New blog post! New book! New Author!

Non Pratt at Catnip Books has signed Anne Booth's GIRL WITH A WHITE DOG, a novel that "will change hearts and minds".

Catnip has UK and Commonwealth rights through Anne Clark of the Anne Clark Literary Agency, and will publish in March 2014.

Girl with a White Dog is the story of Jessie, who desperately wishes for a dog. But when her gran gets a white Alsatian puppy, a mystery starts to unfold. At school Jessie is studying the Nazis' rise to power, and she starts to make connections, uncovering something long-buried, troubling and somehow linked to another girl, and another white dog . . .

Pratt said: "Jessie's voice is entirely authentic as a child on the cusp of realising how the world works. Anne's passion for her characters and the themes that inspired her to write this book bubbles fiercely under the surface of a beautifully told story - one with the power to move me, and the sales team, to tears." 

PUBLISHING vs. THE WORLD: PART I

Hi. So. There's been a decent-size discussion of late about book covers and gender: Maureen Johnson’s cover flip was a very persuasive exercise in demonstrating how books by female authors are marketed differently from how they would be if penned by a man. James Dawson’s subsequent blogpost on how his own covers have been jacketed nudged our attention towards the fact that the jacketing of book covers has less to do with the gender of the author, and more to do with that of the target audience.

Surely the publishers who jacket the books (as well as the people who write the insides) believe that boys and girls want the same thing from a book? A good story; well-drawn characters the reader can identify with; accessible language. Well, yes, I think publishers do believe that – these are the cornerstones of commissioning, but even before an editor makes an offer on a book, he or she must think of how to sell this to the reps, who must think of how to sell it to the booksellers, who must think about selling it to their customers…

And there’s the rub.

Despite the fact that the books are written for a young readers, they need to be sold to adults. Admittedly, teens have significant buying power, but they are still of an age where the adults around them are trying to nurture a love of reading by buying books for them. Obviously the younger you go, the greater the influence of adults over the contents of a child’s bookcase.

No one in my office, or who I follow on Twitter, or who I meet at book launches would dream of defining a potential reader by their gender (or race, or sexuality), but this is only a small subset of the purchasing population: what about the sales assistant who told my daughter, “But those are boys shoes”? Or the friend who apologised for only having boys toys for her to play with? Or every stranger in a queue who tells me I have a very pretty son because the 'son' in question is wearing combats…?

Publishers aren’t just selling to those of us engaged in this debate. They’re selling to those who aren’t. By asking them to move more strongly towards gender-neutral jacketing (which, FYI, mostly seems to suggest eliminating pink – a subject to be discussed in another blog post) we’re asking the industry to forego income in favour of ideals.

I like to think books can change the world, but people still have to read them. If adults who want pink books for their little princesses can’t buy them, does that mean they buy something else pink instead. Something that isn’t a book?  

Keeping it pro, yo.

So here's the thing:

I've noticed of late that my twitter feed has entirely degenerated into whimsical musings about the Hot Postie, photos of cats, updates of what children's book character my small child is currently obsessed with, and far too few tweets of a professional nature.

I'm pretty sure that many of the people who come to follow @catnipbooks have done so because they want to know about how a small independent publishing house works and really, I owe them a bit more than the occasional bit of publishing opinion. (And a lot fewer of the Ryan Gosling links...)

Although Catnip used to consist solely of me – and therefore my thoughts – we've recently expanded to include another member of staff. The fantastic Liz Bankes (blogger over at Books, bonnets & full frontal blogging and author of the excellent YA debut Irresistible, published by Piccadilly Press) joined in February as an Assistant Editor. Since then, we've been working hard divvying up Important Editorial Duties and hatching Awesome Publicity Plans in a way I've never been in a position to do until now.

This marks a new era for Catnip – we've DOUBLED the workforce – and we're taking it up a level. On every level. Including our facebook page, this blog and twitter. These things will happen piecemeal, because despite DOUBLING our workforce, there's still a huge amount for two people to do. But I think a first, easy step is for us to change the way @catnipbooks is used.

From now on, the twitter feed will be focusing on the things we think people really want to know about:

• Insight into editorial life
• Tips on submissions and writing
• News on exciting new projects
• Opinions on The State of Publishing
• Sharing interesting links from other publishers, editors, writers, illustrators and bloggers (and anyone else, really – you don't have to be connected to books to be interesting!)

It might be me behind the tweets – or it might be Liz. We're still people with personalities and we'll happily banter with other users (in which case, we'll make sure you know who you're talking to!), but we'll try and keep it focused on books, rather than buff postmen.

(And for those of you who will be devastated by a lack of Hot Postie updates, who want to know some of my more shouty opinions on publishing and books and who might be interested in my writing as well as my editing, you can follow me over on @NonPratt.) 

MUG SHOT #4 (or #7... if you see what I mean)

It's been a while since I did one of these posts... But it was my birthday the other day and I received this little beauty from someone who knows me very well indeed. For anyone out there as yet unaware of the awesome that is Friday Night Lights then get thee to a DVD-vending place and purchase seasons one-five immediately. Go on, do it, I'll refund you the cost of the DVD if you don't fall in love with everyone and everything in Dillon, Texas within the first episode*.

There's a lot of talent in this show – both euphemistically and truthfully – and it's hard not to fall in love with one of the characters. For me, it will always be Matt Saracen. Always and forever – not least because of the way he says 'football'. And he can draw. And he looks like this:

So pretty.

Clear eyes, full hearts... You really cannot lose.

Guess who's back?

Yo. I’m back, y’all.

Communicating, like most things, requires regular exercise and working largely alone, my communication muscles are less the toned sixpack of Taylor Lautner and more the… well, they’re more like my own abs. A bit, ahem, lacking. So when I took a sabbatical from Catnip duties, I didn’t really announce it very well.

But now, having enjoyed a refreshing break from all things editorial/marketing/publicity/production, I am back and raring to go.

I know the new year has become a bit old, but for the record, here’s what 2013 is going to mean to me:

• Focus. I’ve enjoyed my downtime – I’d like more of it in future, which means making my working hours count harder than ever before.
• Discipline. I will not procrastinate (as much – let’s be realistic, this is an intrinsic part of my character inherited from my father and I’m not about to have a procrastinatectomy). This means I will tackle at least one ‘unwelcome’ job a day, that way they won’t all pile up on me to deal with before I next go on holiday.
• Anticipation. The world of publishing works further ahead that I currently do and in order for Catnip to defend and develop its place in that world, then we’ve got to get out there the same time as the bigger houses. Because we are that awesome and everyone else needs to know this.
• Perspective. As in not worrying that the purples in my sales presentation font have slightly different CMYK mixes and saving the worry for covers, that other people will actually see.
• TELL PEOPLE STUFF. Like blogging more than once in a while, emailing people and making sure the authors I work with know how much I love them* and generally exercising my flabby communication muscles.

So here's to being less lonely and more badassier in 2013. Whoop!

*(If you’re a Catnip author reading this, then know that I love you LOADS.)

Gay writes

So the lovely Louie (@louiestowell) tweeted a link to the Guardian article about the acquisition of Stranger, the book that caused a bit of a storm when the authors indicated that a literary agent had asked them to straighten a gay character (link here). Viking Penguin have picked it up without such a change.

In linking to the article Louie asked for "Moar gay YA please".

And here is my response:

SOMEBODY HAS TO WRITE IT!!!

I do not necessarily see all the manuscripts. Of course I don't. But I do see some - and I often see the ones that other (bigger) houses might have deemed unsuitable. So, in my unique position as Commissioning Editor for a small publishing house, you might think that I'd be seeing some of those gay manuscripts that everyone (except Viking Penguin) are so scared of publishing.

Well I don't.

I think there are two reasons. The first is short and speculative:

1) I don't think bigger houses are actually scared of publishing YA featuring gay characters at all. For instance: James Dawson's Hollow Pike. A MASSIVE title for Indigo and a hotly sought after manuscript - I don't think I'm spoiler-ing to say there's some gay characters in there. Cat Clarke's new book Undone (Quercus) - the blurb tells you that one of the main characters is gay. That's just two examples (who also happen to be two of the biggest names in UK YA at the moment).

Which leads me to my main point...

2) No one is writing them. By which I also mean, no one is writing them well. Featuring a gay character should not be a 'thing', they should just be. I don't want a writer to stand above their character with rainbow lettering and a giant arrow saying THIS ONE'S GAY! Sexuality is not a character trait any more than having brown hair, or eyes or skin is. A raging crush on your mate's sibling, a constant need to change your hair colour, wearing eyeliner to attract attention to your eyes, pride in your family's heritage - those are things that tell you about the person. Knowing someone is gay only tells me that they fancy someone of the same gender. This isn't news. Teen readers want subtly nuanced, clearly drawn, real characters whether they're L B G T or S. The requirements are the same across the board.

I don't have a diversity quota that needs filling and I'm not going to commission a badly written book because I have an agenda. I am waiting - desperately, desperately waiting - for a manuscript to drop on my desk that will help me demonstrate that publishing really doesn't need any straightening out.

All you have to do, is write it.

Thoughts provoked by the Bookseller Children's Conference

I went to the Bookseller Children's Conference yesterday – if you follow me on Twitter you might have noticed my sporadic (lame) attempts at live tweeting. (In my defence, I was mostly trying to write notes with an actual pen on actual paper… 70% of which I can actually decipher today!) It’s the first time I’ve been in a position to go to this particular conference and I found some of it informative, some of it funny, some of it irrelevant. But most of all (and I think this is the point of an industry conference) it got me thinking.

Here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about:

• TIME
• MONEY
• GENDER
• ENGAGEMENT

On the matter of MONEY

Crap. You need a lot of it. We don’t have a lot of it… WE’RE DOOMED!!! But hang on – remember you old adage, Non – you don’t need money to have a good idea. You don’t even need to have the good ideas when a whole platter of them have just been laid out for you by some of the best in this, and other, industries. Sure those guys laugh at a budget of £20,000 for app development (*gulps*), but you don’t need a big budget to adapt the concept of a style guide for branding the identity of a book beyond the physical object…  

On the matter of TIME

Crap. You need a lot of it. We don’t have a lot of it… WE’RE DOOMED!!! OK. So this is a real problem for me. I barely have the time to edit the manuscripts I’ve commissioned inside/outside of my working hours, brief the covers, provide the sales material, prompt the publicity & marketing initiatives, answer emails, meet with agents, read submissions, write the POs, check the proofs... I’m going to have to think about this one (but quickly, because I don’t have much time!). Right. Got it. I am going to copy some of those clever things that other people do ergo avoid spending time learning by making my own mistakes. That’s basically point one again isn’t it? (Yes.)

On the matter of GENDER

Well. You can’t fight this one – here are Bowker’s findings on the gender/genre reading habits of children:

And although I’d like to say the quote of the conference came from the witty and entertaining Chris Riddell or the presentation perfect Sharna Jackson from Tate Kids, the one that sticks with me is Nickelodeon’s market research video where a little boy is asked why he prefers one website to another: “Dora’s for girls.”

Although… Dora is for girls. It’s targeted at girls, it presents information in a way that appeals to girls and well, perhaps this gender-bias is a self-fulfilling prophecy... *stares off into middle distance stroking chin thoughtfully*

Maybe there is room to fight the bias after all?

On the matter of ENGAGEMENT

The marked difference between these games and TV types and these bookish types is that the former do an awful lot of market research. As far as I’m aware (and correct me if I’m wrong), publishers don’t do this. And, do you know what? I don’t think we should. Online games, TV etc… these are meant to be pure entertainment forms, their sole purpose is to give children what they want so that they come back again and again and again. These industries have to do this because they rely on advertising for their revenue, and if they can’t gurautnee a large audience, advertisers won’t pay the money.

Free from the bonds of advertising (I say 'free' because I am putting a positive spin on the difference in revenue directed towards the industry I love so much), children’s publishing has a different agenda. It’s not solely about giving the children what they want. It’s about getting them to expand their minds. It’s a feeling of being ‘in this together’ across the whole industry: we just want one book – any book – to cause a child to want to pick up another, and another, and another. Obviously if you’re getting the commissioning right you want them to pick up ones you’ve published, but really, we just want them to become voracious readers of all the books. And to nurture the reading habit requires giving a reader a challenge that they might not know that they’re willing to rise to meet, so that they start reading different books from the ones that they’ve already mastered. So they move around the smorgasbord of books on offer and become more engaged as they evolve as readers. They aren't just candyfloss for the brain.

Eric Huang (@dinoboy89) from Penguin finished the conference on a fantastic statement about curating stories and encouraging children to go out into the world and find their own. Or something like that. (It's in the 30% of notes I can't read, sorry.) And if there’s one thing that I took away, above all else, it is that stories matter.