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You are here: Home / Archives for publisher

All Hail – KNIGHTS OF

October 27, 2017 By achuka Leave a Comment

Aimée Felone and David Stevens, former Scholastic colleagues, have co-founded a new children’s publisher, KNIGHTS OF, which will publish commercial fiction for 5 – 15 year olds.

from the press release:

KNIGHTS OF intends to focus on commissioning writers and illustrators from a diverse range of backgrounds. The company also pledges its commitment to a similarly inclusive approach to recruitment. A key imperative for KNIGHTS OF is to actively connect with UK BAME and working class networks and communities.

KNIGHTS OF will operate as transparently as possible in its relationship with contributors, partners and readers. Ensuring its books reach the widest audience possible will be central to the KNIGHTS OF strategy, and it will guarantee a significant minimum marketing spend per title.

KNIGHTS OF will offer unique and immediate access to all sides of the business using online live chat via its homepage (www.knightsof.media). Using this application, anyone will be able to contact the company and get an instant response to queries 9am – 6pm.

The launch campaign includes an online community #BooksMadeBetter (booksmadebetter.com), using social publishing platform Medium. #BooksMadeBetter allows established authors and underrepresented voices to champion each other, offering a safe space for articles, opinions and reviews from across children’s books, ensuring that all contributors are paid.

KNIGHTS OF is open to submissions via its live chat mechanism from today. There are no barriers tosubmitting, both unrepresented and agented writers and illustrators are encouraged but should refer to the submission guidelines on the website.

Felone and Stevens have reached an agreement with independent publisher Little Tiger Group who will support KNIGHTS OF with a broad range of industry
expertise, including design and production.

KNIGHTS OF Co-founder Aimée Felone said: “KNIGHTS OF was born out of a frustration with the lack of representative voices and narratives in children’s fiction. With KNIGHTS OF we can publish uniquely -putting our differences first and celebrating them, making it central to our business. The industry fails to publish and hire inclusively enough, we want to give new writers the start they deserve while building a more representative workforce. We are fortunate to have found incredible support in Little Tiger Group, who we have long admired, to help us bring our books to market in 2018/19. Our hope is that industry-wide support will follow, enabling us to go much, much further.”

ACHUKA wishes the venture every success and we look forward to playing our part in helping to promote the books on the new list.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: announcement, new, publisher

Funke moves to Pushkin Press after ‘editorial disagreement’

April 28, 2016 By achuka Leave a Comment

Following a parting of the ways between Cornelia Funke and Chicken House, the Reckless sequence will now be completed by Pushkin Press, The Bookseller has announced:

bookseller

Pushkin, which now has the UK and Commonwealth rights to the series, will republish the first two installments in the series, Reckless I: The Petrified Flesh and Reckless ll: Living Shadows, in paperback in September (r.r.p. £7.99). The first book will be published in a revised form, and both books will appear for the first time with the title they had in their original German editions and with new covers.

Pushkin will then publish the third volume, Reckless III: The Golden Yarn, in November for the first time in hardback (£12.99).

Funke said in a statement: “Had I been asked to write the most perfect UK publishing home for my Reckless series the result would probably be a mirror image of Pushkin Press. As a writer and reader I have been admiring the exquisite list of authors and as an illustrator their beautiful book design. So when Adam Freudenheim contacted me it felt as if I had been invited to an enchanted house I had admired from afar. I can’t wait to see my books on its shelves.”

via Funke moves to Pushkin Press after 'editorial disagreement' | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: move, publisher

Fiona Kennedy Interviewed by Liz Kessler About Malala

September 24, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

malala

As authors, we often get asked to do interviews for blogs. On this occasion, I decided to turn the tables and interview my publisher instead. So here is Fiona Kennedy, publisher of I Am Malala, talking about why this book – and Malala herself – is so important and so special.

…
LK: Have you met Malala? What’s she like?

FK: I was lucky enough to meet her and her family at their home in Birmingham. She’s just extraordinary. Tiny and gentle, but with such presence and such a sense of purpose and determination. I am sure she will fulfil all her ambitions. She is truly inspiring just to be with. She’s chatty, charming and witty – we talked about everything from why English schoolgirls roll their skirts up at the waist (very puzzling to Malala given our rainy, cold weather), to her practising for the school debating team, to how she is still recovering, to teasing her brothers, to missing her old home – all sorts of things. The family are incredibly close – it was a pleasure to meet them.

Full interview via All.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: author, interview, publisher

Louise Jordan launches kids publishing company

September 23, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

bookseller

Louise Jordan, the director of the Writers’ Advice Centre for Children’s Books, is launching her own publishing company to publish books for children.

Jordan said she decided to create Wacky Bee Books, based in South London, after seeing through her job a lot of good writers who weren’t getting published. “I was keen to publish those writers I was mentoring through the Advice Centre who I saw had great potential but weren’t being picked up by the bigger publishers. I look forward to working with all these talented writers and helping them find their readers.”

She will publish titles for children aged 5-8 (“Little Bee” books) and some for those aged 9-12 (“big bee” books) – and has two lined up for this year: Geronimo, The Dog Who Thinks He’s a Cat by Jessie Wall, illustrated by Emily Stanbury (p/b, £5.99), and The Great Farty Slob Beast by Charlie Farley (p/b, £6.99), illustrated by Joe Barleymow. Both will be released 1st October.

via Louise Jordan launches kids publishing company | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: publisher

A Visit to David Fickling Books, Oxford

August 4, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

david01

Hardly was I through the door to David Fickling’s office than he was up from his desk eager to share with me some special preview boxes for a forthcoming illustrated project that he is particularly excited about.

Fickling is the kind of editor who exudes excitement for all his enterprises of course, but he did appear to be particularly animated on behalf of this one, the details of which I am sworn to secrecy about, except to say that I was shown and heard enough about the concept to say that I am just as excited to see the project’s eventual fruition, which is not likely to be before the later part of 2016.

The boxed preview editions are being lovingly produced and assembled by hand with the express view of becoming collectors’ items and having a value of their own in the future, but their primary purpose is to interest foreign publishers to buy into and extend the print run.

There had been a longstanding open invitation to me to visit the offices of David Fickling Books ever since it had been established as a Random House imprint based in Oxford over twelve years ago. It is now a fully independent publisher, working out of the same Beaumont Street offices, with its sister company The Phoenix just a couple of doors away.

For a publisher of such influence and renown, with an annual lecture named after him, Fickling’s Wikipedia entry is woefully inadequate. But for all his larger-than-life, booming-voice, bow-tied presence, self-promotion and self-perpetuation do not really interest him, although he is very keen to leave behind a legacy and to create an enterprise that will have longevity.

He likes to consider himself a merchant – someone who is producing fine artefacts, and bringing them to market. And he wants the David Fickling books logo to be a stamp of enduring quality.

He is unabashed about the involvement of several family members in the publishing team. We joke about how he might be one of those publishers who retain an association with the firm well into old age, regularly turning up at the office into his nineties, keeping an eye on how the younger generations are steering things along.

Now in his sixties, there is little sign of him taking things easy. The only indication I saw of his age was some tentative mobility on the steep flight of stairs down to the basement offices, from where, amongst other things, orders from the online shop are processed and dispatched.

david03

If an author is published by DFB, all that author’s works are available to buy from the DFB shop, even if published by a rival firm.

We spoke quite a bit about his early days at OUP, working alongside Ron Heapy for whom there is no Wikipedia entry at all and about whom Fickling speaks just as warmly as everyone I have ever met who was associated with him. [I remember James Riordan, in particular, being more eager to speak about Heapy than himself when I interviewed him for the TES over lunch at Arundel.]

Fickling still has on his office shelves many of the poetry anthologies from the 1980s that he worked on at OUP (including one illustrated by a fledgling Nick Sharratt, hired by Fickling) and says that poetry is something he is keen for DFB to feature prominently on its list. He is proud of having published a sumptuous edition of Wayland by Tony Mitton, illustrated by John Lawrence (and winner of last year’s CLiPPA Poetry Award). Taking a copy from the shelf, unperturbed by my confession that I had not enjoyed it as much as Mitton’s earlier, more lyrical work, he proceeds to read aloud several stanzas.

But if there is one subject that energises Fickling beyond all others it is that of comics. “We have lost them all,” he laments. “All bar The Beano.”

He sees this as one of the great tragedies of children’s reading over the last few decades, and is why he is so pleased that The Phoenix, successor to the DFC, a comic launched by Fickling seven years ago, is, now under the editorship of Fickling’s son, Tom, proving to be viable with a steadily growing subscriber list.

phoenix

The cover price of £2.99 seemed somewhat steep for a weekly comic when it launched in 2012, but now seems perfectly reasonable – The Beano is £2.20.

I am taken two doors down the street to The Phoenix’s domain, and the atmosphere there is electric. Three of the most recent copies are thrust into my hand and I’m shown a mind-boggling grid mapping out features against weekly editions, as well as various illustrations and home-made copies sent in by readers.

phoenix01

Amongst the editorial, illustrating and writing team in the back room is novelist John Dickinson (son of Peter Dickinson), author of the futuristic SF novel WE, whose official role with the comic is Chief Finance Officer, but also writes some of the strips.

At the time of my visit there were Five Golden Keys to be found in order to SAVE the Phoenix from Doom. The finder of each key gets a feature page. Two of them had already been discovered, so two such features were included in the issues I took away.

phoenix02

The comic has a a regular format with weekly features such as the Phoenix Phictionary, a FanFare page featuring contributed artwork, and Phoenix Soup – a double spread that includes a Q&A with one of the writers or illustrators, a book recommendation and more. There’s a great variety of comic strips which come and go through different sequences of editions (hence the need for the complicated planning grid).

phoenix03

In issue 186 Dark Lloyd (a strip based on Jamie Thomson’s The Dark Lord novels) returned having been last seen in issue 170. I particularly liked Pow!, an almost wordless strip by Alexander Matthews that reappeared in issue 185 after an absence of nine weeks. As a regular reader one of the excitements about getting a new issue must be to see which strips are continuing, have returned or are taking a rest.

As David led me out of The Phoenix offices and back along the street he stopped beside the specially commissioned stone engraving by Bernard Johnson which stands in place of a brass nameplate.

david02

When I got back to my car there was a note on the windscreen which read “Please don’t use my parking space again.” I cannot have followed Rosie Fickling’s directions to the unmarked secret parking space correctly, so my apologies to the disgruntled resident.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Features Tagged With: editor, indpendent, OUP, Oxford, publisher

Chicken House Has A New Website

July 9, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

Barry Cunningham’s Chicken House is celebrating 15 years in publishing children’s books by launching a newly designed, fully responsive website. It looks rather good! Go take a look:

http://www.chickenhousebooks.com/

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: publisher, website

Q&A: Kids Can Press senior editor and author Stacey Roderick – Quill and Quire

April 17, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

Ever wondered what it’s like to (temporarily) hang up your editor’s hat and write your own book? To have it published by your employer? We asked Kids Can Press senior editor Stacey Roderick, whose first picture book, Dinosaurs from Head to Tail (illustrated by Kwanchai Moriya), was released by Kids Can in March.

You’ve been editing children’s books for almost 15 years, but (other than collaborating on Centsibility in 2008), haven’t really ventured into author territory. What prompted you to write a picture book now? It is something I’ve always wanted to do – I have a lot of story fragments sitting in a file on my computer. And now that I have a young son, I spend even more time reading picture books than I did before. But to be honest, I’m not sure I would have dared try it if the opportunity hadn’t presented itself through my development work as an editor.

For the full interview: Q&A: Kids Can Press senior editor and author Stacey Roderick – Quill and Quire.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: author, editor, interview, publisher

New Children’s Publisher To Launch At Bologna

March 18, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

bookseller

Ruth Huddleston, a former sales and marketing director of Templar Publishing, and her husband, author and illustrator David Ellwand, are launching their own publishing company, Old Barn Books.

The company will publish seven titles this year, including three pre-school photographic board books by Ellwand  – Bluebell Bears (April, £6.99), Wake Up, Alfred! (May, £6.99) and Racing Bears (June, £6.99).

Other books in the pipeline include an Alice in Wonderland, a board book by Alison Jay (July, £7.99), and Hare, a hardback picture book about hares by first-time author and former Daunts bookseller Zoe Greaves (August, £10.99).

…

The children’s titles will be distributed in the UK and export by Bounce Sales and Marketing.

Old Barn Books will officially launch at the Bologna Book Fair on 30th March at the Publishers Association Stand.

via Huddleston and Ellwand launch Old Barn Books | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: launch, publisher

Janetta Otter-Barry To Set Up Own Publishing Company

March 8, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

A new company, Otter-Barry Books, is to be set up by Janetta Otter-Barry, well known as an award-winning publisher of children’s books. Formerly editorial director of Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, she has, for the last six years, published her own children’s list under the Frances Lincoln imprint, winning numerous awards such as the SLA Information Book Award, the English 4-11 Award and the CLPE Poetry Prize. Now Otter-Barry is going fully independent with a team including board Directors Jon Rippon (Finance) and Gail Lynch (Sales and Marketing), alongside Judith Escreet as Art Director and Caterina Favaretto heading up Foreign and Subsidiary Rights. Rippon Publishing Management assisted Janetta with the set-up, and the company is financed by three private investors. Sales and distribution will be provided by Bounce Sales and Marketing and GBS, Australia and New Zealand will be handled by Walker Books Australia. Arrangements in North America will be announced shortly.
Janetta Otter-Barry says, "This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, inspired by Frances Lincoln herself, and now feels like the perfect time for me, with secure financing in place and a "dream team" of talented colleagues. I intend to publish books that make a difference and challenge boundaries. Watch this space!"

via Book Trade Announcements – Janetta Otter-Barry To Set Up Own Publishing Company.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: announcement, publisher, publishing

Feature On Gecko Press publisher Julia Marshall

February 9, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

stuff

Based in a small street in inner Wellington, Julia Marshall runs a global children’s publishing business.

Like the native animal it is named for, Gecko Press aims to be nimble, quick and curious.

About 85 per cent of titles are based on translation rights.

The remainder are original New Zealand books by well known authors such as Joy Cowley, Gavin Bishop, Jenny Bornholdt, and Mary McCallum.

The company’s books based on translation rights are sold mainly in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and China. And of course, New Zealand.

In 10 years Marshall’s company has grown from publishing four books a year to 20, reaching $1.3 million annual turnover, employing four fulltime staff and garnering plaudits from hard-to-please critics.

Her titles are what she likes to describe as "curiously good books" and are sourced from French, German, Belgium, Swedish, Polish, Dutch and Japanese publishing houses.

A freelance team of translators then translates the books into English for sale to English-speaking audiences.

Among the New Zealand books – she produces about four originals a year – Joy Cowley’s Snake and Lizard has enjoyed runaway success, with the rights being sold 11 times around the world.

via Gecko Press publisher Julia Marshall maintains nimble approach | Stuff.co.nz.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: indpendendent, New Zealand, publisher, small press

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