Children's Market of Less Value to Publishers

Knowledge is power. Even depressing bits of knowledge.

So, really, this is something empowering from the Society of Authors website. It's a report called Publishing from the Inside reporting on a talk chaired by general secretary Mark Le Fanu with speakers A P Watt agent Sheila Crowley, Paul Richardson, director of Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies at Oxford Brookes University, and Alison Samuel, publishing director of Chatto & Windus. The whole report makes sobering but very educational reading for writers, published or not. The Q&A in particular ranged over a wide variety of topics from why books begin as hardbacks to how an author can find out about budgeting decisions.

Here is the bit most relevant to children's writers and illustrators:

Is the children's market harder or easier than the adult market?

The little, one-off children's book is probably the hardest thing to get published at the moment. The production costs are the same for both but the children's market is of less value to publishers: 21% of new titles are adult, 14% are children's. Children's publishers tend to go for characters, work that will generate a series – things that have merchandising potential. There is also a preference for making children's books more suitable for the relevant age group and more sexy – turning away from dumbing down.

Read the whole report here.

How Writers Can Learn from DVDs

Yes, seriously.

The best thing about DVDs is not the fact that they're tons lighter than ancient VHS tapes or that its easier to zip from scene to scene with the remote, or that you can watch your favourite films in languages you never heard before. The best thing about DVDs are the deleted scenes and director’s commentaries. That is, if you’re a writer keen to learn the craft.

Many directors and screenwriters are just obsessive writers who like to jaw about their craft and so the obligatory director’s commentary which many a film fan would ignore is actually a gold mine for learners like us.

Do you want to learn about how to stitch some back story into a scene? Check out the director/screenwriter’s commentary on Cider House Rules and hear author John Irving explaining how he struggled to find a place where he could establish the hero, Homer Wells’ stance on abortion.

Are you looking for the strength to cut scenes you love from your manuscript? Check out Finding Nemo and The Incredibles where you can actually see the scenes they chopped out for the sake of getting the story to move faster (the fact that the directors also co-wrote the screenplay seems to add to the dynamic of the director’s commentary).

How do you plot a story? Listen to the director’s commentary of The Day After Tomorrow and learn first hand the struggle to create credible scenes out of a fantastical premise. In You've Got Mail, director Nora Ephron (who in a previous life was a best-selling novelist) actually points out where each act begins and ends.

But as with other instructive material, some DVDs do it better than others. For example, Big Fish about a man with a talent for storytelling, seemed a great bet for a long writerly discourse on constructing a story. But disappointingly director Tim Burton’s commentary focused on the celebrity of his characters – how Ewan McGregor was "great" and how the elephant had a poo at the moment when McGregor leaned up against him – fascinating stuff but will be completely useless when next one does battle with one's manuscript.

Have you listened to a director/author's commentary you can recommend for writers interested in craft?

What Children's Book Week did for me

It’s National Children’s Book Week in the UK!

My seven year old’s primary school has invited authors and illustrators to visit, there have been competitions, and a dress-up-as-your-favourite-character day!

Caught up in the enthusiasm of this lovely, booky week, I plucked up the courage to volunteer to read to my daughter’s Year Three class. I say plucked up the courage because instead of picking something from the bookshelves, I decided to read my own unpublished picture book manuscripts!

Now, fellow obsessives, you may – as I often do – sometimes wonder if all those lonely hours tapping at the computer keyboard and peeling open rejection letters are worth it; you may sometimes wonder if it is time to give up the dream. Well, don’t give up until you’ve tested your work on your chosen audience!

Reading my stuff to the kids was more energizing than a library full of books on how to write! The children laughed and clapped and shouted out comments and, when the I finished reading, gave a big cheer!

The picture right is of Cat in the Hat enthusiasts from last year's Children's Book Week. Unfortunately I didn't get a snap of this year's costume parade.

The next day, when the school paraded into assembly dressed up as their favourite characters, amongst the Harry Potters, BFGs, oompa-loompas, knights and Sleeping Beauties, I was honoured to find that one of the kids had come dressed as a character from my story!

It was better than winning the Newbery Medal.

National Children's Book Week is organised by Booktrust.