The Buzz in Sunny Norwich

On one of the best weekends of the year to be in Norwich - guess where I am!
I've just had coffee with our excellent illustration features editor, John Shelley in the garden of the Britons Arms at the top of Elm Hill, a medieval cobbled street in the heart of the old city. Norwich is buzzing with the Lord Mayor's celebrations, music markets processions, fireworks all manner of festivity has hit the streets. Right now after a short walking tour with John, ( If you're ever in Norwich, book John, he's a brilliant tour guide.) I'm sitting in the the foyer of the Forum which houses among other things the BBC and Norwich's Millennium Library - the busiest library in the country and the venue for The Authors and Illustrators Day on July 27th and the Illustrators Print Exhibition, 26th July – 9th August.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our first poll question. There'll be another one on Monday, when I'm back at home. Especially for picture book writers don't leave before checking out next Slushpile Challenge. On competitions, the Chalkface Challenge judges are on the point of delivering their verdict and I'll be emailing entrants this week!

I have lots of pictures to post but The Cloud, iPhoto and email etc are just not playing ball this afternoon. So here's a reminder about The Norwich Author Illustrator's day and a sunny placeholder for when I've resolved my picture posting problems!

The clock is ticking for me - laptop battery also soon to expire, so very quickly....

We've had a great week on Words & Pictures and there's a similarly great week to come! 
I do hope you'll catch up on author illustrator, Gillian McClure's post on The Plaister Press - her own publishing house - an inspiring 'self publishing' story. If you're looking for inspiration go to something old as Philippa did on Monday when she pondered on some illustrated texts from a time when no one thought twice about pictures for adults. And Ask an Agent, what brilliant  query advice from Gemma and Molly this week! We are so lucky to have them, and Sara, our Ask a Publisher, on board.

Isn't Patron of Reading a wonderful idea? Congratulations Denyse! Check the links in Nick's Blog Break this week for our own excellent SCBWI bloggers and a link to an interview with the Fickling Family as a comic - it's brilliant. And we'd love to hear about your Network experience in Network News this week.

And for next week...

On Monday our guest blogger is Andrew Weale who'll be telling us what it's like to work with more the one publisher. On Wednesday, we welcome Julia Churchill of AM Heath to  launch our first Agent Confidential, a brilliant concept put together by our writing features team - Mel Rogerson, Katrina Charman and Tania Tay.  Then on Friday, we have Picture Book Basics part 1 - Pagination.

I'm off to watch The Lord Mayor's procession, find husband and dinner.
Hope you're enjoying the sun,

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is older middle grade, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta.

Slush Pile Challenge - July 2013

We are pleased to announce the July 2013 Slush Pile Challenge. 

This time the challenge has been set for Picture Book Writers & Illustrators from Sarah Frost at Hodder Children's Books. 

Sarah Frost is a commissioning editor at Hodder Children's Books and has worked in the picture book world for over ten years. Before Hodder, she edited and managed picture books, baby books and novelty titles at Macmillan and Caterpillar Books. She enjoys working with new and established authors, developing innovative novelty concepts, and helping to build brilliant picture books into successful series.</

THE CHALLENGE: A picture book text or dummy in PDF form - 500 words or under that celebrates the relationship between mother and child and would make the perfect Mother's Day gift. 

Or a picture book text / dummy in PDF form of 500 words or under that celebrates the relationship between father and child and would make the perfect Father's Day gift.

THE REWARD:

Sarah Frost will pick a winner and arrange to have a meeting with the winner by phone or in person for 30 minutes.

Send in your entries by 31st July 2013.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

Click Here for Results

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Who is eligible?

• You need to be a current SCBWI un-agented member, resident in the UK. 
• If your entry is selected for a given Slush Pile Challenge, you will not be able to enter for any other challenges.

To join SCBWI and take advantage of the many opportunities to raise your profile: market your work, meet fellow writers, artists, the gatekeepers to publication, while being supported in the development and pursuit of your craft, visit scbwi.org.

What do you need to do?

Send in your picture book text (as Word Document) or picture dummy (as a PDF) to competitions@britishscbwi.org by 31st July 2013.

The word document / dummy PDF should only contain the picture book with its title. 
The dummy should be all spreads laid out in A3 or A4 size and saved as a PDF file. 
Do not include your name, address or email address in the word document.

In the email - please write your full name as it appears in SCBWI membership records, title of the picture book  and your email address. 

Please note that the picture book text should not exceed 500 words.

The Process

We will choose 15 entries randomly and send to the editor for review.

The editor will pick a winner and also tell us why.

The winner will be put in touch with the editor, for a 30-minute phone / personal meeting.

Good Luck Everyone!

Hurrah for the Patron of Reading Denyse Kirkby

@djkirkby

Congratulations and Hip Hip Hooray for Denyse Kirkby, who has been newly appointed as the Patron of Reading for Beacon View Primary Academy. She is the school's special author and will work closely with them to make reading exciting. Denyse aka Dee Kirkby, writes the Portal series of adventure fantasy stories for ages 7 plus.

"I'm superexcited about becoming a Patron of Reading!"

Denyse with school staff

The Patron of Reading (PoR) role is a new initiative being rolled out across the UK and is designed to raise the profile of reading. Denyse will work with the school's reluctant readers from Y2 up to show them how much fun reading can be, and the opportunities it can give them. 

Denyse says: "I have designed a couple of different types of 'workshops' for this purpose and will also be training up peer reading champions. Off site I will be doing other things with the rest of the pupils and their families such as a regular newsletter, allowing them to suggest 'next steps' in a novel that I will write at some point during my PoR post (3 years), writing a letter to a pupil whenever they do something remarkable and more. In accordance with the PoR role the academy will pay me for my time when I am on site and the off site work I will do for free. I am super excited about becoming a PoR."

Reading is fascinating!

Dee lives in the South of England in a home otherwise filled with males – husband, boys and pets – she writes to escape the testosterone. She was the 2012 Writer in Residence for Portsmouth Libraries and writes using the name D.J. Kirkby and Dee Kirkby. Dee is the author of Without Alice, My Dream of You, My Mini Midwife, Realand and Raffie Island (book 1 & 2 of The Portal Series for children) and Special Deliveries. Dee is a registered midwifery lecturer, teaching midwifery two days per week, and a registered public health practitioner, working two days per week for her local Public Health Department. At the age of 40, she was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger syndrome, in addition to dyslexia and dyspraxia (which definitely explains a lot of things including why she can’t read a tube map). When not otherwise occupied, Dee can be found chatting to people on Twitter and Facebook:  Dee’s website can be found at: http://djkirkby.co.uk

Join me in wishing Denyse good luck with her wonderful job of inspiring children and send her a big Hurrah!

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is writing MG and YA fiction, and is on the editorial team at Words & Pictures.

Plaister Press

Author-Illustrator Gillian McClure has enjoyed a long career working with publishers creating children's books - and then she began publishing herself. Here she offers the story behind Plaister Press.


Early in 2010 I formed Plaister Press in order to self publish new picture books – physical books - alongside my traditionally published books.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of running a small publishing company is acquiring a greater knowledge of the publishing industry; for all the paths I’ve been following are the same as those followed by big publishers. 

    Publishing is like doing the Lottery. It takes only one winning book to turn things around but that winning book is unpredictable; the most unexpected of books win. And all the other books - well they need a lot of dedicated marketing and selling to shift them out of the warehouse. It’s the winner, the best seller that subsidises the rest of the list. Until that happens, if it does ever happen, the advantages of running your own publishing company are not all financial. So what are the other advantages?

• You have the opportunity of creating a brand – your own list.

www.plaisterpress.com website

• You have books coming out and getting reviewed when perhaps there may not be much movement on the picture book front. 
• You have new books and new workshops based on them for school visits. 
• If you’re an illustrator, you have new artwork to sell one day.

All this keeps your name alive out there when it might otherwise be fading away as you wait for traditional publishers who take their time in deciding whether to take your next book. My agent Stephanie Thwaites at Curtis Brown agrees; she is happy with what I’m doing; sees it all helping raise my profile. 

My initial reason for starting Plaister Press back in 2010 was a creative one rather than a business one. I’d found myself becoming, over my thirty-year writing and illustrating career, a smaller and smaller cog in a bigger and bigger business and I was becoming frustrated. So when a friend gave me a sum of money to ‘proceed with a book’, I joined up with a typographical designer and started my own publishing company.

Working with typographic designer, Lisa Kirkham.

The creative rewards were great. I love the autonomy and control.
I love experimenting with new formats and working closely from the rough stage with a typographic designer – something I was never allowed to do before. However, ‘proceeding with a book’ means going far beyond an author/illustrator’s usual comfort zone if that book is going to end up on a child’s bookcase.

A business sense is needed. I saw ahead of me a huge learning curve - dealing with -
 

• Printers - Chinese printers – getting files to them, working within their schedules – avoiding the Chinese New Year

• Wholesalers & distributers – Gardners and Bertrams

• ISBNs and barcodes

• Invoicing and returns

• Marketing and promotions

• Trade fairs – the Bologna Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair

• Selling

• Stock keeping – I needed an efficient excel sheet showing how much stock I owned rather than counting boxes under beds or in the attic

• Bookkeeping – double of everything because I’m still running my self employed business. Double accountancy bills

• And, on top of all this, leaving enough time and space to create new books  without losing the quality expected of me when published the traditional way

• I also needed an exit strategy: it helps on sleepless nights to know that, with one click of a button on the Companies House website, I can make my company go dormant. After that, all I have to do is clear my remaining stock in school and bookshop signings before a holiday on the profits! A simple exit strategy has been one of the reasons I’ve not wanted to complicate my business by publishing other people’s books alongside my own

Seeing how big the learning curve ahead of me was going to be, I decided, when I started out in 2010, to cut my teeth on reissuing a back list title with a good sales record where the rights had reverted.  After that, I’ve been publishing new picture books; one a year.

I discovered, early on, to my surprise, that I liked marketing and selling; enjoyed mailing out to all the UK Independent booksellers and spending time in bookshops, learning who my customers were.

So now to the drawbacks: small is beautiful but it’s also a problem. A small publisher, as I said earlier, is following the same route to market as a big publisher. Big publishers are my competitors and one of the real drawbacks of being so small, is that everything in the publishing industry is geared for BIG:

• Discounts are big
• Costs are big
• Print runs need to be big if you are going to make any profit at all   

• Turnover and numbers of titles need to be big to interest any sales agent 
• Even the lorry delivering the books from Felixstowe docks to my house was big – too big to get down my street. The driver phoned to say he would have to meet me in a lay by on the outskirts of Cambridge. I had a vision of 1,500 books left unguarded on a palette on a damp autumn day as I made several journeys by car getting them back to my house. I had to come up with some solution quickly or all those cartons of books would go back to the docks. With physical books you have physical problems. 

So three years after creating my publishing company, I found I was a bit stuck. My books were selling but the profit was only just covering the production costs of the next book. I could go no faster than one book a year if I was going to maintain quality.  Alone, I was never going to notch my business up to the next level.

So I signed up to Martin West’s organisation Authorization!   - a very newly formed umbrella organisation for small publishing companies or authors bringing back into print back-list titles. Authorization! has solutions to many of the ‘big’ problems and can help when you’re too small to proceed beyond a certain point on your own.

Gone now are the problems with large lorries delivering cartons to my house. Gone are all the books under the beds and all the trips to the post office. I now have warehousing, a sales agent, rights agent and four reps.

Martin West talking about Authorization! plus Susan Price and myself on a self-publishing panel at the 2012 CWIG conference. He will be speaking again on self publishing at the Society of Authors on Tuesday 16 July 2013 at 6pm: CWIG – Children’s Self-Publishing: Authors in Control?

I wonder whether, in the future, authors and illustrators who are already doing a lot of their own marketing through social media will be expected by their publishers to also foot the production costs of any risky or niche-market book – publishing it themselves. Then, only if a book is seen to be a winner, will the big publishers step in and take it over for the mass market. Perhaps, in this way, self publishing might be the way forward for publishers and authors and illustrators alike.
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 Gillian McClure is the creator of dozens of picture books for children, and former member of the Society of Authors CWIG committee. See her website here, and blog here. 

Network News: networking in the networks

By Gill James

We’ve talked about the types of critique groups that exist in the networks and some of the venues where network meetings take place. This week I want to summarise how people use their networks and how they perceive them to be useful. I’d also like to find out more about how widespread this is and what else folk would like from their networks. I guess I’m also using the word “network” to mean more than just the regional groups of SCBWI members; indeed SCBWI-BI and SCWBI generally are enormously helpful networks.

I’m doing this through a series of questions. It would be great if you could send your answers to me on networknews@britishscbwi.org or complete the Monkey Survey if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

If you just want to answer one or two questions, just use the comment box below.

• Has being a member of SCBWI regional network helped you to become published?
• If so, how?
• Has it helped you to promote your work?
• Which activities do you take part in? – critique groups, social gatherings, scrawl crawls, goal-setting events, talks by visiting speakers?
• Which is your favourite network activity?
• How important is the venue for meetings for you?
• Can you tell us about a favourite venue?
• What is the most important aspect of belonging to the network for you?
• Have you any suggestions for what you would like to see your regional network doing?
• How has being a member of the wider SCBWI network helped you?
• Have you been involved in any cyber-networking within SCBWI? E.g. E-critique groups, Skype-conferencing?

Finally, would you be willing to be a featured member in Network News? This would involve answering a few of the above questions a little more fully and providing a few photographs to produce a short article. If so, contact me on networknews@britishscbwi.org.

Take the Monkey Survey here. 

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Gill James is a published writer and an academic teaching creative writing who can hand-on-heart says she is published three times as a result of wider networking. She finds SCBWI, as a world-wide organization, as the British Isles and her own North-West Network tremendously motivating and supportive.      

Ask an Agent: How Not to Write a Query

In our Ask an Agent feature this month, agents Molly Ker Hawn and Gemma Cooper from the Bent Agency have written a post about what not to say in your query, and why.

No one has been quite brave enough to send in a query for critique — yet — so we thought we’d do a little post about what not to say in your query and why. These are just made-up queries, but we really do see things like these in our inboxes...

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to submit my manuscript for submission. It is a 250,542-word MG fantasy, the first in a proposed seven-book series. I have already finished book 4.

I know it says in your submission guidelines to paste the first ten pages, but the story doesn’t really get going until chapter 3, so I have attached the best chapters, which are 4, 7, and 11.

The book has been described by my children as a gripping work of genius. I would describe it as an epic journey, where Jake, the main character, learns all about the difference between good and evil, and who to trust. It really looks at the bonds of friendship. I hope kids will learn how important it is not to bully other people.

I know this book will grip you from start to finish, and I think it could be the one to really put your agency on the map. It would make a great movie and here is the link to the Pinterest board with the actors I want to play the main characters.

I am a member of Sewing Anonymous, a big group of people who sew in the church hall at weekends. I’m also a sign language teacher and fluent in Portuguese.

I will call you tomorrow to see what you think.

Best wishes

A

So, where did "A" go wrong?:

Dear Sirs, (Please direct your query to the person you’re sending it to).

I am writing to submit my manuscript for submission. It is a 250,342-word (first, this is far too long for a debut MG. Remember Jennifer Laughran’s word count post? Second, do us a favour and round up your word count to the nearest thousand) MG fantasy, the first in a proposed seven-book series. I have already finished book 4. (We’d advise you not to start writing book 2 of a series until you have sold book 1. It might be that your publisher wants to change something that could have massive ramifications throughout the series. As agents, it would make us worried that you’re so glued to your story, you might not take editorial advice).

I know it says in your submission guidelines to paste the first ten pages, but the story doesn’t really get going until chapter 3 (So what happens in the first three chapters? Your opening is important; it sets the scene, gives us the main character’s voice and hooks the reader. If it’s so boring you don’t think it will hook an agent, how will it hook a reader?), so I have attached the best chapters, which are 4, 7, and 11. (How can we judge your project until we know what’s going on in the story? Reading random sample chapters doesn’t tell us what we need to know).

The book has been described by my children as gripping, and a work of genius. (Your children love you. They’ll love anything you read to them! Their opinion doesn’t make a difference to an agent, so don’t mention it). I would describe it as an epic journey, where Jake, my main character, learns all about the different between good and evil, and who to trust. It really looks at the bonds of friendship. (But what is the story? What actually happens?) I hope kids will learn how important it is not to bully other people. (Kids don’t like being preached to, and although some terrific books have messages like this, they’re cleverly layered into the story. The fact you say you want to teach kids would worry us that the tone of your book is too didactic.)

I know this book will grip you from start to finish, and I think it could be the one to really put your agency on the map. (We’re very happy with our current clients and how great they are – don’t be disparaging about the agency) It would make a great movie and here is the link to the Pinterest board with the actors I want to play the main character. (Things like this are fun to do with your writing buddies and critique partners, but we’d worry you were running before you could walk in mentioning it here).

I am a member of Sewing Anonymous, a big group of people who sew in the church hall at weekends. I’m also a sign language teacher and fluent in Portuguese. (Are these relevant to your book? If you are member of a writing organisation, tell us. And if your story is set in France, and you lived there for three years, then great – but keep it relevant!)

I will call you tomorrow to see what you think. (Never call an agent to chase up on a query unless her submission guidelines specifically say you should.)

Best wishes

A

Here's another example of how not to write a query:

Hey,

I have written three chapters of my untitled novel, but I can quickly finish the rest if you want it soon. This book is going to be as big as Twilight and The Hunger Games.

I know from reading a blog interview that you don’t represent thrillers, but I thought my book would make you think differently about them. I couldn’t find the submission details on your website, so I’ve just attached what I’ve written so far. It’s a bit rough, but you’ll get the picture. I bet you probably won’t read it though. I’ve found the search for an agent to be fraught, and I’ve begun to think there aren’t any professional people in publishing left. I’ve had 50 rejections – none of them helpful. I mean how hard is it to just send me a nice email explaining what you didn’t like about my book and giving detailed editorial tips. Seriously! I do hope that I hear from you and you will be the one good person in this whole stupid industry.

Email me back at lovesgiantteddybears@cuddles.com.

Laters

B

So, what could "B" have done differently?:

Hey, (Because agents are all over Twitter talking about what we ate last night, it can be easy to be informal when emailing us. Remember: this is a business letter.)

I have written three chapters of my untitled novel, but I can quickly finish the rest if you want it soon. (NEVER query an unfinished book. It’s so frustrating for us to request a full manuscript and find out it’s not available. And usually our full request means the manuscript is finished quickly and rushed. Edit and polish your book before you query. We’ll be here – what’s your rush?)

This book is going to be as big as Twilight and The Hunger Games (Don’t compare your book to the big books. If you mention comparables, show us you’re well-read in the genre you’re querying. For example, for a voicey animal-protagonist MG, you might say ‘This book would appeal to fans of 'The One And Only Ivan.’)

I know from reading a blog interview that you don’t represent thrillers, but I thought my book would make you think differently about them. (If it says we don’t represent a certain genre, then don’t think that you have written the one book that will change our mind. We will have good reason that we don’t rep that genre. You need an agent who is passionate about the genre you write in and who has the right editorial contacts.)

I couldn’t find the submission details on your website, so I’ve just attached what I’ve written so far. It’s a bit rough, but you’ll get the picture. (You only get one chance to make a first impression. Why send something unfinished and unedited? Also, if you’ve found our email address, you’re capable of finding our submission guidelines on our website.)

I bet you probably won’t read it though. I’ve found the search for an agent to be fraught, and I’ve begun to think there aren’t any professional people in publishing left. (Don’t bad-mouth other industry professionals to us – we’re a tight group and we have a lot of respect for each other).

I’ve had 50 rejections – none of them helpful. I mean how hard is it to just send me a nice email explaining what you didn’t like about my book and giving detailed editorial tips. Seriously! I do hope that I hear from you and you will be the one good person in this whole stupid industry. (It’s hard for us to be enthusiastic about working with someone with both an unrealistic view of how the industry works and a bad attitude.)

Email me back at lovesgiantteddybears@cuddles.com. (Use a professional business email address, ideally yourname@ )

Laters (Would you really sign a business letter this way?)

B

Okay, so that was a fun look at some common mistakes that crop up in our submissions. So what makes a good query letter? Our advice: don’t overthink it, keep it simple, and make us want to read your book.

Dear [Agent’s Name],

I am seeking representation for my [age - MG/YA etc.] [genre] manuscript [title] complete at [word count rounded to nearest 1000 words].

[Insert Pitch - 1 or 2 paragraphs explaining your plot. Introduce your main character. What does she want? What’s preventing her from achieving those goals? And what are the stakes if she doesn’t achieve them?]

According to your submission guidelines I have [consult the specific guidelines for the agency, posted on its website. For the Bent Agency, you’d say, ‘pasted the first ten pages of the manuscript below.’]

I am a member of [any writing organisations] and have won [any relevant writing prizes]. [Then add anything relevant to your role as the best person to write this book.] Thank you for your time.

All best,

[your name]

Simple, right?

If you are ready to start submitting to agents, but would like some feedback on your query from Gemma and Molly, then email your query to writers@britishscbwi.org. Submissions will be posted anonymously. Alternatively, if you have a question you would like to put to our agents, email us at the above address, or post them in the comments below.

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@gemma_cooper 

@mollykh.

Gemma Cooper and  Molly Ker Hawn represent authors of books for children and young adults. For more information about Gemma and Molly see The Bent Agency website and blog. 



Ten-Minute Blog Break - 2nd July

As you know, we try to be as diverse and inclusive as we can on Words & Pictures (and in SCBWI more generally), so I'm pleased to kick off the Blog Break with a couple of great posts dealing with diversity issues.


Candy Gourlay reports back from the Asian Festival of Children's Content in Singapore, highlighting the issue of the disproportionate amount of Western children's literature in Asian markets. The problem, it seems, is partially caused by a lack of confidence amongst Asian authors, one that Candy sums up as follows: "How could I become an author, I used to ask myself, I have never seen myself in the characters and narratives that I have discovered between the pages of a book." Luckily for all of us, Candy gave herself "the permission to write" and the result was Tall Story and the forthcoming Shine.

At the edge, Bryony Pearce has her own take on the thorny issue of racial diversity in fiction. Her new novel The Weight of Souls has an Asian heroine, a choice that Bryony had not considered in the least controversial. Suddenly, people are excited to read the book because of the Asian characters, and Bryony is a little terrified about whether she's done them justice!

Let's move from racial diversity to publishing diversity, because there are several of our bloggers exploring alternatives to traditional publishing at the moment. Lorraine Gregory blogged a two-part summary of a recent Children's Book Circle event on self-publishing here and here. Taking things even further, Larissa Villar Hauser has decided to jump into the world of self-publishing with both feet and document her entire process through a new blog.

Finally, it's time take a closer look at the Fickling family. David Fickling should be very familiar to SCBWI members, having brought his exceptionally loud voice and exceptionally red bow tie to many SCBWI events. But what about his wife Caro and his children Tom, Will and Rosie? Well, they all work together to bring The Phoenix comic to life, and the Guardian conducted a unique interview with them over the weekend, rendered entirely in comic form.

Nick.

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, blogger and all-round digital guru. In 2010 he was a winner of Undiscovered Voices with his zombie comedy Back from the Dead.
Read Nick's latest blog post, in which he explores Creative Frustration. Is frustration always negative, or can it help push us to new creative heights?