SCBWI 2012 Editors' Night

On a cold (well, not that cold) but bright January evening the hardy many met once more for the kick off session of the 2012 Professional Series, now ably organised and managed by Paolo Romeo and Tina Lemon. In keeping with tradition this was the Editors' Night and once again we were treated to a stellar cast.

Barry clearly thought it was cold

The session opened with each editor giving us a brief intro to themselves and their company.

Emily Lamm is a commisioning editor at Gullane Children's Books, a small, specialist picture book publisher, which publishes, typically 12 - 13 picture books a year, including simple novelty books. The books range from silly and surreal to issues based (they are for example currently working on a book looking at dyslexia). She is very open to new proposals and is looking for great writing with visual potential. She accepts unsolicited manuscripts.

Lauren Buckland has been at Random House for four years, and currently commisions and edits children's books across all ages and genres.  Last year Random House (including David Fickling) published 171 books (including re-issues) in the UK. There are 9 people in the team and together they handled 650 submissions last year, of which 30 were taken to acquisitions meetings. They are looking for new voices and acquired between 15 and 20 last year. Lauren is looking for any genre although teen fantasy and middle-grade humour would be of particular interest.

Ruth Knowles used to share a room with Lauren at Random House but moved 9 days ago to Andersen Press on secondment. Anderson are a small independent and Ruth has only an assistant editor to help her. They are not looking for big commercial hits but for more literary (but accessible) works whose success spreads via word of mouth. They publish about 2 books per month and so they have time to work with debut authors. Their list incudes debut, existing and US buy-ins.

Stephanie Stansbie is Editorial Director of Little Tiger Press. Picture books are core to their list and they publish about 20-25 new ones each year along with about 10 'special projects' (novelties, board books, etc). Their full age-range covers 0-8 but the core is 3-5 years. They are very commercially driven and look for co-editions to help drive profits. This means that their books have to have mainstream appeal and translate visually and verbally well to the US, Australia, Europe, etc. About 50% of the books therefore have animal protagonists as these have universal appeal. The animals effectively stand in for the child reader and the books need to have strong emotional content. She is looking for quirky books with humour and which are character driven. She advises that to ensure the content appeals to its audience, writers should summarise their idea in a short phrase and then ask themselves whether their prosepctive audience would have experienced that.

Barry Cunningham is Publisher at The Chicken House. They are an independent publisher although they do sit within the broader umbrella of Scholastic. They produce20-25 titles per year of which 8 or 9 are completely new and they cover age ranges from about 7 to 16/17. They publish simultaneously all over the world and therefore look for books that will work in different countries. Barry says that big ideas that work internationally give new writers an international reputation and this is what they are seeking to deliver. he is lookign for new voices that authentically represent the age of the child protagonist. Voice is first and foremost. The idea comes second and needs to be summarised quickly, answering the question why would someone like this book. The UK are the world leaders in children's literature (3/4 German books are UK/US) and adult books are surrendering to childrens (Hunger Games is the biggest seller in the US at the moment). So there are major opportunities for children's writers.

The introductions were followed by questions from the floor:

What don't you want? (And what do you?)

Emily - Trends in PBs can't be predicted (it takes 18-24mths to produce a PB) but if pushed, she'd say that domestic themes had probably been overdone. She'd like to see different animal characters too (and funny ones) rather than the usual, bears, dogs, cats and mice.

Lauren - Retailers report vampire fatigue but readers are still buying them. Distopia is also still massive especially with Hunger Games and she thinks classic fantasy might be about to make a comeback on teh back of Game of Thrones. So there's nothing she doesn't want to see.

Stephanie - Not interested in long lyrical PB texts or traditional/folk tales. Other publishers do those and Little Tiger don't want to compete. Stories do need to have layers now, with twists and incongruencies, liek a goldfish in space.

Barry - Advises writers to write what they feel comfortable with and ignore trends although he does think that historical realism might be about to stage a comeback. He would like to see illustrated story books for 9+ - something with cartoons and drawings.


Is there a cross over market?

Yes. And it's huge. Hunger Games sold 0.5million ebooks on the day affter Christmas Day. Adults are looking for bigger, more direct, simpler stories than adult fiction currently delivers and the trend seems to be accelerating.


The blogosphere is full of discussion about negative reviews. What's your view?

Publishers are not hung up on bad reviews (although individual authors might be). The blogs provide activity around new books and that's what they want. A negative review might even generate more interest. So if you're an aspiring writer who reviews don't worry about it.

How do you feel about pitches for series?

Lauren - Acquisitions like to know what the plans are for following up on the book and so they like series/trilogies.

Ruth - They've been told that Waterstones are curretly calling for more standalone books.

Stephanie - Little Tiger aren't interested in follow-ups until they know the first one has sold well.

Barry - We like to try to get authors to think of a sequel but we don't always buy it!

How much note do you take of covering letters and synopses?

Barry - The covering letter is very very important as he doesn't like reading synopses.

Stephanie - Covering letters are important but as she only deals with PBs she tends to go straight to the meat.

Lauren - The pitch element of the covering letter is vital. Then she goes straight to the story.

Emily - Doesn't read either and goes straight to the story.

Is iPad a dirty word for PB publishers?

Emily - She doesn't know what to think yet. They are starting to do e-books and aps but these are extras on top of the real job of book publishing.

Stephanie - She can't work out the maths of Aps. They cost a fortune to make and are sold for for pennies.

Does the digital revolution open up new story telling opportunities?

Some authors are opneing up their endings to fans. Episodic story-telling is also making a comeback. And there are opportunities for add-ons:games, back stories, extra chapters, etc.


What is their attitude to graphic novels?

General attitiude is this is a niche market that isn't big in the UK


Do you take unsolicited submissions?

Gullane, Little Tiger and Anderson all take unsolicited submissions but they favour ones from people they know (eg belong to SCBWI, undertaken creative writing courses). Lauren and Barry do not take unsolicited manuscripts although they might accept submissions from people they know.

Some people can't resist the opportunity to corner an editor!

At that point the questions started to degenerate into details about email versus snail mail and attachments or body of email and your trusted blogger got note-taking ache. Hopefully this run through has been helpful. If not, then you'd better ensure that you attend yourself next year.

And some editors know how to keep the predatory writers at bay!