Because there are so many titles competing for our attention, what else do we have to go on?

Surely the publishers, having read their own books, must be the best people to represent them to their chosen market? This thought comes into particular force when I am looking for a third book in a three-for-two promotion – there are always two I know I want, so I find myself looking in the rest of the pile for covers that attract my attention.

Attention grabbing – for the wrong reasons?

I love stand-up comedy and have admired Shappi Khorsandi for a while, so her ‘Beginner’s guide to acting English’ (Ebury) caught my attention. The cover features a cartoon of a family of four running with suitcases, the words ‘warm and witty’ from Jo Brand and a distinctly light touch. I assumed it was a book in the Bryson aren’t-the-English-odd school of writing and bought it.

Never was a book more effectively undersold. Khorsandi provides a fascinating child’s-eye view of the Iranian revolution – not something I would have expected from the cover alone.

I smiled ruefully at her childish attempts to negotiate with the mullahs by writing to them; followed the family’s path into exile accompanied by a crowd of well wishers; and admired the reliability of their Ford Cortina. The whole reminded me of Jacqueline Wilson’s superb descriptions of unrealised trauma through the eyes of the protagonist, or the heavy hand of history the reader perceives throughout Anne Frank’s diary.

A brilliant book – did the cover make you miss it?

In short, it was well paced, gripping and really insightful. And I finished by wanting to know more – about her father’s writing (could we have a sample please?), what happened to her brother and some of the recipes her mother inherited and created.

Maybe this is all being saved for a sequel, but if so, I hope the publishers alert a wider group of people to the content by coming up with a more effective cover.  This book would be ideal reading for those who remember the era in which the events took place and want to know more (me included), as well as younger generations who would find it interesting to consider how what your parents do can have a major impact on your own life (moving to a new country and having to learn a new language in Shappi’s case).

A perfect book for modern Britain – but I wonder how many others missed it due to presentation?

Has anyone else read it and reacted in the same way, or perhaps been equally confused by a cover?

Alison Baverstock

A former publisher, Alison writes about publishing and how to get published.  She runs the MA in Publishing at Kingston University and will be speaking at an upcoming conference on self-publishing.

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I’ve got fond of blogs, and like updating my website. (Only after getting blow-by-blow instructions from my web designer. And then another set of instructions after the first ones didn’t stay in my brain.)

Twitter remained a mystery. It sounded nervy, I knew Stephen Fry spent a lot of time on there, and I wasn’t really sure what the point was.

When my third friend joined, and mentioned some interesting facts she’d discovered, I figured I’d give it a go. How hard can it be?

So I signed up under my professional name, BookAnalyst, and I am following some publishing houses, some interested readers, and a couple of friends.

The Bookseller recently focused on the hash tag #dearpublisher as a tool readers could use to ask questions directly of the publisher. The Bookseller also has a web page of contacts that’s worth looking at.

Is anyone else trying out Twitter? What do you make of it?

I’m still not sure I like it – but it looks like it has potential to be either very interesting, or another time-thief.

Best wishes,
Cressida
(editorial consultant)

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• Dawn Totton (Newcastle)
• Katherine Grieve (Stockport)
• David Walker (Castleford)
• Heather Simpson (Dunfermline)
• Robin Brooksbank (Derby)

Congratulations to all of our winners. And if you’d like to stand a chance of winning one of our great prizes, please keep an eye on the site for future competitions.

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It coincides with the wedding season, and it’s nearly as stressful. What can possibly go wrong at a literary event for the under-fives? Plenty.

There are the ‘caught short’ accidents, tantrums (and parents with ‘liberal’ attitudes to discipline, not to mention the ones who simply go away for some ‘adult time’), inappropriate shouting out, risky attraction to scissors and other dangerous weapons, the glitter-glue-on-clothes compensation scenario (and we’re talking glam princess dresses here, not any old tat). Need I go on?

I have got the formula down to a fine art after four years of doing picture books events. People say: “Oh, it’ll be easy for you, you were a teacher.” Well, I was a secondary school teacher of English and the character flaws in The Mayor of Casterbridge don’t exactly prepare you for questions such as “What age are you?” “Are your teeth real?” and “Can I try on your shoes?”

Dancing, games, making tiaras – and stories too

I recently went to one of my favourite festival events in Glasgow. As well as hearing four stories, playing princess games, and dancing, we were going to be making a princess tiara with floral adornments. There’s none of this adult-style event stuff, of sitting prettily with your book, marked in a couple of places, reading two paragraphs, then relying on intelligent questions from the crowd.

Toddler events are altogether more taxing. Now, here’s what I mean about getting it down to an art form. Over the years, I have gone through metres of tissue paper, gallons of glitter glue, acres of sequins, boxes of stickers and tubs of tiaras. What I have learned is that the more pretty decorations you offer, the more they take, so that a paper crown can become as heavy as the Queen’s coronation crown!

Cunning preparation is the key

So, what I have cunningly developed is that I now make pre-prepped craft bags for each child, with just the right amount of petals, stickers, sequins, and crucially, just the one basic tiara template. Cries of “I’ve finished, can I make another?” are politely ignored these days. At first, I felt a bit mean about the rationing, but actually, the tiaras look so much nicer this way.

There have been many attempts to find the safest way to secure the flat tiara into a ring on a little princess head. ‘No!’ to staples. Too dangerous. ‘No!’ to glue. Sticks to hair. ‘No!’ to stitching it. Too time consuming. ‘Yes!’ to old-fashioned sellotape.

So, the tiaras are on their heads, the stories have been told, the dances have been danced, the books have been signed, the photographs taken.

Off they go, thrilled with their first literary event. And I so hope they keep coming back, because despite all the petals sticking to my hair and the blisters on my feet (my shoes are far too glamorous for this sort of thing) it is the events which give me the inspiration for the next story and the expressions on their faces make it all worthwhile.

About Janey: Janey Louise Jones‘ Princess Poppy books are published by Random House. Her latest book Cloudberry Castle is due for publication in September (Floris).

Read about Janey’s experiences of self publishing in the Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook

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You may book speakers to take part but cannot predict what they will say, how they will interact (with each other; with the audience) or what questions they will be asked. And then there is the sheer creative energy of so many writers gathered together than never fails to have an impact.

And so as I prepare for the next Kingston Publishing Conference (this time on self-publishing) I am aware that in addition to organising the programme, I am also a major beneficiary. Looking back, many of my books have begun at a writing event – the sudden synergy of energy, enthusiasm and good ideas multiplying many fold. It’s exciting to think about what may be just around the corner…

If you have not yet booked, it’s not too late – see Kingston Publishing Conference (3-4th September 2010).

All best, Alison

Alison Baverstock is the author of Marketing your book, an author’s guide (A&C Black) and is course leader of the MA Publishing at Kingston University.

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The final weeks before the birth of a new book are always exciting and nail-bitingly tense for its author – and as I have a book about the Atlantic Ocean coming out in October, this is the waiting-outside-the-headmaster’s-study moment, with me hoping against hope all will be well.

But this year things are rather different, and that is because my publishers have seen fit to begin a bold experiment – to publish not just an e-book, which is simple to do and now rather old hat; but an enhanced iPad version of the book, which is a very different animal – and, moreover, to publish it at the same time as the hardback.

This is a major commercial experiment, and raises many questions:

• Will the iPad version eat into sales of what some call the ‘tree version’ of the book?
• How will sales be reported to the compilers of bestseller lists?
• And perhaps most important of all: will the iPad version be any good?

To make sure it is, we’re all working hard. The electronic whizzes here in New York have only just decided on this experiment – so we’re hastily amassing what are called our ‘assets’, and seeing where we might place them, with links, into the iPad version.

By assets the whizzes mean film clips, sound files, extra text, animations and footnotes that were dropped from the book for space reasons (I love footnotes, and usually have a hundred or so, of which fifty get in – so there are fifty free ones floating around on my computer, begging to be let onto the iPad).

Filming for the iPad

I’ve also been out filming: a crew came up to my farm to watch the writing process (which many find useful to learn about – as the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook so ably displays), and they’re about to take me out into New York harbour and on to the deep Atlantic. We’ve found wonderful old clips of the D-day landings, of codfish, of glaciers calving icebergs; sound recordings from the collision of the Torrey Canyon disaster off Cornwall,  an animated play-by-play of the Battle of Trafalgar and another for the retaking of the Falkland Islands.  All being stitched into place as we speak.

And the result will go on sale – and this is crucial – for less money than the book.

Will it work? Is life as we know it going to change? As I think about it, the nail-biting resumes – but even worse.

About Simon: Simon Winchester is the author of over 20 books. His forthcoming title, Atlantic: a Biography of the Ocean (HarperCollins) is due to be published in October 2010. Read more about Simon on his website.

You can also read Simon’s article on being a non-fiction writer in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. Click to buy at a discount »

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To enter, you have to do two things. They’ll take about one minute of your time, and then you’ll be entered into the competition to win 1 of 4 copies of the Yearbooks:

• Leave a comment on this blog post, telling us your Twitter name (ours is @ACBlackbooks) and which Yearbook you’d like to win (that’s the first part of your entry)
• Post the highlighted text below using your Twitter account (just copy and paste it and that’s your entry completed)…

@ACBlackbooks is giving away 4 copies of its 2011 Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbooks. Please RT. For chance to win yours see http://bit.ly/dcDTtK

Closing date for the competition is 26 August 2010. The judge’s decision is final and no communication will be entered into. Note that all comments at writersandartists.co.uk are moderated so it may take a short while for yours to appear.

If you don’t have a Twitter account, it’s free to sign up and easy to get started – just visit www.twitter.com.

Both of our yearbooks are essential reading for writers and artists – to learn more about them, visit our online bookstore now.

Happy tweeting!

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If you’re a fan of our Writers’ Zone, you’ll almost certainly be following our serialisation of Alison Baverstock’s Marketing Your Book: An Author’s Guide.

Alison’s book is essential reading if you plan to see your work published.

From the moment you reach the first page, Alison is by your side guiding you through the labyrinth of the publishing world.

She provides you with practical and proven tips every step of the way – from submitting your manuscript, finding an agent and approaching a publisher, to working with booksellers and even organising a great launch event.

We’ve now added a new chapter – the eighth – where you’ll find advice on going it alone, and how to market your self-published book.

Self-publishing can be successful

What we love about this chapter in Alison’s book is the fact that she knocks lots of preconceptions squarely on the head.

It’s all too easy to conjure up stereotypes about people who self-publish…

The egomaniacal poet peddling pretentious stanzas.

The clubbable old army officer determined to inflict his memoirs on those who are too slow or weak to escape.

The ethereal young novelist, too brilliant to be constrained by either plot or a publishers’ contract.

And yes, there are people like this. But more importantly, there are many others who have brilliant books that wouldn’t see the light of day if they weren’t self published. Could you be one of them?

Let’s take a look at some of the good reasons Alison sees for self-publishing.

• You want complete control over how you want your book to look. After all, Ben Schott’s Original Miscellany was first published at his own expense – and it was the look and feel of the finished product that convinced a publisher to take him on.
• You want to prove to commercial publishers that your books can sell. If your self-published book sells well, publishers will want to know more about your work. It also gives you great insight into what they do.
• You just want your book published. If you’re not interested in commercial success – say you want to preserve your family history – then why shouldn’t you self-publish?
• You know more about your market than any publisher. If you’re writing a specialist book, and you’ve already got access to potential customers in your field, then why share the profits with a third party?

Self-publishing isn’t vanity publishing, but if you’re going to make a success of it you need all the help you can get.

And that’s where Alison’s book is so invaluable. Not only does she shatter a few myths, she guides you through marketing, book formats, hiring an editor, securing reviews, winning publicity and establishing a high profile. You even benefit from sections on database management and order fulfilment, helping you to get your book into the right people’s hands.

So why not go and take a look? And if you’d like to read an additional two case studies, or you can’t wait to read the other chapters, you can buy a copy of Marketing Your Book now from A&C Black’s website – and get a useful discount into the bargain.

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That’s not far from the truth when it comes to the Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. I love putting this book together for the simple reason that I love what’s in it. I truly think the content is more than good – it’s great: a great (understated) book dedicated to the children’s publishing market.

Why understated? Answer: the contributors. Their names deserve to be shouted from the rooftops.

Nowhere else will you find so many talented, award winning, acclaimed children’s authors all in one place, each writing about their work and offering their own brand of advice for children’s writers who are yet to break into the market.

Jacqueline Wilson reveals details about her first experience of writing success; Anthony Horowitz gives top tips for writing horror for children; Anne Fine discusses the ins and outs of books to read aloud; Raymond Briggs talks about creating graphic novels. It’s a long list …

What’s new for the 2011 edition?

As well as lots of new and updated listings, there are new articles from authors Francesca Simon and Michael Rosen, illustrator Emily Gravett, Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne and publisher David Fickling. There is also a new foreword by the (marvellous) Quentin Blake.

Each and every one of the articles is an entertaining and informative read. This book is indispensable for a children’s author – and all the contributing authors agree.

As an aside, we’ve dedicated this edition to Russell Ash who died unexpectedly in June 2010. Russell, author of many books, wrote for the Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook since its very first edition and he and his work will be sadly missed by the publishing industry.

So, all you children’s writers out there who haven’t seen a copy of the Children’s’ Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook – CHECK IT OUT (said with emphasis, I don’t shout very often).

Warm wishes, Jo

To buy a copy of the Children’s Writer’s & Artists’ Yearbook 2011 at a discount, click here »

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We’d like to congratulate Deirdre Daglish, Andrea Quigley, Jean Webster, Shankutkumar Somaiya and Robert Webber, who each win a copy of the Qatari Voices anthology, published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.

And don’t forget to keep an eye on this website for more book giveaways!

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