Q&A with Inbali Iserles: How to write a series about magical foxes

By Candy Gourlay

@Inbali_Iserles 

Last year my beautiful friend Inbali Iserles managed not only to work as a lawyer, but to have a baby, mind her dog, move house, keep a partner … and write her fantastic Foxcraft trilogy. Not just write. She also did the dreamy black and white illustrations that pepper the books (all illustrations below are by Inbali from the Foxcraft books). Inbali was born in Israel but grew up with coyotes, road runners, snakes and gila monsters in Arizona, which may account for why she’s written reams of books starring animal characters. Welcome to the Slushpile, Inbali. Have you anything to say to prevent our readers from slamming their laptops shut in a fit of jealous pique?

Lovely to join you here, Candy! Thank you for your kind words. I fear the reality is a little less impressive. For instance, I’ve actually written a book a year, rather than all three at once; the house is so messy that my dog’s furballs have their own furballs; there are still unpacked boxes in my study and no pictures on the walls (though I finally got round to getting bookcases put in – priorities, people!); and I’m a *smidge* late on my Foxcraft 3 edits.

Am I Repeating Myself? Am I Repeating Myself?

By Nick Cross

When I started writing this post, it was because I was in the dreaded state of being BETWEEN BOOKS. I waffled on for 500 words about how terrible it was to be BETWEEN BOOKS, but not as terrible as being homeless or liking Donald Trump, but still, it was a real pain not being able to settle to writing something, and isn’t it annoying all those people who always seem to have a hundred projects on the go and can’t resist rubbing your nose in it on social media?

But then I stopped, because I checked out my own blog and discovered that I’d already posted about this at least twice (here and here). And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s the thought that I’m repeating myself.

Pat Walsh - Keep Writing, Keep Reading and Never Give Up

Pat Walsh is one of my tip-top favourite writers. I relish her beautiful prose, I admire her sparkling story-telling and her characterisation is warm and real. I wanted to know about Pat, her life, her work, her address ...no, the restraining order is an effective deterrent. So read on, for all about Pat and her TOP TEN TIPS for writers. Addy Farmer

Pat Walsh was born in Kent, and spent her early years in Africa and Ireland. Her family eventually returned to the UK and settled in Leicestershire. From the age of nine, she knew she wanted to be an archaeologist, and she still works in archaeology today. She live in Bedfordshire with her husband, three rats and two goldfish, and is the proud owner of two grown up children. Her first book for children, THE CROWFIELD CURSE, was shortlisted for the Times/Chicken House competition, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and the Branford Boase Award. It was published in 2010 by Chicken House. The second book in the series, THE CROWFIELD DEMON, was published in the UK April 2011 and the US in January 2012. THE HOB AND THE DEERMAN, the first book in a new series (Hob Tales), was published in 2014.

Stats from the Slushpile: A Decade of Dreaming

By Nick Cross

Hello again, slush fans. As anyone who's seen my Museum of Me series will attest, I like to keep hold of stuff from my past and inflict it upon share it with my loyal readers. Now that I've been writing seriously for a decade (actually slightly more, but 10 & 3/4 years didn't sound as good) it felt like time to take stock of my journey so far.
And what a journey it hasn't been. Well, not in the way I expected when I started out. For much of the time, I was driven by the conviction that my current book would soon be published, and I'd be on my way to fame and fortune. I was desperate but not entirely deluded, and got damn close on several occasions. Yet, my route to actual publication (and a smidgeon of critical acclaim) has come via a magazine, which wasn't a medium I'd even considered when starting out.

In writing this blog post, I also realised how many unresolved "issues" I have with the publishing industry and my position within it as an author (my position as an employee is thankfully much more settled). I thought this would be an easier post to write than my piece on stepping outside your comfort zone, but it was much, much harder. The reality of being on the slushpile is something that confronts all of us in the modern publishing world, where books go in and out of print constantly. It's a harsh environment, with sudden, glorious highs and some sickening lows that make you want to jack it all in and do something sensible with your life.

And yet, I'm still here, still writing and contemplating yet another jump into the world of submissions, false hope and form rejections. So, in tribute to that heroic and inadvisable urge, I present some infographics to chart each book from my decade of dreaming:

(Click images to enlarge)

The New Janice Powley was my first attempt at a novel and (so far) my only YA. I didn't know much about writing a book, so I just sort of wrote scenes as they came into my head, hoping to stitch them together later. This turned out to be a considerable job, as when I started to type up my hand-written first draft, I discovered I'd written more than 140,000 words! Over many months, with the help of a friend who was a trainee editor, I whittled it down to 80,000 and (mostly) got it to make sense.

In hindsight, getting two full manuscript reads of a book that, nowadays, would be little more than 99p Kindle fodder was an amazing achievement. But of course, I didn't see it like that - I wanted to be published, dammit!

Back from the Dead (a zombie horror comedy) was my golden ticket - the book that was going to get me out of obscurity and onto the bestseller lists, allowing me to give up my job (which at the time I hated) and settle into life as a full-time writer. Clearly, none of those things happened, and there's a part of me that still blames myself for blowing my big chance (however unwarranted that criticism is).

After I won a place in Undiscovered Voices 2010, a lot of things happened in quick succession: I got an agent! I rewrote 80% of the book! I got a publisher interested! I rewrote half the book again! I became clinically depressed from all the stress and expectation I was piling upon myself! I had the worst year of my life!

Be careful what you wish for.

The zombies had died a death, but my agent wanted us to strike again while the iron was hot. Even though I was still horribly messed-up and depressed-down, I launched into a new children's novel. The setting for Die Laughing - a world in which no-one could laugh or be happy, for fear of sudden, violent death - closely mirrored my daily life, where I had become gripped by the fear that I was about to die (a common symptom of depression, apparently). Thus, Die Laughing became my magnum opus and possibly the last book I would ever write.

To be fair to my agent, I'm not sure how much of my mental state was visible in my emails to her, as I apologised at monthly intervals for missing my deadlines for delivery of the first draft. The irony being that, when I finally did finish it, she took her own sweet time to decide that she hated it and would not represent it unless I made significant (and in my opinion disastrous) changes.

Feeling confused and betrayed, I terminated our arrangement, wrote another draft on my own terms and sent it out to some editors who'd expressed an interest. But my confidence in the book had long departed.

SuperNewman and MegaBeth (a riot of slapstick superhero silliness with a bittersweet subtext about mental illness) marked the point where I got serious again. No more would I be weighed down by the fear of rejection - this book was going out to as many people as possible. But I didn't want to just go through the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and send blanket queries to everyone, no matter how inappropriate - I would select the recipients carefully and tailor the submissions. As anyone who's done this knows, it's a lot of work! I also kept ever more detailed statistics, which you can see reflected in the infographic.

The average time taken to reply to an initial submission works out at 5.4 weeks, which was less than I'd imagined. Actually, most agents replied within a month, and there were just a couple who took a really long time, which dragged down the averages.

The rewrite story looks very similar to the one I experienced on Back from the Dead, but it wasn't really. Yes, the book still got rejected at the end of it, but unlike the fear and loathing last time, reworking SuperNewman and MegaBeth was one of the best writing experiences of my life. In just six weeks I took the book down from 45,000 to 15,000 words, replacing one of the main characters and keeping only the most awesome parts of the original story. There was something very freeing about that.

* * *

Consider all this, then, as an exorcism of the last ten years - the blog post I had to write before I could finally move on. The past is long gone and the future again twinkles with hope and expectation. Meanwhile, in the present, I'm taking every step to make sure my latest book doesn't disappear without a fight. A decade on from when I started, the options available to me as an author have increased dramatically, and there are all sorts of alternative funding and publishing methods available if the traditional gatekeepers aren't interested. It's time to stop dreaming and take my fate into my own hands.

Nick.

---

Nick Cross is a children's writer, Undiscovered Voices winner and Blog Network Editor for SCBWI Words & Pictures Magazine.
Nick's writing is published in Stew Magazine, and he's recently received the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, for his short story The Last Typewriter.

We are Liars. And Editors are Just Readers

By  Candy Gourlay

Here's a report from the AFCC's first retreat for writers and illustrators on Bintan Island in Indonesia, which I attended as a mentor.

'I hope this retreat will help you to get to the truth within the lie,' Sarah Odedina told a roomful of writers and illustrators at a retreat in Indonesia last week. 'I think all good literature has message and meaning. But the message and meaning is hidden in the story.'

Sara speaking at the Retreat. From my comic sketchbook.
View more of my notes on my author site

It was an interesting beginning to her talk on publishing. I don't think I'm making crazy generalisations when I say that, while there are exciting developments in children's publishing in Asia, many educators and parents in the region still regard reading and books as educational tools.

Many educators and parents still regard reading and books as educational tools

It was a constant refrain from publishers, writers, illustrators, and teachers I met last week at the Asian Festival for Children's Content that followed the retreat in Singapore. Far too many educators and parents in this region believe that reading for pleasure -- comics, funny books, books with farts in them, magic, fantasy -- should take a back seat to moral and other lessons.

The job of the editor, Sarah said, is to help authors get the story from inside their heads into books. Never mind the moral lessons. Focus on the story.

'Children are our future. Literature can give them confidence about being part of the world around them,' she said. ' Literacy is not just about being able to read the words on the page but being able to decipher the meaning of a story. The message of a story can be immense but expressed in the lightest way.'

Retreat members and faculty in Singapore before boarding the ferry to Bintan, Indonesia

It was the first retreat ever organised by the Asian Festival of Children's Content. It was as diverse a group as I've ever seen - twenty-six people representing Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada, Macau, India, the United States, England, Australia and Portugal, ranging from beginners at the craft of children's books to experienced, multi-published authors.

Held at an Indonesian resort just an hour's ferry ride from Singapore, the retreat was led by mentors that included Sarah, illustrator Catarina Sobral and writer-agent Andrea Pasion-Flores and me. Here's the view from one of the lecture rooms, just to make you jealous:

I remember meeting Sarah Odedina more than five years ago at a talk at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. I'm sure she doesn't remember me as I was one of the cowering unpublished then.

At the time she was editorial director of Bloomsbury Children's Books and famously part of the Harry Potter publishing team.

In those days I had no idea about her Harry Potter connection. What thrilled me was the fact that Sarah had edited Witch Child by Celia Rees. A gazillion writers discover the audience they want to write for through books like How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff and The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness and Witch Child was one of those breakthrough novels. I would count it as one of the books that spurred me to write for young people.

More recently Sarah was editorial director of Hot Key books where she published Carnegie winning Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner before moving to One World, where she's overseeing its Young Adult and children's publishing.

Sarah's retreat presentation ranged from tips for aspiring authors to a thorough explanation of genres in children's books.

SARAH'S TIPS FOR WANNABE AUTHORS

• Complement don't mimic a publisher's list. Don't look at the publisher's list and say they published Harry Potter therefore they will want another magical boarding school book. Research publishers, try to get a real sense of what they publish. "What publisher publishes the kind of work you want to be associated with?"
  
• Smaller publishers vs big publishers? Big publishers have clout in distribution and marketing terms but small publishers will be far more flexible.
  
• Get an Agent. Literary agents have their foot in the door. Publishers will look at submissions from literary agents first on the basis that they have already been filtered from the vast sea of manuscripts.
  
• Be Professional. Follow the stated guidelines. If the publisher's website says send the outline and the first three chapters, that is what you do. Don't say, 'I showed it to my grandchildren and they loved it.' Include any practical information that reveals your seriousness and professionalism (eg. you've been a member of a critique group for several years, you are a paying member of a respected organisation like the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators).
  
• Sorry, reading submissions takes time. Send material ... then be prepared to wait. Don't expect an immediate response. Sometimes it could take many weeks. Don't badger the publisher, don't call every week - wait maybe three months before following up. "We can't cope with feeling that we are keeping people in suspense."
  
• Know your genre. It's not enough to write a story and say that it's for a ten year old. Go into a bookshop and see what is being sold on the shelves, and how they are being categorised. "Read, read, read. Become familiar with publishing in the children's book world ... children of a certain age can take information in a particular way."
  
• Think of how you present yourself to the public. Websites. Social Media. Look at how others do it and note when things are done well. Do you have another persona incompatible with your children's work? Create a strong presence.
  
• Take part in the conversation. The children's book world is very conversation driven. Get involved. It would be a terrible mistake to only go out on social media when you're selling books. "On Twitter I have not chosen for you to sell me something. I am there to talk to you."

"The process of getting published involves different levels of commitment at different points of the journey," Sarah says.

Choosing a book involves a team. Commissioning editors will commit first. Then the sales team must commit, having decided that yes, they can sell this book. "Every step of the way, it's about faith. It's about trust. There's no golden rule."

Every step of the way, it's about faith. It's about trust. There's no golden rule

If you'd like to submit to Sarah. Here's what she says about her acquiring philosophy:

• I am looking at books as a reader.
• I read everything that comes in.
• I am looking for a good relationship with an author. 
• It's about not losing faith, it's about us doing our best for you. Like a close friendship, your relationship with your editor/publisher should be guarded.
• I like plot-driven books
• I acquire really simply. If I like it, I will take it to the sales team.

So there you have it. As authors we must be skilful liars, our essential truths concealed in our fiction. Meanwhile editors are just readers who must like our lies in order to publish them.

---

Candy Gourlay's latest book is Shine, an atmospheric ghost story whose heroine is a hidden away girl who lives her life on the Internet. Nominated for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2015. www.candygourlay.com @candygourlay

How We Live Now

By Candy Gourlay

Last week, my friend Nick Cross waxed nostalgic over on the SCBWI Blog Network, looking up the early days of long time bloggers like me.

It was fun checking out those early versions of ourselves that we presented to the outside world. For example: Sarah McIntyre, then an art student, posted just four times in May 2004 with brief captions like this:

Today, of course, Sarah is a multi-published rockstar of the children's book world, famous for her almost daily blogging.

Nick's article also linked to the Notes from the Slushpile's very, very first month in existence.

I blogged FIVE times! Reading again those pieces I wrote as a rather desperate to be published newbie in November 2004, I was struck by how much the publishing landscape has changed.

HARRY POTTER, BOOM AND BUST

In What JK Rowling did (and didn't do) for us, I wrote:

Aspiring writers who think JK Rowling has opened the doors of the children’s book world to the big league should take a cold shower. The blip in children’s book sales is totally Harry Potter’s fault

I was quoting the late Rosemary Canter, literary agent. Rosemary said until 1997, children's books was a 'backwater' - and 'now our tiny world has been shaken awake' by the success of JK Rowling, suddenly the industry was seeing bank notes between the pages of children books.

Canter warned us that the rise in book sales were all down to Harry Potter - but she also predicted that attitudes towards children's books would change (for the better) and that authors were going to command higher advances.

In the years after Canter's speech, the high advances did come true, and several other books climbed similar heights. But every boom comes with its bust. Well the bust happened to the economy.

Confidence became shakier and advances shrank. There are many woeful anecdotes of third books in trilogies left unpublished, authors dropped when book's sales disappointed, and publishers pouring all their marketing spend on the sure things rather than on untested authors.

Now that the economy is on the up again, who knows what is coming next.

Perhaps we children's book people need someone to write another hit novel so that we can all benefit from the resultant rise in publishing confidence and advances.

(In case you're a total newbie like I was 10 years ago, here's a great article by Nosy Crow about how authors are paid)

MAKING A LIVING

One of the pieces I posted was a bullet point list of tips from Anne Fine (soon after she completed her 2001 to 2003 reign as Children's Laureate) Anne Fine on Writing. Reading them again -- tips like

Never show your work to a family member.

-- I suddenly remembered something Anne said that I didn't include in the piece.

She said if you wanted to write books for children you should marry someone who could support you, like a solicitor.

At the time she said it, with publication prospects still in the dim future, it was just cute author humour. Now that I'm published ... well ...  I don't know how authors who don't have a day job make ends meet.

STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Then there was The Making of the Gruffalo, which I wrote after attending a break-out session with Julia Donaldson at the SCBWI conference.  I wrote:

Thus was a children’s classic born – through the exigencies of rhyme. This despite the fact that children’s book publishers in the UK actively discourage rhyming texts to increase a book’s chances of translation.

At the time, I honestly believed I would soon be the recipient of a picture book deal.

In fact, the opposite was true. Today, I am still an unpublished picture book author. But unlike then, I have far more knowhow about getting published in picture books.

What have I learned? It's competitive, the less words there are the tougher it is to write. I learned that it might be easier to write a novel. Which is what I did. Which is how I got published.

FROM MULTICULTURAL TO DIVERSE

My last two posts for that first month of blogging was about multiculturalism in children's books. One quotes Farrukh Dhondy, author of the short story collection East End At Your Feet, which he said was published for the wrong reason:

... the book came out of the liberal impulse of British people wanting to know who the people in their midst were … It was born of an anti-racist impulse; of a let’s-find-out-about-these-strange-creatures-they-might-become-troublesome impulse.

But he was not troubled by the good intentions that led to his book's publication - “I think these misguided impulses were perhaps the motivation for the great writers of multi-cultural literature.”

Today, multicultural has become something of a dirty word in politics -- seen to emphasise difference rather than getting along.

DIVERSITY is the word we use now. Indeed, I am referred to as a 'diverse author' by virtue of being from somewhere else.

I do not object - diverse is a more all embracing word than multicultural . 

And we've come a long way from the early days of my blogging life, with books like The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson about a transgender child, and Sarah McIntyre urging other artists to design non-identikit characters, and recently, Seven Stories assembled a team of experts to pick the Fifty Best Diverse Children's Books Since 1950 (which includes Tall Story, woo hoo!).

Having said all that, there are many more miles to go in this journey to truly diverse publishing, as evidenced by the We Need Diverse Books campaign to change the publishing industry to create literature that reflects the lives of all young people.

***

I started blogging in 2004, the year that Blogger was invented. At the time  I realised that I didn't have the authority to dispense writing advice but as an ex journalist, I could use my reporting skills to record all the knowledge I was accumulating in my feverish campaign to get published.

(In fact, it took me nine years to get published -- I guess I was a slow learner).

My biggest epiphany?  Publishing is a business! It was not just about love and craft, it was about money!

My blogging went on to cover the rise of Young Adult publishing, graphic novels, celebrities joining in the children's book fray, the coming of digital, self publishing, the spread of social media as the primary authorial marketing tool ... and oh all that rejection.

I realise  now that I'd been recording not just my own journey to publication but the story of an industry that is constantly evolving and always fascinating.

---

Candy Gourlay also blogs on her author site www.candygourlay.com. Her most recent post was on Writing Dual Narratives.

The View from my Desk - Easter 2014

Beverley Birch is friend and mentor to many slushpilers and published authors alike. She was a senior commissioning editor for Hodder Children's Books and three times shortlisted for the Brandford Boase Award in recognition of the editor’s role in nurturing new talent. She is a writer of more than 40 books including novels, picture books, biographies and retellings of classic works and folk tales. Her novel, 'Rift' came out in 2006 and you know you are in the hands of a true storyteller when you read the very first page. Beverley now concentrates on her author life and mentoring new writers through Imogen Cooper's Golden Egg Academy. Follow Golden Egg Workshops for Children's Writers on Facebook

I’ve always viewed the publishing landscape half as an editor looking after a host of authors, half as an author, coloured by my personal author-editor-publisher relationships.

Now, fourteen months since leaving my in-house commissioning desk, I expected my view of the publishing landscape to have radically altered.

To my great surprise, it hasn’t.

I expected my advice for the author looking for an agent or publisher to have changed.

Again, it hasn’t.

So what are the contours I can see? Is anything sharper, more well-defined. Can any predictions be very firm?

Well, there’s one certainty - the continuing state of flux. Social media is awash with commentators, the reading of trends and predictions of outcomes. The truth is that no one knows how to publish successfully in the 21st century’s multiple currents, cross-currents and swirls – least of all publishers. They’re still struggling to come to terms with the consequences of the digital revolution and the birth of self-publishing as a serious player; booksellers likewise are struggling to find their place against the online environment.

Big guns may have more resources, but smaller publishers are more nimble, can react quicker. My bets are on the smaller publishers – and I detect that more of them think the current environment is one of opportunity rather than threat, and have the energy to ‘go for it’.

Jack (or Jill) be nimble ...

But in general both publishers and booksellers are obsessively risk averse. Agents are frustrated about projects enthusiastically liked by editors who can’t get them through acquisition meetings. Editors are frustrated by an inability to commit to books they love, or see their authors grow as their work deserves. Publishers are frustrated because books they believe in aren’t getting bookselling support, because not yet proven. And so it goes on …

It inevitably filters down the line, to risk-averse agents, and authors so obsessed with trying to read the runes that they can’t make up their mind what to write.

And of course it continues to squeeze the already narrow gate to traditional publishing, just as the stream of applicants is in fuller flood than ever before, fuelled by courses, conferences, networks, social media discussion about self-publishing, and the way it has opened the author-life and the writing process to scrutiny as never before. No wonder that people who might just have half-dabbled now begin to have serious ambitions, and dreams, and are prepared to put the work in to get there.

At the same time, the dream is flawed. For traditional publishing and bookselling, there is an incredibly short window of time for any author or book to be noticed and ‘break through’ (achieve commercial sales) If the breakthrough isn’t there, the machine simply moves on to the next project … and the hapless book (and author) is deemed not to have ‘worked’. Publication of any one book is only one step at the beginning … and thereafter everything may still be in flux.

Add to this the obsessive struggle for discoverability – for the traditional publisher and the indie authors alike: yet how can you possibly be heard amid the clamour and anyway, does being heard actually influence the fate of your book? The jury is still out …

It can all be a bit of a tightrope walk ...

Indie-publishing of course has an allure about it: the ease of just getting your book out there and finding your readership. But listen to any successful indie author and you need to listen too to the saga of time spent to find, nurture and hold that readership: much, much greater than writing the books in the first place.

So where does that leave the writer? What to write? How to assess what you’re writing? How to know whether to bother to keep going, or retire from the fray and just write for fun. Find an agent first? Or go straight for a publisher? Go the indie route immediately? Or try the traditional avenues first, and drop back to indie publishing if there are no traditional publishing options on offer. In this risk averse atmosphere, that may not mean you have written a bad book …

You’d think the answers might have changed over the last year or two. I don’t think they have. Here are mine:

Don’t write with the dream of publication as the goal.

Don’t write with your eye on what you hear the bookshops want, or what publishers say they want.

Listen to the voice inside you that’s telling you a story.

Write because you want to tell that story to others.

And (though I say it quietly) don’t have earning a living as the prime reason for writing.

Listen for your voice

Trends and fashions come and go, and one thing is clear, that what goes around comes around, that nothing is for ever, and that what is the rage today is just as likely to wane tomorrow, and what is not noticed today, will be all the rage tomorrow. And anyway, by the time you think you’ve caught up, the bandwagon will definitely have moved on …

In the end, whatever the shape of industry change, it is nothing without the thread that holds a reader, of any age, to the story, in whatever form. Story is still at the heart of it all, and the creators of those stories, and the readers who read them, hear them or watch them. You have to keep your focus on that.

The story is everything

Of course, when you’ve written the story that’s in you – get whatever professional objective guidance you can to help you hone and shape it to perfection: tapping in to the host of networks, conferences, and services now available, to give it the best chance of riding the currents and reaching its readership.

But don’t let that professional world befuddle you about what your story is and why you are writing. Don’t be clouded by the hullabaloo about the changing nature of publishing, and how much you need to understand that before embarking. When all is said and done, none if it is there, none of it works without story, and all that hullabaloo is only about form and the route to put the story in the reader’s hands.

So enter the fray with open eyes. Concentrate on storytelling. Everything else is a by-product.

And any route to the reader is good. And all routes may be different tomorrow.

What a wonderful Easter gift! So many thanks to Beverley for her wisdom and inspiration. Happy Easter, Slushies! Addy

Through the Slushpile Spectacles - Are Children's Writers a Breed Apart?

by Addy Farmer

Peering through my spectacles this week, I spotted this interesting article in The Guardian.  It examined the reaction to writer, Lynne Sheperd's piece in The Huffington Post in which she urged J.K.Rowling to stop writing and give other people a crack at earning some money. She says:

I didn't much mind Rowling when she was Pottering about. I've never read a word (or seen a minute) so I can't comment on whether the books were good, bad or indifferent. 

She has reaped the whirlwind. J.K's fans have taken to reviewing her books and admitting to never having read them.

Rowling's fans have been taking to Amazon, where they have been leaving a deluge of one-star reviews for Shepherd's previously well-regarded novels. Now on Amazon.com, its US version The Solitary House has 59 one-star reviews, the majority written this week, ranging from "I've never read any of your books, and now I never will!", to "There is no way I could support an author (or anyone else for that matter) who has such a terrible outlook.

I agree. I think she does have a terrible outlook. The wonderful Paolo Bacigalupi called it "zero-sum author thinking"

I will gloss over the perhaps unintentional conflation of imperatives which managed to insult children's writers:

By all means keep writing for kids, or for your personal pleasure – I would never deny anyone that. Lynne Shepherd

'Cos that's probably just me being over-sensitive although she did say this about some Harry Potter readers ...

I did think it a shame that adults were reading them (rather than just reading them to their children, which is another thing altogether), mainly because there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds. But, then again, any reading is better than no reading, right?

Hmm. Forget that. Remember this:

If you think other people's success diminishes you, don't be a writer. Paolo Bacigalupi

I have been a children's writer for too many years to bother counting and in all that time I have nearly always encountered the support and generosity of fellow children's writers both published and pre-published. Are children's writers different, I wonder? Maybe so. Maybe because children's writing is such a brilliantly demanding craft for the best readers ever and NOBODY is ever an overnight success, that we need all the support we can get. Or maybe we are just good at enjoying ourselves. 

Whatever the case, I say hooray for JK and her stories and hooray for her success! And hooray for all those who can enjoy anybody's success because surely any good thing that happens has to be a reason for celebration and not jealous condemnation.  

SCBWI conference - celebration of books published in 2013

So much success! Enjoy! 

Authors will have choices - thoughts on the morning after the Agents' Party

By Candy Gourlay

Last Thursday, I attended the Agents' Party, a yearly SCBWI event that I stopped attending when I got signed by my agent a few years ago.

The Agents' Party used to be the highlight of my year on the slushpile and I kind of missed being a part of it ... so I decided to go, if only for the social life.

Left to right: Hannah Whitty of Plum Pudding, Emma Herdman of Curtis Brown, Hannah Shepherd of DHH Literary Agency, Vicki Le Feuvre of Darley Anderson, Sally Ann Sweeney of Mulcahey Associates.

The agents said all the things that one would expect  and that we on the Slushpile have heard so many times before -  to get an agent, WRITE A GREAT BOOK. If you're a Slushpile newbie and have never heard the agents say this in their many ways, do check out the Facebook photos - I typed up the little write-ups on the leaflet about what they're looking for in the captions.

(For your convenience - and because I couldn't resist the new Facebook feature - I've embedded the FB post about it at the end of this rumination)

Pressure to change

This is an interesting time for agents. I don't have to rehash how dramatically the publishing landscape has been changing - a metamorphosis that is fast, fickle and unpredictable.

The pressure means that to succeed, those lovely young agents sitting in a row have to be more creative, have sharper eyes for talent, and have bigger balls than most.

Hannah (left) and Emma in front of a rather startling photo at the Frontline Club venue.

Indeed, the first agent to speak, Hannah Whitty told the extraordinary story of how they saw so much promise in the character work of an illustrator that they persuaded her to author a series. Three books have been published and three more have been commissioned. (Hey Kate Pankhurst, good job!)

Emma Herdman described Curtis Brown's involvement in the "slightly scary" Discovery Day at Foyles - in which agents responded to excerpts and pitches from authors. The net is being cast wide, and the agents are doing more than just sitting at their desks watching their slushpiles grow.

I'm sure it's not just me - agents, editors, publishers - they all seem to be holding conferences, seminars, workshops for aspiring authors.  Now that the author has the power to cut gatekeepers out of the chain, there are changing perceptions about who is serving who.

Following the money

In the latest edition of The Author, the Society of Authors magazine for members, Nicholas Clee (Bookbrunch) describes how various agents are trying to follow the money.

Clee tells the story of how literary agent Ed Victor has become a publisher - his imprint Bedford Square Books published ebooks and print-on-demand "that without exception publishers have turned down".

It is Victor's rule to go to a publisher in every case and ask: 'Would you like to publish this wonderful book? If you don't, we will.' Publishers: the bigger the better? by Nicholas Clee, Autumn 2013 edition of The Author

Victor points out that the better deal for the author would be with Bedford Square (50 per cent of proceeds minus costs) than with the publisher (25 percent).

(Helpful note to aspiring children's authors: Sophie Hicks handles children's books at Ed Victor)

Clee also describes the approach of the agency Curtis Brown who pioneers in author assisted self-publishing. Here is something about author assisted self-publishing from the Jane Friedman blog:

With independent author success on the rise, the role of agents has taken a precarious turn for the unknown. Many agents are seeing fewer sales and lower advances (which equates to lower income), and are looking for ways to keep their heads above water. One path that some have taken is agent-assisted self-publishing. By Melissa Foster. Read the whole thing after you finish reading my blog

Curtis Brown MD Johnny Geller tells Clee: 'I don't describe us as a publisher' - but the Curtis Brown list can be regarded as 'a training ground or a showcase'. Plus: they have had the odd bestseller or two.

Under Amazon's White Glove service, Amazon gets 30 percent and authors get 70 per cent, paying the Curtis Brown the usual commissions. Editorial and marketing services are purchased from the Whitefox agency.

In his article, Clee writes:

Ed Victor and Jonny Geller both believe that their authors will choose to go with well-known imprints when the option is available; and these agents' deals enable their authors to take up alternative offers should they arise.

It's not SELF publishing anymore is it, when professionals are involved?

Clee ends his article declaring that whatever happens in the near future it looks like 'authors will have choices' - and the choices that belong to the traditional world ought to realize that soon.

Indie-publishing is here to stay

The usual questions were asked about self-publishing at the Agent's Party - and it was interesting to hear how positive the agents were ... in previous years, agents could be quite sniffy about authors who had already self-published their work.

I thought there was excellent advice to be had from this blog by Nicola Morgan on why publishers might not want to publish you once you've self-published your novel.

Self-publishing is a strategy. But there are different intended or desired goals. If the goal is becoming published by a publisher, then you need to understand how publishing works. And it doesn't work by republishing books that haven't sold squillions. Nicola Morgan blogging in Help! I Need a Publisher

At the same time of course, the minority who have succeeded in getting publishers to fall in love with their self-published work appear to have spectacular success.

Which brings me to the big news in the SCBWI world today. SCBWI HQ has just announced a new prize: the SPARK AWARD - recognizing excellence in a children's book published via a non-traditional route. Read about it here.

It is time that SCBWI recognize that there are new models for publishing. The Spark Award is one way we can reward those authors and illustrators who are pursuing independent and self-publishing in a legitimate and high quality way. SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver and President Steve Mooser

So there you have it. Indie authors have joined the ranks of legitimate.

Which begs a question to this long term denizen of the slushpile: where does the slushpile belong in this unrecognizeable new world?

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With big thanks to Michelle Newell who did a brilliant job organizing the Agents' Party. If you're reading this and wondering 'What in the world is SCBWI?' you can find out more about the organization here. Below is my Facebook album on the Agents' Party embedded - if you can't see it, you can view it here (you might have to be logged into FB).

Post by Candy Gourlay.

Playing with Peril: Fairies in Children's Books

by guest blogger, Paula Harrison

Paula Harrison is the author of Faerie Tribes (for older readers) and The Rescue Princesses (a younger series). She wanted to be a writer from a young age but spent many happy years being a primary school teacher first. She finds inspiration in lots of things from cloud shapes to snippets of conversation. She loves sandy beaches and eating popcorn. She lives with her husband and children in Buckinghamshire, which is nowhere near the sea. Whenever possible, she packs her family into the car and journeys far and wide to find a sandy beach where she can paddle in the waves.

It came to me one teatime – one of those goose bump ideas. You know: the kind that make you run round the room searching for a pen. Fairies live among us.

But these fairies weren’t the tiny creatures that live under a toadstool at the bottom of the garden. They look like us. They talk like us. Your next door neighbour could be one of them and you would never know.

The first thing that happened was that my fairies turned into faeries, because apparently this is what you do if you want to make it clear that you’re writing for children aged 9 + and there will be darkness in the story. The spelling change made me think about some of the different representations of these magical folk in children’s books. (I’ve left out YA here and focussed on books up to ages 12/13) First up there are the kinds of fairies you get in young, girl-skewed series such as the popular Rainbow Fairies.

These small creatures are beautiful and friendly and perform all sorts of useful tasks as guardians of pets, flowers, special occasions and so on. Is it all sweetness and light? Not completely, because you also have a magical villain called Jack Frost with his goblins.

The fairies in Michelle Harrison’s Thirteen Treasures trilogy are a lot less friendly than those in young fiction and are quite capable of inflicting serious harm if you get on the wrong side of them. These fairies remind me of the ones found in many folktales: capricious and not to be trusted. Also for older readers, the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer gives you a completely different take on the wee folk. I love these fairies and the way they combine magic with technology. They fly around kitted out with all sort of gadgetry and there’s even a centaur as the technology whizz.

So how did I want to represent my fairies, I mean faeries? I knew from the start that they would belong to different tribes and that Laney, my main character, would be a member of the Mist tribe even though she doesn’t know that at the start. Mist faeries draw their power from water and can perform great things with it. Other tribes would draw on their own elemental powers.

I wanted them to feel a strong connection to the landscape around them, even though they’re hiding their true nature from the human community they live in. I also knew that not all of them would be good and that using a faerie’s “dust” (their dead body) would bring the greatest power and the greatest curse of all. 

There are lots more children’s books with fairies in that I haven’t covered here. What are your favourites? Let me know in the comments! Faerie Tribes: The Crystal Mirror is out now!

5th Day of Christmas: Commissioning Editor Ruth Williams of Picadilly Press

Five Fervent Wishes from Ruth William
of Piccadilly Press

Concept, concept, concept – A publisher’s dream, a writer’s minefield

by Jo Wyton 

Over the weekend, I wrote and posted a piece on my own blog about High Concept books from a reader’s perspective.

But I’m not just a reader, I’m also a writer, so of course I spent the rest of the weekend tormented, sleepless and getting through an enormous amount of cake as a result. 

The Book of Never Letting Go

by Addy Farmer

So here it is. Finished. For some weird reason, I'm almost ashamed to admit that the manuscript for my 12 plus novel has been 9 years in the making and began taking shape soon after my youngest was born. However, before you decide that I must have been carving it out a word at a time, I would point out that, no, I hadn't been working on it the whole time.

I would have exploded after three years give or take.

I did manage to write other stuff and even get stuff published but the kernal of this particular story always stayed with me. So, in the interests of my sanity I thought I'd take you on a condensed journey and maybe follow it as it trundles on its way to publication and massive acclaim or... not.

At the beginning I got a great crit In Public from an editor from Penguin.
  

Who cares! I've learned to enjoy giving and receiving crit!

Then in the middle I had an exciting squeal-worthy thumbs up from Chicken House...

...before it was turned down.

I still hung on in there because I loved it and a little while later I found Cornerstones. I've been working with the wonderful Kathyrn Robinson for about two years now. Again, NOT all the time because she does have other things to do apparently. The ms had been back and forth three times before the time came to send it out for what felt like a final letting go.

Sometimes it's easier to travel in hope than to arrive

 
Tricky.  Doubt crept in accompanied by worry and yet more doubt. It wouldn't be good enough - all my love and all that support and all that work, just wouldn't be enough. I didn't want to let this story go without a struggle. It was easier to keep it and look at it again and again and again because writing, 'The End' felt a bit too final. There was always time for just one last look...

The basics - is that story arc working? The End. Well, I like the way it starts, nice and punchy with that big 'T'. It's firm, it's manly and it stomps into the beginning. The 'h', I'm not so sure about. It's wibbles about after that strong beginning and then there's the disaster of the repititious 'e'. Then it ginds to a massive halt until... oh my Lord where did that capital 'E' come from? E! All my rising tension gone! Then jumping down to that teeny rubbish, 'n' that's meant to herald the climax which it doesn't by the way. Then the 'd' which I like.

So perhaps something like this...

Tenehd


Okay, maybe one more teensy look. Yep, thought so, it's too boring now, it's predictable. That ending, there's no real twist. If I just do this...

Tenedh

Is that beginning right for the end now? There's no reflection of my unpredictable ending now in the beginning. So maybe if I just do this...

tenedh

Oh but now it's all the same! I've flattened everything. I'll just...

tenedh

It's too long...

ten

too short...

tenedhnedet

too boring...

tenedhnedet

Waaaa. Calm down.
Do I love this story? Do I love my characters? Is it the best I can possibly make it? Yes. It's in the hands of someone I trust and now I will wait (and do other stuff).  

The End.

Great Expectations - the SCBWI Winchester Conference and Candy Gourlay

by Addy Farmer & all the rest of the Slushpile gang, except one: surprise, Candy!!

Stand up for the outstanding Candy Gourlay!

Thanks to Kathy Evans for the pic!

That's what we did in a packed conference hall - we stood and applauded Candy as she was awarded the Crystal Kite Member Choice Award which is given by the SCBWI to recognise great books from around the world.It is chosen by other children's book writers and illustrators and is a testament to Candy's fizzing creativity, her warm and generous spirit and that great thing she has, stickability.

Finding your voice - a SCBWI masterclass with Beverley Birch

By Addy Farmer

The lovely Beverley Birch!

How do you make Beverley Birch sit up straight? How do make a senior commissioning editor for Hachette Children's books, three times nominated Brandford Boase editor listen? You sing. You find your voice and you sing to her. Simple, right? Pick your tune, put the notes in the right order and belt it out. Well, of course not. Finding your voice and the voice of the novel and your characters is the difference between the x-factor and the fat lady. One may have modicum of unworked talent while the other has full on grafted, crafted worked.

It takes guts to work at something and Beverley understands the pain and passion involved in honing stories.

Beverley is a passionate defender of the writer. She is a writer herself. 'Rift' came out in 2006 and you know you are in the hands of a storyteller when you read the first page.

Leaving aside the many established authors Beverley edits, she has launched some 15 authors on their publishing careers and through writing conferences and continuing mentoring and editorial discussion, encourages several hundreds towards, hopefully, their first publishing deal.

Marcus Sedgewick reviewed Rift in The Guardian and said of it,
"Rift is that delightful thing, a book which holds you from the first page."

Why books are rejected

Beverley wants writers to develop their voice, this is, 'the difficult bit'. Good stories are rejected all the time, she says, not because of the story but because the voice isn't working. You could build a dazzling fantasy world with every last detail worked out but unless the reader engages with the characters inside the world, responds to their voices, believes their voices then the story won't really suck them in.

Beverley finds herself sending out the same comments many times:

There's a good story in here, with potential. But I do feel you need to focus your telling a lot more. My overwhelming sense is that you are still narrating from a very external viewpoint - not allowing the reader to discover the story through the characters, their viewpoint, experiences, how they knock against other characters, the situation, the predicament they find themselves in. It's still all too narrator based - a young reader really needs to feel sucked into the story, imagining themselves part of it. Essentially, I think, you need to find the 'voice' of the telling.

Part of this problem is that it leads to a great deal of setting up and scene-setting before any action  or character perspectives, which means readers will drift away before they get there.  You need to ask yourself the question 'why would a reader be interested in this when they are not yet engrossed in the characters?' When you look at it from that point of view, it helps to distinguish between what you, the writer, want to put there because at some point it will be important, but not yet, and what the reader needs to know NOW. Hold information for when the reader needs it and don't pad out the story with it before.

Jump us in to the narrative at a high point, and then gallop us through, threading information as part of the action, not outside it.

So where do I find my Voice?

Ask yourself - why do I write for children? We came up with a few reasons for Beverley - adventure, escapism, to articulate inarticulate feelings. Of course what writers do for children is, in Beverley's words, "help them to try on other lives" and doing so in such a way that their readers can recognise the truth of what is portrayed.

You're tapping into a special time of change and uncertainty when readers want stories that reflect what they are going through. A writer articulates a reader's experiences or possible experiences. Obvious in theory but slippery in execution.

What is voice?

A clear Voice sings out when the writer has a profound sense of who they are writing for. The writer is not writing a book about childhood but a book with the child at its beating heart. The reader will be drawn into the telling and identify with what is happening.

The world inside the story becomes the reader's world. How?

• be clear who your narrator(s) is and their world view.
• watch that the authorial voice doesn't hijack the story and mask the character perspective
• maintain truthfulness/authenticity of the character's point of view

The narrator and their world view.

Spend time living with your hero. Character creation is not just what they look like; the inner self is as alive as the outer self. Dig deep and mine these people for everything they've got because it will make the telling so much more exciting. Your characters will make decisions based on who they are; their upbringing, experiences and outlook. Know them and you'll know your story.

Beverley told us of hearing Terry Pratchett describe his thrilling vision whenever he begins a new story. He compares it to standing on the rim of a misty valley and knowing that his character must journey to the other side. That he will walk his characters down into the unknown of the mists and he doesn't know how they will react until they're confronted with whatever dangers and adventures and characters are hidden there. It's an exploration alongside the characters - the outcome defined by the characters with all their faults and foibles

The misty valley - an open book

The authorial voice

A manuscipt may fail because the hero's voice is inconsistent and lacks authenticity. Beware the external authorial narrator unless there is a strong, purposeful role for them e.g. Lemony Snickett or Bartimeaus otherwise keep the external this voice firmly under control and allow your characters room to tell the story through action - their experiences, how they knock against each other or their environment, their dialogue and relationships.

The demon was close behind. Joshua barged through the doors of a Gothic church. Inside the pews were arranged in neat rows and pink and white roses were arranged around the altar.


Can you spot the problem? Course you can. No out-of-their-wits-scared-demon-chased child is going to stop and notice that the church is in the Gothic style, or even know this fact - let alone stop to smell the roses. There is, as Beverley said, no need for the guided tour. What would that child, in that moment with a demon on his tail, notice? I don't know because I don't know the boy; it's not my story.

Don't think I'd pause to notice much if this guy was after me...

Exploring point of view

Well, it's not all about point of view although that is part of it. It's not telling your story in the first person that gives it a voice. 

• You can achieve a sense of the first person marrative even with a third person voice.
• A badly done first person voice can be very dull - to make it work, be sure it is delivering the pov that feels authentic and is creating that sense of conversational connection with the reader that is one of the main strengths of the first person narrative angle

For a third person narrative angle it is important to keep the pov as close to the character as possible and that, as Beverley said, can be a 'technical battle'.

Think filmically. Put a camera up to your eye and decide on how you'll film. Will you be the only eyes or will you sit on your character's shoulder and tell us what's happening to them and others around them? Will your camera view whisk up to give a birds-eye or distant view. Will it swoop back in to the characters again? It will need to keep us with the characters' perspectives.

What's the story here?

The first person is more immediate but can be limited in terms of telling the whole story.  How to overcome this?

Older readers will enjoy some contemplative moments when more can be revealed. Retrospective memories can also be employed. The character can have a 'chat' with the reader. Or try introducing an older, experienced character who can provide essential plot nudges e.g teacher, grandparent and perspectives that a young narrator would not themselves have.

The writer MUST keep control of the voice because a breach will be obvious!

 The third person allows greater range over story-telling angles but can walk a dangerous line where the author can take over the telling. So be careful about the authenticity of your vocabulary and the characters' viewpoint/interaction with others. Don't invest them with your grownupness.

You might have to work harder to get the action to deliver the conclusions the author has about the situation - but that's far more effective story-telling than great wadges of authorial comment. Think about delivering direct thought to the reader e.g 'What was he thinking, she wondered,' becomes, 'what was he thinking?' -  a straight to camera technique that can give a first person feel to third person narration.

Ask yourself if you could help your story with supplementary pov.

Beverley offered us her experience when writing.


Siri tells the story of an English girl in the third person going to Africa and in the first person, a Portuguese historical character dying of the plague. As Beverley wrote she found that the girl's voice became odd, out of character. Why? Because it was the voice of another character - an African boy forcing its way through. Siri ended up being told by two characters in the third person and one in the first person! Then the technical battle is to differentiate them well.

THE RIGHT VOICE brings life to your story

It makes it stand out. It marks it as considered and worth considering. Don't feel you have to rush. Don't be spooked by the market and how difficult it is to get a book noticed. Do be true to your characters and make their story special.

Then you can make someone like Beverley sit up and listen.

Want to read some great examples of voice? Beverley advises to check out awards short lists. Here's the 2011 Brandford Boase which includes the fab 'I am the Blade' edited by the fab Beverley. Then there's the Carnegie shortlist and what about the Booktrust/Blue Peter Book awards? 

Write long and prosper.


You might also want to read:

Meg Rosoff on Finding Your Voice (The Guardian, 18 October 2011)