Meg Cabot Does Another Video

So if any of you guys are planning to get into video to entice kids to read your stuff, you can all take lessons from Meg Cabot. Here's her latest video - short, sharp, sweet and to the pointy point:

Do teens really prefer their books without eyeballs?

Over at the blog of Justine Larbalastier (Magic or Madness), the cover of her much awaited new YA book How to Ditch Your Fairy has just been posted.

It kind of reminds me of the cover of Screwed, the new book by Joanna Kenrick, who I met when I spoke to the Scattered Authors Society:

In fact it reminded me of an army of YA novels (interestingly, they all seem to target a girl readership):

Justine's fans knowledgeably discussed this 'eyeless' phenomenon in YA books:

Elodie: What is with that “girl with the eyes cut off” thing being so popular on covers?

Karen: I’ve been told the reason for truncating the face on book covers is that if the eyes are shown, the story seems to be about that person on the cover, whereas if they’re not shown, the reader can more easily imagine herself in that person’s position. It sounds silly, but I think there’s probably some truth to it.

Gabrielle: Om em gee, you caught Maureen’s eye-missing curse! I do love it though, especially how she flicks the fairy. Totally suits the title. Now I wanna read!

Faith: Oh no ...Your publisher got bit by the eyeless girl bug. WHY? I’m still psyched about the book… but WHY, COVER ARTIST? WHY? THE EYELESS GIRL TREND MUST STOP! *breathes* ...

Here is Justine's reply:

As for the eyeless thing. As some of you know I’m not a fan . . . In comment no. 10 above Karen explains that one of the main reasons for the eyeless covers is that “if the eyes are shown, the story seems to be about that person on the cover, whereas if they’re not shown, the reader can more easily imagine herself in that person’s position.”

Also these covers sell. The identification thing may be why. Gazillions of teenage girls have responded positively to them over and over again. Indeed, Maureen and Diana’s books sell very nicely, thank you very much.

Ultimately, the cover is about selling the book. Hence the lack of eyes.

I think looking at these books each on their own, they are very attractive covers. But together on a shelf, they kinda look the same to me.

These are all cool writers I enjoy reading. Maybe they deserve more stand-out covers, huh, publishers?

Meanwhile, over at the Booksquare blog, there is teeth gnashing over romance book covers. Hmm. Covers seem to be topic of the week.

The Wisdom of Whores Launch Party

My friend Elizabeth likens her experience of the AIDS world to riding her motorbike in India in the good old days when she worked there as a journalist.

Getting from A to B was straightforward enough. Except for the sacred cows. You spent all your time veering and dodging and braking to avoid the sacred cows.

And that's what her book The Wisdom of Whores is all about. The blurb on the book launch invitation declared:

An insider lifts the lid on the multi-billion pound AIDS industry - funny, fearless and ultimately shocking

Funny, fearless and ultimately shocking - that pretty much describes Elizabeth (in the fondest way possible of course)!

Unfortunately, having for days been looking forward to the free alcohol, er, book launch at the Wellcome Collection branch of Blackwells, I was not very well on the day.

Here I am looking decidedly blah amongst all Elizabeth's well wishers:

The Wellcome exhibition focusing on Death didn't make me feel any better. This is what greets you as you enter:

And this:

Elizabeth however was as awesomely vivacious as ever, showing no signs of any previous pre-launch nerves. Here's the author:

Her agent:



And her publisher:



All looking very happy indeed.

And here are the books! Aaaah. The tills were ringing as Elizabeth's friends obligingly bought their fourth copies.

if you look closely at the picture, you will note the "£2 OFF" stickers on every cover. The sticker on my copy chopped the byline off so that it read "By Elizabeth Pis -"

Sadly my blahness made it impossible to stay for the carousing (which I'd been looking forward to for WEEEEEKS!) after the launch, I had to crawl back into my sickbed.

So now you've done it, Elizabeth!

What's next?

No pressure.

Book Trailers: Putting the Multi into Multimedia

In another life I wanted to become a film-maker.

But then I sat in on a film-makers' convention in Manila (ages ago) and noticed that you had to wear a lot of make up and dress like an ice cream dessert.

So I became a writer.

Comes the internet, digital cameras, YouTube and the advent of book trailers and I decided I'd still love to have a go at film.

I mean, you only have to watch a few videos on YouTube to realise that the bar can't be that high. I took the advice of Edgar Wright, director of Hot Fuzz:

People always ask me how to become a director, and I always reply: Get camera. Start shooting. it's not great English but it's good advice. No matter what your background or experience, just get out there.

The Guardian Guide to Making Video (Jan 2008)

I went through my list of writerly friends, looking for gullible, willing and attractive talent to exploit and decided Elizabeth (whose sex-drugs-and-AIDS book The Wisdom of Whores is coming out next week! Buy it! You know you need to!) would be an ideal victim er, subject. She is pictured above preparing to throw a spear.

My equipment was rather thrown together - but hey, Edgar Wright, also says:

Don't let a low budget stop you. Having no money means you have no real limits. Just go for it. No excuses.

So what equipment does one need to create a book trailer?

1. Camcorder - my old hi-8 camcorder was last used filming my daughter falling out of her cot (she's nine now). The battery no longer charges so we had to keep it plugged into the wall. No problem.

2. Tripod - I had my late father-in-law's old tripod but it didn't have the right connection to my camcorder. So I decided to handcarry the camcorder. I brought up three kids, surely that means I've got steady hands.

3. Light - we had no lights but hey, there was a lot of sunshine around.

4. Sound - thankfully my old hi-8 camcorder had a socket for plugging in a microphone. And I had only recently blagged a proper microphone from a BBC friend (I was thinking of experimenting with podcasting) . In fact the microphone was the last piece of BBC equipment out of a news hotspot during one of the Beeb's quick escape routines - but that's another story ...

5. Red lipstick - presentation is key.

So Elizabeth came with a rather bedraggled sheet of paper listing the points she had to make. Lipstick was duly applied, camera plugged in. We could only shoot a certain distance from the open door because the power cable was rather short. No problem, no problem.

We shot a few lines and it was good. Then it began to rain. So we moved inside. Setting up inside involved moving all the furniture away from the door (we needed the natural light from the doorway).

We needed Elizabeth to sit because if she stood, the background would include some unattractive grey window frames. Also without the chair, the camcorder's power cable unhelpfully kept making cameo appearances.

Because we had no tripod, I had to stand rather painfully with bended knees. At one point the knees gave way - you will notice in the intro that in one shot the picture appears to turn over. That wasn't intentional fancy schmancy video work. That was me falling over. Having physio now.

Elizabeth had to hold the microphone, a rather tumescent presence in our video which happened to be about s-e-x. Without the mic you could hear the pitter-patter of the rain, the occasional rumble of thunder, and the neighbour's stereo blaring from an open window.

We tried to recruit some small people from the next room to act as microphone stands but they demanded compensation and Equity membership. So keeping faith with the traditions of indie cinema, we coped.

Here's the finished product -


The video was edited using Roxio Easy Media Creator - which pretty much does everything from capturing and editing music to cutting videos. I suppose next time I experiment with book trailers, it would be more appropriate for this blog if I sought a subject who's actually writing a book for children.

And in the spirit of committed geekery, I've started up my own channel on YouTube:

uk.youtube.com/candygourlay

Now all I need is a beret. Oh and dark glasses.

The Age Ranging Debate

My grandmother was not allowed to go to school beyond a certain age because she was a girl. She was desperate to improve herself and read voraciously, usually romances and serials.

When I was six, I opened one of her favourite book series, a 1930s serial about a character called Beverly Gray, and realised that I could read. I remember it to this day, that lightbulb going off in my head as I discovered that words together formed sentences and sentences formed paragraphs formed chapters.

I couldn't stop reading after that. I read the whole of the Beverly Gray series that long hot summer.

When I went back to school (age seven), I headed straight for the library in search of more books to read.

When I presented my stack of chapter books to the librarian she said, no, you're not allowed to borrow those books. The books were classified according to age.

I must have looked miserable because she sighed and said, all right, read this one aloud and prove that you can read. She made me read a paragraph from one book. And then another. And then another. And then she compromised and allowed me to borrow one of the books if I took one title from the younger reader section.

The majority of book publishers have just backed plans to print age guidance on their books.

In a Guardian piece titled Don't tell me how to buy books , Jack Hope denounces the idea as cynical:

The proposed move fundamentally misunderstands the egalitarian nature of reading - the idea that any reader can choose to read any book - and the choices all readers employ at times to challenge or soothe themselves. It also fails to understand the complex process of choosing the right books for the right child.

It does make me wonder. What will the kids make of it? Will the slow readers skulk around pretending that they are looking at picture books for phantom baby brothers? Will those kids who've had the reading lightbulb go off in their heads find themselves banished to the early reader department?

Here we go again.

Good Titles are It - and Some Shameless Advertising

I've just found out that the new book of my good friend Steve LeVine is now listed on Amazon (out this fall!!!) and it's got a beautiful cover and this humdinger of a title:

As it happens, the book of my other good friend, Elizabeth Pisani, is coming out next week and she's got a terrific title too which is amazing given her subject which is AIDS and the bureaucracy surrounding it.

Here's a screenshot from the outro I made for her video (that's the opposite of intro - and I'll talk about the video in another blog post):

I know, I know, this is a blog about children's book writing but there's no harm in a bit of shameless publicity between friends? That's what the internet is for.

Anyway, the main point I wanted to make was TITLES MATTER.

This became crystal clear to me at the recent SCBWI before-Bologna conference when a panel of agents read the first pages of blind submissions from the audience. They were asked to react the way they would to any submission.

Agents shredding submissions at SCBWI's Bologna conference

And react they did. It was at times a painful experience. It was like American Idol or any other show from TV's humiliation genre. It made me think of all the rejections I ever received and it made me imagine how agents must have opened my submissions and snickered over my leaden words, my unprofessional presentation, my ... but let's not tread that path again.

The main thing is: the agents always, always, ALWAYS wanted to read more when there was a good title.

So work on that title, folks. It opens doors.

Meanwhile, do feel free to buy Steve's and Elizabeth's books. I mean, it's sooo important that we children's authors inform ourselves about affairs in Putin's Russia and the state of the AIDs industry.

Another reason why we should all engage with technology

I am constantly bashing on about how children's authors have to engage with the internet, technology - with the default world that their readers are growing up with. A few days ago, I received this birthday greeting from my nephew in the Philippines - which absolutely made my day. Although it's made by his parents of course, this is a kid who doesn't see anything unusual in video-taping a message or chatting to me on webcam. He's cute, too.

Brighton Children's Book Festival: the Bookseller's-eye-view

Providing Brighton festival goers with books to buy were the kind people from Bags of Books, the Lewes based children's bookstore (one of a decreasing number of specialist booksellers in the country, I might add). Their stall was located in the corner of a room exhibiting some rather startling photographs.

This was the view from behind the book counter:

The Brighton Children's Book Festival

It was my birthday last Saturday and to celebrate I took a group of little girls to the Brighton Children's Book Festival. I was on a panel (about promoting yourself online) the following day.

Snowy Globe, their school's cuddly toy mascot, came along. Our task was to bring back photographs Snowy Globe enjoying Brighton and the festival. Here is Snowy Globe and my festival companions getting ready to board the train to Brighton:

Snowy Globe was suitably impressed by the sights at Brighton:


Brighton was relentlessly cool.



At Brighton University we slavered over the book display.



The theme of this year's festival is 'Leaping from the Page' - books finding other incarnations in comics, film, stage, you get the idea.

The kids went straight into a musical performance workshop using material from Feather Boy by Nicky Singer. The workshop was run by Nicholas Beeby and Kate Bray. While they were in the workshop, I attended a comics workshop run by Marcia Williams:



The kids then performed a scene from Feather Boy - incredibly well given that they only had two hours to learn the songs and workshop the scene! It was mind-boggling. I won't be surprised if Grace (the girl in the foreground) who sang the lead ends up on the West End someday!







After the performance, Laura Atkins who organised the festival, very charmingly interviewed Dakota Blue Richards, the young star of the film of The Golden Compass and a Brighton local. My girls were gripped by this personable (not to mention exceedingly beautiful) and well-spoken young person.





Of course, Snowy Globe paid close attention to all that was said.



And Dakota Blue kindly had her picture taken with girls and dog.



As did David Almond when it came time for him to speak about the turning of his books into films.



David A gave an inspirational talk about writing and adapting work for other media. Then the BBC adaptation of Clay was screened (the girls were a bit scared).



We then rushed off to Zizzi in the Lanes for a birthday supper and then to the beach and the Brighton Pier to milk the most out of the rest of the evening before we left. Unfortunately the funfair was already closed. But that did not stop my intrepid gang.



Sadly, because I was speaking the next day (and because the events were geared for an older audience), I didn't take the kids with me. As a result, I took no pictures. Sorry.

Choice Lookybook : Dory Story by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki

I really liked this one - my boys would have loved it when they were still toddlers. In fact, they probably will still love it now.

Do click through to see the larger version on Lookbook