So Very Brillig, This Slithy Tove

Another brilliant picture book in my inbox from LookyBook.

Nope. I don't think this one is for children. Very Ralph Steadmanish.

It's Never Too Soon To Meet Your Audience

So I've been reading my unpublished book Ugly City to a class of nine year olds.

Thanks to Josh for this picture from last year.

Ugly City is about a city where kids live on their own, watching flat screen TVs, playing video games and eating whatever they liked.

But some unlucky kids still live with their parents.

That was the was the way it was with Pa. He was always marching into the room and turning off the TV. It was always turn that off, turn that down, do your homework, wash your hands, stop playing on the console.

I was gratified to see the boys in the class nodding their heads in total understanding! AND they laughed their heads off at all the right places! I felt like Sally Field at the Oscar Awards. They got my story!

Sure, agents always say they don't want to see 'my daughter's friends really liked the story' in query letters. But hey, that doesn't mean you, the unpublished, shouldn't go to your audience and bask in the genuine warmth of a receptive audience. It's good for the morale in this long journey we're on.

Last time I went in to read some chapters, the kids gave me some drawings they made of a picture book text I'd read to them - from that popular picture book genre Head Lice - about a mum who goes at more and more outlandish lengths to zap the head lice in her child's hair.

This one is from Mai:

This is Aisha's take on the Nit and Lice Suction Device:

This is Mai's take on the Zap Em Dead Electric Head Lice comb:

I love 'em!

Katie Price Furore: Are Pneumatic Models Allowed to Win Book Prizes?

I've always had great sympathy for models. I mean, it's just another job isn't it? Why I even once called on mothers to show more sympathy for Liz Hurley when she revealed a flat tummy mere weeks after having a baby.

So when Katie Price (formerly known as Jordan) produced her own children's book, I was all for it. The Times gave it a not-so-enthusiastic thumbs up but a thumbs-up nonetheless.

This is a world away from the vividly imagined worlds of Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson. This is not a literary book in any way. But it isn’t terrible. As a factual book, it is crisp, girly, practical and full of good advice about owning ponies ... Indeed, it is so nuts and bolts it doesn’t matter so much that she didn’t write it all.

But wait a minute, the news is just out that the book has now been shortlisted for WH Smith Children's Book of the Year. (Kids vote from a list put up by publishers)

Naturally, there is a lot of upset from anyone who has spent years in garrets typing up manuscripts as opposed to reclining on magazine covers and centrefolds, displaying their assets.

This from Joanne Harris (Chocolat):

If this is an award for people who write books then it should be open only to people who write books, not to somebody who lends their name to a book, or who would have written a book if they had time but didn’t.

You can read all the arguments in the Times Online article — but I was rather interested that the response of Katie Price's publishers was to point out that Katie Price is a very strong "brand" — indeed, Random House has made Katie Price a bestselling author with not one but three memoirs and her third novel due out in July.

When I give my talks about authors and the internet, I always point out that one of the reasons publishers tend to have such crap websites is they are trying to push not just one brand but as many brands as they have authors.

Look at any publisher's website. They are all effectively lists. Lists and lists and lists of books and authors. Kassia Krozser at the Booksquare blog had a little rant about the crapness of publisher sites the other day:

It is no secret that I hate publisher websites. The vast majority of them can be best described as “suffers from multiple personality disorder”. And I’m not just talking about the fact that publishers can’t figure out who the target audience of their site is. Visiting a publisher site means being subjected to bad design, bad search, and — yes — bad content. Not a single one of these is forgivable.

Which is why websites and online promotion are a no-choice thing for authors.

Authors can't rely on a publisher to do their brand-building for them. Publishers already have their hands full trying to make brands out of the thousands of authors on their list, a task so mind-boggling that it's sometimes easier to buy a proven brand that's already out there.

Like Katie Price.