Personal Publicist for a not so Celebrity Author - Chitra Soundar

When my first book came out in the UK in 2010, other than a card from my publisher Walker Books, I did not do anything to celebrate it, publicise it or promote it. Only my Mum knew and she was proud. Even though it was my 14^th or 15^th book internationally, in the UK it was my first and it had fizzled out like a firecracker on a wet Diwali night. 

While I placed four picture book titles in India in 2012, life went on in the UK in a pattern of day job and rejections. The Indian books started coming out in 2014 and it coincided with my moving from a full-time job to a part-time situation. Now I had time to go into schools and I had found my sea legs so to speak.

            In 2015 – after five years of waiting, I had a second book accepted with Walker Books and a picture book with Otter-Barry Books. And to top that, my Indian picture book Farmer Falgu series too was going to be distributed in the UK by Red Robin Books and suddenly I realised four books were all going to come out in the last quarter of 2016.

            I decided it was unusual and cruel for a writer to have four books coming out in the same quarter. At the same time it was opportunity. (The Law of Lemons and Lemonade).

I didn’t want to throw the opportunity into oblivion as I had done before in 2010. Here is what I did to maximise the air cover I got while the smell of new books was still lingering on my doorstep.  So I decided to hire a freelance publicist.

But before I go further, here is the disclaimer - I’m not saying this is for everyone - because it does cost hard-earned money (money I earned at the day job or the advance I got for these books whichever was on top of the pile at the ATM). But at that time, I wanted a boost to my brand and I wanted to do justice for these two "diverse" books to be noticed. Would I have done this (or been able to) if I didn’t have a day job? Perhaps not.

            So for those who are curious, here is how I handled hiring a personal publicist even though I was not a celebrity author.

Step 1: Write a publicity plan

            I looked up the guidelines in the SCBWI publicity grant guidelines and I modelled one on it. I didn’t get the grant. But I had done the research At least I knew what I wanted to do.

Step 2: Find a Publicist

            I looked for freelance publicists who could be commissioned to work directly with me for my books. I found five who specialised in children’s books out of which two responded. One said No and the other agreed. I met with her and we planned a campaign for the two books that had a definite date and also because it fit within her budget.

Step 3: Surprise the Publisher

            Firstly we informed our publishers that I was going to take care of my publicity by ploughing back the advance. It did make them sit back and watch what I was up to. I also wanted to make sure we were not stepping on toes and both the official publicist and the freelance publicist knew who was doing what.

Step 4: Send word to the world

            Then my freelance publicist sent out review copies, blog posts requests, bookshop and festival requests. And we had to wait. Ah the waiting game, I knew how to play it. I’m a writer. I knew how to chew bed sheets, go on walks, cry into the pillow and press the refresh button on my inbox a million times a day while I waited.

Step 5: Start the in-house campaign

            While the publicist was focussed on the outside world, I was focussed on what I could do in the meantime. Here are some things I did while I waited.

·      Spruce up my website – I reformatted my entire website to look new, fresh and welcoming for all the new people who might look me up when they receive our publicity requests

·      Create posters – this is where Canva.com came in. I spent an unhealthy number of days on Canva designing posters to print, blog graphics and post cards and stuff. Canva actually sent me an email saying, “You’re here a lot, do you want to go pro?”

·      Write blog posts for my own website – I started writing about the books ahead of the launch to create anticipation.

·      Find friends who would host my blog – in addition to whom the publicist was contacting – I reached out to friends who were happy to host me on their blogs.

·      Create classroom content and extras for school visits – I have a small site under my banner for kids stuff – it has puzzles and activities and intro to my illustrators and such. I updated a lot of this content for the new books.

·      Request the illustrator to do a blog post – Frané Lessac (illustrator of Pattan's Pumpkin) was amazing. She agreed to be interviewed for my site and hosted my content on her blog too. 

·      Request the illustrator for resources - Frané Lessac was kind enough to make me colouring sheets and craft activities etc.

Step 5: Plan the book launch

            I did hit a block when I came to this. My freelance publicist wasn’t going to arrange the launch and I had to cold-call a number of South London bookshops. Most of them turned me down and a few looked me up and then turned me down.

            I turned to the amazing Nicky Potter who did publicity for Otter-Barry Books for help and she introduced me to the North London bookshop Pickled Pepper Books. They are amazing, aren’t they?

            Of course I wasted more time on the Internet planning the launch. I invited everyone I knew, create events in Facebook and ordered matching cupcakes. A wise author once said, “A launch without cake is no launch at all.”

Step 6: Write insane number of blog posts

            The publicist had arranged for me to blog on different sites. I had to find an angle that was different and unique to their blog about the same two books. I wrote over 25 blog posts in a matter of five weeks, not including the ones I had promised friends to write on their blog too. At one point I was so worried I was going to run out of things to say. Luckily my early life as a chatterbox came in handy.

Step 7: Make a Trailer

            I loved wasting time on the computer while watching reruns of Big Bang Theory. So I decided to try my hand at making a trailer. My one day course with SOA on how to make videos using iMovie by Shoo Rayner, came in handy. Interestingly, I learnt a few things along the way.

·      Get permission from everyone before you release the trailer into the world. Of course my publisher Janetta Otter-Barry was impressed and so was her team. My illustrator Frane Lessac loved it and she was happy to consent.

·      Use original photos, text and permitted content. Luckily I had my own photos and where required those in public domain I could use and attribute.

Step 8: Prepare for diversions

            As the first book’s publicity was proceeding, the freelance publicist had landed a full-time job. Now she was no longer available to promote my second book. But before I could panic, she managed to secure the services of another publicist and made sure the work continued uninterrupted. Things are always fluid and coping with them as they come was one of the things I do at my day-job and that was useful in dealing with this.

Step 9: Keep a Calendar

            I had so many balls up in the air that I had to create a calendar of events and blog posts and keep them updated. By now bookshop visits were coming in and they were spread across a range of 3-4 months. My calendar resembled a jigsaw puzzle in colour. I hoped I could find the edges if everything fell apart. 

Step 10: Be grateful for kindness of friends

            Few days before the launch, a school librarian reached out to me and asked if I could do two libraries and her school in her borough as a pre-launch promotion. I was so grateful for the support. Except fate interfered and sent the flu virus to land on me and the day before the launch I was on the road armed with my books and a stack of tissues.

And so, the freelance publicists who worked on the campaign had opened many doors I hadn’t been able to approach. I got into some really wonderful festivals and bookshops, got noticed by some organisations who would not have heard of me otherwise, got some print reviews in teachers’ magazines and trade publicity magazines.

It gave me the boost I needed and putting in all the work on my own, hours in front of a computer not writing, sweating the details of fonts and images on websites proved very productive.

            Whether you are traditionally published and want a leg up for your new book or you are self-published and want to build a brand, it might be a worthwhile option to look into. It is hard work and it involves spending money and I did a lot of DIY work myself – like posting letters, printing posters, writing blog posts, sprucing my website etc. But it was a good learning experience and I can build on the contacts I have now been introduced to.

Follow me on Twitter : @csoundar

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Why fund libraries when it's all online? - by Nicola Morgan

He was an intelligent man and he'd flown high in his career. I know that from the conversation we'd had up till that point. The point when he said, "But we don't need libraries, because it's all online now."

You can imagine the rattle of adrenaline through my veins. But I've learnt that in these situations a rant doesn't help matters. You have to go straight to the point.

"But how will you create readers," I asked, "Without libraries?"

"You can learn to read online," he suggested, clearly not having thought this through. But he's not alone in not having thought this through.

We're not winning the war to keep libraries (both public and school) valued and funded. We’re winning some battles but the enemy keeps popping up elsewhere, just as strong, blinkered and ignorant as before. We’re not winning it because of a fundamental misunderstanding by far too many people of what all libraries do. And what they do that nothing else can do, least of all the Internet. Unfortunately, many of these people are our elected politicians, entrusted with the education of our children and claiming to want a “fairer” society.

Libraries – and, crucially, their trained librarians – create readers. It’s that simple. Without the libraries you used as a young child, you would not be the reader you are now. I doubt any of us became a reader simply through the books our parents bought – even wealthy families wouldn’t choose to buy the quantity of books needed to feed a young reader. Young readers need, as James Patterson said recently, to be “inundated with books”, so they can find ones they like.

Liking books is not optional: it’s essential, if the child is to undertake the thousands of hours of practice necessary for the complicated process of becoming a reader. Teachers and parents, in different ways, teach children to read but that’s only the start of building a reader. Books do the rest and librarians curate the flood of books so that the child becomes a strong swimmer in ever deeper waters.

But that’s public libraries. What about school libraries? Why do we need those, too? Well, many families don’t use public libraries and, remember, we want a fairer society, where everyone can become a reader with a wide mind and big horizons, not just children with socioeconomic advantages. School librarians view each child, from whatever type of reading background or none, as a child who can, with help, have a richer reading life. They know better than anyone the full range of books, modern and classic, and how to make it enticing.

Too many elected politicians don’t understand any of this. Some, like the man I spoke to, believe libraries aren’t necessary because “It’s all on the Internet”. Oh yes, “it” is all on the Internet – all the words and knowledge you want, poems and stories, gems and sludge, recipes for bombes and bombs, facts and falsity, it’s all out there. And you can access it all (or the parts that Google throws to the top of the search results) and sift through it (eventually) and make good decisions about it (I hope) because you are readers. You are readers because as children you were inundated with books.

If politicians know this and still consider cutting funding, they must explain how they will create a fairer society when only the privileged can become real readers. Because that is what will happen where school library services are cut. Families who can afford to will fill the gap: they will buy as many books as they can and their children will have no limits to achievement. The children of other families will learn to read at school (I hope) but, lacking the necessary flood of book choice, will not become proficient enough to read widely for pleasure and so they will read much less. That would be fine if it was their choice. But they would have no choice.

Please help us win this war. CWIG (the Children's Writers and Illustrators Group of The Society of Authors) keeps fighting these battles, and so do loads of authors (particularly children's ones) such as Alan Gibbons, Cathy Cassidy and Malorie Blackman, and many ABBA bloggers and readers. But we need everyone to help spread the message that without a properly funded school library service and a dedicated librarian in every school, we cannot offer every child the power of reading. And without that, it’s just not a fair society.

Libraries are how people become readers.


Adapted from a piece for the Society of Authors in Scotland newsletter. 
Nicola Morgan is on the committee of CWIG, the Society of Authors’ Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group and is a former chair of the SOAIS. She is an Ambassador for Dyslexia Scotland and a specialist in adolescence, the science of reading and reading for pleasure. The Teenage Guide to Stress advocates reading for pleasure as a valuable anti-stress strategy.

School Library Services – and why we need them – by Emma Barnes

Something rather nice happened a few weeks ago. I hacking away at the coal face, trying to complete the edits for the third book in my Wild Thing series, when the publisher of my previous book, Wolfie, called to tell me that it had just won a prize – a Fantastic Book Award.

Writing is a funny kind of profession. It’s lonely, insecure, there’s no pension, and you never know if the next book will be taken on – but, being so unpredictable, it does produce its golden moments.

It was a real treat, winning the award. I got a certificate, a fountain pen, letters from the child judges. Best of all, I was invited to the presentation ceremony to meet some of the participating children. I heard what they thought about Wolfie, read their reviews, was stunned by their wonderful Wolfie board games and illustrations, signed their books and led a workshop brainstorming magic animal stories. (I’m tempted to steal some of their brilliant ideas!)

Celebrating the award!

I also got to meet the lovely folks at Lancashire School Library Services (Lancs SLS) who  actually run the award.

So, at this point, you’re probably wondering what this all has to do with the title – Emma supports School Library Services because they gave her a nice day out?

No, no, and no. Encouraging authors, nice though it is, is only a side effect of what School Library Services (SLSs) do. First of all, the point of regional book awards, like the Fantastic Book Award (FBA), is not really about the prize. It’s about the process. And that means the children reading, discussing – enjoying – the books. It’s all about bringing books and children together.  And that is what every School Libraries Service aims to do.

My winning book!

To which some might say – why can’t schools do this without a School Library Service? Just consider the following facts:

 - most primary schools don’t have a librarian
 - most primary schools have limited space for a library, and limited stock
- most primary school teachers are not experts in children’s literature, and so primary schools rarely have someone who can choose stock and advise children on which book to read.

 I know these things because I regularly visit primary schools, and have encountered many “libraries” that consist of little more than a handful of Roald Dahls and Dick King Smiths. I do meet teachers and teaching assistant who are passionate about children’s books and reading – but it is through their own personal interest. Wide knowledge of children’s books does not seem to be considered a key part of the job or its training. (I don’t blame hard-pressed teachers – I do blame an education system which has given so little priority to encouraging children’s reading.)

It’s the children that suffer. Here are some of the things that I have witnessed first hand, the result of primary schools without librarians:
  
 - a Year 3 child struggling and failing to read an ancient copy of Thackeray’s The Rose and The Ring from the school library. Nobody was aware that this was not in fact a young child’s read.
-  a boy giving up on a non-fiction book in disgust because its classifications of dinosaurs was decades out of date. 
- a school library that was revamped by parent volunteers, but where there was no library time, and no chance for children to borrow books, because there was no staff member to oversee this. 
- a school which was over 60% non-white, but where none of the books on the shelves had characters of the same ethnicity/religion as these pupils. 

Here, by contrast, are some of the things I’ve seen with a designated school librarian:

 - children’s reading being guided in a good way – e.g. if you like this, then perhaps you’ll like that: if you like The Rainbow Fairies, maybe you’ll like these books by Emily Rodda (also about fairies but more challenging).
- children able to say “I’m interested in Monet/dinosaurs/space/Greek Myths” and immediately being given something age appropriate that reflects their interest.
- regular library times, for quiet reading, but also finding out what library does and how to use it. 
- a wide range of stock which does not rely completely on just a few well established authors, and which reflects all ages, abilities and interests.

 It’s hard for individual schools to tackle these issues alone. The Society of Authors has been campaigning for every school to have a librarian, a campaign I HUGELY support, but the truth is it’s not going to happen any time soon.

Meanwhile School Library Services (SLSs) provide back up. They are the infrastructure on which individual schools can rely.

What does that mean in practice? Well, the first thing I saw when I visited my local SLS in Leeds was a huge warehouse full of books. There were shelves and shelves in all kinds of categories – and all of these books are available to, and regularly sent out by the box load, to the schools that subscribe to the service.

(A bad back must be an occupational hazard in a SLS!)

A school could phone up and say, “we’re doing a project on transport for Year 4” or “we’re struggling to find books for reluctant readers” or “we need books with Muslim characters” and the SLS would help. SLS staff know the stock. They can advise schools on how to access it, how to create a better school library, and how to create a reading culture in schools. They also organize author visits – so that children can meet authors face to face, and teachers can hear about new books too.

They also organize regional book prizes – like the Fantastic Book Award (FBA). For the schools and children involved, the FBA meant a chance to:

- meet in a weekly group to read and chat about the shortlisted books (chosen to reflect a range of abilities and interests)
- read purely for pleasure and to do other fun things, like post reviews online
- spread the word about the books in school
- let teachers know which new books are out there, and which their pupils enjoy
-  engage in activities like drawing the characters in the books, designing board games and eating chocolate muffins at lunch time! All these things help make reading “cool”.
- correspond with authors and meet them in person.

After the event, I was sent feedback from the children. Here’s a couple of quotes:

This morning was brilliant. Especially when we made the story with Emma Barnes, it was fantastic!

I think today was probably the best day in my life because I saw a real life author!

Unfortunately, School Library Services are closing.  Schools have to subscribe to their services – if they don’t subscribe, the service closes. Many parents don’t know what an SLS is or does, so won't protest – which must make them a soft target for cuts. In my own area, Bradford SLS closed in 2012, and  North Yorkshire SLS is to close next year. Who will step into the gap? Public libraries? They may try (I recently did a wonderful schools’ event organized by Oldham Libraries) but public libraries are also subject to deep cuts.

At a time when the value of reading for pleasure is being recognized and acknowledged – the research evidence for its benefits keeps mounting – it's bitterly ironic that the services needed to support it are being reduced.  I just hope that the politicians and public see what's happening before it's too late.

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Emma's new series for 8+ Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is out now from Scholastic. The second in the series, Wild Thing Gets A Dog is out in July.
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.   Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. 
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps


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