Better Know A Conference: SCBWI

Overview

This week in Better Know a Conference: the SCBWI (the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators).

The 2011 winter conference just occurred in New York City (January 28th through 30th), but never fear! There's a summer conference being held in Los Angeles August 5th through 8th of this year, and it's never too early to gear up for SCBWI Winter 2012 (to be held January 27th through 29th in New York City).

The Pros

· As mentioned above, there are two SCBWI national conferences per year, which means twice the number of opportunities to attend—regardless of your preferred season or coastal affiliation! (Unless you love fall and are from Kansas, in which case you can pick either one.)

While I think it's probably overkill to attend both conferences in a given year, I think it's a really good idea to switch up your choice from year to year (if you can). You'll likely meet different folks and form a more comprehensive view of the children's book market, which will help you both in terms of networking and developing new projects.

· This conference has an additional audience! Not only do you get to hang out with writers, authors, agents, editors, publishing professionals, &c, but you also get to meet and network with illustrators.

Now: I'm no expert on children's books, but from what I understand, it's the editor—not the author—who ultimately selects the illustrator(s) who will work on any given children's book project. Keep in mind, then, that you're not going to this conference to "pick" an illustrator, but it never hurts to network with them. Not only can you make some new friends, but it can help you immensely to have connections in your field (think recommendations, referrals, opportunities for collaboration, &c &c).

· There are a variety of regional events throughout the year in case you missed the last national conference or can't afford to go to the next one. With dozens of events being held in April alone and over 70 chapters in the United States (there are also international chapters!), there's bound to be something to interest you that's 1.) close to home and 2.) coming up soon.

The Cons

· As is virtually universally the case, national conferences cost a pretty penny. Registration for the winter 2011 conference ranged from $350 – $415 (depending on whether you were a member and whether you registered early), with optional pre-conference programming running an additional $200 – $225. Add to that the cost of travel and three nights' stay in New York City (over $200 per night, even with the SCBWI discounted room rate) and the whole shebang could easily set you back over $1,000.

· As mentioned above, the conference provides a great forum for authors and illustrators to meet and network. As also mentioned above, since editors generally pair authors and illustrators, it's unlikely you'll be able to use the conference as a way to find yourself an illustrator. By all means, if you really hit it off with an author/illustrator and want to pursue a side collaboration, go nuts, but don't expect to be able to sell the project to an agent or editor unless the two of you are already pretty well-known.

While I'm on the topic: for those of you who have experiences in this area, please post in the comments! I don't know as much about children's book publishing as I do about the adult side of the business.

· Because there are two conferences per year, most people will only attend one of them. Moreover, information about the subsequent conference (attending agents/editors, keynote speakers, and so on) probably won't be available while you're planning for the current one, so you'll invariably miss out on some events you'd like to attend/folks you'd like to meet. Again, switching up your venue (East Coast/West Coast) from year to year might be your best option (unless, of course, you've got the time and the cash to attend both each year).

Some DOs and DON'Ts

· DO network. It's why you're there! Don't be afraid to exchange contact information with other authors/illustrators, interested industry professionals, &c, &c.

· DON'T interrupt. Again, if you have a clear shot to briefly chat up an agent or editor, do go ahead, but don't interrupt them while they're engaged with someone else or while they're eating/otherwise occupied. It feels like a missed opportunity, I know, but trust me: it's much better to remain (temporarily) unknown than to make a bad impression.

· DO your homework. Read the SCBWI "Just Getting Started?" page, including their FAQ, as well as their official conference blog, which has invaluable information about past conferences. You can also look up the #NY11SCBWI hashtag on Twitter to review all the comments people made while they were actually in attendance.

· Finally, DON'T worry if you can't make/afford the national conference this year or next—as mentioned above, there are literally hundreds of regional events offered by the SCBWI year-round that you can take advantage of until you can go to nationals.

That's it for this installment, folks—questions and suggestions in the comments!

Genre Sales 2: Children's/YA (Part 2 of 8)

Technical problems delayed today's post—sorry, everyone! — E

As we forage into the domain of children's and young adult literature, mes auteurs, keep in mind that this isn't exactly my forte. Therefore! In addition to my usual caveats (this is not legal advice, if you lose money because you did something you thought I told you to do it's not my fault, &c), also: my background in and biases toward adult trade will likely show through here, so please don't hesitate to call me out in the comments if you find me a bit afield.

Now then!

Based on my experience, some numbers, some intuition, and some anecdotal evidence, it looks like children's/YA is flat or slightly up compared to last year. As I've mentioned before, this/these genre(s) weren't as badly hit by the last couple of years' recession because 1.) children's books tend to be less expensive on a per-unit basis than adult books, and 2.) people may cut back on spending for themselves when times are lean, but they're much less likely to cut back on stuff for their kids. Especially if stuff = books.

It also appears that children's/YA literature is remarkably resistant to the electronic format, especially as regards titles for younger children (age six and under). This shouldn't really come as a surprise; picture books, pop-up books, &c are still very much reliant on the vehicle of the physical book. I'm not sure kids this age actually prefer physical books to e-books, but parents are less likely to trust the little ones with iPhones than, say, durable board books, and it seems that parents also prefer to read to children from physical media. For now.

For older kids (middle grade and young adult), sales of physical books still seem to dominate those of e-books, though not to the same extent. I imagine that as e-reader prices come down and teenagers (who are already super comfortable with electronic media) start to get these as gifts from tech-savvy family members, we'll start to see that change.

In terms of sub-genre breakouts, the numbers get a little dodgy. Sales do seem to be pretty solid in the YA fantasy area, so while vampires are a bit tired, you're probably in good company if you've got demons, daemons, witches, &c floating around.

Thus, in high-quality, twenty-four karat Bullet-O-Vision™:

• If you're writing children's/YA, you're in luck! Sales are pretty solid and you actually have a shot at making money. Not J.K. Rowling money, but you're better off than most writers of adult fiction. (More to come on this front as this week unfolds! Also next week.)

• The encroachment of e-book sales isn't occurring as extensively or as rapidly in children's/YA as in adult trade, so you don't have to worry about making your ms look good on the iPad. (Yet.) You'll still probably want to talk to your agent about how e-rights will be handled. Yes, even for the un-e-bookable.

• Within the larger realm of children's/YA, fantasy (of all stripes) continues to sell well. What can I say? Kids love magic.

And that's all I've got for you today, meine Autoren. You know where to go for comments, and next up: fantasy! For grown-ups!

Genrification

It's been awhile since I've run a poll, and since 1.) I've noticed several new followers as of late, and 2.) I'm gearing up for another round of genre-specific sales smackdowns, I figured I'd offer you, gentle readers, the following poll:



Have at it!

Full Disclosure Fridays

Friday: round up day! Eric is out, Laura is in, round up below:

Before we begin rounding up, I think we all need to address the elephant in the room: the new FTC regulations for bloggers. Although I won't do the discussion justice, the FTC has more or less said that if a blogger receives a free product for review and doesn't disclose where that product comes from, they will get slapped in the face with fines, whereas newspapers etc. don't need to adhere to those rules. Slate discusses, Janet Reid discusses, and Ron Hogan writes not one but two open letters to the FTC. When it comes down to it, I firmly agree that we're so inundated with product placement on such a regular basis that we're basically immune, so what difference will bloggers really make? And honestly, who reads blogs?

In the interest of full disclosure, I have tallied up all of the fabulous free things Eric and I have been given because of this blog. We have, collectively, received: zero presents, zero freebies, and only one offer of marriage, which wasn't for me—always a blogsmaid, never a blogs. We only have until December 1st until the new FTC rules go into effect, so hurry up, people, and make with the perks. This paragraph was brought to you by Dungeons and Dragons Spellcasting Soda, and by the contest in the last paragraph.

I don't know if you guys heard, but the literature Nobel was announced yesterday, and Herta Müller, a Romanian German, won. There are great roundups of links at Bookninja and the Atlantic Wire. Shelf Life yawns, and the Guardian says the Nobel judges should start looking outside of Europe, but the excerpts at the Book Bench are pretty cool.

You know what else is cool? After 49 years, the author and illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth are getting back together. Just like your divorced parents! Except, you know, for real. And after 80 years the official, authorized Winnie the Pooh sequel is happening (which hopefully won't suck, but might. Read the except and decide for yourself). I hope pirates can leave WtP alone...

Wil Wheaton (who was in the movie Flubber and also Star Trek: The Next Generation) has a bone to pick with pirates. Someone jacked the audiobook he made by himself, which means that it's not fat cat, pork barrel spending, big business publishing that's suffering, but rather a single individual, which is somehow way sadder than stealing from an industry with thousands of workers and slowly rotting said industry from the inside out. Dan Brown is being pirated all over the place as well, but since he only bathes in liquid gold it hurts my soul a little less. Booksprung writes about how publishers are encouraging book piracy, and I hear we should worry about the Napsterization of books. It would probably help if we could identify the five most important moments in the formation of digital publishing, or we could take a deep breath and realize: the mass market paperback was supposed to kill the hard cover, so maybe this won't be so bad either. Publishing should take a page from zombie culture, and learn to survive.

Some things are not worth surviving for, and one of them seems to be truly terrible agent/editor meals. Also distressing is that, while And Tango Makes Three (the picture book about the gay penguins) has been racing up the charts despite being banned, most people don't realize that the penguins were broken up by a lady type penguin. In 2005. (On the plus side, they did the John and Kate Plus 8 crash-and-burn with way more class, and fewer babies.) Librarians are going to be replaced by robots, Harvard bars books (by putting bars on the shelves...get it? Ah, puns.), and people are actually making lists of the top ten most depressing books.

Let's try and salvage the optimism of the day (it is a Friday, after all, and my one day to exploit the captive blog reading population) by sharing a dream of mine: being in Sarah Vowell's shoes and having Jon Stewart tell me I am so smart. Sigh.

Speaking of authors everyone wants to be, Joyce Carol Oates wrote a really spectacular article about her lack of mentors, and how it affected her writing. Michael Chabon is writing his next book about how he became who he is today (that one's for you, Moonrat), and Wanda Clark writes about how writing in prison is easier than writing outside (that one's for all of you struggling with procrastination).

So, I was going to have a contest that involved the now defunct Christian version of Sarah Palin's memoir, but then I chanced upon the Conservative Bible Project and just... I am so pleased with America right now. So my contest for you: edit the Bible! Come up with an ideology to support, and tell me in the comments how you would edit the Bible to support your beliefs. Winner gets featured next week, and potentially stalked by those involved with the CBP who don't appreciate being mocked, thank you very much. See you next week!

Genre-Specific Sales, Part 2 of 8: Children's

So, as always, some caveats:

#1: I work in adult sales. (I hate telling my friends this because they assume it means I only help sell erotica.) Children's books are not my specialty, but I've taken the liberty of talking to some of the children's sales folks at my house, so hopefully you'll still find some useful information here.

#2: When I say "children's," I generally mean "not adult" (i.e. everything from baby books through YA). I'll break things down further as I go.

Onward!

Now, children's books are divided in number of different ways, so I'm going to summarize here (hopefully without glossing over anything too much). First, by age range. You can find a more specific breakdown here, but I'm going to use slightly broader strokes. Generally, you've got picture books (children younger than 6), chapter books (ages 6 - 9), middle grade/MG (ages 8 - 12), and young adult/YA (ages 12+). The distinction between MG and YA can be a little blurry, but here's a pretty good explanation. In a nutshell:

• MG protagonists are usually in the age range of 8 - 12. YA protagonists are usually 12 or older.
• The word count for MG is around 20,000 - 40,000, whereas it's 50,000 - 75,000 for YA (as Jessica Faust notes here, these numbers are a little fuzzy, so take this with a grain of salt).
• MG plots tend to center on the protagonist's internal world, whereas YA plots are more complex and are more concerned with the protagonist's effect on his or her external world.
• MG is chiefly read by late elementary/middle school students; YA is chiefly read by high school students and up.

Basically, the MG/YA question boils down to Ramona Quimby vs. Bella Swan (shudder). Which is your protagonist?

Yes, now, sales. Alack, sales are still soft (and are projected to remain so), but it looks like adults are still more willing to spend money on their kids than on themselves, so for now, children's sales are doing relatively well across the board. (Remember yesterday's discussion on paperbacks versus hardcovers? Well, right now children's paperbacks are doing particularly well.) I also encourage you to check out this article on sales by channel. What's a channel, you ask? Well, click and find out.

Yesterday, I also told you to check out the impact of e-books on sales (hint: e-books are the future). Well, it's true for children's books, too! My theory is that this will be especially pronounced among the younger kids as they grow up with this kind of technology and are more comfortable with it.

Now, genre. Based on my conversations with a couple of children's sales specialists, YA fantasy remains the hot market, although traditional MG/YA and MG mysteries continue to do well. I get the impression that picture books are really a tough market to gauge, so I'm not sure I can point to any significant trends there. As everyone knows, vampires are still "in," but I strongly caution you against trying to time the market. Have you ever tried that with stocks? If so, you know what I'm talking about. You end up buying high and selling low. If you're just starting your YA vampire novel now, it probably won't be on shelves for two years, minimum. A lot can happen in two years.

Next, disclaimer: I am not making any legal warranty, explicit or implicit, as to the accuracy of my research. If you end up writing a paranormal romance YA featuring steampunk zombies and it doesn't sell, don't waste your time suing me.

Now that that's over with: projected "hot" trends include zombies and steampunk, so if you're writing along those lines (MG or YA, most likely YA), you're probably in good shape. If you're not, no worries, so long as your book is good. I'm sure traditional epic fantasy YA will continue to do well, and I doubt vampires are going to (re)die in the immediate future.

Finally, average advances:

According to Writing World, the average picture book advance (a few years ago) was $1,000 - $3,000, and it's probably not much different now. In fact, these numbers are more or less comparable to the MG and YA numbers, although YA tends to be a little higher, according to my chat with the children's folks at my house, and the average children's book advance is around $7,500 (as of this time two years ago).

Lo, in summary:

• There is a difference between MG and YA, and it's slightly more complicated than the age of the protagonist.
• Children's books sales are soft, but doing relatively well now. They are projected to do relatively well for the next several years.
• Paperback YA is especially hot. Current trends include vampires and zombies; zombies and steampunk are believed to be next. Perhaps Christian vampires and Amish fiction, as well.
• I'm not sure there's a pattern to the advances, but the ballpark for picture books seems to be $1,000 - $3,000 and MG/YA around $7,500. My best guess: $0 - $8,000 if you're writing any kind of children's book, with a median around $4,000 or so.

Not bad for a non-children's sales guy, no?