Herman Agency literary agent Jill Corcoran shares what not to do - and what you should do - during your manuscript consultation!
Great advice!
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| Laurent listening to the voices in his head. They are talking about monkeys. In fact, the voices ARE of monkey origin. |
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| What Laurent looks like when the monkey voices tell him to do a cover titled in Comic Sans. |
Lovely lovely Laurent Linn says the cover of your book can make or break it. And the important voices that decide what a final cover will look like are:
- The author
- The editor
- The sales and marketing team (they are your friends!)
- The publisher
- The art director, in this case, Laurent Linn
- The voices in Laurent's head
First cover evolution story:
Lottie Paris Lives Here
by Angela Johnson, illustrated by Scott Fisher, publishing in a few months.
One of Scott's first cover sketches:
Not only is this cover for the first book, but for establishing what may potentially be the branding of an entire series. The character is important, but so is the setting and some of the props and the question was whether to have all of these non-main character elements on the front cover, or wrapping around from the spine onto the back, or anywhere near the cover. This sketch has elements of props and Lottie's house, and the VOICES decide it should just be Lottie interacting with the type. So Laurent asks Scott for something different.
One of Scott's character-focused cover sketches with type interaction:
Laurent likes this, but rather than explain the tweaks he wants, he can just mock something up in Photoshop and show Scott. Laurent asks Scott to do tons of posture and pose sketches of Lottie. Scott did! And the mock-up below is based on pose #18 from a group of 25 and Laurent's Photoshop mock-up:
Jerry Pinkney is speaking this morning! Here's a link to a slideshow of his book covers and a few quick questions with Jerry in addition to a link about his touring show, WITNESS.
Jerry's talk title, A Sense of Place: Real and Imagined, is as broad a title he could think of to cover what's so important to his work, environment, but Jerry's decided to change his title in honor of something his father used to say upon starting a job (he was a jack-of-all-trades for construction and remodeling.)
His dad would stand in a room he was about to fix or beautify and say:
"THIS IS MY WORK."
So Jerry is saying that to us! We're getting a sense of how Jerry builds his stories and artwork.
Jerry gives us a bit of his history, this link is a good start!My favorite anecdote—serendipity: Jerry's grandfather worked in a pencil factory, so Jerry had a lot of pencils to draw with. As a kid on a corner selling papers, he would sketch passersby while waiting for a sale, and one of his regular customers noticed Jerry's sketches. And this customer invited Jerry to come see his studio:
That's when the seed of possibility was planted, that a person could grow up to make images every day for work.
He shows us his first book, ADVENTURES OF SPIDER, first published in 1965, STILL IN PRINT and reissued.
HEART: When you look at his images and read his stories, it's always about going along for part of the ride of Jerry's discovery of the story, characters and environment.When he was working on the book GOD BLESS THE CHILD, he interviewed people that had lived through the sharecropping experience and worked to convey in his art and text that initial sense of surprise and delight he got listening to their answers.
HAND: Jerry does his preliminary sketches on plain old 8.5 x 11 copy paper in marker.
HEART: Jerry loves working with Hans Christian Anderson tales, their heartbreaking main characters are ones he's able to re-set into more modern day settings in 19th or 20th century America, when children were still being treated poorly (not that they aren't today! He brings up Bruce Coville's comment about the bullies of today, but for Jerry he's shining a light on the children under slavery and early-century child labor.)
HAND: Jerry's very inspired by past illustration masters. He says he's always straddling
SCBWI Steve Mooser opens the conference talking about starting SCBWI 40 years ago and encourages attendees to be friendly and meet other conference-goers, as you are sure to make lifelong writing friends as he has.
Lin Oliver gives stats on attendees:
- 1,342 people are attending the event--the most ever!
- More than 150 men are attending--also the most ever
- 42% of attendees are published
- There are attendees from 49 states (get on it South Dakota!)
- Attendees are here from 20 countries
Lin reitterates: Don't be afraid to reach out and talk to other conference-goers.
Now for the faculty parade. They are all introducing themselves using a sentence with the word "40" in it. Here a few examples:
- 40 perfect pages.
- 40 is the new 30.
- It took me 40 hours to get here.
- I was on the far side of 40 when I published my first book--it's never too late for success.
- Moses wandered the desert for 40 year looking for the promised land--this is it!
- An editor's work week is not 40 hours.
- In 40 years the Kindle will probably be what the victrola is today.
(Oh--and Richard Peck is here as a surprise guest.)
Allyn Johnston is the Publisher of
Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Allyn and
Marla Frazee have worked on a number of pictures books together (ROLLER COASTER, WALK ON, MRS. BIDDLEBOX, A COUPLE OF BOYS HAVE THE BEST WEEK EVER, BOSS BABY and more.)
Marla read the manuscript for an upcoming picture book called STARS. Allyn points out the unexpected language, that fact that is doesn't call out how it should be illustrated. It intrigues her.
Picture books, Allyn says, need to tell the story with both the text and the illustrations. The artist has to figure out how to do page turns, when to ramp up the emotions. A picture book has to build to a satisfying ending. They are written to be performed--and this is something that a lot of new writers forget. You have to think about the fact that you're writing something that will be read aloud. That's the key goal.
In the manuscripts Allyn gets, bad rhyme is a common problem. She also sees lot of manuscripts that aren't picture books but feel like they should be part of a chapter book. She's looking for manuscripts that give her "the feeling" a good picture book should. It's a rare manuscript that has that kind of strength, she says.
Allyn says writers should not send illustrations notes with their manuscripts--99.9% of the time, they are not necessary.
Marla disagrees with the notion that readers should be able to follow the story of a picture book without text. For books like ALL THE WORLD, she tries to think about what the text feels like when she's approaching the illustrations, allowing her illustrations to evoke a feeling rather than offering a literal interpretation of the text. She's prefers text that is not specific.
0 Comments on Allyn Johnston & Marla Frazee: Why We Still Love Picture Books (Even Though They're Supposed to Be Dead) as of 1/1/1900
Debra Dorfman
Debra Dorfman is Vice President and Publisher at Scholastic. She does series, licensing, non-fiction and commercial YA, and in this Pro Track workshop she's talking about what happens after your book is acquired.
She's explaining how it works differently at different houses, and is giving out a thick handout on how it works at Scholastic.
So how does acquisitions work?
First, an editor falls in love and champions your book.
At the acquisitions meeting, the editor is joined by
Marketing
publicity
finance
and a rep from book clubs and book fairs
all of whom weigh in with their views on the author and the manuscript.
As editors and champions of your book, they want to know about you because it gives them ammunition - if you have a website or blog, they want to know about it.
At the meeting, the editor presents their idea of how much to offer for the book and their vision for royalty, format and publication date... And they hopefully hash it out! She's sharing that editors even get nervous in the acquisitions meeting because if they're at that meeting - they really want to acquire your book!
And she's now walking us through a case study - and the acquisitions memo - for acquiring the "I Survived" historical series.
She's taking questions now, and sharing more about the inner workings of publishing in general and Scholastic in specific after the book is acquired - covering apps, ebooks, marketing, author videos...
Here's a great quote from Debra:
Part of my mission is to stay on top of our books - you have to champion each one.
Really interesting!
In the months leading up to the 40th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference, TEAM BLOG has had the pleasure of talking to many of the faculty members who will be presenting at the event.
Here's a list of links to all the interviews (by Alice, Jaime, Jolie, Martha, Lee, and Suzanne--who will all be live blogging the conference as it happens from the opening remarks on Friday through the last Intensive on Monday).
AUTHORS
AGENTS EDITORS ILLUSTRATORS
SCBWI has just added new intensive to the already terrific
40th Anniversary Summer Conference line-up. Don't hesitate to register--intensives are popular and fill up fast.
Here are the new additions:
- AM - The Ins and Outs of Chapter Book Series--Jenne Abramowitz, Editor, Scholastic
- AM - Ten Essential Picture Book Elements--How Does Your Manuscript Measure Up? Andrea Welch, Beach Lane Books
- PM - Writing a Synopsis That Sells Your Book--Kelly Sonnack, Agent, Andrea Brown
- PM - Revising Your Novel--Julie Strauss-Gabel, VP & Publisher of Dutton Children's Books
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By: Lee Wind,
on 8/5/2011
