you can. If you have an agent, let them do the talking!

This is a long one, so if you’ve slogged all the way to the end, let me know which was your favourite question/answer.

If you have any questions for Sara, you can either submit them in the comments section below or you can email them to writers@britishscbwi.org.  Sara will return with her answers on the 12th August.

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Sara O'Connor is the editorial director, print and digital at Hot Key Books, acquiring books like The Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week Shrunk! by Fleur Hitchcock, Tribute by Ellen Renner, Boonie by Richard Masson and Clockwise to Titan by Elon Dann. She looks for books that are brilliantly written, that stand out and that have lovely authors behind them, with a slight preference towards the 9-12 age category.

She's also in charge of the digital strategy for Hot Key, working with a brilliant digital team to produce projects like the interactive iBook of Costa-award-winning Maggot Moon.