What happened in the world of publishing in October
New releases, submission opportunities, award winning news and our first LIVE!
In this post we’ll share some highlights about what happened in the industry last month and include details of competitions and submission opportunities.
Plus details of our first LIVE later this month.
(Where you can ask us anything you’d like to about making children’s books and getting published)
There might now only be 49 days until Christmas, (yes really), but hold onto those Halloween vibes a moment longer as this post is a few days late thanks to half term.
So, what did happen in the world of publishing in October?
Autumn is a busy time of year for the book trade.
Frankfurt Book Fair always takes place in October (more about book fairs and why they matter in a future post), and there is an abundance of literary festivals in the autumn from Cheltenham to Henley and Bath.
If you ever get the chance to go to a literary festival and watch children’s events then we highly recommend doing so. We did this before our first book The Perfect Fit published and it was so helpful to see what others authors and illustrators did in a workshop.
The 10th October also saw what the trade call ‘Super Thursday’ - the day which has more books published than at any other time in the year. Publishers like to release books in the autumn tory and capitalise on the increase in book sales bought for Christmas gifts.
Naomi was excited to get her hands on a copy of the Cosy Poems Anthology chosen by Gaby Morgan which published on 3rd October as it contains one of her poems. She’s loved reading all of the other poems too as the nights have drawn in.
Other children’s books we’ve been excited about this month include…
I Follow the Fox by Rob Biddulph - Naomi bumped into Rob on publication day in Waterstones Picadilly after he’d completed a mammoth book signing session. We’re big fans of Rob’s books in the Jones house and love his new wintery story.
We can’t wait to read Where to Hide a Star by Oliver Jeffers which published in October as our boys loved his first book.
Why Did My Brain Make Me Say It? by Sarah Zinman - this is Sarah’s debut book but Naomi’s been a huge fan of her children’s poems for a couple of years now.
Our boys were really excited to get Bunny Vs Monkey: The Great Big Glitch by Jamie Smart for their birthdays and have already devoured the latest book in the Skandar series.
We’ve also just finished reading the seventh book in the Podkin series by Kieran Larwood with our eldest and he’s now got his eye on the new title by Anna James - The Chronicles of Whetherby: The Age of Enchantment which looks great.
What else happened in October?
October was a busy month for us, not just because we had family staying during half term but because Naomi went up country to London for the The Week Junior Book Awards as her book Thunderboots was shortlisted for in the picture book category.
She went back the following week as Thunderboots was also longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards. (Naomi will be in London on 23rd January at Waterstones Piccadilly to take part in a panel with some of the other winners).
Naomi and Rebecca Ashdown (the illustrator of Thunderboots) were both absolutely delighted that it won the Reader’s Choice Award especially as this story was inspired by Naomi’s own diagnosis of dyslexia.
Naomi also squeezed in some school visits, bookshop signings and meetings with publishers while she was in London. Back home she went on BBC Radio Cornwall talking about what the win meant to her and took part in a show about books on ‘Mums Without Make Up’ which airs tonight at 9.30pm in the South West.
James has been busy giving lectures for Bath University where he shared his book design and illustration knowledge to the students doing the Publishing Degree course.
Alongside creating book covers for Publishers across the world, he’s also been busy working on our new book for Ladybird, Penguin Random House (yay yay yay)!
It’s currently at the storyboard stage, so we can’t show you anything yet (even though we really, really want to) but we’ll share with you all as soon as we can.
Competitions and submission opportunities
There are some existing competitions and submission opportunities that we wanted to share with you:
Bath Novel Competition - a competition for children’s fiction which closes 30th Nov
Tyger Tiger children’s poetry submissions on the theme of Big Things, closes 31st Dec
The Kelpies Prize for writing - they have categories for picture books, children’s fiction and non-fiction but writers must live in Scotland. Closing date is 28th Feb 2025
The Northern Writers Awards are currently open for writers of middle grade or teen fiction living in the North of England. Submissions close 13th January 2025
Join us live
For all our paid subscribers, our first live zoom call will be Sunday 24th November at 8pm.
We cannot wait to chat to you in person. It’ll be a chance to meet us and ask us anything you’d like to about making children’s books and getting published.
If you can’t make it but have a question you’d like answered just drop us a message as we’ll send a recording around to paid subscribers afterwards and will answer as many questions as we can.
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