SCBWI 2011 Agents Party

In the words of the inimitable Sun: Phew! What a Scorcher!

(with apologies to Scarlett, but her pose summed it up!)

On the hottest September day for over a century, a packed roomful of SCBWI folk met to meet, schmooze and generally pick the brains of a panel of six assorted agents. And it turned out that it wasn't just the room that was going to be hot that evening, but more of that anon.

Benjamin Scott, Assistant Regional Adviser, kicked off proceedings with brief introductions and then asked each of the agents to provide a little bit of backgroud to their agency, themselves, and reveal the all important information about their current wish list.

Zoe King from the Blair Partnership:

That's Zoe, in black and smiling

Zoe was Associate Agent and Head of Non Fiction at Darley Anderson Agency for over 6 years and helped to grow their children's and YA representation. She is now Senior Associate Agent at the Blair Partnership. The agency has only been running for 3 months. and kicked off with JK Rowling as their client! They are very much open to submissions; indeed Zoe only has 3 clients at the moment. Their intention is to provide a lot of editorial help to new authors, along with brand development and they are hoping to take on a few new clients each year and grow them into commercial writers.

Zoe's wish list comprises:

• new frontiers/space/utopias (following on from distopian fiction)
• historical to romance for the younger market
• futuristic (scifi-light)
• trolls and creatures

The submissions guidelines are on their website: first 10 pages plus a marketing type paragraph or jacket blurb.

Julian Friedman of Blake Friedman:

That's Julian with the potted plant hovering over his head

 

Julian set up a literary agency in 1976 which then merged with Carole Blake to establish Blake Friedmann. He is well know for representing script-writers (indeed that's how he got into children's books: some of his scriptwriters started to them!) and has lectured all over the world on the business of scriptwriting. He is now diversifying into Young Adult fiction (definitely not younger children) and describes himself as the new kid on the block for all his experience in the industry in general. He still represents a lot of TV and film scriptwriters but finds the publishing inductry more satisfying because publishers don't 'option' a book and then fail to publish it unlike the film industry.

Julian's wish list is:

• something with strong TV of film potential
• aimed at 9 + and the older the better
• transmedia/multi-platform potential - he wants whole story worlds that operate across a series of media

He prefers email submissions as they get about six to seven thousand a year. He is very unlikely to take on a completely unpublished writer unless there is something very, very special and well-developed about their project.

Alice Williams from David Highams Associates:

Alice has been representing Fiction, Non Fiction, and Children's for David Highams since 2002. She is currently concentrating largely on building her list of children's and young adult writers and has a burgeoning interest in graphic novels. The agency has 6 book agents of which 3 handle children's fiction. They also use interns and this means that Alice should be able to take on 2 or 3 more clients this year. She represents picture book, younger children and teen fiction writers and is also open to submissions form writer/illustrators.

Alice's wish list is:

• humour for middle-grade boys
• literary writing

and she is positvely NOT looking for scifi or anything which involves retelling a story.

She prefers email submissions (from both writers and illustrators).

Vicki Willden-Lebrecht of The Bright Agency:

Vicki is the founder, and MD of the Bright Group. They started off as an illustration agency dedicated to representing artists but are now expanding both geographically (into the US, and Asia) and functionally (into children's writers across the age range). They are very proactive about working in the electronic enviroment and also in taking on unpublished authors and illustrators. They like to concentrate on strategic management for their clients, for example matching different publishers for different types of work from the same client.  Vicki, herself concentrates on growing the agency and leaves the literary representation to Lauren Holowaty who heads up the literary division of the group. Before joining Bright, Lauren was a senior editor at Penguin.

Vicki's wishlist is:

• good stories/characters
• space

She is particularly interested in new writers too.

Bright Agency prefers email submissions from both writers and illustrators

Gillie Russell of Aitken Alexander:

Gillie started her publishing career at Methuen Children's Books where she worked with Anne Fine amongst others. For 10 years she was Publishing Director for Children's Fiction at Harper Collins, before joining Aitken Alexander in 2010. She is interested in great story telling and writing in any genre and for any age group.

Her wish list is:

• a great voice
• a good story
• humour, especially for boys
• new authors (she represents 6 clients currently)
• cross over appeal (she notes that research undertaken by Littlebrown revealed that the average age of a YA reader was 26!)
• a new Michael Morpurgo!

She prefers email submissions and they should include a short synopsis which is clear and exciting, a short bio and the first 3 chapters.

Claire Wilson from Rogers, Coleridge and White:

Claire joined RCW in 2007 and works alongside Pat White in the Children's Department.She currently looks after 9 clients across the full range of children's books and handles foreign rights for all children's titles at the agency.

Her wish list is:

• a great voice - this is the most important thing of all
• fantasy, scifi, humour, literary

 And she hates books that patronise the reader (don't underestimate their intelligence!)

She prefers email submissions and the instructions are on the website.


And then came the questions:

Describe a typical day:

Vicki explained that much of the day involves fielding stuff , trying to keep the inbox from managing you. It's all about mamanging people and relationships. Gillie calls this author care. She spends time trying to keep the pressure off authors. They all have to set aside specific time to read otherwise everything else gets in the way.

What happens to submissions?

Zoe explained that every agency is different. Darley Anderson don't use readers. So agents see all submissions. They imported this practice into the Blair Partnership. She always gives submissions a first look but sometimes she will ask other agents to look too. She finds it helpful to get a second opinion. 

Julian also takes a first look. He complains that most submissions are sent in too early and asks writers to make sure they've already had criticism on their work before submitting it. He commented that sometimes you find a great writer but the story isn't that good. In those circumstances he might help the writer find a good story.

Agents at the Bright Agency and RCW also read submissions. Claire explained that the chemistry between the author and agent is key, particularly with new authors where things can be very intense at the beginning.

Gillie agreed about getting another opinion but she uses interns to sift the submissions. She respects their opinion. And Alice explained that David Higham use a reader who is a published author herself. All submissions go to her first and she then passes it onto the appropriate agent.

What advice would you give people who have been waiting many months for a response from an agent?

Everyone agreed that if you haven't had a response after a couple of months it would be acceptable to chase but make sure you're polite and if possible chase the assistant rather than the agent!

How often do you take on work that you can't sell? 

They agreed that it does happen. Julian explained that it is important for writers to be able to promote themselves. This makes publishers more comfortable. So have a website, blog tweet. He thinks 20% of a published writer's life should be spent online and points to Darren Shan as a fine example of how to do it. Zoe warned not to underestimate the importance of an online presence but make sure it is manageable. She says if it isn't shiny, crisp and good then forget it!


And then we came to the draw! This is when, usually a small number of one to ones are offered by members of the panel to members of the audience. It's exciting for about two minutes and then for the overwhelming majority of people there's a degree of disappointment. But this year we had the most generous bunch of panellists ever and each time a name was drawn out, one of them would shout 'Ooo! I'll do another of those!' And so it went on. I'm not sure how many one to ones were won in the end, but everyone seemed to know someone who won.

Here's one of them:

And I was another! So what a scorcher indeed!

The formal bit of the meeting ended then and it was time for schmoozing. Sadly I had to leave to catch a train. Perhaps others will add comments to enlighten us all to what happened after 9pm. I for one wouuld love to know.

Many thanks to Liz de Jager for organising the event and to Zoe, Julian, Alice, Vicki, Gillie and Claire for their time and their generosity.

SCBWI Professional Series: Kate Wilson, MD of Nosy Crow

On the evening of 12th September 2011 we all met again in the upstairs room of the Theodore Bullfrog in London for the latest SCBWI Professional Series event and this time we were treated to a talk from Kate Wilson, formerly of Hachette, Macmillan Childrens and Scholastic, and now founder and Managing Director of Nosy Crow.

Kate kicked off her talk by asking a question many are asking in this age of print on demand and e-books:

What is a publisher for?

She answered this question by looking at what publishers used to do:

• investing in creativity
• editorial shaping
• packaging (this is a big element in children's publishing)
• investing in stock (or paying the printers)
• investing in returns (or paying to pulp unwantd books!)
• storing things
• providing a distribution infrastructure
• negotiating access to limited shelf-space.

But What if...

• there are people creating for free or people creating to sell directly to readers
• publishers have outsourced  some or even most of their editorial shaping to agents
• for some products, there's nothing to package, or store, or transport
• there's unlimited shelf-space (online)?

 And then there's the fact that There are disadvantages to scale:

• you get caught up in feeding the machine (Kate gave a wonderful example of the sort of things that take up your time in a major publishing house: like remembering to ensure that the dead pidgeons are flushed off the roof of the warehouses on a regular basis and before they decompose into sludge and fall through the roof onto the books!) 
• different parts of the publishing machine not communicating because of the size of the office buildings
• slow decision-making because of the number of management layers involved.

All of which set the scene and explained why Kate, her other half, Adrian Soar, and Camilla Reid decided to set up Nosy Crow.

So What is Nosy Crow?

• an independent publisher, that is small but growing (24 books and 3 apps this year, and 46 books and 8 apps planned for next year)
• publishing children's books and apps only, and very specifically nothing including sex, drugs or alcohol
• new but experienced (Kate and her colleagues have decades of experience between them)
• informal (Kate pointed out that she rarely wears suits these days!) but professional
• producing printed and digital products

 And what matters to everyone at Nosy Crow are what they call The Five Cs:

• Children - Kate wants to know precisely who each book or app is for. So Dinosaur Dig for example if for little boys who like dinosaurs and construction equipment!
• Curating - this is not just a case of sorting out the good from the bad but being seen to do it.
• Connecting - Kate regards this as a major USP. She wants Nosy Crow to be mum-friendly and actively uses social media to reach out to parents and influencers. They have a facebook page and twitter account (@NosyCrow) and Kate blogs regularly on the website, which, incidentally, receives an average of about 600 hits per day.
• Creating - Kate believes publishers need to earn a seat at the creative table. So they don't just publish other people's ideas, they have their own and commission writing or illustrating or even write themselves when they can't find what they want. (Birdie Black is Kate's own nom de plume)
• Collaborating - they want international reach and have signed collaboration deals with Allen and Unwin (Australia and New Zealand), Candlewick Press (US), Carlsen (Germany), Gallimaud Jeunesse (France).

 Kate rounded up her talk by telling us specifically about her approach to apps. She explained that apps should be:

• very child friendly
• designed to be interactive - she is not interested in 'squashing a picture book onto a phone'
• reading experiences and not just games.

Kate summed up her aim for Nosy Crow as wanting to create a compelling reading experience for children regardless of the medium. She accepts that many children read mostly from screens rather than books. This doesn't bother her. For Kate, it is the reading experience itself which is all important. What you read and how you read it is of secondary value, because the life-enriching outcome of reading will be the same either way.

Many of the questions at the end of the talk were concerned with apps and to answer them Kate treated us to a quick run through of Nosy Crow's latest creation, Cinderella. (Here's a taster.) It might have been designed with young children in mind but judging by the oohs, aahs and laughter in the room, it works just as well for adults. So if you've got an iphone, itouch or ipad and the UK equivalent of $5 to spare, you might want to check it out.

An Abject Apology

What can I say?

Over 3 months without a post. I hide my face in shame:

I should have written up a couple of reviews but the house move got in the way.

Then I should have written up a couple more and holidays intervened.

Then there were all the workman, and the study was a shambles, and I couldn't get my knees under my desk for all the other stuff parked there, and no one else in this house could find anything without interrupting me and...

And, of course, there was the pressure of not having posted. You know how it is. The longer you leave it the worse it becomes.

But last night I went to an excellent SCBWI Professional Series event with the Kate Wilson, the MD of Nosy Crow and I took my camera. So I knew I had to write it up here. But I couldn't do that without apologising first could I?

So this is it.

The apology.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.


And now to move on.....