Nosy Newsletter #1

October's events, including unexpected royalties, award invites and offers

Happy Halloween, folks!

If you’re in the spirit of Spooky Season, fantastic – I hope you’re reading this covered in blood, guts and gunge.

If you’re not in the spirit of Spooky Season, fantastic – I hope you’re reading this not covered in blood, guts and gunge.

(Basically, you do you, and I hope you’re covered in the exact amount of blood, guts and gunge as you wish).

Anyway, in case you weren’t aware, yesterday was the last day of the month, so, bang on schedule (OK, not quite – this was meant to go out yesterday, hence the blood, guts, gunge etc), here’s my Nosy Newsletter, with a roundup of anything noteworthy from October. I mention on my About page that this Substack will be a place for me to, among other things, celebrate the little wins… and the month just gone was uncharacteristically full of them…

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I sit on a bench. I gaze at the sea. I soak up the sun. I’m stunned by an email.

As well as being Spooky Season, October happens to be Royalty Season too: the first week of October is normally when I receive any royalty payments (if I’m lucky) earned for sales of my books from 1^st January-30^th June of that year.

(In case you want to know more about how authors make money from books – or need a way to explain it clearly to someone – author Ruth Ware recently put together a brilliant thread on the topic here).

Come October, I’m always hopeful that I’ll receive some royalties, but, given that sales and royalties are impossible to predict, and the fact that most books don’t earn out their advance, I never expect to receive any.

Usually, I approach the period feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation: excitement for what the payment might be (i.e. significant – unlikely), and trepidation for…well…what the payment might be (i.e. insignificant – likely). Trepidation normally outweighs excitement, because, like most authors, I need them to be more towards the significant end of the spectrum. And this year was no different.

In fact, this October’s royalty payment had (probably) never felt so important.

Earnings-wise, last year was my worst since going full-time as an author in August 2021. It was also the first year since I started earning from writing that I earned less than in the previous year (about 25% less).

After my agency’s deductions (15% plus VAT, so 18%, effectively), but before my expenses and tax, I earned £20,782. Of that:

• £4800ish was from events and school visits

• £3800ish was from Public Lending Right and ALCS payments

• £8600ish was from new book contracts (just the one for 2022/2023) and existing advances, and

• £3500ish was from royalties (roughly half of what my royalties amounted to in each of the previous two tax years).

It would be disingenuous of me not to add an aside here explaining how I can afford to write full-time on those earnings. In short, I can’t – not if I continue to earn that amount.

I also couldn’t have made the leap into writing full-time three or so years ago had I been without a cushion of savings (made possible by living rent-free with my parents until I was 27 whilst working full-time), or had anything other than a very small and manageable mortgage to pay on my shared-ownership flat (the deposit for which my parents helped fund).

I realise that I am extremely fortunate on that front, and feel very, very grateful The reality for many, those without my good fortune, is that writing as a profession – even part-time – is ‘inaccessible and unsustainable’ (though it’s probably sensible to take the article from which that quote comes with a pinch of salt).

Even so, I’d been worrying (as I have every year) about whether I’m in denial and burying my hand in the sand about the reality of ever making a living from writing. I console myself with the general wisdom that writing is a long game, and that if I give up, I’ll definitely never make a living from it, whereas if I just. keep. going. there’s a chance I might. (When, at an award-ceremony, I met Kes Gray, author of the Oi Frog and Friends! series, he told me it had taken him 20 years to write a bestseller (of the level of success of that series, at least.)

Still, my faith in that had dipped low enough for me to suggest to my agent that some very frank conversations about my future as a writer might soon be required.

And then, one gloriously autumnal afternoon, I walked down to Brighton seafront with my daughter in her pushchair, trying to get her to nap. It had been a frustrating and unproductive morning at my desk. When she fell asleep, I parked up, plonked myself on a bench, and took a moment just to breathe in the sea air and watch the sparkle of the sun on the water. After at least 45 seconds, I picked up my phone, and absent-mindedly looked at my emails. A message from my agency’s Financial Administrator. Royalties. Here we go. Brace yourself. What’s it going to be?

As it turned out, more than double my best royalty payment to date – and, after agency deductions, not that far off my earnings for the previous year. It was SO unexpected and out of the ordinary that I assumed it was a mistake. Thankfully, the statements showed subsidiary rights were sold for each of the books in one of my series, which explained it. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Just like that, those frank discussions with my agent were no longer so urgent.

I appreciate that sharing this information may seem crass, or vulgar. Talking about money, and specifically one’s earnings, still seems taboo, and is rarely done publicly in the publishing world (probably for good reason). I hope it doesn’t offend you. I share it not to show off or to brag (some authors’ payments will have been far smaller than mine, and some authors’ far larger ), but simply to demonstrate the unpredictable nature of author life, that one never knows what might be around the next corner.

Those royalties have, for the rest of this tax year, relieved a bit of financial pressure (GREAT for creativity), and helped renew my hope that, actually, maybe this career and passion of mine is worth sticking with (and worth all the uncertainty).

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I (try to) inspire and entertain the young people of Portsmouth

The team at Portsmouth School Library Service are renowned for being BRILLIANT, and every October, I have the pleasure of joining forces with them to try to inspire local children to read for pleasure.

For the last few years, this has involved running our ‘I Really Want to READ’ event, in which, as well as speaking to Key Stage 1, I run a separate story time session for Reception children and their parents in order to model how to share a book with a child.

There’s a wealth of research that convincingly shows that reading for pleasure leads to increased attainment across the curriculum, and that parental involvement is essential to fostering a love of reading: in fact, it has a bigger impact on reading than socio-economic status, family size or parental education. Hence the need to get children and their parents reading together. Having reaped the life-long benefits of being read to as a child, I’m passionate about spreading the word on this.

Last year was a bit of a bumper one for our event: I visited 12 schools, met 2,500 children and, courtesy of the wonderful Hayling Island Bookshop, sold 900 books – guaranteeing that many more children now have at least one book of their own at home (access to books being crucial for R4P and eliminating differences in attainment due to socio-economic status).

This year was slightly quieter, but across three days we still managed to visit six schools, 1100+ plus pupils, 200ish parents, selling 350+ books.

I’m already looking forward to doing it all again next October!

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I received an invitation to a party…

…which if you’re familiar with my debut book, you’ll know is the opening line of You Must Bring a Hat. It remains the only book for which I’ve won an award, but there’s a (very, very small) chance that I may win another soon…

Achoo! illustrated by the very clever and talented Nathan Reed, is shortlisted for the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards, which celebrates the best and funniest children’s books in the UK and Ireland, voted for by children.

A week or two ago, I received a save-the-date for the in-person award ceremony (at the Southbank Centre in December), which was a nice surprise, as I wasn’t sure there was going to be one (it took place virtually last year, I believe).

It’ll be the first award ceremony I’ve been to since I Really Want the Cake was nominated for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2018. And that’s very exciting, because, having worked on three books together, I’ll finally get to meet Nathan Reed in person, and not just via a screen!

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And final artwork of my next book with Ella Okstad…

Annoyingly, I can’t say much more about this, except that it’s about perfectionist tendencies, is out sometime next year with Oxford University Press, and looks magnificent (as Ella’s artwork always does).

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AND…an offer (for what will be my 29^th book)!

As well as finishing a new text, about sibling rivalry, teamwork and love (and tired parents!) – which, with some imaginative design, has the potential to be quite spectacular, should it be acquired – I worked on revisions of another picture book manuscript currently on submission.

This was after enthusiastic responses from a couple of publishers, who said they’d re-consider it on the basis I made a few changes. Immediately prioritising those revisions was worth the extra work, because one of those publishers subsequently offered for it. It’s my first offer since November 2023, so, like this month’s royalties, it came as a big relief – and was a really nice way to end an admittedly very satisfying month.

Oh, and I started this Substack…

…as you’ll know, because you’re reading it! Thank you to everyone who’s subscribed, and extra special thanks to those of you who’ve liked, commented, shared and recommended my posts. And to my one paid subscriber, El – you’re my favourite sister by far.

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And that’s all from October’s Nosy Newsletter (phew!). If you’ve read this far, thank you. I’m aware my posts so far have been rather lengthy. I promise they won’t all be. And I’m almost certain next month’s newsletter will be a great deal shorter. Until then, have a great month, all!