Submissions on Show #5

April 2021 UK picture book submission

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.

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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).

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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, which are now all free to read (as this series will continue to be):

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…

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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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Sophia’s Smile – a heartfelt, hopeful text about the impact and contagiousness of a single smile.

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The Twins – a story in which sibling rivalry and competitiveness gets a little out of hand. Reading this back, it’s certainly not my strongest manuscript ever. But not cringe-worthily bad, either. I’d say it’s just average - which is never going to result in an offer.

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One Slippy Banana Skin – my attempt at a counting book, with a bit more narrative than counting books typically offer. It rhymes, though not in the usual way that counting books do (i.e. rhyming the numbers, e.g. five/alive).

I’m fairly fond of this one, and think it would make a fun book. Maybe I’ll propose to Sallyanne that we submit it again…

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Sallyanne submitted these texts to 11 publishers, in various combinations, with Wanna See a Penguin? and One Slippy Banana Skin submitted to every publisher.

Of those 11 publishers:

• 5 sent rejections – all within 3 months of receiving the submission

• 5 never responded – a 45% silence rate

• 1 made an offer (after responding within 2 weeks) for Wanna See a Penguin? – which became a 2-book contract once I’d sent them another text for the series
  

Here’s some of the (paraphrased) feedback I received:

“Thanks so much for sending Simon’s texts. I enjoyed reading them all, but I LOVE Wanna See A Penguin?, which is so entertaining and playful and I can see children really enjoying it! The voice is uniquely witty and distinctive. I’ll share the text with the wider team; I really hope they all like it as much as I do!”

“Thanks again for sending these over. We have loved reading through them – I am continually blown away by how versatile Simon is. There’s much to love among these submissions, and I was particularly taken by ONE SLIPPY BANANA SKIN, which is so funny and clever – the counting element is really strong.

Unfortunately, after discussion with the wider team, the feeling is that we’d prefer to wait and launch Simon’s upcoming titles with us before exploring new partnerships or pairings. We really want to concentrate on cementing this new author-illustrator partnership as the keystone of our strategy for Simon.”

“I’m sorry to say that we’re going to pass on this batch. My favourites were Love Is and Sophia’s Smile, both of which I’ve just shared with the team – but the consensus was that they didn’t quite stand out enough. But I hope you get lots of interest elsewhere! Please do keep us posted with future texts from Simon – super keen to work with him.”

“As I’ve mentioned, I love Simon’s writing but wasn’t sure if these ideas would work for us at the moment. However, I’d love to talk to you or him more about any other ideas that he may have.”

So, on the whole, a pretty successful submission, with a two-book deal the outcome.

It was particularly satisfying to have predicted that a publisher might be interested in more than one Wanna See a…? title, have that prediction realised, and to be able to send over an extra text as soon as OUP expressed interest in the first.

I’ve many more Wanna See a…? stories written, too. Whether my publisher acquires any of them will depend heavily on sales of and foreign interest in the first two. It’s probably still too soon in the series’ life to know the likelihood of that happening, but, as always, I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

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