The (Lost) Spark of Back-and-Forth Collaboration? • by Natascha Biebow

 

Once acquired by a publisher, picture books are made by collaboration – a whole team behind the scenes, including the illustrator, the author, the editor, designer and production team works closely together to share their expertise and to build upon the creator's initial ideas. Once made, picture books look seamless: all those collaborative discussions are evident in the polished book. Now, there will be people championing it in the publisher’s marketing, sales, rights and publicity departments.

 

Many hands collaborate to make a picture book that shines

Sometimes, a collaboration is established in a particularly inspired author illustrator pairing that will go on to endure and delight countless young readers.

 

But what of the collaboration between the creative and the first point of contact – usually the editor at the publishing house? The kind that takes time and a special kind of eye to see the seed of something special and commercial and then time and effort to let it ‘cook’ till it shines. Is it a lost art?

 

In the US, recently several junior editors quit their roles citing being overworked and lack of proper recognition for their creative contributions to the business of making bestselling books. Increasingly we hear reports of submissions going unacknowledged in overflowing ‘slushpiles’ and overtasked editors. It stands to reason, then, that editors would want book proposals to arrive on their desks as polished projects that they can immediately envision in terms of potential. These they can effectively ‘run’ with as they pitch them in-house for acquisitions.

 

But what if . . .?

 

Editors once again had a bit of time and space to connect and collaborate back-and-forth, to nurture artists and authors at all levels of their career?

 

What if . . .?

 

Writers, editors, illustrators and art directors could meet in a kind of ‘writer’s room’ scenario like teams creating movie and TV series do?

 

What if . . . ?

 

Authors (and illustrators) with talent received encouragement and direction to work collaboratively with editors to help them take their ideas to the next level rather than just receiving no response or even an outright rejection to a project that has a seed of promise? Could it elicit a spark that later led to great works?

 

What if . . .  editors had more time and space . . .
to reach out, to nurture a spark,
to collaborate in a conversation . . .?

Writing letters may be a lost art, and emails are often at best short and business-oriented – everyone is so busy and short of time - but knowing that an editor is in your corner can mean the difference between being able to create the next big masterpiece or not.

 

Take for example the pivotal role legendary editor Ursula Nordstrom (1910–1988) played in bolstering Maurice Sendak at a key time in his early career, eventually leading him to believe in himself enough to go on to create the enduring classic Where the Wild Things Are.

When Sendak expressed his self-doubt in being able to stack up to the genius of Tolstoy and illustrate his work, Ursula wrote:

 

“Sure, Tolstoy and Melville have a lot of furniture in their books and they also know a lot of facts (“where the mouth of a river is”) but that isn’t the only sort of genius, you know that. You are more of a poet in your writing, at least right now. Yes, Tolstoy is wonderful (his publisher asked me for a quote) but you can express as much emotion and “cohesion and purpose” in some of your drawings as there is in War and Peace. I mean that. You write and draw from the inside out — which is why I said poet.

 

…

You are growing and getting better all the time. I hope it was good for you to write me the thoughts that came to you. It was very good for me to read what you wrote, and to think about your letter.

….

You may not be Tolstoy, but Tolstoy wasn’t Sendak, either. You have a vast and beautiful genius.” *

 

 

According to HarperCollins' website, 'Nordstrom had a simple philosophy regarding new authors. As one colleague said, “Anyone who called, anyone who got off the elevator, anyone who wrote in, could be seen and heard.” She always answered her own phone, and on hearing another ringing, would cry out, “Answer that! That might be the next Mark Twain.”'

Dear Genius The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom
Collected and Edited by Leonard S. Marcus

 

I wonder if some of our great children’s picture books would have even come to fruition and evolved in quite the same way without the space and support to experiment and collaborate with editors and art directors?

 

Having the

 

friendship and support of a

teacher and mentor and listener to

bolster creative confidence

 

sounds like a real gem in this day and age. That TRUST and FAITH! Hopefully it isn’t too elusive and the ways can be found to bring back that back-and-forth collaborative spirit in a new, and perhaps even better, guise? We can but dream . .  .

 

Thoughts on a postcard, please.

_____________________________________________________________________

 

* letter excerpted from Dear Genius: The Letters of Urusla Nordstrom, Collected and Edited by Leonard S Marcus

 

Ursula Nordstrom was the editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row, who helped nurture many talented authors, such as Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, EB White, author of Charlotte’s Web, Shel Silverstein, author of The Giving Tree, and Maurice Sendak, illustrator and author of Where the Wild Things Are.

 

_________________________________________________________________

Natascha Biebow, MBE, Author, Editor and Mentor

Natascha is the author of the award-winning The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons, illustrated by Steven Salerno, winner of the Irma Black Award for Excellence in Children's Books, and selected as a best STEM Book 2020. Editor of numerous prize-winning books, she runs Blue Elephant Storyshaping, an editing, coaching and mentoring service aimed at empowering writers and illustrators to fine-tune their work pre-submission, and is the Editorial Director for Five Quills. Find out about her new picture book webinar courses! She is Co-Regional Advisor (Co-Chair) of SCBWI British Isles. Find her at www.nataschabiebow.com

 

How much to charge for fee-only picture book text

Moira Butterfield

Before you read this, I just want to point out that I’m not intending to depress you. I’m out to offer some sensible tips. All the examples mentioned below have happened to me in the past, so learn from my mistakes.

A number of major mass-market UK publishers have recently declared their intention of moving ‘upmarket’.  They are producing picture book material which they hope will compete with the picture books published by more traditional publishers, possibly in the same outlets.

These mass-market publishers are big players internationally, selling rights to other similar publishers around the world. If you’re reading this in, for example, the US or Australia, you will see the material I’m talking about in due course.

These publishers are now aiming to produce ‘upmarket’ picture books. I’ve put that word in inverted commas because, although these picture books are structured in the classical way, and are deliberately designed to compete with what might be described as ‘classy’ picture books, the economics behind them are not the same.

Mass-market publishing companies do not pay royalties. They want to own content so they can exploit it financially in any way they wish to make as much revenue as possible and- importantly for them - have an asset that they could perhaps sell at a future date. Owning content is the 21^st century buzz phrase of media conglomerates.

What does this mean for picture book authors? I’m not going to say whether these fee-only books are good or bad, and I can’t predict how they will affect sales of more traditionally-modelled picture books. They are a lot cheaper and it’s unlikely the public will differentiate in a shop between the two. But that’s not my thread here. It’s up to the traditional publishers to defend their market sector, I guess.

What I want to say is this. If you are asked to provide a picture book text and you are offered a fee- only deal - and you want to consider it - be prepared. Be aware and do it with your eyes open.

(I know that there will be people out there who will howl at the idea of doing fee-only work, and congratulations to them if they can make a living and pay all their bills on royalty projects alone. This is advice for those who might wish to say yes.)

Why would you say yes? Well, you might be a new author or illustrator who wants to get into print. This may be a valid way for you to do it. Assume, however, that you won’t be informed of sales figures and you won’t be publicized as a star author. The publisher owns the content, not you, and they’re not interested in paying anything extra for a ‘star author’. Follow-up titles are not guaranteed, and if they do turn up it’s possible that someone else could be asked to do the text.

In other words, don’t offer a fee-only picture book publisher your most cherished ideas. I don’t mean do a shoddy job. I mean don’t give them your prize idea. The one you’ve been working on for two years. The one you think is brilliant.

The same rules apply if you are an experienced author with a track record, but you need the income. No problem there, but don’t hand over your most precious ideas. You might, in this case, want to consider working under a pseudonym. You’re not going to get paid extra for your name. On the other hand it could be valuable for you to have your name visible on book covers all over the place – supermarkets, for instance. That judgement is up to you. If you have an agent, chat to them about it.

You might get a great editor, but you may instead find yourself dealing with a very inexperienced and heavily-overworked young editor (many older more experienced editors having been made redundant from all sorts of publishers during the recession, to save on wage bills). In the case of a fee-only job this situation could have consequences. That young editor might start messing up your text and you don’t actually have any rights to say ‘no’ to changes. However, you can point out, in a positive and helpful way, why the suggested changes might be bad. It’s possible that nobody else is going to be helping that young editor learn their work.

When you agree to the job, make it clear that you want to discuss changes made (that you want to help and you will not slow down the schedule, which is likely be very tight). You might also want to point out if you have built a rhythm into the text (it sounds crazy, but believe me, very inexperienced editors may not notice).

You may be asked to do publicity. You’re not going to generate any extra royalty money from the effort, but you are going to raise your profile by doing so. This is a valid reason for agreeing, but make sure you get fair expenses (see Society of Author rates).

The fee….the big question. What is fair? Well, publishers should not pay board book rates for picture books. By that I mean the rates they might pay for a 4 or 5-spread mini story or learning text (around about £300-£500, say, but of course it varies). Picture books, as we know, are more complicated delicate mechanisms and should be properly valued.

We can do that as best we can collectively but, having said that, we are up against the ‘I fancy a go at writing’ brigade. A leading UK art agency has done a deal with one of the publishers I’m thinking about, offering them the picture book ideas of all their illustrators. In the deal, the text itself hasn’t been given any value, basically. Presumably the editors are going to try to bash the ideas into shape.

Yup, sorry, I did say I wasn’t going to depress you….But there’s nothing we can do about that sort of deal. All we can do is value our work as best we can. It’s up to you to say yes or no to a fee, and it will depend on your individual circumstances. But if you want to say ‘yes’, don’t agree to a board book rate.

These publishers are likely to be doing costings on big sales figures. You could even ask your editor what the projected sales figures are before you say yes. Why not? They will have a figures spreadsheet with the information on it. I don’t see why you shouldn’t know before you agree to your fee.  

As a ballpark figure I’d make a suggestion of £1500. That seems eminently reasonable. You could even go in higher and see what happens. Perhaps you’d be prepared to take a tad less. But if the publisher scoffs and offers you a board book fee my advice would be to say no. 

www.moirabutterfield.com
@moiraworld