Undercover at Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival

I took four accomplished cartoonists from my neighbourhood to the Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival organised by Alex 'Mousehunter' Milway - ostensibly to accompany them to the comics workshops.

But when I got there I couldn't resist joining the workshop.

First we attended the Zombie and Monster Art workshop hosted by Tom Percival - he who designed the Skulduggery Pleasant books.

Tom showed us how to draw exposed brains, missing limbs, uneven eyeballs, shadows.

I did this zombie picture starring my daughter Mia and her friend, Hugo.

Then we went to see the exhibition at Smash Bang Wallop, a funky gift shop in its normal incarnation.

It was only a short walk to the Bookseller Crow where I spent a lot of money and walked off with a book by my friend Sue Eves by mistake (Sue kindly returned it for me). I took a photo of Sue with her famous dog puppet Woofy but unfortunately it vanished from my camera, no doubt deleted by a zombie.

After lunch at the deli next door to the Crow, we headed back to the Upper Norwood Joint Library ("Wot a posh library!" one of the kids said) to attend the comics workshop run by the DFC comics guys.

There was a workshop on designing characters ... here's a 'Ninja Pie' designed by my pal Hugo:

We learned how to measure how many heads tall a character was:

- followed by a Comics Jam - which is kind of like taking turns drawing a comic strip with hilarious results! Here are some examples:

I think if you click on the image, you can see it in bigger mode.

... if the above one looks suspiciously as if it was drawn entirely by cartoonists it probably was. There were a lot of professional artists in the room - even apart from the DFC (Mine was the first frame).

Some were hilariously strange.I had to do this frame (number 3) for a strip that started off with an animal in a cage and an odd looking character in a long nightgown. In the second frame a mysterious little elephant joins them?!!! It was hard to think what to draw.

We had a great time (and nobody threw me out of the workshop for being old).

Alex Milway, interviewed by the Bookseller, said:

It’s very easy for us writers to sit back and expect the world to come to us. I wanted to see what might happen if we got did something like this for ourselves. Why wait to be asked to take part in a festival or event, when you can set one up for yourself?

A fantastic idea. Well done guys!

London Book Fair: What UK Editors want (apparently)

More of this?

So ... since a wannabe like me can't rub shoulders with the great and good of children's publishing (more like sneak a look at their notebooks) - here's a list compiled by one US agent of what UK children's book editors at the LBF told her they wanted:

--More boy adventure books (although one publisher specifically said their list is full in this arena so not as high on their list)

--YA historical

--would love a prize-winning new teen voice along the lines of HOW I LIVE NOW

--Funny with beautiful writing (so a blend of literary with a really fun story line)

--a modern Anne of Green Gables

--middle grade fantasy that is a girl-driven narrative

--humorous girl stuff that is more than just boys and relationships but is warm, and character driven. Not necessarily issue driven

--high concept middle grade with a really original voice so it can stand out.

--anything that can crossover solidly to the adult market (ie. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF A DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME)

--fantasy

--a contemporary author with a literary, classic voice. (hum.. that seems to tie in with the modern Anne of Green Gables example above) Read the whole post

Meanwhile over at Publishers Weekly, an article titled 12 Steps to Better Publishing - included the following advice:

Stop the copycat books: They are the equivalent of pack journalism, and most of the time, we wind up looking like a bunch of rats chasing a chunk of stale cheese.

Edit: I struck those last lines out because I thought I was being unfair to jump to conclusions. Any thoughts?

London Book Fair: The digital dilemma - obsessed or overwhelmed ?

Is it just geeky me or was the London Book Fair rather preoccupied with the challenge - threat? - of the digital life?

"Waiting for the iPod moment" was the headline of a Media Guardian interview of Harper Collins chief exec Victoria Barnsley to mark the opening of the London Book Fair.

The word "digital" "e books" "e publishing" "e reading" figured oftentimes repeatedly on the titles of the seminar list.

In the free London Book Fair Daily supplied by the Bookseller, an article by Chris Meade argued that though printed books "may have already had their day", it was not yet the end of reading "as long as publishers fully embrace the multimedia possibilities of the digital age".

A keynote seminar with the title "Digital Publishing: Where is the money?" resulted in a heated discussion that ranged from ebooks to piracy. The answer? Nobody knows. Read reports from Publishers Weekly and Book Brunch

A panel on the subject of "Online Publicity: Making the Most of the Digital Media" scheduled for one of the smaller seminar rooms ended up totally oversubscribed. And even as audience members were hunkering down in the aisles and spilling out the doorways, Bloomsbury was announcing that shortlisted Orange Prize title Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie will be made available for iPhone users as a free download for 24 hours from 12 noon, 22 April.

At a discussion comparing book trends in the US and the UK, Kelly Gallagher, VP of publishing services at Bowker, summed up the radical changes confronting publishers today:

Mass change is going on in the industry today, no one can deny that ... change is happening at an exponential rate ... and many times we are playing catch up and often it is from the rear view mirror that we discover the book market has moved on.

We have a lot of motivation for change – no denying economic marketplace – if ever there was a reason to engage in changing your strategy for publishing, today is the day.