Real Life or imagination? Years ago, when I started on my writing journey, almost every book I read, or lecture I listened to, said: write what you know. Having led a normal and rather sheltered life I couldn’t think of anything exciting to write about. I failed at the first post. I could have written about my pet rabbit, who I spoiled by feeding it milk; bad, bad, bad. It was a while before I noticed he wasn’t eating his carrots, yet he was getting very fat. His nourishment was coming from the milk. Consequently, his teeth grew and eventually locked together. I had to take him to the vet to have them returned to their normal size! Or, I might have been inspired by my experience, as a very young girl, when, with friends, we pinched cabbages from a market garden and fed them to the donkeys in the field opposite – exhausted donkeys who were in need of a rest, having spent the long summer months giving children rides on the beach. Not exactly best seller material. To this day I still wait for the knock on the door from the police. Time passed and I continued to…

As the first person to read new book submissions, I have to share one of THE MOST annoying and irritating faults that I see in too many manuscripts – namely the wanton refusal to take any notice of the advice that MS Word offers its users in every document. First, let’s remove the elephant in the room – MS Word does make mistakes – its suggestions are sometimes inane and frequently laughable – BUT – it does make you look at the words that confused it and it does offer an opportunity to rethink the sentence, so that it is clearer. Most of our authors use the Microsoft Office 365 Subscription service, so are using the latest version of Office 365 (around £6 to £8 a month for the whole suite / including Excel and PowerPoint which are both useful tools for marketing and advertising your work). I keep the editing tools turned on all the time, as I write, but you can still apply the tools after you have “finished”. Editor is the first button on the left, in the Review menu. I will now show you text “with obvious errors” that I have inserted into the document to…

Having despaired for many years over the increasing number of children who leave school unable to write basic English, I realise how easy it has been to blame teachers. When my own daughter, in 1967, told me that it didn’t matter about the incorrect spelling in her homework, I was shocked. Apparently, greater emphasis was being put on what the child was trying to say.  Fortunately, my daughter inherited my own love of the English language and enjoyed getting things right. I was lucky, having a father who also loved the spoken and written word. From the time I started speaking, he made sure  that my words were correctly used, in the correct order. He made it fun and explained rules of grammar as they cropped up, so, by the time I went from Infant to Elementary School, English Language classes held no terror for me; I actually enjoyed them. Teachers have my sympathy. They have to deal with increasingly large classes and I believe that if parents conversed more with very young children – even toddlers, and guided them into speaking correctly, their written work would improve at school. When the day comes that they decide to write books, the manuscripts…

Yes and no – there usually needs to be a gimmick to make it worth while – a general book is normally a huge topic requiring a specialist research and writing team that takes years to put together and consists of either easily verifiable info (in which case what was the point) – or hard to verify info (in which case is the publisher taking a risk publishing it). Reference books are always of interest to us – we are happy to look at them or discuss ideas – so don’t be too discouraged – but the subject area needs to be one that will have appeal to several different markets, or it won’t be commercially viable.

As publishers – we have no hard and fast rule on this – we just want the book to read easily and well and to take the reader smoothly from start to finish. What we have noticed, however, is that writers often find it easier to step back from their own story and conflicts to write as if the hero or heroine is someone else. It de-personalises some of the spoken comments in the book and distances them from some of the deeply emotional or personal parts. Our advice is write it the way that comes naturally to you and allows you the greatest creative freedom.

When Jean Collins wrote her book about South Kelsey, she included research that stemmed from her interviews with current residents as well as a lot of painstaking research in the archives of a great many institutions. By adding genealogical information as well, she personalised what could have been a very dry book. Her anecdotes lifted the historical interest, but it was the photos and the stories behind some of them that really ‘iced’ her book for us, as publishers. I was already persuaded to consider her book as one of general interest – but seeing the photos persuaded me that there was something that would have great appeal, beyond the straight forward historical value. If you are considering writing historical reference books – what key feature will make your book stand out from the rest? Is it about a previously unpublished subject? Is it a new slant? Will it have pictures never published before? Does it feature information that is presented in a unique and original fashion?

I have to say that I have yet to find any children´s books which better, or at the least equal, Enid Blyton. I have a compilation called “Tell Me a Story Book” from my childhood which my own 5 year old daughter loves. I have bought tons of other books in my search for a modern day equivalent but most seem so literal, basic and boring by comparison. I have come across one or two treasures but none that can match up to Ms Blyton´s imagination. Have we lost our ability to imagine into realms which are filled with magic, beauty, gentleness and wonder yet are also strung through with a reality which is grounded and simple and weaves their lessons into the story for the child to unravel over a number of tellings? Perhaps in this age of “more-better-next” we don´t return to stories over and over again, allowing the child to absorb, understand and get to know the characters and this is all too often reflected in the books I see. I am sure there are many wonderful children´s books out there which I have missed, I hope so and I hope to find them soon. Any recommendations…

In my experience, one of the biggest mistakes made by new authors is not understanding the difference between writing for children and writing for young adults. I started reading adult books when I was ten years old, primarily because I found teenage literature to be condescending. Ok, that was a long while ago and young adult fiction has come a long way since then, but not all new authors seem to have noticed. J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series demonstrated that good children’s literature can have appeal across the generations, but it is worrying how many new authors write for a genre that they haven’t read since they were young. The strongest advice I can offer is to go to your local library and ask them which are the most frequently borrowed books for the age group that you want to target. I am not suggesting that you copy these books, or their style, but the research will inform your own writing, because you will have a greater awareness of what appeals to your target audience. Writers tend to fall into two camps, those who have a life work that they have to express, regardless of its prospects and those…

Suzanne has written an excellent book – under other circumstances, we would have had no hesitation offering her a contract for this book – but fate intervened. In the meantime we are happy to thank Suzanne for sharing her terrible experiences getting her book published by sharing a link to her book.  A provocative and revealing account of Suzanne’s voyage to independence – across continents and through war – personal, fascinating – a great read… http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baghdad-Baby-Suzanne-K-Forster/dp/1846244145