SCBWI meeting notes -- Aunt George's House

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Date Posted: 07:38:45 02/14/01 Wed
Author: bethany
Subject: SCBWI meeting notes

I put this in Inkspot but I know some are checking in here to...

Here's the scoop on Independent Publishers:

Harold Underdown (previously at Charlesbridge now at ipicturebooks.com) opened by commenting on the article in the the spring announcement addition of Publisher's weekly on how agents are becoming a much more necessary part of children's publishing as editors have less time to read slush material. He said this isn't so with independents. They want to develop someone and foster a career with them. Charlesbridge has been publishing for 11 years and all their books are still in print and still listed in their main catalogue. (they have no back list) Harold left Charlesbridge in Dec. The new senior editor is Dominque Barth (not sure on spelling) and Lisa Laird is the asst editor. As of now they are not taking submissions as the new staff gets trained. Also, Charlesbridge only takes exclusive submissions and must be noted as such. They promise to respond in 2-3 months. This cuts their submissions to about 3,000 manuscripts a year.

He moved to ibooks because of his interest in technology. Right now his new company is putting out a lot of already published books, by aquiring them from other publishers to format in inbooks. ipicturebooks is partially owned by Time Warner but functions independently. They offer no advances but the book makes it to market in a few months so there is no wait time that the advance is supposed to cover. Pay for the author is 50% of the net income of the sales. For example if a hardcover book sells for $15, they would price it at $12 in ibook format. They sell quite frequently on Amazon or other discout sites so the $12 book sells for $9.60 and then the author gets their 50% for a total of $4.60 per book. It depends on the pricing what the author is to make. Right now he is not aquiring many never before published books but you can get the guidlines for submissions and or book proposal ideas at ipicturebooks.com.

Emily Easton, Publisher of Walker and Company. She worked with founder Sam Walker before his death. Beth Walker and son Sam are still actively involved in company. They also have an adult non-fiction list. This beneifts the childrens as they cross market some of the books occassionaly. The only staff that is separate is the editorial and marketing other than that the adult and children's shares staff. They published the best selling adult book Galileo's Daughter and will be publishing a book that was around in the 80's with the same title for their kids division. Their list is very editorial driven vs marketing. The editors meet weekly to discuss projects. They do preschool-YA but right now the list is made up of mostly PB's. Occasionally they get agented material but their best selling work has always come from the SLUSH pile. Current and or best selling titles from them are:

To the Top of the World, Tim Bradenberg
Look What a Leaf Did
MIss Malarky Won't be in Today

Occasionally they import books from other countries:
Star of Fear/Star of Hope
Shin's Tricycle
When Smudge Came

And they build a relationship with authors and illustrators, ex Eric Velasquez's Grandma's Record and books written by illustrator Kevin O'Malley.

She takes multiple submissions and prefers to see entire manuscript for PB's but please query on longer books.

Regina Griffin, editor-in-chief Holiday House. HH has been around for 30yrs. They have 15 on staff and put out 50 hardcovers a year. Owner is still involved and believes his relationship with author illustrator is the most important aspect of his business. Regina told many anecdotes about his long term commitment to authors and how close the staff is when making their decisions.

Overall all editors agreed that while advances may be lower than the major houses the sales records should be comparable. They all work hard to develop relationships longterm with their authors and illustrators. They all were extremely personable and excited by developing talent and seeing it take off although sometimes after they have helped develop a name a large house steals their talent away.

Walker's web site should be up in about a month but HH and Charlesbridge are active and you can get guidlines there.

Next month is Gina Shaw from Scholastic about what book clubs want.

Bethany

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