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Enthralling adventure in an eye-catching cover When his archaeologist father goes missing after an aircrash in Mexico, Josh suspects alien abduction. But after he discovers his father was murdered, Josh is caught up in a race to find the legendary Ix Codex - a lost book of the ancient Maya containing a prophecy about the end of the world… There's no missing The Joshua Files: Invisible City by M.G Harris in the bookshops - it's the fabulous looking book in the bright orange plastic sleeve. But is the inside as exciting? Well I was keen to find out - and was delighted when Scholastic kindly sent me a copy to review. The Invisible City follows 13-year-old Josh Garcia as he tries to come to terms with his father's death before being drawn into an adventure that ultimately takes him to Mexico. M.G (Maria) Harris has created a very convincing young hero - you really get inside his head and his grief is very believable although I had some difficulty accepting that his mum would let him travel overseas with just a couple of friends. The story builds well with twists galore - and the whole Ix Codexpart was very imaginative and edge-of-your-seat stuff. The book has gone down a storm with young readers who will be desperate to get their hands on the next installment - as will I. M.G Harris Mexican-born and Manchester raised Maria also has a fantastic website and blog which writers will love - she talks about how she completely revised her book (she began with a boy archaeologist story), found an agent and how publishers tried to woo her with Mayan chocolate. (There's some lovely Madagascan chocolate available if any propsective Dr Midas & the Pirates editor is reading this!) Maria's agent is Peter Cox of Redhammer who runs the popular writer's colony - litopia - which unpublished authors can use to post their work and seek comments. Visit Maria's blog at www.mgharris.net and her fansite at www.themgharris.com

STATUS: TGIF! I have so much to do this weekend…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? CRASH INTO ME by Dave Matthews Band

The best defense is a strong offense.

What do I do about Publisher insistence on assuming that graphic novel rights is a boilerplate item? I immediately make it clear that it is not at the BEGINNING of each negotiation so there can be no misunderstanding early on.

That also establishes to the publishers that regardless of what they think, where my agency is concerned, graphic novel rights is not a boilerplate item.

I do the same thing at the beginning of a negotiation for a possible multi-book deal. Right when the editor calls, I announce that my agency does not do joint accounting so are we talking about one book or two?

And that takes it off the table right from the start. It won’t be a point of dissension for later.

Now graphic novel rights aren’t quite the same thing as joint accounting so I still expect a discussion or argument but my position is at least clear from minute one.

Have a great weekend.

STATUS: Every day it’s another piece of good news for Ally Carter and her Gallagher Girl series. Today, it’s the news that she just debuted on the Publishers Weekly Top 15 children’s bestseller list (Jan. 14th issue) and if that weren’t enough, I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU has just landed on the USA Today Top 150 bestselling books (granted at #148) but that’s still big news because this list encompasses children’s and adult fiction titles. So quite the coup.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? HOME by Michael Bublé

Sometimes I just want to shake my head. About a year ago, Random House did a big push to say that US-only Spanish language rights would now be a “boilerplate” item on all their contracts. Do you remember this? Maybe some enterprising reader can look up that entry or series of entries and provide the link.

Agents pushed back and said, no, it’s not a boilerplate item; it’s a granted right—just like UK, translation, audio etc. It’s not automatically granted to the publisher. It must be specifically requested and included when discussing the event.

So the new boilerplate item du jour is graphic novel rights. A year ago, never saw this. It was never even mentioned or brought up in the deal points negotiation. Now, I’m starting to hear publishers say that this is a “boilerplate” item and corporate policy.

Here we go again.