By Kaye Baillie
For our first gathering of 2020 we had over sixty attendees!
Our venue, Docklands Library Performance Space in Melbourne soon filled and it was great to see around ten first time attendees. Our wonderful ARA, Caz Goodwin welcomed everyone and we went on to our usual Show and Tell segment.
Check out all these wonderful creators with their books and news. (I’m the one holding the recycled brick from an Olympic village house from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Thanks Anna McGregor for the gift! A great example of the value of networking at SCBWI events.)
Our first fabulous member speaker was Melbourne author/illustrator, Jess McGeachin and here he is with his 2019 debut picture book, Fly, published by Penguin Random House. Jess spoke about four important places that have directly influenced his creativity. 1. The old Melbourne Museum where Jess’s mother worked. As a child, Jess was inspired by his mother’s work which involved sketching specimens of animals and nature. 2. Oxford, England, where Jess was influenced by the ancient libraries and universities and then by Scottish landscapes. 3. The new Melbourne Museum, where Jess now works as a graphic designer, organising material such as brochures and posters to make it accessible to people. 4. Library at the Dock where Jess approached a Penguin publisher and subsequently emailed her his manuscript which became Fly. Fly went on to be exhibited at the World Illustration Awards in London.
It was fascinating to see how these four places influenced Jess’s illustration style such as the sounds, smell and feel of the outdoors or by seeing things close up. Jess had some tips such as always having a project up your sleeve so that you can look ahead if your current project doesn’t get accepted. He acknowledged how hard it is to write and to illustrate and that we should be proud of the work we do. He finished by saying that as creators we should use our skills to lift people up in a way that will inspire them to help protect our precious flora, fauna and planet.
Next up was Kesta Fleming, writer and poet and author of debut chapter book, Marlow Brown: Scientist in the Making. Kesta began by asking us to create a character using these prompts: Name, Age, Gender, Skin Color, Cultural Background. Then she gave a wonderful talk about her home life and how she was read to until she left home and that she was always surrounded by books. Kesta began submitting her picture book manuscripts to publishers when she had her own children. Thanks to encouraging replies from publishers and from assessor, Di Bates along with acceptances from The School Magazine, Kesta continued to seek publication and improve her skills. She facilitated children’s writing groups and participated in Sherryl Clark’s chapter book course and it was through this course that Marlow Brown, a boy character, was born. When Marlow Brown was eventually accepted by Celapene Press, the publisher asked Kesta if she would consider changing Marlow to a girl! After some careful thinking and after an enlightening chat with her own son, Jonah, Kesta found that by looking outside her boundaries and stereotyping, that of course Marlow could be a girl! She learned to challenge the edges of her own thinking box. In the end, Kesta only needed to change one thing in her manuscript - the pronoun ‘he’ became ‘she’. Lastly, Kesta took us back to the characters we created at the beginning of her talk and asked us to consider changing any of these traits and ask ourselves how much do these things matter and if they affected the story. A fun and enlightening experiment.
Our final speaker was Susannah Chambers, publisher at Albert Street Books, an imprint of Allen and Unwin. Susannah spoke specifically about Allen & Unwin and how there may seem to be a ‘wall’ around publishing houses and what that ‘wall’ is made of.
A&U don’t sell to a reader; they sell to booksellers. She said it is important to have strong sales across three types of booksellers.
Sample of Allen & Unwin published books.
Independent bookstores are best at handselling and helping customers to choose books.
As much as A&U love indie stores, they have to keep DDS in mind when choosing books to sell as some people may not have an indie store close by. DDS books need to be accessible, warm, friendly and easy to sell.
Susannah must convince her team when she wants a book published. She uses her passion and instinct, then fills out a sheet to take to acquisitions. She must know these things: SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the book, the hook, outlets, genre, readership, price, printrun, editorial effort required, comp titles, why she is excited about it, RRP, costings based on probable sales, how much the advance will be. She must establish who will buy the book and where it will sit on the shelf. She must convince the marketing, and sales & publicity teams that the book will do well. Other sections on the checklist are for the publicity comments and sales & marketing comments.
What Albert Street want now! Submissions to the A&U Friday Pitch will reach Albert Street Books. But mention them in your pitch.
Susannah also showed us a spreadsheet for their forthcoming titles and dates stretch out beyond 2030!! We learned a lot and Susannah stayed to answer questions. It was a terrific afternoon!
As a new fun addition, Julie Murphy suggested a lucky door prize. Here is Caz giving Julie’s prize donation, ‘Farmer Schulz’s Ducks’ and the lucky winner.
I should have taken a photo of the drinkies afterwards because Caz found a great venue not far from Docklands and we had many people attend.
That’s it for now and our next event is a Meet & Greet on April 4th.