Hello again, everyone. It’s been a while! Sorry about that. I promise I’ve a good excuse for my lack of activity, though…
I’m actually writing this from a heated, broadband-supplied, shiny garden office/gym, which is a complete (and wonderful) novelty, as I’ve not had a dedicated workspace for the last 16 months.
And it’s not just anyone’s heated, broadband-supplied, shiny garden office/gym, but MY VERY OWN heated, broadband-supplied, shiny garden office/gym.
I emphasise that point not to boast (if you can believe that), but to reassure you that I haven’t just started squatting in some random person’s outhouse. Fortunately, the garden is also mine, although unfortunately, I do now have to commute to work – across a patio, and a lawn that’s doing its best to recover from a very wet start to the year. I’ve never had to wear wellies to any of my jobs before…
You may have worked out by now that, since I last posted anything here, I’ve moved house. We exchanged contracts two days before a non-negotiable deadline, imposed (understandably) by my seller who was heavily pregnant, due imminently, and in possession of nerves of steel. We completed nine days later, 22 months after I first put my flat on the market.
Honestly, the whole conveyancing experience was, to put it mildly, a bit of a circus – and not the funny, classy, awe-inspiring, Cirque du Soleil sort, but the much more depressing and unethical type, replete with genuinely morose clowns and even sadder animals – and until we exchanged, it looked as though we never would.
I was very, very lucky to have former-solicitor parents on hand to provide some last-ditch, out-of-the-box thinking (and even drafting of paperwork, to speed things up), which, thankfully, rescued the whole transaction.
So, all-in-all, I’m very relieved and grateful to be in our new home, excited to finally do some actual writing again, and ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I don’t want to move again until I’m within twenty years of a free bus pass.
Just a quick aside to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s subscribed so far. If you enjoy reading my work, please consider a paid subscription to access everything. An annual subscription works out at about £0.69 per week (for that, you get a free signed copy of one of my books), and a monthly subscription cost less than a very cheap pint/good slice of cake (and if you’re still a monthly subscriber after 10 months, I’ll send a book your way too).
I will, of course, soon invite you all in to my new work space (only metaphorically though, I’m afraid), but, as it’s not yet quite how I’d like it, for now I thought I’d welcome you back to my Submissions on Show series.
If you’re new here, this is the series in which I dive into all of my submissions since December 2019, and share:
the titles (and often manuscripts) submitted
the number of publishers submitted to
(paraphrased) feedback from the publishers that responded
the number of offers and rejections I received
and a ‘silence rate’ % for each submission based upon the proportion of publishers that never responded
In case you missed them, here’s a summary of the previous four posts in this series:
December 2019 UK picture book submission: 6 texts, 14 publishers, 5 rejections, 1 2-book offer, and 8 silences – a 57% silence rate.
December 2019 USA picture book submission: 4 texts, 15 publishers, 6 rejections, 0 offers, and 9 silences – a 60% silence rate.
August 2020 UK chapter book submission: 1 text, 16 publishers, 9 rejections, 0 offers, and 7 silences – a 44% silence rate
October 2020 UK picture book submission: 10 texts, 15 publishers, 9 rejections, no offers, and 6 silences – a 40% silence rate.
Now, on to the fifth submission…
April 2021 UK picture book submission
This submission consisted of seven texts:
Sean’s Shoelaces – this 257-word story starts with Sean spotting that his shoelace is undone, which, of course, is a problem that needs to be solved, as walking around with an untied lace is asking for trouble. But Sean’s solution leads to another problem to be solved, and his solution to that problem leads to yet another issue. And so on and so on – using page-turns for maximum effect – until an ironic conclusion.
I still really like this text. It’s light-hearted and silly, with no real message to take away (which is perhaps its weakness) – it’s just fun, and I think both child and adult readers would enjoy Sean’s unusual and unexpected solutions to his problems.
Wanna See a Penguin? – playing on the pantomime convention of ‘it’s-behind-you’, this story follows two friends, one of whom is a self-described penguin ‘expert’, on a wild penguin chase around a city. Of course, our ‘expert’ is anything but, although she does have a knack for spotting other black-and-white animals…
I wrote this with a series (and formula) in mind, in an attempt to be ‘more commercial’, whatever that actually means. Actually, I’m not sure that’s totally accurate: I didn’t sit down to write a commercial series, but once the idea for this story came to me (whilst reading one of Oliver Jeffers’ Hueys books), I realised it had potential for an educational angle and series potential.
Despite being fun to write, what I didn’t realise at the time was how much of a ball-ache challenge the texts in this series would be to read aloud at events, mainly because the entire text is dialogue between the two child characters and ‘seven-year-old girl’ is not in my acting repertoire. And also because every time, without fail, every child in the audience shouts out where the penguin is on every page, and I can’t make myself heard in the ruckus.
A story to share quietly at home, then.
Love Is – a poem from a collection I wrote which was submitted to publishers but never acquired, this has no narrative, no character development, no plot. It’s just a sentimental list, of sentimental rhymes! But there are lots of picture books that are just lists, so why not try to add another to the shop shelves, eh?
Here’s the list in full:
Fish and Chimps – a very surreal rhyming text about a family that has fish and chimps for tea on a Friday (as in fish and chimps come to visit, for tea).
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