How to use this Page

If the central buyers at Waterstone's or WHSmith select our green-covered book, Boris the Boastful Frog, then we'll have made a great start, but then there are all the little independent bookshops up and down the country that we need to reach too. We could do a few mass mail-shots and advertise in The Bookseller - and no doubt we will try this - but what we really need is the personal touch - a reputable sales company that will take on our list.

We've heard good reports from book shop owners about Bounce, which claims to represent '30 of the best children's publishers from the UK and beyond' so I emailed publishing manager Danielle Quinn to see if I could set up a meeting. Bounce may only offer us sales representation on a book-by-book basis, which is not ideal, but if they help us to sell a million then we won't complain.

I also called Roy Johnston at Aurum Publishing Group Children’s Books (APG-Kids), which now owns Frances Lincoln (producer of some beautiful children's books), and which sells on behalf of third-party companies.

Roy was one of the first people we met when we started up in publishing - at the time he worked at Ragged Bears (which went into administration this Feb) and we were thinking about using RB to distribute and sell our books and book rights. Back then, we decided not to go down the sales agent route.

Roy remembered us. He was very friendly and we've set up a meeting in London for May 14.

Talking of the personal touch, I decided to follow up yesterday's email with a visit to Sara at WHSmith in Guildford. (I was meeting two friends for coffee and needed an excuse to go into town). Sara was on the shop floor, carrying out an audit, but didn't seem too fazed by my unscheduled visit. I quickly showed her the book and she seemed to like it. Sara said that she'd give some thought as to how we could promote it - perhaps linking up with a couple of local schools that the branch had ties with.

For the last week, we've had the pleasure in hosting a student from a local school (Broadwater in Godalming) - as part of their work placement scheme. He provided excellent help throughout the week and hopefully he gained a good overview of publishing.  He gave me these beautiful flowers as a thank you for his time here - but the thanks should really go to him.

When trying to sell books (especially if we are to sell a million of Boris the Boastful Frog), then we must target the big high street names - Waterstone's and WHSmith.

Both select books for their branches centrally and the buyers will be choosing only a handful from the thousands being submitted each year.  Statistically, the chances of being selected are pretty slim.  The book buyer (quire rightly) will be looking out for new titles from Walker books, Frances Lincoln and other more established publishers and the worry is that our titles could just disappear amongst a pile of "others I may look at if I have the time".  However I'm convinced that Boris the Boastful Frog is a strong story and I believe we're in with a good chance.

I tried a 'scatter gun' approach with WHSmith, emailing AI sheets for all the new titles and a low-res pdf of Boris to four names in the central team. Three bounced back, but the fourth reached the Head of Children's Books, who said she'd pass the info over to the Children's Picture Book Buyer, adding, 'If we think the books would work for our range, we'll be in touch'. Hmm... doesn't sound terribly promising, still fingers crossed that the Buyer likes them.

Waterstone's was a little easier. Once the Waterstone's grid had been updated (a spreadsheet detailing our titles), we posted off our latest four books, including Boris, directly to the relevant new title buyer. We now have only three advance copies of each left to last us until mid May so we'll need to use them wisely.

Books parcelled up and ready to go

1. I've emailed ASDA with the details of Boris (as well as our other three new titles). Asda's corporate colour is green so I'm hoping its buyers won't be put off by the cover. 
2. I've already emailed details of our latest books to Tesco and received a friendly response from Sophie Wood-Goulbourn, but she works with adults books, so I'm waiting to see if her colleague in the children's team will get back to me.
3. On the advice of Alan Street at Gardners, I've drafted a letter to Morrisons children's book buyer. Morrisons doesn't give out buyers' email addresses so instead of emailing pdfs we've had to part with one of the only five advance copies of Boris in the country. It will be worth it, though, if the buyer likes the story.
4. I've also already emailed Sainsbury's with details of the books and made a follow up phone call. I've been promised feedback, but so far I've heard nothing. I'm guessing that no news is bad news, but if I'm going to sell a million, I'll need to persevere.
5. I ran out of steam so will try Waitrose tomorrow.

When I say 'green' books, I mean books with green-coloured covers, not books about recycling or saving the planet.

Hi guys. Just a quick one to let you all know that our book Three Silly Chickens , written and illustrated by Tanya Fenton, has been reviewed in the most recent issue of the School Librarian journal. The review, written by Jane Doonan, is very positive, and describes the story as an 'amusing take on a folk tale convention ... dramatised on the page by a fine sense of page design.' 

A link to the Amazon page for the book can be found below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Silly-Chickens-Tanya-Fenton/dp/1907432116

What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?


In Gateshead, Carol Thorn of Bill Quay Bookshop, chose an elemental phenomena for her most beautiful sight - a complete, circular rainbow:

‘It was incredibly beautiful - like a coloured halo in the sky. Usually you only see an arc because the rest of the rainbow disappears beyond the horizon, but up in the hills where I used to live I was high enough to see the whole thing.

‘When I first saw it, I was like a child. I ran indoors and told my husband, “just come and look at this!” I hadn’t realised until then that rainbows were circles, but it explains why they never have an end. For me this realisation, far from spoiling the mystery, somehow made the whole thing even more beautiful.’

If you've always wondered how rainbows are formed, there is a simple explanation here including a description of the circumstances in which Carol's full rainbow can be observed. It also includes this simple diagram showing white light from the sun refracting as it passes into a water droplet before reflecting back against the back surface of the droplet to make it visible to the observer. Depending on the position of the observer, he or she will only see one colour emerging from any single droplet but as he or she glances up or down he or she will see bands of light emerging from millions of neighbouring droplets.

René Descartes' sketch of how primary and secondary rainbows are formed (courtesy Wikipedia)

Bella's Bubble - by Karen Hodgson and illustrated by Rebecca Griffiths

What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Aileen Davis of Appleby’s Bookshop in Morpeth couldn't choose between two sights which she felt were the most beautiful she'd seen: the orchids in Singapore (the walkways across the roads, she says, are ‘festooned’ with them)  and the aerial view of New Zealand as you approach Auckland Airport.

‘I was on holiday in NZ three years ago and as the plane came into land, I looked out of the window and on this clear day glimpsed the entire coastline, including the volcano at the other end of the island. I haven’t seen anything more beautiful.’

Singaporean Orchids

What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Jude Innes of J&G Innes bookshop in St Andrews believes that when it comes to a beautiful sight, you can’t beat ‘a good sunset’. In particular she recalls one she saw over the North West Island in Australia. ‘In 1988, while on holiday in Australia, I visited the area and saw the deserted island in the middle of an oyster sky - it was a very beautiful sight.’ If you don’t know what an oyster sky is (I didn’t), Jude explains: ‘it’s where the clouds are all broken up and the sky takes on a peachy hue’.

Whilst the sunset below doesn't show an oyster sky, it is a photograph from North West Island by Kristy Muir which she describes as the most beautiful place she has ever visited: Head north-west for beauty | Sunshine Coast Daily

North West Island Australia

What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Jane Gardam, OBE author of children's and adult fiction and twice winner of the Whitbread Award, discussed her most beautiful sight with my mother-in-law over afternoon tea.
Jane grew up in Cumberland and the North Riding of Yorkshire, and she recalled one winter, when on a visit to Swale Falls in Richmond, she witnessed the waterfall turn to ice. It was a rare thing, caused by a sudden temperature change, which freezes the water mid flow. Although it was only a fleeting occurrence, the memory of it stayed with Jane and was later captured in her short story ‘Icicle Ride’, featured in her children’s collection The Hollow Land. The book, which now sadly appears to be out of print, arrived in today’s post and the passage below describes Jane’s experience: ‘And there round the corner to the left where the beck fell sheer, stood high as the sky a chandelier of icicles. Hundreds upon hundreds of them down the shale steps of a waterfall. There were long ones and short ones and middling ones and fat ones like an arm and thin ones like a thread. They hung down from up as high as you could see and down to your very wellingtons. And not only water had turned to spears of glass but every living thing about – the grasses, the rushes, the spider webs, the tall great fearless thistles. You could pull the tubes of ice off the long wands of the loose-strife. You could lift them off like hollow needles. You could look right down them like crystal test tubes. You could watch them twist like fairy ear-rings. And as the sun reached them they all turned at once to every colour ever known – rose and orange and blue and green and lilac – and Harry and Bell watched them until the sun slipped down a little and left them icicles again.’

Jane has twice won the Whitbread Award for The Hollow Land (1981) and, for her adult novel, The Queen of the Tambourines (1991). In addition, God on the Rocks was runner up for the Booker Prize and her story for young readers, Bridget and William, was ‘Commended’ for the Carnegie Medal.

To help promote our new title The King Who Wanted More, We're finding out what is the most beautiful thing people have ever seen. It could be a landscape, a painting, a building, or maybe something altogether different...it’s completely up to you. Please email [email protected] if you'd like to take part.

70 days
8,000 runners
8,000 miles
800 bookshops

0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next

By: Hannah Hog, on 6/12/2012
Blog: Hogs Back Books Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Olympics, Scotland, Robert Burns, Independent bookshops, Hogs Back Books, Add a tag

We're catching up in Scotland where the torch travelled miles and miles over land and lochs and sea. We began by chatting with Caron McPherson, manager of Waterstones in Ayr. She confessed to being ‘freakishly excited’ about the torch, which passed the shop at 10.10am.

‘I had no idea what to expect, but there was a brilliant atmosphere. As I travelled into work from Paisley, there was a good crowd all the way along the route and in the town itself. The torch had stopped briefly on its way to visit the Robert Burns Museum, where lots of people had dressed up as Robert Burns’ Tam O’ Shanter [the eponymous hero of his famous poem].’

The famous portrait of Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth

Seventeen-year old Kirsty Kane, from Saltcoats, carried the Flame to the museum, handing it on to Olympian Suzanne Otterson, 38, from Ayr, who represented Great Britain in the figure skating at the Albertville Winter Olympics in 1992.

‘It was fabulous,’ said Caron. ‘Before the arrival of the torch, the sponsors had handed out drums and balloons to the children. There was a great family-orientated spirit. Then the young torch bearer ran past – and I mean he really ran. He shot past really quickly.’

Caron had decked out her window with ‘Great British Books’ in readiness for the Jubilee and Olympics celebrations. There were Olympics titles throughout the store and there had been a countdown to the torch on the store’s Facebook page.

Abbey Books in Paisley (close to Lochwinnoch, where the torch passed), commented that, ‘We were holding our annual re-enactment of the 1690 witch trials, a historical event particular to Paisley, and there were lots of jokes being bandied about that if the torch bearer lost his way, he could light the pyre to burn the witches.’

Edmund McGonigle, manager of Voltaire and Rousseau, a second-hand bookshop in Glasgow, couldn't get away from the shop to see the torch but he heard the crowds. ‘My brother, who owns the shop couldn’t drive home that afternoon because of the crowds but another friend who pops in to feed the shop cat [Trevor] said that he managed to film the flame.'