Children's & Young Adults Publishing

Recommended texts & resources 

Each chapter within this course has a dedicated bibliography at the end, as well as further reading. These sources were originally selected from the Oxford Brookes University library collection and we are conscious they are somewhat UK-centric. Below are some key texts and resources that you may find useful.

Children’s & YA publishing

Although there are many books written on children’s books from a literature studies perspective, it is not so easy to find academic texts dedicated to the business of children’s publishing. The following three books are used as the set texts to accompany the MA course. 

Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2022, published by Bloomsbury: This book is an extremely useful resource for anyone working in children’s publishing, not just authors. There are over 70 short articles written by children’s writers and illustrators, including (in the 2022 edition): Rachel Bladon, ‘The learning curve: writing for the children's educational market’ and Sophie Clarke, ‘The life and works of a literary scout’. There is also a comprehensive list of publishers, agents, and other useful contacts, such as societies, prizes and festivals. We think you’ll find it indispensable!

Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, by Katherine Rundell, published by Bloomsbury: This tiny book is packed with thought-provoking insights and is really more of an essay in nature. Katherine Rundell is, of course, an award-winning writer of children’s books. In this book, she explores the wonder and magic of children’s books. She discusses how they ignite our imagination and even change our (adult) perspective on the world, helping us to ‘refind things we may not even know we have lost’.  

A History of Children’s Books in 100 Books, by Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad, published by the British Library: This beautifully illustrated book takes the reader on a journey to discover how and when children’s literature began. Although it mainly focuses on British books, it also takes a global perspective, covering books from America and parts of Europe. It starts by exploring the origins of children’s stories, based on oral traditions and folk or fairy tales and finishes with a chapter on comics and literature that have been influenced by TV and new media. There are interesting photographs and illustrations on every page, and while this isn’t a complete guide to the history of children’s literature, we hope that it will inspire you to continue your own research in specific areas that interest you.

General reading 

Below is a list of electronic and scholarly resources from the Oxford Brookes library catalogue. Titles listed in bold have specific chapters/sections of relevance indicated. Frustratingly, many academic texts on children’s and YA books/publishing are not yet available electronically, therefore if you are able to access an academic library you may find the print selection and special collections have more to offer.

Books/ebook

Baverstock, A., Bradford, R., Gonzalez, M. (Eds.), 2020. Contemporary publishing and the culture of books. Routledge, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY.  

• See ch.3 ‘The UK’s reading culture and consumers’ emotional response to books’ pp.58-76 a useful quick introduction to cultural events linked to books and some theories linked to emotional response.
• See ch. 14 ‘The Fourth Format’ pp.267-288 for a discussion of the podcast format and how it is different from and similar to radio and audiobooks.
• See ch.15 ‘French children’s literature and autism: a case for more books on autism and for autistic children.’ pp.278-318

Baverstock, A., Bowen, S., 2019. How to market books, Sixth edition. ed. Routledge, London ; New York. 

• See pp.390-404 ‘Marketing children’s books’.
• See pp.421-438 ‘Selling to educational markets’.

Carrington, B. and Harding, J. (eds) (2014) Beyond the book: transforming children's literature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Available at: [Accessed: September 10, 2021].

Clarke, P. J., Truelove, E., Hulme, C., Snowling, M. J. and Chesher, D. (2014) Developing reading comprehension. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Clark, G. N. and Phillips, A. (2020) Inside book publishing. Sixth ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Available at: [Accessed: September 10, 2021].

• See Ch.2 pp.58-61. and pp.96-104 ‘children’s and young adult publishing’
• See Ch.3 pp,66-70 ‘Publishing for educational, academic and professional markets’
• See Ch.11 pp.294-295 for educational sales.
• See Ch.12 pp.315-320 for translation and co-edition rights sales.

Davis, C., 2019. Print cultures: a reader in theory and practice. Red Globe Press Macmillan International, London.

• See Part 1 pp.7-58 for cultural theories of publishing including gatekeeper theory (pp.36-44).
• See Part 8 pp.249-265 for framing of literary prize culture
• See Part 9 pp. ‘Globalisation and the book’ including translations and postcolonialism

Doorslaer, L. van, Flynn, P. and Leerssen, J. T. (eds) (2015) Interconnecting translation studies and imagology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company (Benjamins Translation Library, EST subseries, volume 119).

Fitzsimmons, R. and Wilson, C. A. (eds) (2020) Beyond the blockbusters : themes and trends in contemporary young adult fiction. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi (Children's Literature Association series).

Gambier, Y. and Doorslaer, L. van (2010) Handbook of translation studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub (Handbook of translation studies, vol. 1).

• See pp.22-26 ‘Translating children’s literature’

Gutierrez, A. K. (2017) Mixed magic : global-local dialogues in fairy tales for young readers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company (Children's Literature, Culture, and Cognition, volume 8).

Haber, K. (2011) Masters of science fiction and fantasy art: a collection of the most inspiring science fiction, fantasy, and gaming illustrators in the world. Beverly, MA: Rockport.

Hunt, P. (2004) International companion encyclopaedia of children's literature. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Kidd, K. B. and Thomas, J. T. (eds) (2017) Prizing children's literature: the cultural politics of children's book awards. New York: Routledge (Children's literature and culture, 118)

Lerer, S. (2008) Children's literature: a reader's history, from Aesop to Harry Potter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lewis, D. (2001) Reading contemporary picturebooks: picturing text. London: Routledge Falmer.

Maine, F. (2015) Dialogic readers: children talking and thinking together about visual texts. London: Routledge.

Martens, L. (2018) Childhood and markets: infants, parents and the business of child-caring. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan (Studies in childhood and youth). doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-31503-8.

Mills, C. (2014) Ethics and children's literature. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing (Ashgate Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present).

Oittinen, R. (2000) Translating for children. New York: Garland (Garland reference library of the humanities ; Children's literature and culture, vol. 2150. v. 11). doi: 10.4324/9780203902004.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2010) Education at a glance 2010: OECD indicators. Paris, France: OECD Pub.

Owen, L. (2020) Selling rights. Eighth ed. London: Routledge.

• See Ch.8 ‘Book fairs and sales trips’ pp.119-143
• See Ch. 13 ‘Translation rights: co-editions and licenses’ pp.229-280
• See Ch. 22 ‘Merchandising rights’ pp.352 363

Rodger, R. (2016) Planning an appropriate curriculum in the early years: a guide for early years practitioners and leaders, students and parents. 4th edn. Taylor and Francis.

Schonlau, J. (2013) 1,000 illustrations for children: amazing art made for kids books, products, and entertainment. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books (1000 Series).

Smidt, S. (2013) The developing child in the 21st century: a global perspective on child development. 2.ed. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203483640.

Sumpter, C. (2008) The Victorian press and the fairy tale. Basingstoke England: Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture). doi: 10.1057/9780230227644.

Thomas, A. M., Dougherty, D. and Demarest, R. (2014) Making makers: kids, tools, and the future of innovation. Edited by B. Jepson and K. Cofer. Sebastopol, California: Maker Media

Ward, M. (2002) Voices from the margins: an annotated bibliography of fiction on disabilities and differences for young people. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Weld, S. P. (2018) An ecology of the russian avant-garde picturebook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company (Children's literature, culture, and cognition (CLCC), volume 9).

Wolf, S. A. (2011) Handbook of research on children's and young adult literature. New York: Routledge. 

Wyse, D., Davis, R., Jones, P. and Rogers, S. (eds) (2015) Exploring education and childhood: from current certainties to new visions. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Journal articles

Alexander, J. and Jarman, R., (2015) “Prizing Children's Science Information Books: The Text, Reading and the Reader,” Literacy, 49(3), pp. 123–131.

Beditz, M., (2018) ‘The Dynamic Landscape of Marketing Children’s Books: Publishers Find Consistent Success Through a Combination of Online and Traditional Marketing to Adults and Children’ Pub Res Q 34: 157

Bold, M.R., (2019) Inclusive Young Adult Fiction: Authors of Colour in the United Kingdom. Springer.

Bold M.R., (2018) “The Eight Percent Problem: Authors of Colour in the British Young Adult Market (2006–2016),” Pub Res Q 34(3), pp. 385–406. doi: 10.1007/s12109-018-9600-5.

Huang, HL., (2019) ‘Go Beyond Borders with Picture Books: A Case Study of a Taiwanese Children’s Book Publisher’ Pub Res Q 35: 52.

Lodge, S., (2005) ‘What’s Your Niche?’, Publishers Weekly, 252(14), pp. 24–26.

Noorda, R., (2019) The Element of Surprise: A Study of Children’s Book Subscription Boxes in the USA Pub Res Q 35: 223.

Nor, M.R.M., et al (2018) Features of Islamic Children’s Books in English: A Case Study of Books Published in Malaysia Pub Res Q 34: 540

Ren, D., (2019) Report on the Recent Development of the Children’s Book Market in China Pub Res Q.

1.1. Chapter Aims

• To explore the various audience levels and sectors of children’s and young adult publishing
• To examine current publishing practices and assess the key commercial models (co-editions | buying translations)
• To identify opportunities within children’s and young adult markets e.g. brand series, middle-grade adaptations, podcasts, prizes and awards, subscription services and book clubs

1.2 Introduction

This chapter will introduce some of the unique aspects of children’s and Young Adult (YA) publishing in comparison to other sectors. We shall explore the editorial and commercial aspects of developing content for different types of audiences from the very youngest of readers through to adolescence, along with some of the key market segments, data, and trends. We will also discuss the educational and cultural importance of books aimed at these markets. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

1.3 The Importance of Literacy

Before we go on to explore children’s and YA publishing, it is essential that we take a step back and think first about the importance of literacy. No child is born with the innate ability to read, this is a skill that every child must learn for themselves from scratch (Wolf, 2008).  The processes of reading and writing are complex, they involve multiple regions of the brain and body (visual, oral, motor, touch, cognitive, linguistic), and as such when it comes to reading, parents cannot pass on any hereditary advantage/disadvantage to their child through their genes.  Learning to read is hard and it takes time.  So publishers that create books aimed at the youngest of readers need to make them as tactile and engaging as possible in order to make books a fun object and reading a fun experience.  

Books and written materials are central to most education systems around the world.  Books are used to teach children about concepts, things and people beyond their immediate surroundings and experiences. Thus, literacy rates tend to be closely monitored and used as an indicator of educational progress and efficacy within societies.  According to the National Literacy Trust (2021) where children struggle to learn to read, or are unable to because of disability it can have life-long impacts on their ability to study, find jobs, and navigate the world around them.  Beyond this, longitudinal studies show that literacy is linked to a person’s “economic well-being, aspirations, family life, health and civic/cultural engagement”.  This means that reading is linked to higher happiness indicators and even longer life expectancy (Dundale & Clark, 2008; NLT 2021).  

In a digital world, it is also important to think about the relationships between literacy and digital technology. A UK example of recent research comes from The National Literacy Trust whereby research into literacy and digital technology was explored through questions concerning dominant reading formats and reading engagement levels with print vs. screen. These data offered interesting insights in terms of understanding literacy as well as reading enjoyment, behaviours and attitudes, and digital technology.

Skills builder 1: Books and Literacy in Society

Around the world, books and literacy are promoted within society in a number of ways beyond the education system via book prizes, events such as World Book Day, national reading schemes such as Bookbug, and honorary titles such as Children’s Laureate.  
Identify and investigate the significance of large-scale national or international literary schemes, prizes or events in a country of your choice and reflect on the extent to which these schemes are fundamental to literacy.  Many events reoccur annually so you may find it helpful to sort these chronologically month-by month and reflect on ways to engage with them as a publishing organisation.

1.4 Who is the Book for?

One of the first questions that publishers (and arguably also authors) need to think about when acquiring or developing any kind of content is first - who is going to read this book and second - who is going to buy this book?  The children’s market, therefore, comes with the known assumption that the book’s content must cater to multiple audiences (child, parent, carer) when it comes to reading the book and that multiple gatekeepers hold the purse strings when it comes to purchasing the book (parent, teacher, librarian). As Katherine Rundell puts it in Why you should read children’s books even though you are so old and wise (2019) “When I write, I write for two people: myself, age twelve, and myself now, and the book has to satisfy two distinct but connected appetites”. 

The gatekeeper issue may be more of a concern for children’s than YA books, however, UK market data consistently demonstrates that Christmas, for instance, is the peak sales period across all categories of books classified as children’s or YA, both fiction and nonfiction.  Therefore, ‘would this make a good gift?’ is a question almost all publishers should consider. Publishing professionals working in this area must therefore carefully consider the motives and objectives of the person purchasing the book and develop products that fulfil their needs and wants. In addition, publishers need to make a product that is engaging for the intended reader/s in a very limited space. Every word and every image matters. Editors and agents are sometimes so expert in their roles that their duties extend to authoring the content for children’s books.

1.5 Children’s Books – How do they Differ?

The sector of children’s publishing is somewhat of an umbrella term, generally used to describe books that are aimed at children below the age of 12 years old. It is essential that the illustrations and text of children’s books appeal to a wide range of children who are at different levels of reading and comprehension; it is also important that children’s books appeal to adults in the supply chain e.g. retailers and to adults who buy or influence purchase choice e.g. parents, teachers (Clark and Phillips, 2020). 

In comparison to most other publishing sectors, children’s book publishing (more so than YA) is complex in terms of the production requirements; highly-illustrated picture books are expensive to produce but sold at a comparatively low price point thus co-edition publishing is a common means of making affordable products. Co-edition publishing essentially brings together publishers from different territories, countries or regions to share the production costs of printing and benefit from economies of scale associated with larger print runs. This type of co-edition agreement requires negotiation across borders and consensus that the book will sell in multiple languages and have cross-cultural appeal.

The children’s book industry is necessarily an international one and this is reflected in the pool of editors, designers and rights teams that work within it as well as the authors, illustrators, translators and agents.  The international nature of children’s and YA publishing reoccurs throughout the chapters within this course and in particular the chapters on translations and rights. Another important topic within children’s and YA publishing (and beyond) is the need for diverse and inclusive content both in terms of text and illustrations.  We have dedicated an entire chapter to this (chapter 3), but want to stress the consideration of inclusivity should not be an afterthought or something that is compartmentalised. It is a consideration that should permeate into every aspect of publishing today.  

We will go on to discuss children’s books in terms of markets by age in chapter 5, however, it is important to simply introduce to you that books are often developed according to age bands that are intended to reflect the child’s developmental stage or reading level. While this is an approach fraught with difficulties and complexities on a global scale, some countries may formalise the bibliographic information (in this case, the intended age range) supplied by publishers through industry standards bodies. An example in the UK is the Book Industry Communication (BIC) Children’s Book Marketing Categories standard.

1.6 Young Adult Books – How Do They Differ?

The YA market has grown rapidly over the last two decades, even at a time when other sectors within the publishing industry have demonstrated shrinkage. But what exactly is the YA sector, who does it serve, and what are its characteristics? In the UK, the YA sector generally spans readers age 12 - 18 years of age – however, research has shown that while this lower age boundary of 12+ is useful, the top range into adulthood is less clear (we will discuss the children’s and YA markets by age in much more detail in chapter 5). To make this point - as an adult can you think of an example where you have sought out a book aimed at the YA market and enjoyed it? Naturally, fairly recent series such as Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan, spring to mind immediately as works that are enjoyed internationally by both YA and adults alike. It is interesting then, that what sets YA literature apart from other sectors, is also what attracts other audiences. 

However, let’s look specifically at some of the key themes within YA literature, specifically fiction, which may help to clarify its characteristics.  For example, YA works tend to relate to themes that explore notions of:

• Transition: these themes may relate to coming of age, rebirth, increasing awareness of self, changing relationships. 
• Growth: themes relating to emotional and physical growth, emotional maturity, interacting with adults, awareness of the future and choice of path, expression and projection of self.
• Space: these themes may relate to adventure, exploration, and discovery, shifting and changing of perceived boundaries, new and old words, escape, growth and expression into new spaces.
• Relationships; these themes may relate to the exploration of self and others, interactions with others as friendships or romance, acceptance of differences and diversity, social constructs, societal issues, family.

Naturally, the lens through which we view such themes is ever-changing and evolving along with how we, and collectively as a global community, view the world. For instance, our understanding, and our personal and collective response to, issues of diversity has changed dramatically in recent decades, as have our views about equality for women, disability, and race. It is interesting therefore to trace these shifts in thinking as reflected in the evolution of YA fiction, or indeed within “coming of age” stories e.g. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger or Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. To what extent do you think they remain relevant in terms of the themes that they explore, and the engagement of the reader? It is important for publishers to be aware, and have some sense of, this evolution and its impact on both present and future YA literature.

In terms of YA genres, these may include adventure, romance, realism, dystopian, horror, LGBT, mystery and fantasy, however, these very generally mirror those of adult fiction. The principal difference, therefore, lies in the themes that are addressed (as discussed above), and that the main characters are often the age of the intended YA target audience. It is also important to remember that the YA market has demonstrated itself in recent years to be highly susceptible to, and driven by, fads and frenzies in terms of its direct links with pop culture – indeed the sale of the seventh volume in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 2.6 m copies on the day it was released in the UK.

1.7 Market landscape

You probably don’t need to be presented with a commercial rationale as to why children’s publishing is important; intuitively we know that buoyant children’s and YA book markets are sowing the seeds for a healthy publishing industry in the future.  However, children’s and YA publishing is, of course, far more important than merely keeping publishers in business. An enjoyment of words, images, characters and storytelling, are the precursor to strong literacy skills which in turn are the foundations of many education systems around the world and greater opportunities in life.  Nevertheless, it is useful to have a clear understanding of the market landscape and how types of content for young people is labelled and categorised.

Just as the adult book market is divided into consumer (trade) and non-consumer market sectors (academic, professional and STM), so is the children’s book market. Generally divided into:

• Trade consumer publishing where products and services are sold directly to the public through bookshops, supermarkets online and via other retail channels
• Educational publishing where products and services are sold to schools, libraries and other business-to-business channels. In the UK, primary and secondary schools are responsible for providing learning resources such as books and these are usually ordered directly from the publisher or a wholesaler.

Both trade and educational sectors of publishing can be subdivided by product type (e.g. novelty, picture books, activity and colouring books, annuals, pop-up books, lift-the-flap books, graded readers, chapter books, reference, fiction, nonfiction, not to mention digital applications and educational platforms). And the target readership of children’s and YA books can be segmented by age range of e.g. early years, pre-school, key-stages, middle-grade, young adult (YA) and new adult. 

It is important to keep clear in your mind that the labelling of books by age range can be purely a sales and marketing device, quite separate from the content itself, or it can be a genre category. Age ranges are useful editorial guides in terms of developing products and services for a particular literacy- or readership-level, but beyond that do not necessarily prescribe the content or limit the market exclusively to that age range.  In other words, a YA novel can be one written with the thirteen- to the eighteen-year-old reader in mind (similar to film guidance e.g. in the UK PG 13), rather than one featuring exclusively young adult characters or storylines navigating adolescence (they may very well feature these things but they do not *have to*). 

On the other hand, novels that are put in the genre of YA might crossover with the adult fiction book market and this broad mass-market appeal often results in TV or film adaptations (as illustrated by Phillip Pulman’s His Dark Materials and Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking and Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone). Furthermore, many books categorised as adult fiction or nonfiction are perfectly appropriate for teenage readers.  Indeed the question ‘what is a YA book?’ is not one that can be answered easily therefore, this is something we shall explore later in the course.

Skills Builder 2: Market segmentation 
Drawing on your own experience in publishing, or as your experience as a child, young adult, or parent, what do you think are the opportunities and limitations of market segmentation, in other words, the process of defining and reaching audiences, and how this has influenced content development within publishing, and the development of genres within children’s and YA publishing.

1.8 Size and Value of the Children’s and YA Markets     

In this section we are going to look at data from the Publishers Association in order to get an overview of the children’s, YA and educational (schools) markets – other UK resources for market data include Nielsen BookScan. Although this example (and the data within it) is mostly UK-centric, basic statistics can be considered for other markets if you have access to similar data.  Key data points required for analysis are volume of sales and value of sales, these are usually reported over set time intervals (e.g. yearly, quarterly) and broken down by relevant product categories (e.g. children’s, schools, adult). Within these parameters one might look for:

• Sales trends over time – is there growth, stability or decline in sales volume and value? Is growth/decline consistent, rapid or slow? 
• Comparative performance of one category against another – does the children’s category sales follow a similar sales trend to the other consumer categories or not?
• Ratio of volume to value – does the children’s market account for 25% of sales by volume but only 23% of sales by value? Is this ratio consistent or changing? 

The golden rule of data analysis is do not compare apples with pears, in other words do not mix up data from one source with data from another source as if they were the same. You can however, observe trends in one dataset and use another dataset to corroborate, expand upon or explain the observations from another source. Let’s see what this looks like in practice with 2019 used as the example.

Source: Publishers Association Yearbook 2019 

Table 1 shows the invoiced value of UK publishers for print formats between 2015 and 2019 over six categories.  Of interest to us are the ‘Children’s’ and ‘School’ in the fourth and fifth columns. Helpfully, the table also displays the year-on-year growth as percentages, as well as the overall growth between 2015 and 2019. This table alone provides no context therefore you might rightly wonder: how were the categories defined; how was the data collected; and whether any extrapolations have been used to derive these numbers? Basically, what was the methodology? Do refer to the full report where some of these questions are answered.

Table 1: Publisher sales of printed books: by category (net invoiced) (PA, 2020)

It is worth noting that the ‘net invoiced value’ (e.g. the amount of revenue invoiced by UK publishers) is not equivalent to the UK market size, because the data in table 1 reports both home (UK) and export sales combined.  

What general trends does this table present?  

Firstly, between 2015 and 2019, children’s print book invoice value increased by 23.9%.  Whereas School print book invoice value fell by 3.4%. In the case of children’s publishing, there was a massive 17.9% increase between 2015 and 2016, then modest growth from 2017 onwards. Certainly an obvious area for investigation might be the cause of the 17.9% bump in 2016. The trend for School is more erratic with growth in 2016 followed by decline in 2017 and 2018, then growth in 2019.  

Skills Builder 3: What are the trends?

Without knowing anything more about these market categories can you guess possible explanations for some of these trends? [See Sample Answer]

What does quantitative data really tell us? Quantitative data can be pretty dry, numbers on a spreadsheet cannot convey the vibrancy of what we know to be the most joyful and creative areas of publishing. For example, in the UK, sales figures can tell us that David Walliams’ books dominate the charts, but they cannot tell us why, or how controversial Walliams’ success is for many within the industry. Nevertheless, data can be the starting point for some pretty big questions such as ‘so if there were only 267 YA fiction titles in the 2020 bestseller chart, how many of those were written by authors of colour? Who published those books? How were they marketed, received and reviewed?’

2.1 Chapter Aims

• To explore the creative process of children’s books (or other publishing products) from idea to the finished product
• To identify the different actors involved in the process and their relationship to one another
• To investigate specifically the role of packagers within this area of publishing
• To evaluate how the processes (and actors) differ from publishing for an adult market.

2.2 Introduction

In the previous chapter, you learned about the children’s publishing market – where it sits within publishing as a whole and some of the specific traits and market dynamics. Like any other market it has some particularities. The same applies to the production or creation process including the editorial development of content in children’s publishing. In this chapter we will cover some of the practical questions surrounding the creation of publishing products for children, before we move on to some more conceptual and critical issues in the following chapters. 

The key questions you will be working through are: 

• What are the processes and who is involved
• What are the differences to “regular” publishing (for adults)?

This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

Now imagine you were in Sam’s shoes. What ideas would you put together to come up with a novel and value-creating product?

2.4 Authors and Illustrators

Authors and illustrators provide the content for books and other published products. Written texts and illustrations are the central components of a book and the main carrier of ideas and stories. Therefore, editors need to work closely with both of these parties during the editorial and the production process. If authors and illustrators are different people their work needs to be carefully developed and brought together so that the finished product meets the editorial requirements. In some cases, the author and illustrator may be the same person and here too, editors need to work closely with the author-illustrators to make sure the interplay of illustrations and text results in a coherent product. Content creators might be actively sought out by publishers or for instance acquisition editors or they may approach publishing houses with their work in order to get published. We can generally distinguish between these types of creative contributors:

Agented authors and illustrators are maybe the most visible group of content creators for children’s books. Star-authors of bestselling children’s book titles, such as Oliver Jeffers, J.K. Rowling, or Judy Bloom have agents that ensure the best economic value can be gained from the creative work these people produce. Agents may act as intermediaries between publishers and creatives to find new opportunities to either work on projects or to get work that has already been conceived and produced. They further assist creatives in slicing up the IP rights relating to the content, negotiating advances and royalties as well as the conditions of the working relationship. For publishers, and especially editors, agents are familiar actors on the scene. They can make working with the content creators easier, especially when they act as managers. Nevertheless, because agents prioritise making projects more financially lucrative for their clients (and themselves), agented content constitutes a costly choice for publishers in terms of the royalty percentage and the size of advance on those royalties and is thus high risk. The (sales-) potential of acquired content needs to be clearly visible to make the collaboration worthwhile, this goes some way to explaining the number of titles in the charts by big-name authors and illustrators. Some publishers will accept unsolicited manuscripts, and unagented authors or illustrators usually on modest royalty terms, or for a one-off fee.  

Freelance creatives: Freelancers may approach the publisher to offer their work, or they might be actively searched for and selected by editors or production managers to help out on a specific product usually for a fee rather than on a royalty basis. For publishers, this means time investment to search and select the right creative people, but it also limits costs to exactly the deliverables. Sometimes freelancers are associated with less stability in the work-relation, however, once one project has been completed successfully, there is a good opportunity to establish longer-term relationships. From the freelancers’ perspective, there too are advantages and disadvantages to this set-up. On the one hand, freelancing can be more flexible when it comes to the decision to take on a project (or not), on the other hand, freelancing often needs more networking and time spent looking for work (particularly early on in one's career). There are some online platforms today that make the sourcing/offering of work easier and bring creatives and employers together. One of them you can find here: Adobe Behance.

In-house Authors and Illustrators: Many children’s book publishers have in-house editorial and creative staff who develop the content together. The advantages for the publisher with this set-up are that the work may be done in a time and cost-effective way, as the staff are already present and can be easily briefed on project requirements. A potential disadvantage is that the staff needs to be paid, irrespective of the work output and sales. For the staff themselves, this security of pay is an advantage, yet an in-house creative position might limit them to a certain type of project and restrict their freedom to work on a variety of products and ideas; they also usually do not benefit from sales-based pay such as royalties.

The key underlying consideration when choosing how content should be created is: “What are the intentions for the content?” If a publisher is looking for creative work on a one-off project, a freelancer might be the best fit, as the creative IP can be bought from the freelancer by contract and the publisher then possesses full rights to the content. This is important because it gives publishers the flexibility to exploit IP however they like in the future, for example by selling the translation, merchandising, audiobook or film adaptation rights. Such licensing agreements can make a big difference to the bottom-line profitability of the business, but also in the case of co-edition publishing having control of the full worldwide rights simplifies an already complex business model involving multiple actors.  

If an editor is looking to develop a series, they might prefer to have the work done in-house as this is more cost-effective or they might actively seek out a partnership or commission an agented author, illustrator or author-illustrator. In this case, they need to think about setting up contracts (on royalties) and licensing the content in a cost-effective way. You will learn more about these complex dynamics in later chapters in this course.

Skills Builder 2: Assessing a text and communication edits to authors [2hrs]

There are many different pathways into working in either of the roles discussed above and the skills of author and editor do overlap.  For this activity, you will put yourself in the shoes of an editor.
First watch (or just listen to) the video of Simon Mason and Beverley Tarquini discussing the author and editor's roles and relationship.  

2.5 Production

Before a book reaches the actual production phase of its lifecycle, there are some common considerations given towards its production values and specifications. Standard considerations include (Bullock, 2012):

• Extent
• Typography (ensuring manuscript text fits within the given extent 
• Use of colour (typically ranging from one to four ink colours for the book block)
• Illustrations (integrated or as full-page or plate sections)
• Paper (weight/bulk/coated or uncoated)
• Binding
• Cover (hardback, paperback, dust jackets etc...)

Some of the additional considerations for children’s books include:

• Within picture books the illustrations must allow room for text (the space needed may differ according to language)
• Some novelty books use alternative mediums (to paper) e.g. fabrics, plastics, integrated audio
• Many children’s books have special construction features - flaps, cut-out elements, pop-up elements, fold-out sections, perforated pop-outs, glued in items (e.g. the envelopes of The Jolly Postman), watermarks

When it comes to the design of children’s books particular attention has to be given to the different ages and reading capabilities and modes of interaction readers may bring to reading the book. One example of this may be typography: “The process of becoming literate progressively relegates the mechanics of typography to the subconscious” (Martin, 2012, p. 639). This means that depending on the literacy level the specific book is designed for, typography has to be chosen carefully to meet the needs of the readers, weighing practical considerations of legibility with design choices, for instance, to draw attention to the page with playful, but complex typography. Children, depending on age and capabilities, may interact very differently with a book than “intended”, as such considering the tactile dimension of the production values is crucial when making a good product for a child.

Production values are essential to the successful marketing and selling of the book, and also impact logistics and pricing significantly. Bright and colourful book covers draw the attention of children and may impact the parent (buyers) decision to purchase the book on their behalf, but parents may consider different production values, such as:

• the sturdiness of the book’s paper and binding
• if it is water- and stain proof
• if there are potential dangers, such as small pieces of plastic that may break off and be swallowed, or similar hazards
• if the design including images and typography are suitable for the child’s current reading capabilities and so on.

The general fragility of the book as an object could both be an advantage and disadvantage. For instance flap books or pop-up books tend to be quite vulnerable to defects through usage (torn off flaps etc.). Publishers might benefit from this since this limits the second-hand market for this type of book and makes it more likely that parents will buy replacement copies for siblings or friends. Yet, it might also prevent parents from buying the book in the first place as they will anticipate the destruction of the product (irrespective of the fun attached to it).

It is therefore essential in children’s publishing more than anywhere else to carefully balance considerations of marketability and sales with the wants of the parents and above all the needs of the children as readers and consumers of the book. Although the process of creating and publishing a book is oftentimes seen as a linear progression from one stage to the next, we have to keep in mind that especially in a field like children’s publishing that offers a unique richness of content and format types, there is often a bidirectional relationship between editorial and production, in which editorial decisions guide production, but production possibilities may affect editorial too.

2.6 Complex formats

In Children’s publishing, we tend to have an even greater variety of different book formats, relating to the didactic challenges and needs children’s books aim to address, by providing a more holistic reading experience than say an A-format paperback novel published within literary fiction for the adult market. The books in the series “Don’t tickle my…” that Sam Taplin (2021) talks about is an excellent example of this.

Skills Builder 3: Imagine a child interacting with a book. What sensory impulses might a child get from reading this book? You may also choose your own example (maybe a popup book, or flap book) and investigate the production values/specifications. Example: The patch of ‘animal fur’ integrated into the book addresses the tactile sense of a child.

2.7 Packagers and Co-editions

Another type of actor commonly involved in the creation of children’s books (and other highly-illustrated books) is a packager. Packagers are sometimes referred to as “mini publishers” (Bader, n.d.) and may be involved at different stages and to different extents in the making of children’s books, ranging from taking over a specific part of the production process, such as editing and designing the content given to them by a publisher or delivering a finished product, from the ideation to the printed book. In children’s publishing packagers are often sourced to produce co-editions or labour-intensive complex-format books that require a specialised skill set. Yet, there may also be some challenges associated with the role of the packager, as they cover many of the same processes as publishers but often have different practices for instance, with the editorial management of the content they produce.

Skills Builder 4: Using the internet, or thinking about your own experiences, research packagers and their role in children’s publishing and try to find answers to these questions:
What are packagers and what do they do?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of working with packagers?
What makes packagers so suitable for children’s publishing – or not?

2.8 Digital and Hybrid Products

Relating to the issue of complex formats, we also need to consider digital and hybrid products. An example for a fully digital product might be an ebook, app or a digital picturebook, an example for a hybrid product might be a children’s book containing QR-codes to be scanned with a phone and offering additional content on a website, or the inclusion of Augmented Reality technology within books.

The production of digital and/or hybrid products bears its very own challenges and opportunities, which we will discuss in more detail in one of the later chapters within this course. Key things that have to be considered when developing a book with a digital or hybrid option are:

• How does the content translate to a digital space?
• What are the digital needs and capabilities of the children the product is designed for?
• What rights (i.e. licensing for image material) and legal obligations (such as data protection under GDPR) need to be considered and cleared before a digital product can be made?

2.9 Chapter Summary 

In this chapter, we have considered the production and creation process including the editorial development of content in children’s publishing. We have also covered some of the more practical questions surrounding the creation of publishing products for children.

You should now be able to:

• Name key actors within the creation of publishing products for children and understand their relationship to one another
• Evaluate the role that packagers play in this specific ecosystem
• Discuss differences between this and other areas of publishing production.

References and Further Reading 

Bader, B. (n.d) Working with a Book Packager: An Interview With Two of the Best”, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Online, available at:
https://www.scbwi.org/working-with-a-book-packager-an-interview-with-two-of-the-best/
(Accessed: September 14, 2021).

Bullock, A. (2012) Book production. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Available at:
https://oxfordbrookes.on.worldcat.org/v2/search/detail/829462058?queryString=Book%20production
(Accessed: September 14, 2021).

Ginna, P. (ed.) (2017) What editors do : the art, craft, and business of book editing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Guthrie, R. (2011) Publishing : principles & practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.

Martin, D. (2012), ‘Children’s Book Design’ in Peter Hunt (ed.) International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, ebook, Online, available at       
https://oxfordbrookes.on.worldcat.org/v2/oclc/1154964111, (Accessed: September 14, 2021).

Smith, K. (2012) The publishing business : from p-books to e-books. Lausanne: AVA Academia.
Available at: https://oxfordbrookes.on.worldcat.org/v2/search?queryString=9782940447374
(Accessed: September 14, 2021).

Tarquini, B. (2021). Editing with Simon Mason. [Video Lecture] for PUBL7014: Children's Publishing, Oxford Brookes University.

Usborne (2021), Don't Tickle series of baby books by Editorial Manager, Sam Taplin, [Online Video], Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuehBUCnZCc&list=PLYf-ELpNqYRAq8uxdaS1C_9jkIApByH4T&index=5. (Accessed September 14, 2021)

3.1. Chapter Aims

• To explore diversity and inclusion in children’s publishing
• To examine current publishing in terms of inclusion
• To identify opportunities to improve inclusion in children’s books

3.2 Introduction

A few years ago, a topic on inclusion and diversity would have focused on promoting the need for inclusive books. Thankfully attitudes have changed, and in the 2020s children’s publishers are generally aware of the commercial and social imperative of inclusive books. However, good intentions are not enough, and books trying to be inclusive can do more harm than good if those involved in the book creation process don’t get it right.

The many ways a book can be made inclusive are underestimated. The opportunities for inclusion in books are often inadvertently missed due to a lack of broad understanding and experience. On top of this, if those involved in the book creation process don’t understand some basic principles of inclusion, unconscious biases can unwittingly allow stereotypes to be perpetuated, and common misconceptions to be reinforced.

One solution publishers can adopt is to work with people who have lived experience, which is absolutely vital. However, if publishers rely solely on the advice of specialists, and those with lived experience, which often means they are only focusing on specific facets of diversity, without understanding the basic principles around inclusion and the common pitfalls, things will get missed.

Without knowledge and understanding, inclusion can feel like a burden of responsibility rather than an opportunity and that burden stifles creativity. You may feel you should already know how to make books inclusive, instinctively, and if you don’t this reflects badly on you. Most people working in the publishing industry are passionate, dedicated and well-intentioned staff who feel strongly that children should be able to see themselves in books. But they understandably often lack experience, expertise and the crucial foundational knowledge needed to ensure authentic inclusion. 

In this chapter, we will delve into some of the foundational knowledge you need around inclusion, as well as some of the basic principles that will guide you in making every book you work on in your future careers more inclusive. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

3.3 ‘Inclusion’ or ‘Diversity’? Does it matter?

Take a moment to consider:

• How does word choice impact interpretation?
• How does a focus on ‘diverse’ books inhibit true inclusion?
• Do the benefits of ‘diversity’ initiatives outweigh the pitfalls?

The terms inclusion and diversity are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things. Most of the conversation in the industry has historically been around diversity and diverse books. However, this is starting to change and the terms inclusion and inclusive books are certainly much more inclusive!

Diverse: Showing a great deal of variety; very different.
Diversity: The state of being diverse, a range of different things.

Include: Comprise or contain as part of a whole.
Inclusion: The action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure.

(Lexico.com, 2021)

3.4 The Many Facets of Diversity 

Take a moment to consider:

• Where does the perception of the ‘default human’ come from?
• Does the list of official protected characteristics discriminate by omission?
• Who is the default human in the publishing workforce and how does this influence publications consciously and unconsciously?

In books we are often presented with a default human. Someone who is white, cisgender, non-disabled, heterosexual, with an average figure, typical facial features and probably male. And even if this isn’t who we see, it is often the gaze through which the book is presented. But we are all different from each other. It’s not a case of some people being ‘diverse’ and others not. A diverse range of people includes those we see as the default humans, as well as those who are marginalised and misrepresented.

The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission legally protected characteristics are a good place to start thinking about who needs to be included in books. These are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. Whilst not all of these might seem particularly relevant to children’s or educational publishing, it is worth considering them all – how regularly might you see a pregnant woman working rather than caring for another child? Or someone in a business meeting with a baby in a sling? Even if some of these won’t be directly experienced by your child readers, they still need to see a range of possibilities for the future.

There are other facets that aren’t included in these protected characteristics but are still considered facets of diversity: gender expression (which moves beyond gender reassignment or sex; it might be about gender identity, or someone who is gender non-conforming or non-binary), mental health, neurodivergence, family set-up, appearance (including weight, height, accent), socio-economic status (where you live, jobs done by you or your parents – class, essentially), geographical location regionally or globally, (also urban or rural), education (state-, home-, or privately schooled), nationality (the relative wealth of the region or country you live in) and culture.

It is also vital to keep in mind that none of these facets exists in isolation. People are multi-faceted, and many people will have intersectional experiences of marginalisation, misrepresentation and oppression. People who are disabled and East Asian, will face different barriers from those who are disabled and white British. Black women and white women experience sexism differently. Ageism changes are dependent on gender and ethnicity. Becoming more aware of who is actually missing from, or misrepresented in, the children’s book landscape (and when you consider intersectionality it is a lot of people), makes it easier to see how any book can be made more inclusive in some way.

Skills Builder 2:

Watch Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality? 22 June. Available at:

In the Video, Crenshaw, who coined the term, gives a simple explanation of intersectionality.
Choose a children’s book and consider: Who is included in the book? Are any facets of diversity represented more than another? Are there any trends? Who is represented as the default human, and who is represented as other?
Consider how those who are commonly marginalised, or stories or information about them, are presented? What is the potential impact of this?

3.5 What is Normal?

Take a moment to consider:

• What is ‘normal’ for you? 
• Explore what biases you have. We all have them, and you don’t have to share these, so be honest with yourself. That is how we find out what we need to learn and how we move forward and start to change our internal narrative.
• Consider how your biases may lead you to miss problematic content in books. How can you avoid this?

There is no such thing as normal, yet it is something that is talked about all the time. What we might think of as normal, would more accurately be described as the ‘default’. Not because it is the standard, but because it is the idea that people tend to revert back to. Everyone’s normal is different. Even people who might outwardly seem very similar. For example, it’s normal for my son to have one mum and him in his family. For another child having a mum and dad is their normal, and for other children two dads or two mums, and so on). Yet the world is often presented to us through a normative gaze – one that is white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled, standard-sized and where all the families are nuclear. 

We are naturally inclined to reflect what we know, or publish what we are comfortable with, so we see a default normal represented even when authors and publishers do have a more diverse experience. For those of us who have grown-up in the UK, this is likely to be the world we have been socialised in – one that is patriarchal and heteronormative. One where all these things are seen as the norm and anything else is ‘other’. The problem is that the more books present certain things as the norm, the more ‘other’ anything that varies from that is seen to be. We start to subconsciously believe that this is the way things should be, leading us to be wary of anything that differs from that.

This is more commonly talked about in terms of our unconscious biases. The unintentional and automatic people preferences that we all have. Unconscious biases are in many ways essential. They are how our brains categorise people so that we aren’t overwhelmed making individual assessments on each person we meet.

If you are human, you have biases. And it is nothing to be ashamed of. As Brené Brown says, “It’s not a question whether you have a bias or not, it’s a question of how many and how bad and how deep.” (Brown, 2019). The trouble comes when these unconscious biases are formed based on stereotypes. Which are often those presented to us in books we read as children. And the more we see a particular representation, the more reinforced a bias becomes. If children repeatedly see negative or stereotyped representations, their brains will start to assume that all people that fit into that category, or meet similar criteria (for want of better words) are the same. And once these biases are built, they are very hard to rewire.

Unconscious biases influence everything from our worldview to our behaviour. And the scariest thing about this is that “We don’t have to believe a stereotype for it to affect our behaviour, we just have to know about it (consciously or unconsciously).” (Jones, P. 2021)

When it comes to considering the content in books, unconscious bias can influence whether you assess something as problematic or not and whether or not you pick up on things that may play a part in building biases in others.  

Skills builder 3: Watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009). (Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en)

How did the single story impact Adichie’s view of the Western world when she was a child, and in later years, her college roommate’s view of Africa. Which was more problematic and why?

In the talk, Adiche speaks about power. About how who tells the story, and from what perspective, impacts the interpretation. Consider the ‘stories’ you have internalised about people or places.
What would you have needed to see in books to challenge those, and develop a more balanced perspective?

Research some recently published books and consider the subtle messages that are given about what is the norm in society. Has the default been challenged? If characters who are usually marginalised are represented, how well researched, well-rounded and authentic are they?

3.6 Basic Principles of Inclusion 

Making books inclusive can seem overwhelming but understanding a few basic principles can make a huge difference in confidence. The following eight principles will be considered in turn and activities are provided for each. You should aim to complete two (or more) of the activities and post your discussion to the forum. You will find these principles are a useful starting point for developing the topic of your podcast or research article, particularly when applied to publishing case studies and real books. Thinking beyond this course keep your notes somewhere safe as they will be a helpful tool when working with content in your publishing careers:

1. Be guided by the social and radical models of disability
2. Consider the environment
3. Make each book as accessible as possible
4. Be conscious of the meaning of each word
5. Consider the message of each image
6. Avoid perpetuating a gender binary and heteronormativity
7. Be wary of cultural appropriation
8. Move beyond colouring in

3.6.1 Be guided by the social and radical models of disability: The social model of disability was developed by disabled people and says that in general, people are not disabled by their impairment or difference, but by society in three main ways:

• By the environment – physical barriers such as an absence of ramps, hearing loops or Braille, or even by books being in an inaccessible format
• By attitudes – the perception and expectations that people have of disabled people – usually low (unable to work or advocate for themselves, assuming they also have a learning disability) or exceptionally high (Paralympians or needing to ‘prove’ their worth)
• By organisational structures – lack of flexible working or school systems that are rigid and designed for certain types of learners.

The radical model argues that the social model still presents disability as an ‘impairment’ rather than a natural variation.

Skills Builder 4

Explore the various models of disability on Still My Revolution (Withers, 2012) and consider how this impacts your perception of disability and disabled people and how they are represented in books. 

(Social Model: https://stillmyrevolution.org/2012/01/01/social-model/;
Radical Model: https://stillmyrevolution.org/2012/01/01/radical-model/;
Medicalisation and the Medical Model: https://stillmyrevolution.org/2012/01/01/medicalization-and-the-medical-model/;
The Charity Model: https://stillmyrevolution.org/2012/01/01/the-charity-model/) 

Make notes that you can use as a guide on how to approach representing a disabled character in a book from the social/radical models and avoid perpetuating the medical/charity models. 

Identify some books that include disabled characters. Examine what model is perpetuated by the representation and, if the medical or charity model, how the representation could be changed.

3.6.2 Consider the environment: Simple changes can be made in any book where the physical environment is depicted, even in books or scenes where there are no characters, or where the only characters are animals. A hearing loop can be shown in a library, museum or GP surgery. On any entrance, a ramp could be shown rather than steps, or even an accessible lift. Tactile paving can be depicted at crossings, on train platforms and tram stops. In a classroom, a visual timetable with Makaton or Widget symbols might be seen. There is some wonderfully accessible playground equipment that is seen in more and more children’s playgrounds which can be shown in books. Even if a disabled character is not in a scene, promoting accessibility shows an accessible and welcoming environment. As you will now know from reading about the models of disability, adaptations for accessibility should not only be made when essential, they should simply be part of society.

Skills Builder 5: Read ‘What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?’ (Salman, 2018). (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/14/what-disability-accessible-city-look-like) 

And ‘‘I feel like a second-class citizen': readers on navigating cities with a disability’ (Hunt, 2017 (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/sep/22/second-class-citizen-readers-navigating-cities-disability).

Consider ways the environment can be made more accessible to disabled people (including those who are less visibly disabled) and make a list of simple changes that could be implemented in any book to represent these.

3.6.3 Make each book as accessible as possible: When thinking about accessibility in books, the focus tends to be on specific requirements and books that need to be significantly adapted. But any book can be made more accessible with a few simple changes. This is important given that ten per cent of the population is dyslexic (and it is important to consider the adults who are reading the books with children, as well as the children themselves). Dyslexia is not the only condition that needs consideration, but also the various levels of visual impairments and those with visual processing challenges. Making a book accessible makes it easier to access for everyone.

References

Accessible Books Consortium. (2011) Accessible Publishing Best Practice Guidelines for Publishers. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021) .

Adichie, C. N. (2009) The Danger of a Single Story. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021) .

Barker, M J. (2011) ‘What’s wrong with heteronormativity’, Rewriting the Rules, 17 August. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021) .

Broadbent, D. (2021) The Roller-Coaster Ride Swindon: Child’s Play (International) Ltd. (PDF available)

Brown, B. (2019) The Call to Courage. Available at: (Accessed 31 August 2021).

Brown, L. (2021) ‘Ableism/Language’, Austistic Hoya, 27 Febrary. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

Clemson University. (2018) Print Document Accessibility Overview. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

CLPE. (2019) Reflecting Realities: Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature. London CLPE. Available at: (Accessed: 31 August 2021)

CLPE. (2020) ‘What does it mean to reflect realities... ...and what does it look like when realities are reflected well?’ and ‘Degrees or Erasure’, in Reflecting Realities: Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature 2019. London CLPE, pp. 12-22. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Comerford, R. (2021) ‘Centre people with learning disabilities in your planning, publishers and festivals urged’, The Bookseller, 20 August. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Cravit, R. (2019) ‘How to Use Color Blind Friendly Palettes to Make Your Charts Accessible’, Venngage, 21 August. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

Crenshaw, K. (2018) Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality? 22 June. Available at:

Davies, N. and Fisher, C. (2016) Perfect. Llanelli: Graffeg. (Available at:

Book content starts at minute 4)

de Waal, K. (2018) ‘Don’t dip your pen in someone else’s blood: writers and ‘the other’’, The Irish Times 20 June. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Heron-Delaney M, Anzures G, Herbert JS, Quinn PC, Slater AM, et al. (2011) Perceptual Training Prevents the Emergence of the Other Race Effect during Infancy. PLOS ONE 6(5): e19858. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019858

Hildreth, C. (2021) ‘The Gender Spectrum: A Scientist Explains Why Gender Isn’t Binary’, Cade Hildreth, 22 April. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Hunt, E. (2017) ‘’I feel like a second-class citizen': readers on navigating cities with a disability’, The Guardian, 22 September. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

Inclusive Arts (2020) ‘#BAMEOver - A Statement for the UK’ Inclusive Arts: Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts, 4 September. Available at: (Accessed: 31 August 2020).

Jones, P. (2012) ‘Unconscious Bias – What do we understand?’, Equality Edge, 17 October. Available at: (Accessed: 31 August 2021).

Lexico Dictionaries | English. (2021) Definitions, Meanings, Synonyms, and Grammar by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com. (Available at: (Accessed 1 September 2021).

Medlej, J. (2007) ‘Guide to Human Types – Anatomic and facial features of over 50 ethnotypes’, in Drawing People, pp. 70-98. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Prine Pauls, E. (2008) ‘Tribal Nomenclature: American Indian, Native American, and First Nation.’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 January. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Salman, S. (2018) ‘What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?’, The Guardian, 14 February. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

Saunders, K. (2000) Happy ever afters: a story book code to teaching children about disability. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham. (Scan available)

Taylor, S. R. (2021) The body is not an apology: the power of radical self-love. Second edn. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, pp 4-12 and 20-27. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Vischeck (2015) Vischeck. Available at: (Accessed: 19 August 2021).

Withers, A. J. (2012) ‘Medicalisation and the Medical Model’ Still My Revolution, 1 January. Available at (Accessed 19 August 2021).

Withers, A. J. (2012) ‘Radical Model’ Still My Revolution, 1 January. Available at (Accessed 19 August 2021).

Withers, A. J. (2012) ‘Social Model’ Still My Revolution, 1 January. Available at (Accessed 19 August 2021).

Withers, A. J. (2012) ‘The Charity Model’ Still My Revolution, 1 January. Available at (Accessed 19 August 2021).

Further Reading

Books

Dellenty, S., 2019. Celebrating difference: A whole-school approach to LGBT+ inclusion, Bloomsbury Publishing. 

Epstein, B.J., 2013. Are the kids all right?: Representations of lgbtq characters in children's and young adult literature, Bristol: Hammeron Press. 

Kuklin, S., 2016. Beyond magenta: Transgender teens speak out, London: Walker Books and Subsidiaries. 

Websites

Anderson, D.A. & Hamilton, M., 2005. Gender Role Stereotyping of Parents in Children’s Picture Books: The Invisible Father. Sex Roles, 52, pp.145–151. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Cox, B. & Strick, A., 2013. Write4Children Diversity, Inclusion & Equality special edition A. Melrose & V. Harbour, eds. Write4Children Journal, 4(2). Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Miller, L., Society and commercialism: Core factors in picture book sex stereotyping. Gender in Picture Books. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Oestergaard, C.L., 2019. Inclusive and accessible to all? An evaluation of children's picturebooks and their representation of physical disability. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Swayne, M. & Messer, A., 2017. Highlighting gender promotes stereotyped views in preschoolers. Penn State University. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Podcasts

Kitchen, M. (2021) Inclusion in Media Matters - From Family Structures to Disabilities, The Power in Representation [Podcast]. 22 April. Available at: (Accessed: 20 August 2021).

Videos

Young, S. 2014. I'm not your inspiration, thank you very much, TEDxSydney. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

Grace, J., 2017. Inclusion: for pity's sake?, TEDxTruro. Available at: (Accessed August 31 2021).

4.1. Chapter Aims

• To explore the role of picture books in the children’s publishing sector 
• To examine the interaction between words and pictures in picture books and the relationship between author and illustrator
• To investigate the role of the picture book editor and distinguish what makes a picture book ‘successful’
• To identify trends in the picture book market and the importance of co-editions

4.2 Introduction

In this chapter, we will look briefly at the birth of picture books and their significance in children’s publishing so it helps to have an understanding of how picture books evolved. To work with picture books, you must appreciate how the pictures and words interact. It is a complex but magical relationship! We will investigate the specific requirements of picture books such as writing, editing and production, and it would be useful to read and examine as many picture books as you can get hold of. It is preferable to look at physical copies of books, but digital copies will be fine if this isn’t possible. Hopefully, you will be applying what you have learned in Chapter 3 Diversity and Inclusivity, to all your work, including this picture book chapter, where you will investigate how writers and publishers make picture books more inclusive for children – and evaluate what more needs to be done. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study.

4.3 History of Picture Books

As children, picture books often form our first exposure to visual narratives and ideas. It is in this space that we begin to understand, and make sense of, the world around us through images and an array of non-textual stimuli. Within a picture book, this visual representation of a story or other idea/content via illustration may serve to clarify or embellish textual information or indeed, in an increasingly visual world, may entirely replace words with images altogether; in picture books where no text is present at all, the images alone must work to convey the story, or other intent, of the creator or ‘maker’. 

The picture book as we know it today is constantly being challenged and redefined in terms of its form and purpose, particularly so in an evolving digital world. While the history of the modern picture book is fairly brief, it is placed within a much broader landscape of illustrated books for children. In the UK, Salisbury and Styles (2012) highlight the emergence of the modern picture book in the late nineteenth century with the works of Randolph Caldecott ‘the father of the picture book’. It is in works such as A Frog he would A-wooing Go (1883) and Come Lasses and Lads (1884) that pictures begin to shine and take centre stage – expanding and decorating the text in a way that has been little seen before.  

The later part of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century has become known as the ‘golden age’ of children’s books. This was at a time when a number of key elements, such as technologies in printing and changes in attitudes to childhood, began to simultaneously emerge, facilitating and fostering a booming era of picture book popularity. This cultivated a rich and open space within which illustrative experimentation could take place and new approaches to the artistry could be trialed.

Throughout the 1930s the picture book continued to evolve, with works such as The Story of Babar, and The Little Engine that Could books, playing a pivotal role in the development of the picture book. As war took hold in Europe in the early 1940s the publishing of picture books was largely paused, until its slow regeneration in the years following. The cost of printing was a key consideration as the economic outfall of the war continued to send shock waves through every part of society – paper shortages and austerity limited the extent to which picture books could yet again blossom. 

The 1950s and 1960s brought about shifts in graphic design, whereby artists and designers became attracted to the children’s picture book as a new and exciting means of artistic expression; some examples include The Tiger who came to Tea, books by Dr Seuss (Theodor Geisel) such as The Cat in the Hat, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are. Strong partnerships developed between writers and artists, whereby words and images formed a marriage of versatile and imaginative storytelling.

In the present day, picture books continue to transition and renew. The global digital world has challenged the ways in which picture books are written, accessed, delivered and enjoyed - from e-book viewers to computer screens, as well as via traditional print. While picture books have increasingly served a more global audience since the millennium, it is important to also recognise their potential as important windows into the variety of cultures around the world at a smaller scale – “a cultural reflection of its place of origin” (Salisbury and Styles, 2012, 43).

Skills Builder 1: Investigate images of some of the earliest books, for example, Frederick Warne’s The Children’s Object Book (1880). Compare and contrast them with picture books today. What do you feel are the key similarities or differences? Drawing upon your own knowledge/experience, what do you think are the key factors in bringing about these changes?

4.4 Relationship between Words and Pictures

In children’s books, the relationship between words and pictures is a particularly special one – and together they combine to convey the meaning of the story. Many a picture book has fallen flat where this relationship simply is not working or isn’t cohesive – perhaps the textual elements and the images are fighting against each other, rather than working in harmonious duality on the page. This makes the earlier point about the relationships between author and illustrator even more prevalent – the two individuals are reflected in their representation on the page as text and image.

Skills Builder 2: Explore the relationship between words and pictures

Watch the 6 minute video of Mat Tobin ‘What is a picture book?’.  Identify and make notes on how words and pictures interact in picture books. 

Read the following two blog posts by Mat Tobin which further explain the way children’s picturebooks are encoded, and why we should critically evaluate who children’s books represent. 
https://mattobin.blogspot.com/2020/06/exploring-pictures-in-picturebooks.html
https://lantanapublishing.com/blogs/blog/whose-worlds-are-we-sharing-with-children 
Finally, read and make notes on the article ‘Wimmelbooks and narrative’ on the iBBY website which explores Wimmelbookshttps://www.ibby.org.uk/storiesindetail/.

4.5 Picture Book Production

As with any book, but particularly with picture books, a number of critical design and production decisions need to be made and it is important that editorial and design teams work closely together. Picture books are by their very definition, highly illustrated thus the interrelationship of the illustrations and the text must be carefully planned and controlled on a page-by-page basis. Picture books that also have interactive elements in order to foster sensory experience need further consideration and discussion with other agents such as the printer.

Let’s look at some of the key components of a picture book which will likely form a number of key decisions. While there is no set standard, as these decisions vary from publisher to publisher and book to book, the following information can serve as a guide:

• A standard range of word count: This varies between 250 and 1000 words. But many UK publishers will not consider a picture book with over 600 words and some specify 300 as the maximum. Some picture books only have one or two words per page (or none).
• Standard page count and spreads: There are usually 32 pages or 16 spreads in a picture book. This can vary and a 24-page book (i.e. 12 spreads) is not unusual. Remember that this includes non-story pages too, e.g. the title page and copyright page. Sometimes, there is also a page with information on the author or illustrator or even an activity for the reader to do, such as a puzzle.
• Placing text onto an illustrated spread: Provide either a light background for dark text or a dark background for light text. Remember that some languages have longer words than the same words in English and so will need more space on the spread. Care needs to be taken that these words don’t ‘disappear’ into the illustration.
• Font for picture books: Fonts should be easy to read (either serif or sans-serif) and of a reasonably large size. Avoid using multi-coloured text. Black text will be easier to change, meaning it will be easier to sell co-editions for translation.

Spot illustration: Sometimes the story doesn’t demand a full-page illustration. In these cases, a spot illustration is used. These are smaller artworks and can be placed alone on the page or grouped with other spot illustrations around the spread. It is important to ensure that the background colour to these spot illustrations blends well with everything else on the page. If you are using more than one spot illustration per spread, it should be obvious which order these should be read and which piece of text goes with each artwork. You will often see a spread with a full illustration on one page and a couple of spot illustrations on the opposite page.

4.6 Inclusivity and diversity in picture books

We have discussed inclusivity and diversity in some detail in the previous chapter, but how might we explore this specifically within the context of picture books? There are two principal, and often interrelated, considerations: 

• Picture books that are inclusive and diverse in their content
• Picture books that are inclusive and diverse in their accessibility

In terms of picture books that are inclusive and diverse in terms of their accessibility, picture books often celebrate colour and texture as well as other senses such as sound. There has been some interesting development work in making picture books for blind children

Skills Builder 3: watch the short video 'Tactile Experiences' produced by Inclusion and Equality Consultant Beth Cox (https://www.bethcox.co.uk/)

Make notes and continue with your own research if you find this topic interesting. You could start by looking up El Libro Negro de Los Colores by Venezuelan writer Menena Cottin and illustrator Rosana Faria and investigating how they capture the meaning of ‘red’ for a child who can’t see.
Research picture books that have been recently published (in the past two years) and using the notes from chapter 4, identify two books that you consider inclusive or that you feel are not inclusive.

4.7 What Makes a Picture Book Successful?

Take a moment to consider the following questions:

• What are the key things you would look for as an editor when assessing a new picture book manuscript?
• How do publishers discover new and talented illustrators?
• How do publishers find an illustrator for a picture book that has not been written by an author-illustrator? 
• What might the marketing and sales team look for? 
• What about co-editions – what should you consider? (Think about cultural differences and typesetting different languages.

Skills Builder 4: Research free online guidance for writing picture books.
For example, this blog on the Reedsy website: https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-write-a-childrens-picture-book/, or this advice from the publisher Curtis Brown: https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/seven-tips-for-writing-a-childrens-picture-book/

Make notes on what might make a picture book attractive to publisher/agent/reader.
If you have time, watch the video ‘Creating a picture book: 8 mistakes to Avoid and 1 Golden Secret’:
https://blog.reedsy.com/live/picture-book-jennifer-rees/?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=followup&utm_campaign=reedsylive 

The presenter is Picture Book Editor, Jennifer Rees, who is based in the US. Although this is a US perspective and is aimed at writers of picture books, much of what she says is useful for editors and can be applied universally to picture books. Take notes on what publishers and agents look for and what sells. This link includes a full written transcript.
Create your own blog post or author guidelines on the types of content you would like to publish.

4.8 Controversial or Difficult Subjects 

Picture books have the potential to explore and address ‘difficult’ or controversial subjects in a way that can be emotionally accessible and meaningful for the reader. Some of these difficult subjects include, but are not limited to: 

• Humanitarian issues: war, famine, disease, violence, politics
• Environmental issues: climate crisis, natural disasters, animal welfare and wildlife
• The physical body and mind: Sex, self-understanding, attraction, mental health, puberty, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, race, gender
• Relationships: abuse, death, grief, sadness, friendships, romantic relationships, domestic violence

Perceptions of what is considered ‘suitable’ content has changed considerably over the years, and this also varies from culture to culture. So what might account for the differences in acceptability? 

The attitudes towards, and the perceptions of, childhood play a huge role in what may be considered suitable content – this differs across cultures and generations and over time. Since the notion of ‘childhood’ is a social construction we should be aware that the meaning of this is highly subjective across the globe – as such this influences the variations in what is selected by adults for children. It is, therefore, par for the course that some individuals, and indeed cultures as a whole, may have very strong views about suitability.

Skills Builder 5: Find a book in your own country that looks at a difficult topic. Consider it carefully and thoughtfully – in what ways do the text and the illustrations present the issue? How is the stylistic approach being used within the visual story to convey meaning, or invoke an emotional reaction in the reader? Is the approach effective? What would you do differently?

For example, a book dealing with domestic violence might portray the abuser as much larger in size on the page than the other characters, perhaps using reds and oranges to convey anger. In books dealing with death and grief, perhaps illustrations may be visually ‘softer’ in order to encourage a calm and measured approach to the loss.

4.10 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we have taken a whirlwind tour around children’s picture books. We have looked briefly at the history of picture books and their significance in children’s publishing today. We have developed an appreciation for how words and images work together on the page to convey stories and meaning - it is a complex but magical relationship! We have thought about production considerations as well as issues relating to inclusivity, diversity, accessibility and ‘difficult’ subject matter. 

You should now be able to:

• Critically evaluate the significance of picture books with a brief exploration of the history of their development and how they have evolved in the 21st century
• Examine and analyse the unique relationship between words and pictures in a picture book.
• Identify the publishing processes of a picture book, including production considerations
• Evaluate the role of non-text picture books (Wimmelbooks)
• Identify opportunities for diversity and inclusion in picture books and evaluate the complexities behind what has been considered suitable and unsuitable material for picture books
• Outline editorial needs and communicate these to authors/agents via guides and blogs

References and Further Reading

Alysoun, A (ed.) (2021) Children’s Writers and Artists Yearbook. London: Bloomsbury.

Cave, R. & Ayad, S. (2017) A History of Children’s Books in 100 Books. London: The British Library

Cottin, M. & Faria, R. (2007) El Libro Negro de Los Colores. Ediciones Tecolote: Mexico City.

Cox, B., (2021) Tactile Books [video] Recorded for Oxford Brookes University by Beth Cox https://www.bethcox.co.uk/

Dolan, E. (2017) ‘How Wimmelbooks Work: A Snail’s Guide.’ Sequentials, vol. 1, no. 1. Available at: https://www.sequentialsjournal.net/issues/issue1.1/dolan.html.

Evans, J. (2015) Challenging and controversial picturebooks : creative and critical responses to visual texts. Florence: Taylor and Francis. Available at: http://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3569258

Flood, A. (2020) ‘Picture books on Prescription’. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/06/picture-books-on-prescription-the-new-chapter-in-childrens-mental-wellbeing Grey, Mini (2015) ‘Picture Book Makers, A Blog by Mini Grey’. Picturebookmakers.com. Available at:https://blog.picturebookmakers.com/post/120513251181/mini-grey

Grey, Mini (2015) ‘Windows into illustration’ Books for Keeps, the children’s book magazine online.http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/242/childrens-books/articles/windows-into-illustration/windows-into-illustration-mini-grey(Note: The Books For Keeps website appears to be offline at the minute as it is being redesigned. So this article may no longer be available.)

Harris, R. & Westcott, N. (2015) Who’s In My Family? London: Walker Books.

Hui-Ling Huang (2019) ‘Go Beyond Borders with Picture Books: A Case Study of a Taiwanese Children’s Book Publisher’, Publishing Research Quarterly, 35:52–67.

Hutchins, P. (2009) Rosie’s Walk. Canada: Red Fox Picture Books.

Okimoto, J.D. (2002) White Swan Express. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Opie, I. & Opie, P. (1997) The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Parsons, G. (2020) ‘Political Picture Books’ Picture Book Den Blogspot.com. Available at: http://picturebookden.blogspot.com/search/label/Garry%20Parsons

Percival, T. (2021) The Invisible. London: Simon & Schuster Children’s UK.

Perkin, J. (2019) Mum’s Jumper. Bristol: Book Island.

Pollard, C. (2019) Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind Children’s Picture Books. London: Fig Tree.

Rees, J (2021) ‘Creating a picture book: 8 Mistakes to Avoid and 1 Golden Secret’, YouTube: Reedsy. Available at: https://blog.reedsy.com/live/picture-book-jennifer-rees/?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=followup&utm_campaign=reedsylive

Richardson, J. (2015) And Tango Makes Three. London: Little Simon.

Rundell, K. (2019) Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. London: Bloomsbury.

Salisbury, M. et al. (2012) Children's Picturebooks : The art of visual storytelling. London: Laurence King Publishing

Tobin, M., (2020) ‘Exploring Pictures in Picturebooks’ [blog] 9 June, English and Children’s Literature Available at: [Accessed 28 February 2022]

Tobin, M., (2019) ‘Whose worlds are we sharing with children?’ [blog] 3 October, Lantana Publishing Available at: [Accessed 28 February 2022]

5.1 Chapter Aims

• To investigate the segmentation of the children’s book market by age groups
• To explore the social, commercial (and legal) objectives to the segmentation
• To build an understanding of the challenges and implications of the categorisation for both readers and publishers

5.2 Introduction

This chapter is dedicated to the practice of defining markets by age. This phenomenon is specific to the children’s and YA publishing market, the reasons for which we will explore and discuss following these central questions:

• How and why is the children’s and YA market structured by age groups?
• What are arguments for and against a segmentation by age?
• How might publishers take different approaches to framing content for a specific age group?

You have already explored the picture book market in some detail therefore in this chapter we will take a closer look at other age segments and book categories with a particular focus on middle-grade and YA. We will also consider who plays a role in these categorisations, what macro-environmental factors are relevant as well as the function of gatekeepers. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

5.3 The Age Bands That Define the Market

“The vitality of children’s publishing creates the book buyers of the future,”

Publishers and their titles accompany children from an early age through to the point where they become somewhat independent readers. Developing audiences of the future thus is an essential task that publishers see themselves faced with. Unlike adult readers, children are much more influenced in their choice of reading materials, not just by gatekeepers but also by their still-developing capacities for reading and making sense of what they have read. The most common way to segment this large and diverse market is then to structure it by age, where age bands are supposedly reflective of the stages of reading development. Readers between the ages of zero and approximately 12+ years of age are clustered into different categories and made accessible as target audiences. 

A     0 to 5 (babies to toddlers, described as the ‘parent pointing stage’, must be durable)
B     5 to 7 (starting to read, and reading to children, full colour, strong narrative)
C     7 to 9 (young fiction, perhaps reading their first novel, published in paperback)
D     9 to 11 (longer length of novels)
E     12 upwards (moving into YA)

(Clark & Philips, 2015, p.96-100)

5.4 Reasons for Defining Markets by Age

We will now look at some macro-environmental reasons as to why an age-based market segmentation model has established itself within children’s and YA publishing using the STEEPLE market analysis framework:

5.4.1 Social and Environmental

One reason for grouping published goods by the age of their intended readership is the underlying assumption that children of a similar age are alike, based on what we know about mental and physical development. Depending on the developmental stage, different content is thus relevant and enjoyable for different age groups. Toddlers for instance need to learn concepts such as colours and shapes before they move on to more complex concepts, such as animals and storytelling. The closer we get to adolescence the further our capabilities for critical thinking develop and we are more able but also ultimately more interested in reading content with a higher level of complexity and a greater variety in themes.  However, the social norms within a country or culture do differ and these also dictate what is considered appropriate or inappropriate for younger audiences.

The question of whether age can be a useful and appropriate marker to evaluate what books are “suitable and appropriate” for a reader is a controversial one. Although there is no official PG-rating system for books, as there is for movies or video games for instance, there are some resources created by publishers and other organisations that evaluate books for supposed age appropriateness.  Such as: 
https://www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/books-and-reading-guides/recommended-childrens-books-by-age.html

Skills Builder 1: Thinking back over the last few years, what types of societal pressures have publishers responded to in terms of developing content for children? Can you see any gaps in terms of what sort of content should they be developing over the next few years which are specific to particular age groups? 

5.4.2 Technical and Economic (Commercial)

Supply chain technology: There is a technological dimension relating to group titles according to a specific, accepted and unified scheme. The age bands for instance are included in the bibliographic information for a specific title and thus are an identifying point in any title’s metadata (see Clark & Philips, 2015). Beyond this, knowledge of market structure, and supply chain technology is needed to exploit market dynamics (Fischer, 1997). How do books (or ebooks) come to be ordered by schools, retailers and consumers, which technologies are used, and how do they find their way from physical or digital distributors into the hands of readers?  This is relevant for marketing, sales but also for new product development. 

Marketing technology: Publishers may refer to demographic or census data to gain market insights into the current market and trends to assess size and dynamics for their target segments, based purely on the age data point. It allows them to develop their products and the subsequent marketing and sales efforts for the archetypical members of each age segment, thus de-complexing these tasks significantly at top-level.

Product(ion) technology: We will explore digital and educational products in more detail in subsequent chapters but device adoption in homes and schools determines the viability of developing digital products.  Equally, material science and safety standards are a factor in developing books for babies and toddlers. 

Skills Builder 2: What further macro-economic factors do you think are particularly relevant to children’s and YA publishers and how might these differ internationally? 

5.4.3 Political, legal and educational

As the majority of the intended readership of the children’s and YA publishing market is likely participating in some form of educational scheme (toddler group, kindergarten, pre-school, school and so on) the relevance of the age bands for educational purposes also plays a significant role. Books are an important part of any education and ideally should support the reader’s learning, both of reading itself, but also more generally. Age bands mapped to key stages of learning can then be useful guidelines to what is appropriate and useful for a reader to read and learn. Schools often use supplementary or complementary classification systems that help with selecting the right books according to reading level, such as the colour coded book bands. These also help in checking up on a student’s learning and reading progress, to ensure they can keep up or to know when extra help is needed. There are also standardised examination points to consider, which are relevant to different age groups depending on the market.

A key point of relevance for publishers is the age at which minors legally become adults, in UK law this is called the age of majority at which point people are deemed to have the capacity to make certain decisions themselves such as vote, enter into contracts and get married.  There is usually a connection between the age of majority (legal adulthood) and the age of license when it becomes permitted to be sold restricted products (e.g. alcohols, tobacco, pornography).  The age of majority and age of license differs between countries (and legal jurisdictions) and grants a different range of rights. In most of the UK, the age of majority is 18 (in Scotland it is 16) and there are marketing, GDPR, privacy and ethical implications relating to communicating with and selling to children. Ultimately, whether a publisher is contacting a minor for the purposes of market research, usability testing, or commissioning a TikTok promotion, they require the consent of the parent or guardian.

5.4.4 Gatekeepers

Moving beyond the STEEPLE framework, the primary buyers of books or other published goods for children are adults. The younger the child, the more likely it is that an adult has selected and purchased their reading materials for them, although of course children independently of age may significantly impact the buying decision. There are other cases where children, especially in middle grade and upwards, purchase books themselves, using pocket money or gifted Book Tokens, but even here there is likely to be some parental supervision.

Accordingly, we need to be aware of the role that adults play as gatekeepers in these dynamics and also how the age bands structuring the children’s book market affect their choices. First, let us consider gatekeepers involved in the supply chain or the journey of the book to the end consumer (child):

• Buyers (commercial) and retailers
• Parents, grandparents, other relatives and adult friends (friends’ parents)
• Librarians, teachers (kindergarteners)

For all of these gatekeepers the age bands suggesting the intended reading age for a book are guidelines that help them assess if a particular book is suitable (and accessible) for a child of a certain age. This can both be an advantage and a disadvantage, as we will discuss later in the chapter.

Skills Builder 3: Thinking about what you have learned so far in this course, can you think of further external factors that children’s publishers should be aware of in terms of age?

As you have already explored picture books for younger readers, in the following sections we will go on to consider content developed for middle grade and YA markets and works with crossover appeal.

5.5 Middle Grade (age 8-12)

The age range of 8 to 12 is roughly equivalent to middle childhood or early adolescence and is an important stage in a child’s mental and physical development; it is a time when they begin to think more critically, apply logic, forge friendships, explore their own personal values and find a sense of identity.  It can also be the beginning of puberty (for girls slightly earlier than boys).

The term ‘middle grade’ is adopted from the US education system and generally refers to an 8- to 12-year-old middle-school audience; this does overlap somewhat with the chapter-book audience of 7- to 10-year-olds.  The main distinction between the two markets is the literacy level and competence of the reader.  In comparison to middle grade, a chapter book is likely to use more basic words; a limited vocabulary; and/or greater repetition of words as a pedagogic feature. For this reason, chapter books often fall within the domain of educational publishers. Whereas, a middle-grade book is written presuming the reader is more confident with reading and can include more adventurous vocabulary when appropriate. On this point, Katherine Rundell (p.16-17, 2019) says “I don’t rein in the English language when I write, not because I expect all children to know every word, but because I trust they’re able to deduce or ignore the meaning without collapsing the story.” and goes on to explain how she would not want to interrupt the pace of some sections of a manuscript, such as the climax, with words that a child might stumble over. 

Skills Builder 4: Imagine you have been tasked with buying some middle-grade books for a 12-year-old girl. You know she is a book-a-holic and that she read all of the Harry Potter series a few years ago, she devours humourous books by David Walliams and David Baddiel.  
With your gift-buying hat on, which three books would you put in the shopping basket?  What were your motives for each book you selected?  Now consider those choices from an editorial (or authorial) perspective, would you commission (or write) books like these?

5.6 YA Young Adults 12+

In chapter 1 we introduced the YA sector, and now we will go on to explore this in more detail. As you have seen, the legal age when childhood ends and adulthood begins is a social construct and as such, we can perhaps think of the young adult market as having a lower threshold but no upper limit to the age range. Teenagers are often passionate advocates for the media they love, or critics of the things they do not like.  In her chapter ‘writing for teenagers’ within the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2022 Holly Smale (W&AYB, 2021) stresses some things for authors to avoid: 

Teenagers haven’t changed. […] They’re the same now as they were when I was one. They don’t want you to copy them. They don’t want you to work out what’s ‘hot’ and what’s ‘now’, and to try and follow suit.  They don’t want to be patronised or talked down to; they don’t want to be second-guessed; and they definitely don’t want you to attempt to keep up with them, because – and here’s the secret – you never will.

In What Editors Do (2017 p.167-168), Nancy Siscoe mentions that authors (and their editors) can assume young adults to be “sophisticated readers” who are fully in charge of their book-purchasing decisions. Thus, the need to appeal to gatekeepers is reduced and there is much great freedom in terms of topics that can be tackled.  However, there are some topics and themes, such as violence, suicide, self-harm and body dysmorphia that should be dealt with delicately.  Holly Bourne (W&AYB, 2021 p.167): advises the following in the chapter ‘Dealing with tough issues in YA fiction’: 

There’s not much darkness they’re not already hugely aware of or personally wrestling with.  They’re hugely grateful to have books that shed light on the concerns that preoccupy them. Remember teenagers are legally children’ and therefore as a YA writer, you have a responsibility to tell the truth safely; you must ensure your story is truthful but not harmful.  This delicate balancing act is something it can be tricky to get right.

Bourne’s chapter goes on to highlight approaches to take when writing about tough issues stressing “the right book can save someone’s life” and that darkness should be counterbalanced with hope.   

YA as Genre or Audience?

Young adults are often the perfect protagonist within stories because they are experiencing life, love (and other key milestones) for the first time; they inhabit an interstitial space between childhood and adulthood but are not fully one or the other.  These ingredients can make truly great stories.

Skills Builder 5: For this activity, have a think about what YA is/means to you? Do you have a favourite book that you would describe as YA and what is it about this book that makes you put this label on it? Is the book about young adults, or for young adults, or both?

5.7 Crossover appeal

One argument against using narrow categorisations is that they constitute somewhat artificially imposed limits to the target audience of a given book. Can age be equated with reading-ability, or does a more advanced reading ability really mean one would derive less enjoyment of a book with less and ‘simpler’ text? The answer of course is: no. We have learned that one of the main reasons to set up these artificial limits is to structure the commercial market – not to prescribe the readership itself. So how can publishers ensure that titles that presumably fit into one category are still visible (and buyable) to readers (and consumers) from other segments?

Skills Builder 6: Let us consider a few different cases.  Have a look at the three works below (or use your own examples) investigate online and if you can answer the following questions: 

1) Who is the intended readership, and how might they have discovered these books?
2) Why do you think the books have crossover appeal between two distinct age groups or market   segments?
3) How much control/influence/agency did the publisher have on the respective audiences?

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horseby Charlie Mackesy
Video of the author-illustrator discussing the work

5.8 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we have assessed the practice of segmenting markets according to age and some of the benefits and constraints of doing so.  We have focused predominantly on the issue of developing trade (consumer) content for the middle grade and YA markets and will go on to discuss the educational market in chapter 8.  

You should now be able to:

• differentiate between the different segments within the children’s book market
• critically discuss the reasons for and against segmentation models around age
• have built an understanding of different approaches to segmenting a market

References & Further Reading

BBC Radio 4 (2019) Front Row 19:15 18 February, Minutes 20:56-27:58. 
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002r79 or (Accessed 15 Oct 2021)

Berry, D., Stowell, L., 2021 Dan Berry interviewing Louise Stowell [podcast] 21 April Make It Then Tell Everyone Available at: https://makeitthentelleverybody.com/2021/04/louie-stowell/

Clark, G.N., Phillips, A., 2019. Inside book publishing, 6 edition. ed. Routledge, London ; New York.

Fischer, C., 1997. What can economics learn from marketing's market structure analysis. Business Quest. Journal of applied topics in business and economics, Carrollton, Georgia USA.

Furey, B. 2016 The lost market? how do traditionally gendered reading habits impact upon publishing for the male ya market? [dissertation]. Oxford Brookes University.  Available at: https://oxfordbrookes.on.worldcat.org/v2/oclc/1043156398

Ginna, P. (Ed.), 2017. What editors do: the art, craft, and business of book editing, Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Maughan, S. 2021 ‘Literary Agents Assess the Middle Grade Landscape’ [online] Publishers Weekly .com Available at: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/87268-literary-agents-assess-the-middle-grade-landscape.html

Rundell, K., 2019. Why you should read children’s books: Even though you are so old and wise. Bloomsbury Publications.

Stowell, L. 2021 Middle Grade Genre illustration [online] 14 Sept Twitter.com Available at: https://twitter.com/Louiestowell/status/1437766234754490382?s=20

6.1 Chapter Aims

• To explore the commercial landscape of children’s and YA books in translation in the UK and evaluate opportunities for growth 
• To assess and critique translated children’s books (particularly picture books) and assess their suitability for the UK market
• To identify challenges for publishers who choose to publish books in translation
• To evaluate challenges faced by translators of books into English

6.2 Introduction

In this chapter, we will explore the significance of children’s books in translation (mostly from a UK publishing perspective). You will notice that in this chapter, compared with those that have come before, there are more skills-builder reading activities and the emphasis has shifted towards you learning about this topic through your own independently research in a structured way. 

Although this chapter is written from a UK-centric perspective, the process of evaluating books written in one language to determine whether they are suitable for translation into another can be applied to any other market. Central to the decision-making process is how easily concepts, topics, values and attitudes translate between countries and this requires a familiarity with the local culture and fluency with the local language.  This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

6.3 An Overview of Children’s Books in Translation 

If you have experienced the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, you will have seen the wonderful array of books from all over the globe, displaying a rich variety of styles, illustrations, concepts, and ideas. Books that originate from outside of the UK help children to hear voices from other counties and other cultures, thus promoting an international exchange of culture and ideas through literature. Books in translation make the whole world accessible, broadens our perspective, and offer readers linguistic and cultural diversity and inclusion. 

The number of books in translation published in the UK is growing, but it still makes up a very small portion of books published. As you work through this chapter, you will consider the rationale a publisher might employ when choosing to publish a book in translation and examine the opportunities for funding and prizes. You will explore the challenges faced by both publisher and translator, examine the significance of artwork (in particular, picture book illustrations), and identify the challenges when translating ‘classic’ books or bestselling children’s and YA novels around the globe.   

Skills Builder 1 [6 mins]: Listen to the podcast ‘For the love of it: publishing picture books in translation’  by Sophie Jones featuring Greet Pauwelijn of Book Island: [6 mins - full transcript available to download]

What factors are identified as being important to the commercial viability of translated books?
What challenges has independent publisher Greet Pauwelijn met when it comes to translating books?

Take a moment to consider the following questions, and using the internet why not try to research the answers:

• What challenges and opportunities exist for books in translations in the country in which you are based?
• Do you think publishers in your region are more interested in publishing children’s books in translation than they were ten years ago?
• What percentage of children’s books are translated in the UK (or in the country where you are based)? How does that compare with adult literature in translation? 
• Are some languages represented more than others? Which languages are translated most often – and why might this be?
• Picture books are the most translated of children’s titles – why is this?  Do you think other genres such as middle-grade and YA are more likely to be translated in the future?

Skills Builder 2 [1hr 15mins]: If you have time, watch the recording of Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp’s public talk on literary translation in children’s and YA publishing:

(Recorded 15th December 2020). Closed captions are available on this video.
This is a very comprehensive guide to children’s books in translation and gives a broad overview of how the translation process works in the industry. Ruth presents some interesting statistics about how linguistically and ethnically diverse translations are today. There is also a thought-provoking Q&A discussion, so if you have time, watch to the end of the recording.
Make notes and compile questions or ideas that you’d like to follow up with your own research later on. Write down any titles of books Ruth refers to that you found particularly interesting so that you can investigate them further.

Skills Builder 3: Read and make notes on the article from the Outside In World website: A Decade in Children's Literature in Translation (2005-2014). This article was written in 2016 by Deborah Hallford, Co-Founder of Outside In World, an organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation. They have many useful resources on their website, including a database of books and authors from around the globe. Investigate other parts of the website if you have time.

6.4 The Publisher

There are of course a number of practical hurdles that publishers face when sourcing books to translate and some of the main issues may be: hearing about books from other countries; finding a reader to assess a manuscript in another language; finding a translator. Once a suitable book has been found it is then a case of finding a translator before the translation work can go ahead – but how do publishers find translators? Well, in the UK, you can find a literary translator via the Translators’ Association (a subgroup of the Society of Authors):
https://www.societyofauthors.org/Groups/Translators. 

They have a translator directory where you can search by language or keyword e.g. children’s to find translators with specific experience. In the USA, many literary translators are members of ALTA: https://www.literarytranslators.org/. In Australia, the organisation representing literary translators is AALITRA (https://aalitra.org.au/). The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) has translator members and you can search the directory here: https://www.scbwi.org/member-search/. The Bologna Children’s Book Fair also has a translator directory which you can find online.

It is also important as a publisher to know that there may be an array of grants available for the publishing of books in translations. For example: 

• https://worldkidlit.wordpress.com/resources-for-publishers/
• PEN Translates: For UK-based publishers. Any language combination. Funding up to 100% of translation costs. Ensuring translators are acknowledged & paid properly. Submissions are open twice a year, usually with the closing date of 31st May and 30th Nov. Books for young people are eligible. See English PEN website for more details: https://www.englishpen.org/translation/pen-translates/. 
• Literature across frontiers: https://www.lit-across-frontiers.org/audience/for-publishers/grants-for-publishers/

Skills Builder 4: Research prizes that are available for children’s books in translation. For example, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, which is awarded annually to the best eligible work of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction, work of fiction for children or young adults, graphic novel, or play text, written by a woman, translated into English by a translator (or translators) of any gender, and published by a UK or Irish publisher: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/womenintranslation/

Skills Builder 5: Look at https://worldkidlit.wordpress.com/category/translate-this/ for a list of books that World KidLit (an organisation run by volunteers that promotes children’s books in translation) thinks should be translated. Research one of them and make a list of ideas you could use to pitch this book to a publisher.

6.5 The Translator

There are many problems that translators might come up against during a book translation project. These problems may relate to things like culture, representation, and ideology. For example, how do you reflect a character’s accent ‘correctly’ in English? How might a translator’s choice of words (idioms and literal meanings of words) portray things like ‘class’? Should they use American or British English and what difference might that make to readers’ reception of the final translation? 

Translators also need to carefully consider whether the content is going to be acceptable from one country to the next and how changes that are made through translation may impact the original intent of the work.

Take a moment to consider:  

• Is a true translation ever possible? When does a translation become a re-write? 
• Are there greater barriers for translators of older children’s fiction? Think about trends, fashions, cultural references, and slang. 

Skills Builder 6: Read the blog post from Chinese Books for Young Readers from the 21st of April 2021: ‘130. Stephanie Gou recommends “I Beat the Nightmare Monsters with 32 Farts”’
https://chinesebooksforyoungreaders.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/stephanie-gou-recommends-i-beat-the-nightmare-monsters-with-32-farts/.

Why is this book so different from other Chinese picture books? How has it broken with tradition?
Why do you think this book has been popular with Chinese parents today?
Do you think a UK publisher would be interested in publishing this book in translation? Why?

6.6 Artwork and ‘Classic’ Books in Translation

Take a moment to consider:

• How important is the artwork in translated books?
• Does artwork always ‘translate’ to a different country?
• What challenges might a publisher face when publishing a classic story or a bestselling novel in a different language?

Skills Builder 7: Research the Hans Christian Anderson Illustrator’s Award, which is awarded every two years by IBBY (The International Board on Books for Young People: https://www.ibby.org/). How much influence do you think this award has for the growth of children’s books in translation?

Skills Builder 8: Some classic books have been translated many, many times. For example, the Babar books by Jean de Brunhoff celebrate their 90th anniversary in 2021. Jean de Brunhoff’s son, Laurent de Brunhoff, carried on writing the books after his father’s death in 1937. However, some people consider the Babar books offensive today. Read the article on the Outside in World website about Babar books: http://www.outsideinworld.org.uk/zone-education.asp?page=ED-Articles-Classics-Classics&nl1=ED-Zone-Articles-tl&nl2=Ed-Zone-Articles-Classics#zonetop. 
Do you agree with the author’s views in this article? Why or why not?

6.7 Books from China and Taiwan

China is the world’s biggest children’s book market; there are 580 publishers in the country and 560 of them publish children’s books. In 2017, the children’s book market grew by 21.18% year-on-year, having enjoyed ten years of double-digit growth. Many books in China are translated from other languages and imported books make up over 60% of the market. Children’s literature accounts for 29%, cartoon books/comics for 24.37%, and popular science for 18.28%. China has surpassed the US to become the world’s largest country for children’s publishing. The promotion of Chinese books overseas is growing and there are more books jointly created by Chinese authors and foreign illustrators (or vice versa); for example, the award-winning book Bronze and Sunflower, written by Cao Wenxuan, illustrated by Meilo So, and translated by Helen Wang. 

The Chinese picture-book market has matured in recent years as middle-class families seek more professional and high-end publications. Chinese publishers are taking a more strategic approach to picture book publishing and more original Chinese books are being promoted overseas. Some Chinese authors have even become millionaires from the royalties!  

Skills Builder 9: Books in translation have also played an important part in supporting children during the Covid-19 pandemic.  On February 29, Zhang Mingzhou, President of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) launched a translation and reading program named ‘Picture Books about COVID-19 for Children Around the World’ and called for all member units to participate. Read about it here:  https://www.lifetreebooks.org.cn/pc/us/index.html. Examine the list of books that have been published through this project: https://www.lifetreebooks.org.cn/pc/index/first.html.
Which one/ones would you choose to publish in the UK and why?

Skills Builder 10: Chinese Books for Young Readers is an online resource about children's and YA books created in Chinese. It was set up by Helen Wang (based in the UK), Anna Gustafsson Chen (based in Sweden), and Minjie Chen (based in the USA) who read Chinese books for young people, in Chinese and English. The website brings together information about Chinese books for children, in various places and various languages. Explore the site here: 
https://chinesebooksforyoungreaders.wordpress.com/. 
Choose one or two blogs and make notes on your findings.

6.8 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we have considered translations of children’s books and the issues involved with that. You should now be able to:

• Critically evaluate the current market for books in translation
• Examine and analyse a selection of picture books translated into English, analysing cultural and ideological differences
• Identify how a publisher chooses which books to translate and the challenges and opportunities this presents
• Evaluate the role of a translator and examine the potential challenges of translating a book from another culture/language into English
• Identify opportunities for diversity and inclusion in translated children’s books
• Investigate the Chinese market for picture books and the potential for international rights sales, especially into the UK.

References and further reading 

Books and Articles

Bird, E. (2013) ‘Do Nations Have an Illustrative Style?’, School Library Journal. Available at: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2013/12/31/do-nations-have-an-illustrative-style/#_

Erizanu, P. (2016) ‘Romanian children's books illustration – in pictures’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2016/aug/01/romanian-illustrated-childrens-books

Gerden, E. (2021) ‘Russian Market Looks to Children’s Books for 2021 Growth’, Publishing Perspectives. Available at: https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/03/russian-market-looks-to-childrens-books-for-2021-growth-covid19/

Huang, H-L. (2019) ‘Go Beyond Borders with Picture Books: A Case Study of a Taiwanese Children’s Book Publisher,’ Publishing Research Quarterly, 35(1), pp. 52–67.

Karmenian, K. (2016) ‘Nutcrackers and Alice in Wonderland: Russian illustrated children's books – in pictures’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2016/oct/12/russian-illustrated-childrens-picture-books

Lathey, G. (2005) ‘The Travels of Harry: International Marketing and the Translation of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Books,’ Lion and the Unicorn, 29(2), pp. 141–151.

REB. (2016) ‘Translating children’s Books: Difficulties and Reluctances,’ The Artifice. Available at: https://the-artifice.com/translating-children-books/

Wolf, S. A. (2011) Handbook of research on children's and young adult literature. New York: Routledge. (See page 404 – chapter Translation and Crosscultural Reception by Maria Nikolajeva)

Useful Videos

‘Diversity in Publishing’, a discussion at the London Book Fair in 2019:

The Bird Within Me: Interview with Swedish illustrator Sara Lundberg about her picture book, The Bird Within Me: https://vimeo.com/533081902. This book was published by independent publisher Book Island and shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Book Awards 2021. Sara talks about how her life in Sweden has influenced her artwork. 

Translation outreach in schools and the move online, University of Reading:

A panel event on translation outreach in schools, hosted by the Centre for Book Cultures at the University of Reading in partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation, and the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Reading.

WorldKidLit LIVE presents "Why Translate Kidlit? A talk with translators around the world":

World KidLit YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR3eK4bOfAEMoXjjq_j20Lg

Websites and Web Links 

Book Island translated children's fiction project - The Independent publisher Book Island translated children's fiction project, co-funded by Creative Europe:  https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/book-island-translated-childrens-fiction-project

Books on Board: https://www.ibby.org/awards-activities/activities/silent-books  In response to the waves of refugees from Africa and the Middle East arriving on the Italian island, Lampedusa, IBBY launched the project “Silent Books, from the world to Lampedusa and back” in 2012. They introduced a new project called Books on Board which provides portable sets of books to use on rescue boats. These are wordless books that can be understood by children, regardless of language. 

Chinese Books for Young People (blog posts): https://chinesebooksforyoungreaders.wordpress.com/

Darf Publishers: https://darfpublishers.co.uk/. They produce books from Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Indonesia, Italy, and Egypt.

Global Literature in Libraries Initiative: https://glli-us.org/

IBBY YouTube videos, including the 2021 IBBY Annual Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9FAkx3sWg4-GRnwMd5Eh1w/videos

Life Tree Books (Chinese publisher): https://lifetreebooks.org.cn/pc/life/index.html

Milet publishers: https://www.milet.com/

Outside In World: http://www.outsideinworld.org.uk/ You can search within the site for books by country of origin, language, regions of the world.

Planet Picturebook: https://planetpicturebook.com/ This website is by Laura Taylor, a translator who is on a mission to explore children’s picture books from every country in the world 

Snaije, O. (2020) ‘World KidLit: Translation Rights and Challenges in Children’s Books’, Publishing Perspectives. Available at: https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/09/world-kidlit-translation-rights-and-challenges-in-childrens-books-covid19/

Taiwanese Publisher Grimm Press: https://www.grimmpress.com.tw/

Taiwanese Publisher Heryin Books: https://www.heryin.com/foreign-rights.asp

World Kid Lit: https://worldkidlit.wordpress.com/ 

World KidLit Articles: https://worldkidlit.wordpress.com/category/articles/

World KidLit Children’s Books in Translation from the Americas: https://worldkidlit.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/wkl-recommends-...-childrens-books-in-translation-from-the-americas.pdf

World KidLit Children’s Books in Translation from Central and Eastern Europe: https://worldkidlit.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/wkl-recommends-central-eastern-europe-kid-lit-in-translation.pdf

World KidLit Children’s Books in Translation from Scandinavia: https://worldkidlit.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/wkl-recommends-...-scandinavian-childrens-books-in-translation.pdf

World KidLit Junior Fiction in Translation (20th Century classics): https://worldkidlit.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/wkl-recommends-junior-fiction-in-translation-20th-century-classics.pdf

World KidLit Junior Fiction in Translation (21st Century favourites): https://worldkidlit.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/wkl-tick-sheet-junior-fiction-in-translation-21st-century-favourites-alphabetical-with-countries.pdf

7.1 Chapter Aims

• To explore innovation and multimedia products and services in Children’s publishing
• To analyse challenges associated with these products
• To outline basic considerations associated with digital and multimedia product development for children

7.2 Introduction

Innovation is often born of a technological trigger.  In the case of digital products for the consumer children’s market, one of the most significant triggers for digital publishing was the launch of tablet devices (such as iPad and Android devices) and the associated applications or “app” stores.  When hype was highest, around 2010, many publishers experimented with app development and some of the new functionality these devices offer such as augmented reality.  Many of these new book-app products were expensive to develop and did not always see a return on investment, hence the decision by publishers like Nosy Crow to withdraw from this market. 

Not all apps are unsuccessful though, see Me Books by Eric Huang (https://www.mebooks.co/) and not all businesses have given up on multimedia innovation for tablets and smartphones see Wallace and Gromit Big Fix Up (https://www.thebigfixup.co.uk/).  Beyond this, mobile apps are not the only source of digital innovation in the children’s market.  There are other products, formats and services that are custom-developed with children in mind see Tonies (https://tonies.com/en-gb/) and Yoto Player (https://uk.yotoplay.com/).  

One of the biggest issues with developing digital or multimedia formats is that other creative industries adjacent to publishing are often better equipped in terms of knowledge of processes, and access to the required skill set. Film and TV studios, animation studios, video game developers, audiobook producers, all have a competitive advantage over a traditional publishing house when it comes to developing multimedia content.  So publishers need to think really carefully about where the true opportunities are to add value. They also need to look carefully at competing products and how those products and services make money from content. 

The money made from digital content services is often not derived from selling the product itself. Some of the largest commercial opportunities online come from developing an audience, or a platform full of audiences that can be specifically targeted and then charging third parties to advertise or promote their products to that group. Or alternatively, capturing and drawing insight from user data can then be sold on to third parties. Thus, one of the most important things for publishers to keep in mind is their ethical and legal responsibilities to an audience of children.  This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

7.3 The why: Why innovate? 

Innovation is generally acknowledged as the process of introducing new products and services or improving existing ones. This can come about by introducing a new component to the existing production or output, or it can come about through the introduction of entirely new elements. Furthermore, true innovation adds novelty to a product or service that extends beyond just a new format. Rather, it seeks to add value and offer something worthwhile that was not there previously. As an example, whilst ebooks were at some point considered a major innovation within publishing (Springen, 2010), one could argue that their true innovative value lies in more flexible capabilities to display and render content to the reader and additional functionality i.e. by adjusting typography or having a built-in dictionary function.

Innovation thus happens in conjunction with technological change (i.e. the advent of the iPad) but needs to be considered in relation to societal changes, too. In publishing, this is primarily reflected in changing reading habits (where, what and how long) that affect what publishers produce and how to stay in business. Before we consider the rationale for innovation, let us recap what types of multimedia and digital publishing products for children are currently on the market?

• Ebooks: enhanced with multimedia and interactive elements
• Audiobooks
• Apps: Mobile Phone and web-based applications or apps, within this one might include augmented reality book apps
• Video games: these could be born-digital textual-games or adaptations of books into video game format 
• Podcast platforms (either dedicated ones like PocketCast or streaming platforms such as Spotify)
• Multimedia and transmedia books (including QR codes, data carriers, audio enhancements)
• Interactive audio devices (see i.e. The Tonie box, https://tonies.com/en-gb) 
• … any others you can think of?

A lovely selection of children’s titles that expand the readers’ experience beyond one medium and integrate multimedia and digital content can also be found on the site for the Bologna Ragazzi Cross Media Award. 

See https://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/highlights/awards/bolognaragazzi-crossmedia-award/10693.html.

Furthermore, online platforms constitute significant places where children discover and explore publisher’s content, for example social media channels such as TikTok or Instagram, fanfiction sites, wikis and other writing communities. Often these have a minimum user age but are used by children and teens nonetheless.  

All of these have their own advantages and challenges, both for the publisher and the consumer that need to be considered when aiming for successful innovation. Podcasts for instance are a great (digital) way to educate and entertain children without active screen time providing the source content is suitable. For publishers, podcasts are a great way to promote and repackage content, but in order to reach the maximum audience, they will have to pay streaming services to feature their content. 

For publishers, innovating is thus also a commercially driven decision. Their customers are exposed to and using these digital services and innovations and in order to keep commercially afloat, publishers need to (at least partly) embrace what the landscape has to offer and shape their products and services in a way that they stay relevant within it. Whilst this is the main commercial reason for publishers to innovate, let us consider what needs publishers are aiming to meet with their innovations:

• Meeting the changing consumption habits of digital media by children
• Create safer digital media consumption spaces for children 
• Meeting more diverse learning needs, for instance by developing multi-level ability educational content for children with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia  (see  i.e. Inclusive Publishing, 2018)

The non-linear and enhanced didactic capabilities of multimedia and digital media for children find great application in educational publishing. Having video content, interactive digital content and activities allow for a greater variety of learning needs to be addressed than provided by a printed textbook. You will learn more about this in the chapter dedicated to educational publishing. 

In 2021, Smit Zaveri gave a guest lecture at Oxford Brookes University that provided some insight into the tension between content development and the commercial constraints of publishing for the children’s market in India. In her role as Children’s Editor at Puffin India, Zaveri was constrained by the price-sensitive consumer market, which often dictates the content publishers can commission and the viability of physical formats and international competition. 

“The Indian market is one that's extremely influenced by what has been published in the West and we're a price sensitive market.  When a parent has 250 rupees to buy a book (that's the average price of a picture book in India), you're thinking ‘am I going to spend this 250 rupee on an Indian book when I don't know what the quality is going to be like?’, because that's the mindset here, ‘or am I going to buy a picture book published by an international publisher?’.  Even Puffin India is constantly having to compete with imported books, because imported books have a longer history of being published here.  Thus the key question for Indian publishers is always what kind of content, or formats can we produce that is different to imported books?” 

Zaveri explained that one successful strategy is to commission authentic content for the educational non-fiction market that is created by authors and illustrators who are from the Indian continent, with a uniquely Indian design, voice and perspective. For example, Unearthed: The Environmental History of Independent India (https://penguin.co.in/book/unearthed-the-environmental-history-of-independent-india/).  However, the educational non-fiction book market is still competitive, and relatively small. 

This is where new technology, formats and business models offer innovative publishing opportunities. Zaveri went on to explain the not-for-profit donation-based business model used at Pratham Books. They publish digital-first content on their StoryWeaver platform (https://storyweaver.org.in/) and host a catalogue of thousands of stories, translated into hundreds of languages, with animation and read-along functionality, all available for free to the end-user. A donation-funded model, combined with the goal of improving literacy rates, allows Pratham to cater to even the smallest of niche markets, ones that traditional print publishers are unable to cater to.

7.4 What Makes a Successful Product or Service?

Although there are plenty of examples for this in our fast-evolving tech landscape, there is not much of a case to be made for innovating for the sake of innovation. The global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new surge in the demand for interactive, immersive digital content for children, oftentimes around classic children’s literature such as fairy tales (see i.e. McDermott, 2021). The groundwork to create successful publishing innovation for the children’s market is to identify the readers’ or consumers’ needs and understand how these could or should be met. A successful product or service is thus one that meets the need and wants of its audience in a novel way and adds value through that.

Skills Builder 1:

Pick one or two of the examples mentioned in the introduction above, or some of your own choosing.  Briefly, investigate the product or service being offered via their website description (and perhaps also product reviews). 
What in your opinion is the core strength (the value proposition) and why might parents, carers or other decision makers want their child to have it?

7.5 Challenges of Innovation and Multimedia Publishing for Children

Any area of advance in publishing comes with its own overarching and specific challenges that deserve some consideration as they may be impactful to the development of Children’s publishing products from creation through to marketing and sales. 

7.5.1 .Production and Usability: One of the biggest challenges for traditional publishers producing digital and multimedia content is their sometimes limited expertise compared to other players that have inherent competencies in for instance video production, developing apps or augmented reality content. So when it comes to the production of more- or less-complex multimedia and digital content, publishers need to evaluate whether the skills required to implement the project can actually be found in-house or need to be outsourced to external service providers, such as agencies or software firms. This ultimately comes down to a financial consideration and a careful evaluation of return on investment. Generally the culture of designing highly creative and qualitative content is elevated in children’s publishing for the benefit of the end user, this evaluation is not an easy one. 

Another way to approach this can be partnerships with leading players in technology or multimedia production, in which a publisher can contribute their expertise on readers and content, whilst the partner contributes their expertise on producing and distributing complex format content. An example of this is StoryToys (now owned by Team17) that teams up with well-known media and publishing companies such as Warner Bros or Penguin to create AR apps around titles such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The production of digital media, including apps, AR content, websites and so on, also requires user experience research and testing. With children as a target audience, this can be more difficult than with adults as legal, ethical and also practical considerations are somewhat more complex with minors (Joyce, 2019). For starters children read at a lower proficiency level and do have a less reliable compliance performance in testing studies. User testing with children thus usually requires more time and effort. The same applies to working with focus groups, for instance, to prepare marketing an innovative product. Nonetheless, it is extremely important to ensure products are inclusive and this is essential for successful product development and launch. 

Ultimately, the underlying challenge in conducting and the type of market research involving children is the added layer of adults that constitute the legal, commercial or didactic proxy of children, or the intermediary between a publisher and a child. Thus, it is never enough to only research children's behaviour, but the behaviour of the attached adults has to be considered too. For instance, a child might consume ebook apps, but a parent would prefer screen-free media. Or a student would benefit from and like to use interactive e-learning content on a platform but a teacher might hesitate to embrace digital media for their lessons. 

7.5.2 Legal Considerations: You have already learned about some of the key principles of rights and laws in a digital and data space, among them GDPR, which of course applies to children, too. The protection of children in a media landscape is also to be considered. In a digital space this can be more complex than in print publishing, but the range of solutions to create safer digital experiences for children is growing and most apps designed for children include safety settings, such as restricting access to the internet through the app, for parents to have control over how a child interacts with digital media. 

For more on GDPR and the rights of the child in a digital space you might like to read:

• https://gdpr-info.eu/art-8-gdpr/
• https://childrens-rights.digital/einstieg/index.cfm.  

Another legal aspect that is equally important to consider for publishers is obtaining the rights to use or repurpose content in a digital format. This is both important in transformative projects, where for instance a print book is converted into an enhanced ebook but also digital-first projects, and can involve seeking permission from authors, illustrators, and also software companies to use their IP.

Skills Builder 2: Choose a digital children’s product or service. (Think beyond ebooks etc., for instance, you could choose a podcast or book box). Then in detail analyse the product or service in terms of the why and what of innovation, as well as its particular challenges. Think about issues of usability (also for differently-abled children), legal challenges around data protection and how the publisher might have approached the making of the product/service. 
Try to answer the question: How does this product generate (added) value by being digital/multimedia instead of a traditional print product? 

Skills Builder 3: It is now up to you to be both creative and critical.   Pick a traditional print product for children (or tweens, teens and young adults) and write a product pitch/brief of how you would transform it into a digital or multimedia product. You don’t need to fix yourself to a specific title, you might also write a pitch for a product that fits well within the portfolio of the publisher you chose for this activity. Your brief should outline elements such as: 

Formats (the what and why)
Intended audience (age group, needs & wants)
A short consideration of where to source the content from
How much it might cost to develop
How the product/service will add value
How the product/service makes money
Any challenges to consider

7.6 Business Models

Within this chapter, we have considered innovation within the trade/consumer children’s markets, where it is often a parent (or individual consumer) making the purchasing decision and spending money on behalf of a single child (or perhaps a small group of children). Multimedia apps can vary in terms of the development costs from fairly modest (a few thousand pounds) to staggeringly expensive, something like the Wallace and Gromit Big Fix Up is likely to be hundreds of thousands of pounds. In order to make a one-off purchase business model, successful publishers need to convince lots of people to buy their product, and usually, every app sale is a single sale (and unlikely to be repeated).  If we compare this to the print one-off-purchase model, book production costs are relatively low, the total number of people you need to persuade to buy a book is also fairly low (in comparison to apps) and there is always the chance of bulk orders, or repeat purchases from the same customer, for example, if your child likes a picture book you might buy it again for their friends’ birthdays. 

This is perhaps why digital and multimedia products have been more successfully sold as subscription services and to the educational market. In this context, large production budgets are justified and marketing and sales efforts have a much higher potential return on investment and the lifetime customer value is also higher.  In the next chapter, we will explore the educational market both in print and also explore some of the innovative digital products and platforms that have been developed for schools.

7.7 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we have explored innovation and multimedia products and services in Children’s publishing. We have also attempted to analyse the challenges associated with these products. You should now be able to:

• Define innovation in the context of children’s publishing
• Understand the value of innovation and multimedia for children’s publishers
• Discuss challenges associated with digital products for children
• Propose a digital product or service and articulate its value proposition

Reading and References

Bologna Children’s Book Fair (2021) Bologna Ragazzi Cross Media Award [online] Available at: (Accessed 29/10/2021)

GDPR 2016, Chapter 2: Article 8: Conditions applicable to child's consent in relation to information society services. Available at: (Accessed 29/10/2021)

Inclusive Publishing (2018). ‘The Journey Towards Dyslexia-Friendly, Digital Publishing’. Inclusive Publishing. [Blog]. Online, available at: (Accessed 19/10/2021)

Joyce, A. (2019). “Usability Testing with Minors: 16 Tips”. Nielsen Norman Group. [Blog]. Online, available at: (Accessed 19/10/2021).

McDermott, K. (2021). Changing Trends in the Publishing Industry. Forbes. Online, available at: (Accessed 19/10/2021)

Pratham Books (2022) StoryWeaver [website] Available at: https://storyweaver.org.in/

Project Children's-Rights.digital (2021) Child Protection and Children’s Rights in the Digital World [online] Available at: (Accessed 19/10/2021)

Springen, K. (2010), “The digital Revolution in Children’s Publishing”, Publishers Weekly. Online, available at: (Accessed 19/10/2021)

Further resources

Phillips, A., Stokes, C. (2020) Episode 88: Angus Phillips in conversation with Catherine Stokes of Nosy Crow [podcast] OICP Podcast Available at: https://publishing.brookes.ac.uk/podcasts/item/angus_phillips_in_conversation_with_catherine_stokes/

Kucirkova, N. (2017) “An Integrative Framework for Studying, Designing and Conceptualising Interactivity in Children's Digital Books,” British Educational Research Journal, 43(6), pp. 1168–1185. Available at: https://oxfordbrookes.on.worldcat.org/v2/oclc/7585371745

8.1 Chapter Aims

• To explore the commercial landscape of educational publishing, both in the domestic and international market and to evaluate opportunities for growth
• To identify challenges faced by publishers of educational material for the international market and ELT
• To explore the development of digital material for the schools market and evaluate opportunities for further growth
• To investigate the home-learning market and examine the relationship between trade and educational publishing for reading at home/soft learning. 
• To evaluate how publishers are responding to the need for diversity and inclusion in educational material

8.2 Introduction

This chapter explores publishing for the UK and international educational markets, focusing specifically on primary and secondary schools and therefore the education needs of children between 5 and 16 years old. You will also investigate the rise in digital resources and review home-learning material. A key aspect of this market within the UK is that schools purchase books and other learning materials for students (as opposed to parents/carers buying them).  

According to the Publishers Association (2020), overall sales in educational books rose by 12.7% in 2019 and there has been continued growth in the publication of digital material. In 2019, digital school and ELT sales (in the UK) went up by about a quarter. The UK schoolbook market had a brief dip in sales in 2018, but since then has seen growth in the export market and print and digital international sales. Sales in the UK are often adversely affected by constraints in the school budget, which together with a rise in free online resources, presents the UK educational publishing industry with some challenges.

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in many students having to study at home, highlighting large socio-economic gaps in terms of the resources available to teachers, parents, and students. The publishing industry responded to this challenge with many offering free resources to help with tuition and learning. How this impacts the future of educational publishing and inspires innovation remains to be seen. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

8.3 An Overview of Educational Publishing in the UK 

Regulations, government and politics are a huge influence on educational markets worldwide – more so than any other publishing sector. This is because, quite naturally, educational publishing is directly connected to education. For instance, in the UK the educational publishing market is influenced by the National Curriculum – the National Curriculum is outlined for the Department of Education and is a set of subjects and standards used by the primary and secondary school system.

The majority of sales, as you would be right to assume, are sold direct to schools and thus avoiding issues associated with selling through powerful retailers. While educational publishers, sometimes known as ‘curriculum publishers’ are impacted less by retail, they are however subject to the volatility and rapid developments of the major tech company players e.g. in terms of ways in which content is delivered. However, it is important to note that educational publishers derive most of their sales revenue from their established backlist of books.

Also housed under the umbrella of the terms ‘educational publishing’ are ‘trade’ or ‘consumer’ education – these deal much more with materials such as study and revision guides – geared far more towards the student as the consumer who is undertaking self-study either at home, or in the lead up to exams. Therefore, while the study guides are likely to be linked to the National Curriculum in terms of content, they are unlikely to be used in the classroom, and as such may be somewhat more independent. 

Over the years, a significant amount of consolidation has occurred amongst publishers, giving rise to the ‘big players’ in the publishing industry. These publishing companies are (as listed by Clark and Phillips, 2020, 68):

• Pearson
• Hodder Education
• Oxford University Press
• Collins Learning (News Corporations
• Cambridge University Press

Skills Builder 1: Watch the video on Educational Publishing by Judith Paskin, giving an overview of educational publishing in the UK. 

Choose a country of your choice, perhaps it is a country that you have experience with in the world of publishing, or perhaps it is your home country. 

What has been the history of educational publishing? 
How does it differ from the UK market?
And how might you compare the two markets?

8.4 From Commissioning to Publication 

When an editor begins preparations for the development of educational materials, there is a range of quantitative and qualitative data that will be incredibly useful to have. Some examples of these data may include:

Quantitative – Student numbers, numbers of courses in a subject, sales figures of similar titles, market share of the leading titles and publishers. 

Qualitative – trends in the subject area, analysis of competing titles, i.e. their extent, features, authors, strengths and weaknesses, questionnaire results on products used and future needs, focus group data, e.g. from students, teachers, and librarians, visits to schools.

As editors in education publishing are specialists, it is not unreasonable for them to be highly in tune with the National Curriculum and engaged in ongoing direct market research through the reading of school syllabuses and relevant education journals. It is likely that discipline-specific advisers may be retained for ongoing consultation. When developing education content, there is of course also a review process.

So, we have mentioned that educational editors are quite specialist in what they do, what experience and skills is it important for them to have?

• Teaching experience and writing educational materials/curricula
• An editorial eye 
• A passion for education, teaching and learning
• An ability to write educational materials for the relevant age groups
• A working understanding of teaching technology and delivery

Remember, educational editors must also keep an eye on their competitors at all times and have a solid grasp on their markets and the future of the educational system.

Skills Builder 2: You are commissioning an author (who is a former teacher) to write a quiz for the UK GCSE Geography syllabus for the AQA Exam board. You will find the syllabus here: 
https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/geography/gcse/geography-8035/specification-at-a-glance. 
The quiz questions will be published on a digital platform and will be used by students for homework or home-schooling. Choose one of the four subject areas in the syllabus specification and write a development brief for the author. Explain what topics you would like them to cover and give them an example of the type of quiz questions you had in mind.

8.5 The International Market and ELT

The International Market is of critical importance when undertaking educational publishing. Editors need to be aware of cultural sensitivities when commissioning and editing material at all times, and especially for the international market. This includes avoiding certain images and language. What images or language might be particularly problematic if you were publishing for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, or East Asia? 

The following are often given as guidelines: 

• Avoid images of pigs/pork, including representations such as a piggy bank.
• Avoid showing people touching their food with their left hand. 
• Avoid showing alcohol or pubs or bars, even if the setting is clearly British or European.
• Avoid showing rats and dogs near human food
• Avoid showing kissing, holding hands, or touching, even if married.
• Avoid references to lotteries or gambling. It is okay to win money in a competition for a drawing, for example, but images of dice should not be shown.
• Do not show illegal drug use.
• Avoid showing smoking or cigarettes.
• Avoid showing the soles of people’s feet or the soles of shoes.
• Avoid all nudity, although male flesh is okay if it is in the context of a medical scene or an athlete. Avoid showing women’s bare legs, shoulders, back, or cleavage, or any revealing clothes. Avoid nudity even from well-known works of art, e.g. Michelangelo’s statue of David.
• Avoid showing someone pointing at people or poking their tongue out. 
• Avoid any form of blasphemy, including the word ‘damn’.
• Avoid any reference to magic, witchcraft, fortune-telling, astrology, ghosts, the afterlife, or the supernatural or superstition. 
• Geographical references – any texts to do with any region of the Middle East need to be checked, for example, do not refer to the Persian Gulf – use ‘The Gulf’. 
• Flags – be cautious; best to avoid exercises with flags for ELT-like books.

Skills Builder 3:

Explore the websites of:
Macmillan English Campus (https://www.macmillanenglishcampus.com/) and 
Onestopenglish (https://www.onestopenglish.com/) which is Macmillan’s resource site for English language teachers. They have partnered with The Guardian to provide learning material for ELT students. Investigate how this works.

English Language Teaching (ELT) is an ‘export-orientated’ field of publishing (Clark & Philips, 2020, p. 69). OUP is the largest international ELT publisher; and Pearson is the biggest player in the American English market. Revenue from rights sold for school books rose from £6m in 2015 to £9m in 2019. However, there was little change between 2018 and 2019. In ELT, revenue rose from £8m in 2015 to £12m in 2018, but fell to £11m in 2019.

As a development editor, what things should you consider when creating educational resources for teachers and learners who have English as a second language (EAL)?

You might consider:

• including more headings, sub-topics and pictures to help learners access the content  
• using simple grammar  
• checking the language used is accessible?  
• using a less wordy writing style 
• including keywords, i.e. subject-specific terms and other useful vocabulary and defining these words in plain English 
• defining ‘command’ words (e.g. analyse, comment, compare, outline, summarise, suggest) to help students understand their meaning 
• including a glossary with definitions of keywords (usually at the end of the book or in an appendix).

Skills Builder 4: You have been asked to produce a series of primary school resources for a course on ‘Wellbeing’ for the International Market. Create a draft proposal with ideas for activities for students in Years 1 (4 or 5-year-olds) and Year 6 (10 or 11-year-olds). Think about the type of resources you would use, including digital material.

8.6 Going Digital

The use of technology and digital platforms and resources for educational material has grown steadily, with many schools using interactive whiteboards, tablets or laptops to access learning platforms such as OUP’s Kerboodle or Hodder Education’s Dynamic Learning. 

This is a long section, and there is a wide scope of things to research and discuss.  

Take a moment to consider:

• What factors have driven the rise in digital material for schools? Can you find evidence of this?
• Explore two publisher websites and find out how much free material they offer; for example, free teacher resources, videos, and activity sheets. Why do you think it is important to offer this added service?
• How does digital technology enable personalised learning? For example, see Pearson’s MyMathLab: https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/mymathlab/ 
• ‘Surely the impact of Covid-19 will be a serious game-changer for digital resources in 2020 and beyond.’ (PA Yearbook 2019, p.56). How will teaching materials change in the future? Will digital learning be the ‘new normal’?
• In 2019, Pearson announced a digital-first strategy for textbooks in the US; and in August 2021 they launched their new product Pearson+. Do you think ‘digital only’ textbooks will become more popular in the UK (or your country of residence)?
• Is there a place for gamification in educational publishing?

Skills Builder 5: Find an example of free internet content for students or teachers. Then explore OUP’s Kerboodle site or the digital material offered by another publisher, e.g. Educake, which provides online homework and revision for Key Stage 3 and GCSE subjects (https://www.educake.co.uk/). Evaluate and compare the two sites? What value-added content do publishers offer?

Skills Builder 6: Kahoot! (https://kahoot.com/schools/) is an app for teachers. It offers a platform for them to create engaging educational games to help students learn. 
Kerboodle (https://global.oup.com/education/secondary/kerboodle/?region=uk) is OUP’s online teaching, learning, and assessment service. Explore both websites and identify what they offer customers. What are their subscription models? What are the similarities and differences in the content? Do they both support home learning – how? 
Which service do you think is better for schools/teachers/students, and why? 

Skills Builder 7: Pearson in China has been working with Microsoft Azure AI to create a product using artificial intelligence to help students with English language learning. See:
https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/1379625676815325642-pearson-education-azure-cognitive-services.
Pearson has made other strides into the use of AI. Investigate this further. 
Do you think AI will play an important role in digital educational material in the future?

8.7 Home Learning

There has been an upsurge in the demand for home learning materials and significant growth in the market in 2020. Non-fiction sales have had steady growth. But it remains to be seen whether this growth continues and the home school market develops further in the coming months and years. 

Books that are published for the home-learning market often have a label on the front, making the age range clear and stating if it supports the national curriculum (for example, Telling the Time, published by Collins: https://collins.co.uk/products/9780008134259). This key information is very important to get across to parents because it gives the book an element of trust. You will find books like this in trade bookshops or online.  

The home learning market also taps into tests and exams. Primary school children are tested twice (see https://exampapersplus.co.uk/sats-uk/) in end of Key Stage Tests and Assessments, or SATS. They take the first test at the end of Key Stage 1 in Year 2, and the second test at the end of Key Stage 2 in Year 6. 

The major players in the home learning market are CGP, Letts, Pearson, and the BBC. Take a look at the BBC Bitesize website to see what the BBC offers parents: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize.

The market for home-learning resources is unlimited, but publishers don’t benefit from large classroom sales such as with core textbooks. Home-learning materials can be considered more like trade books. Occasionally, such books are bought by schools, but most school budgets are very restrained and wouldn’t stretch to this. 

Home-learning resources are obviously not restricted to print. Many online websites offer educational content, although, arguably, some are more reputable than others.

Take a moment to consider:

• How has the home-study market grown in the past decade? Can you identify reasons for this?
• Do home-learning resources simply copy what publishers are doing or do they supplement it?
• The Covid-19 pandemic increased the numbers of students studying at home and many publishers offered free digital material for a short period. How do you think this will inform educational publishers’ product development in the future?
• What kind of books would you consider ‘soft learning’?
• Which publishers have got involved with school reading projects? How does this help build their brand?
• What are some of the challenges of online learning at home? 

Skills Builder 8: Many publishers offered free material to help parents who found themselves having to home-school their children. Read The Bookseller article from 31st of March 2020 (https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/publishers-work-hard-provide-free-homeschooling-resources-parents-and-children-schools-stay) which includes a list of publishers who provided free resources. Review some of this material if you have time. 
Why do you think publishers offered these resources to parents?  

Skills Builder 9: Watch the short video in Moodle of Camille Macchion, an editor from the Read at Home team at Oxford University Press. Then Explore the OUP’s Oxford Owl at Home website: https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/about-oxford-owl-for-home/ and the Read with Oxford page: https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-with-oxford-guide/. 

Why do you think OUP has created this link between their trade and educational books? 
What do editors consider when commissioning or writing ‘soft-learning’ books such as Isadora Moon?

8.8 Diversity and inclusion

As we explored in detail in chapter 3, the need for diversity and inclusion throughout all sectors of publishing is critical. In this section, we will explore how publishers are responding to the need for increased diversity and inclusion in educational material.

Skills Builder 10: Read the article ‘Low percentage of pupils study BAME authors, Lit in Colour report reveals’, published in the 2nd of July edition of The Bookseller (access this via Brookes’ library). It comments on research published by Penguin Random House in July 2021: Lit in Colour, Diversity in Literature in English Schools. What are the key findings and recommendations? The full report can be downloaded here: https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/

Skills Builder 11: Investigate teaching resources for disabled children or children with additional needs. What more could publishers do? You could look at the following sites: 
YouTube video on teaching resources for the blind: https://www.rnib.org.uk/services-we-offer-advice-professionals-education-professionals/education-resources
YouTube video on teaching resources for deaf children: https://www.ndcs.org.uk/information-and-support/being-deaf-friendly/information-for-professionals/primary-education/

8.9 Chapter Summary 

In this chapter we have explored publishing for the UK and international educational markets, focusing specifically on primary and secondary schools. We have also investigated the rise in digital resources and we have reviewed home-learning material. You should now be able to:

• Understand the link between educational publishing and the national curriculum/exam boards
• Examine and analyse statistics about the educational publishing market
• Identify the key stages in the development, publication, and marketing of educational material 
• Understand the importance of cultural sensitivities when publishing for the overseas market
• Identify opportunities for diversity and inclusion in the home-schooling and schools marketplace
• Investigate the digital landscape of educational publishing 
• Assess and critique business reports about the educational publishing market and identify key issues and recommendations for development.

References and Further Reading

Books and Articles

Alexander, M. ‘9 best homeschooling books to educate kids during lockdown’, The Independent, 05 January 2021. Available here: https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/books/childrens/best-homeschooling-books-where-to-buy-a9442276.html

Bhamani, S. Makhdoom, A. et. al., ‘Home Learning in Times of COVID: Experiences of Parents’. Journal of Education and Educational Development, 7 (1), June 2020. Available at: https://journals.iobmresearch.com/index.php/JoEED/article/view/3260

Cambridge Educate, ‘Shock to the system: lessons from Covid‑19’, Cambridge Partnership for Education (CUP), February, 2021. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/partnership/insights/shock-system-lessons-learned-covid-19/

Dicheva D., Dichev C., Agre G. and Angelova G. ‘Gamification in Education: A Systematic Mapping Study’. Educational Technology & Society, 18 (1), 2015. Available at:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270273830_Gamification_in_Education_A_Systematic_Mapping_Study

Fleming, N. ‘After Covid, will digital learning be the new normal?’, The Guardian. 23/01/21. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/23/after-covid-will-digital-learning-be-the-new-normal

Joynson, J. (2019) ‘2019 was the biggest year ever for UK publishing’, Publishers Association. Available at: https://www.publishers.org.uk/publishersassociationyearbook2019/

Leith, S. ‘School textbooks are on the way out – and pupils will lose so much with them’, The  Guardian, 16 July 2019. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/16/electronic-textbooks-future-rude-drawings-pearson-digital-pupils

McKenzie, L. ‘Pearson goes all-in for digital first strategy for textbooks’ (July 2019). Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/07/16/pearson-goes-all-digital-first-strategy-textbooks

Owen, J. ‘Digital learning to assume new importance, says OUP report’. Education Technology, 8th April 2021. Available at: https://edtechnology.co.uk/teaching-and-learning/blended-learning/digital-learning-to-assume-new-importance-says-oup-report/

Sulaiman, W. & Mustafa, S. ‘Theory on Exploring Acceptance and Adoption of Digital Textbooks: A Guide for the Book Publishing Industry’, Publishing Research Quarterly. 03 July 2020, pp.1-18. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-020-09742-0

Waterson, J. ‘Pearson shifts to Netflix-style subscription model for textbooks’, The  Guardian, 16 July 2019. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/16/pearson-netflix-style-rental-academic-textbooks

Useful Videos and Podcasts

Cambridge Partnership for Education. YouTube video discussing the report ‘Shock to the system: lessons from Covid‑19’. Available at:

Cambridge University Press YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cambridge+university+press+education

‘Digital opportunities for Educational publishing’, a webinar hosted by the Society of Authors on 6th of May 2020:  https://vimeo.com/415594886

ELTcpd professional development podcast for English Language professionals. Available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/eltcpd/id1548280552

Macmillan ELT:  Tackling some Common Challenges of Distance Teaching and Learning [Advancing Learning Webinar]:

OPUS, July 2021: The Future of ELT, Digitization and Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (link via the OPUS website: http://oxfordpublishingsociety.org/events/) 

OUP Read Write Inc. Phonics eBook Library: new content preview:

Pearson: Pearson Tutoring Programme. Video showing how their online learning platform works:

The Centre for Education and Youth. This is a fortnightly podcast, presenting the latest in education research through expert interviews and summaries of new reports. Available at: https://cfey.org/podcast/

Youtube video on teaching resources for the blind: https://www.rnib.org.uk/services-we-offer-advice-professionals-education-professionals/education-resources

YouTube video on teaching resources for deaf children: https://www.ndcs.org.uk/information-and-support/being-deaf-friendly/information-for-professionals/primary-education/

Websites and Web Links 

Badger Learning (school book supplier turned publisher). They publish books for reluctant and struggling readers, including fiction and non-fiction for all ages, including YA: https://www.badgerlearning.co.uk/publishing

Best Books for Home Schooling: https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/books/childrens/best-homeschooling-books-where-to-buy-a9442276.html

Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies: https://www.becs-bloomsbury.com/

Cambridge Partnership for Education: Insights (blogs and reports on educational topics). Available at: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/partnership/insights/

Education Resources Awards 2021: https://educationresourcesawards.co.uk/

Oriel Square Blog, ‘Online Tutoring: How technology is allowing pupils to keep learning’, Oriel Square, 05/03/31. Available at: https://www.orielsquare.co.uk/blog/index.php/2021/03/05/online-tutoring-how-technology-is-allowing-pupils-to-keep-learning/

OUP report ‘Education: the journey towards a digital revolution,’ (April, 2021). Available at: https://global.oup.com/news-items/OUP_DigitalReportFinal.pdf?cc=it

‘Principles to help guide the author-publisher working relationship’, published by the Society of Authors: https://societyofauthors.org/SOA/MediaLibrary/SOAWebsite/Documents-for-download/Author-Pub-Guidelines-08Oct-BH-NT-CB.pdf?ext=.pdf

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI), for children in their first year of primary school who show weakness in their oral language skills and who are therefore at risk of experiencing difficulty with reading. Resources for planning, teaching and assessment published by OUP: https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/series/nuffield-intervention/?region=uk

9.1 Chapter Aims

• To investigate the various sales channels for children’s and YA books
• To explore the process and purpose of international rights sales

9.2 Introduction

In this chapter, we will explore some of the main ways in which publishers of children’s content make money.  We will look at the way children’s books are sold via retail channels, to consumers and also sales made to schools. Later in the chapter, you will go on to consider the process of selling international rights and how these contribute to the commercial viability of projects. This chapter is designed to equal approximately 5 hours of independent study and as you work through the chapter you will find skills builder exercises that will help you to develop what you have learned in a practical sense.

9.3 Selling books via bookshops

“[C]hildren themselves are very price-conscious. [...] For many UK adults, their first
experience of market economics was at primary school when they learned that the new
Harry Potter was available and that it was cheapest at a particular supermarket”
-- Alison Baverstock, How to market books (2019, p. 396) 

The children’s book market is incredibly competitive, price-sensitive and dominated by backlist titles and long-established brands. This makes it particularly tough for publishers of children’s books to find space to launch their new frontlist titles and break through. Although many of us think of Amazon as the ‘everything store’ with an unlimited catalogue of products, a lack of space is a problem for both physical and digital retailers; bricks-and-mortar bookshops have limited shelf space, which you might like to think of as a constraint on the range of stock; while online retailers have limited page space, which you might like to think of as a constraint on the visibility of stock.  It is therefore really crucial that publishers and retailers find ways to develop audiences and reliable ways of reaching those audiences so they can showcase and promote a broad range of titles to consumers.

High-street bookselling is heavily-reliant on footfall (e.g. the number of people who walk past or into the shop) which in turn is dependent on other factors. If one was thinking of opening a new children’s bookshop, the most important factor to consider would be: location – in terms of the high-street hub and other big shops or leisure destinations; competition – is the market already served by a very good bookshop?; seasonality – in terms of tourism, annual events and weather (in the UK at least, people don’t shop in the rain); local industry and population demographics – in terms of who travels through the area, why they are there and what stage of life they are in (e.g. a seaside town vs. a commuter town or shopping mall vs. business park).

Dedicated children’s bookshops tend to benefit from specialist shop-fittings to make them attractive and enticing to children (e.g. small tables, chairs, shelving, displays, murals and mobiles). It is worth bearing in mind that most of the time, a publisher’s sales rep will be selling to a general bookshop with a smaller children’s section; in some cases, this might only be a few shelves. Therefore, publishers of children’s books can incentivise orders for branded series by producing free-standing display units (known as dump bins) or spinners to provide additional shelf space. It can be helpful to produce other merchandising materials for booksellers like posters and bookmarks as these can be given away to customers and keep a publisher’s brand visible at till points (where the freebies often sit). Another potential issue for booksellers of children’s print titles is damaged stock. Where a children’s book is particularly susceptible to parts being torn off or falling out, a publisher can make these more attractive to booksellers by shrink-wrapping (see The Jolly Postman; The Crayons Christmas). 

Skills Builder 1: Watch the video in Moodle ‘Running a children’s bookshop’ by Sarah Dennis of Mostly Books. 

See minutes 22-31 in particular and consider the following questions:

• How significant are author events to Mostly Books? 
• What is involved in setting up author events and what relationships are important for achieving this?
• How do off-site events (like school events) generate sales?
• How can Mostly Books generate sales when competing against retailers such as Amazon that can source books more cheaply?

Mostly Books’ Young Ambassador programme is a clever way to get books directly into the hands of young readers and find out what they think of the product, but the benefits of this initiative go beyond crowdsourcing product reviews. The business owner is building a database of motivated and passionate readers, who have consented to be sent books (and presumably other book-related opportunities) on a regular basis. Young ambassadors will feel part of a reading community, with the Mostly Books shop at the centre of it.  It is a savvy idea because it builds brand loyalty towards the bookshop and increases visibility locally.

9.4 Selling Books Direct to Consumers

There are many opportunities to sell outside of the bookshop and break free of the constraints of location. Indeed book buying in physical spaces is often the result of habitual behaviour. Proactive businesses and business models have arisen to circumnavigate the issue of limited footfall by bringing products directly to the consumer. In the UK, one classic example of this was The Book People, although it went into administration in December 2019. The Book People sales reps brought a collection of sample books to offices and business locations so that staff working onsite could browse the samples and place an order for products they liked. 

Some more recent initiatives which set out to reach consumers directly and develop an audience around a common theme or mission include subscription boxes like Woke Babies https://wokebabies.co.uk/. This box provides titles, from various publishers, which represent Black characters positively across a range of ages. A Box of Stories position its lucky-dip subscription boxes as an eco-option; a solution to the waste caused by the publishing industry. They achieve this by curating and distributing boxes of surplus frontlist YA titles that simply did not sell in the expected quantities or were overprinted (essentially a remaindering service).
https://aboxofstories.com/pages/abos-mission

Some key points with direct-to-consumer business models are:

• The offering should solve a problem, or fill a gap in the market, or reach an underserved audience.
• The value proposition should be competitive against existing players in some important criteria (not necessarily cost).
• The customer list has valuable cross-marketing potential. In the case of Woke Babies, they have developed a partnership with Tangle Teezer (see Hairytales) to demonstrate and promote the hairbrush’s suitability for afro hair.

Skills Builder 2: Think about a market or a market segment that you know well. What kind of direct-to-consumer bookselling are you aware of? Can you spot any gaps in the market? What direct-to-consumer publishing business or service would you like to see?

9.5 Selling Books to, and Through, Schools

Schools are an obvious focal point for selling children’s and YA books and educational titles; both in terms of selling to them but also as an intermediary gatekeeper to parents. As you know from chapter 8, school purchasing is usually/often done as bulk orders known as adoptions. Thus, most educational publishers will have dedicated sales teams, and depending on the product, a large budget for sales and marketing, including the supply of inspection copies of physical books so that teachers can decide if they want to use them. The cost of sending out gratis inspection copies should be accounted for somewhere in the product or marketing P&L, and there is also a time-related cost to the maintenance of the adoption database and follow-up processes. 

Teachers are always busy, thus marketing tactics for brand new products need to be attention-grabbing.  Charley Darbishire, MD of Educake, said they really started seeing subscriptions take off after their purple-envelope campaign, which included a free Cadbury’s chocolate bar for the teachers they targeted; a play on the idea of teachers giving out sweets to the class as a reward.

When selling to international educational markets, local editions can be created with content relevant to the territory (e.g. character names, case studies, currencies). The production values can also be lowered to make books more affordable for these markets (e.g. cheaper paper, fewer colours used in printing, local printing). Some publishers may have their own international sales teams for this or use local reps working on commission.

As you have seen with Mostly Books, selling books through schools is also a savvy strategy. Further examples of this include:

• The Scholastic Travelling Bookshop: Upon request, Scholastic will bring a book fair to any school for a week and supply the school with all the posters and marketing assets to promote it.https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/travelling-books
• Make Our Book: This self-publishing package is pitched as a device to promote literacy and also raise funds for schools, by offering schools and students the chance to see their own work in print.https://makeourbook.com/

Skills Builder 3: Compare the Scholastic Travelling Bookshop and Make Our Book (or another bookselling business facilitated by schools that you have found yourself). 
What are their respective value propositions?  
What similar/different hurdles do you suspect these businesses face?
What similar/different incentives do they use to encourage schools to participate?

9.6 International Right Sales

As outlined in chapter 2, publishers can generate additional profits by exploiting their IP – selling rights, such as translation, merchandising, audiobook, or film adaptation rights. Children’s is the UK’s fastest-growing area for rights income – increasing by 60.3% between 2016 and 2020 (PA, 2021). 

This licensing is facilitated by Rights staff who decide on a strategy for sales of each book, deciding which titles have rights sales potential, which territories to target, and which publisher within that territory will be the best fit for each title. They may have the help of a local Rights agent to facilitate the sale in certain markets, for example where there may be a language barrier (especially common for China, Japan and Korea). The books are pitched to potential licensees at meetings at book fairs (Bologna being the most important for children’s publishers), sales trips and via email or online calls. If a pitch is successful, the Rights Manager negotiates for the best possible terms with the licensee and may sometimes pit several against each other. The agreed terms are documented in a contract, outlining the financials, length of licence, and what rights are being sold (format, media, language, and territory).

Rights departments are especially crucial to a children’s publishing business because of their involvement in building co-edition printings – without these, some children’s titles (specifically full-colour titles such as picture books and non-fiction that have high production costs) are often not commercially viable. With co-editions, several languages are printed together by the publisher in order to gain economies of scale – essential to offset the costly printing. The licensee supplies the publisher with digital files of their translation to fit around the four-colour illustrations. The publisher prints the book on behalf of the licensee, printing it alongside the UK edition and any other foreign editions it has added to that print run. Four cylinders carry the plates that print the four-colour illustrations – the fifth cylinder carries the plate of the text printed in black so only this fifth plate needs to be changed for each language printing (Clark and Philips, 2020). Licensees pay a unit cost per copy for a set print-run for the rights, manufacture and delivery of the stock – the royalty payable to the author may be included in this unit cost (a royalty inclusive co-edition) or, more rarely, a separate advance may be charged alongside the printing cost, a share of which is shared with the author (royalty exclusive). The reliance on co-editions can often influence the content and design of children’s titles. Publishers wanting to sell these rights need to be keenly aware of potential cultural sensitivities, avoid text that might be difficult to translate (e.g. ABC books, rhyming, wordplay) and elements of illustrations that might be too UK-centric. Peter Usborne (cited in Clark and Phillips, 2020, p.99) notes: “We publish to sell everywhere, so you won’t find, for example, left-hand or right-hand visible cars anywhere”.

The layout must also allow space for a range of different language texts to be able to fit on the page, for example, German takes up considerably more space than English. Because of the importance of co-editions, Rights departments may get involved with a new project before it is acquired – Editors may ask Rights to assess sales potential, get their buy-in, and include sales projections for co-editions to estimate the profitability for new acquisitions. Due to the lead times for producing these co-edition printings, Rights often pitch children’s titles well ahead of the UK publication date, sometimes up to 2 years in advance.

The alternative to co-editions is a licensing model. This is the standard for non-full colour works (or for licensing in territories where co-editions may not be possible). In this case, the licensee produces their edition of the book themselves, paying an advance and royalties to the original publisher. There may also be a fee payable for the digital files of any illustrations or layouts to facilitate production of the licensed edition. Successful children’s brands can be licensed in a wide range of different media that go way beyond traditional publishing – from spin-off books, such as activity books or reference titles based on original fiction works, to cartoon animations, toys, merchandise, films and even theme park rides. An extreme version of this expansion of a children’s publishing brand via licensing is the sale in 2021 to Netflix of the Roald Dahl back catalogue. 

The Publishers Association (2021b) provides a useful resource for publishers wanting to expand their international and rights sales. This includes market overviews for different territories and contract terms. You may want to explore this resource and find out about some international markets before continuing with the next few activities.

The Export Toolkit https://www.publishing-export.org.uk/resourceins/in-depth-toolkit-foreign-rights/

Skills Builder 4: Access the Nosy Crow catalogue online (https://nosycrow.com/catalogue/) and identify:
1) Which titles might have international rights sales potential?
2) Any specific international markets where these titles might have the most success and why?

Skills Builder 5: Write a pitch for a children’s or YA book of your choice, specifically aimed at an international rights customer. 
1) What are some of the considerations for this pitch? How would the USPs, key messages, etc. differ from how a catalogue aimed at a UK audience might promote this title? 
2) Does this title have co-edition potential? Consider why it does or doesn’t.

9.7 Chapter Summary 

This chapter has reviewed a range of ways that publishers can make money from children’s and YA content along with some of the various sales channels and specific business models that can be used. As a final task, we would like you to reflect on how the sales channels and route to market might impact the publishing decisions right at the beginning of the workflow. Skim back through the chapter (and perhaps also your notes on the videos) and list out any factors that an editor should keep in mind when developing content and where they sit on the timeline. What kind of market research would be beneficial at the outset of a project? Can you spot any opportunities to develop products, services, or partnerships with specific retailers or for specific markets?

You should be able to:

• Identify and differentiate sales channels for different products, services and market sectors
• Assess the value proposition and competitive advantages of various retail actors
• Evaluate the commercial potential of IP in an international context 

References and Further Reading

Baverstock, A. 2019, How to market books 6.ed. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY. pp.390-400

Clark, G.N., Phillips, A., 2020. Inside book publishing, 8ed. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY.

Owen, L., 2019. Selling rights, 8ed. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY.

Publishers Association (2021a) PA Yearbook 2020.

Publishers Association (2021b) The Export Toolkit [online] https://www.publishing-export.org.uk/resourceins/in-depth-toolkit-foreign-rights/

BBC Radio 4 (2019) Front Row 19:15 18 February, Minutes 20:56-27:58.

Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002r79 or

(Accessed 15 Oct 2021)

• With the sales of young adult literature falling by a third in the last year, Charlotte Eyre of the Bookseller and publisher Crystal Mahey-Morgan discuss the reasons for the drop and where potential for the future lies for these books.

Hollywood Reporter (2021) 'Netflix Acquires Roald Dahl Story Company, Including Catalog’ 22 September 2021 [Online]. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-acquires-roald-dahl-story-company-sale-includes-catalog-1235018402/ 

Owen, L. (2017). International Co-edition Agreement. In Clark’s Publishing Agreements: A Book of Precedents (pp. 429–456). London: Bloomsbury Professional. Accessed November 8, 2021, from http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781526500533.ch-01

Rights & Licensing Hub has developed three free training courses for anyone working in publishing wishing to understand more about the function of rights and legitimate uses of IP.

• Rights Management Essentials: Introduction to Rights Management
• Rights Management Essentials: Acquiring Rights
• Rights Management Essentials: Licensing Rights to Others
• Available at: https://pls.thinkific.com/

Products and Services:

A Box of Stories: https://aboxofstories.com/pages/abos-mission
Educake: https://www.educake.co.uk/ 
Make Our Book: https://makeourbook.com/
The Travelling Book Fair: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/travelling-books
The Crayons Christmas: https://www.oliverjeffers.com/the-crayons-christmas-1
The Jolly Postman: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/102/102194/the-jolly-postman-or-other-people-s-letters/9780670886241.html
Woke Babies: https://wokebabies.co.uk/

10.1 Chapter Aims 

• To review and practice skills covered within this course 
• To evaluate and differentiate the skill set required within the children’s and YA sector as compared to other parts of publishing

10.2 Introduction

During this course you have taken an in-depth look into how Children’s and YA books come into being touching upon all the different functions in the value chain; from scoping a concept and sizing the market; assessing the design and production; exploiting IP beyond books formats; and getting books into the hands of readers. You will have discovered that there are many similarities but also some distinct differences to other sectors of publishing.  This final chapter is dedicated to briefly considering the future of Children’s and YA publishing, as well as reviewing the skillset (or core competencies) which are needed in children’s publishing today to give you some space to practice them via a few scenarios, as well as reflecting on how to develop your own skill sets further. 

10.3 The Future of Children’s and YA Publishing

The year 2021 demonstrated strong sales for children’s publishing in the UK. In January 2022, The Bookseller listed the top 50 selling authors with 3 Children’s authors – Julian Donaldson, J K Rowling and David Walliams in the top 5 and 12 others on the list.  The profile and commercial contribution of children’s titles is therefore at an all-time high. NB. The number of titles published annually in the UK averages around 10,000.

In terms of the early-years book market, it is interesting to note that “the picture books market has outsold fiction aimed at older readers for the first time since accurate records began” (Tivnan, 2022). This trend may be linked to the Covid-19 pandemic where time-pressured parents turned to established backlists to entertain their children. Backlist titles provide 75% of the revenue of this category in 2021. Publishers are increasingly adept at adapting into new formats, promoting and repositioning their backlist titles to capitalise on brand loyalty and the “trust” factor of familiar titles. Partnerships between non-traditional publishers – such as Nosy Crow and the National Trust, Bloomsbury and London Zoo – are likely to continue and have proved lucrative.

The middle-grade book market will continue to depend on both brand and author loyalty, where series publishing encourages readers to attach to favourite authors. The effect of a new title by one of the top 3 authors can significantly affect sales in this category as the huge effect of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007 demonstrated.

Young Adult book sales also demonstrated large growth in 2021 with authors such as Leigh Bardugo and Colleen Hoover building up a large following and an international audience. Publishers who have traditionally found it difficult to reach this market where gatekeepers are no longer present, now look to social media sites such as BookTok and streaming services like Netflix to gauge audience opinion.

So what is the future of Children’s and YA publishing?

Key considerations and challenges need to be addressed by publishers:

• How can publishing discover and promote new authors with the dominance of big brand and celebrity authors?
• What will be the effect on the market post Covid 19 be, in terms of both format and content?
• Will inclusivity and diversity issues become fully integrated in all children’s publishing?
• How can publishers from around the world ensure their books have international relevance?

10.4 Core Competencies

When we think of the competencies required to work within publishing it is often the hard skills or technical skills that spring to mind first, such as mastery of language and grammar, knowledge of copyright law, or ability to use typographic software such as InDesign. However, as we established early on in the module, children’s publishing (perhaps more so than YA) requires many stakeholders to come together in the creative stages of a project to design something that is appealing and relevant to a diverse range of purchaser (e.g. parent, grandparent, school) and a diverse range of children (often international). 

Thus, one of the most important soft skills to have – irrespective of if you are working in editorial, sales and marketing and (digital) production – is empathy; imagining yourself in the shoes of another and seeing things from their perspective and making your product as inclusive as it can be. In earlier chapters, you have already begun to think about ways to make more inclusive books; however, practising empathy is like training a muscle and you can aim to do so in every task you approach. 

Related to building empathy and understanding, is developing a familiarity of other markets and their values, it is no surprise that the publishing talent pool contains so many multilingual people. Learning a new language is a significant time investment and might not be practical for everyone, but there are many other ways to explore the culture and values of export markets such as keeping an eye on international news, researching educational systems, and paying attention to trends in the publishing media.

10.5 Skills Builder

For this final section, choose one of the following skills builder exercises below, or indeed do both if you wish, as a way to bring together all that you have learned over this course and solidify some of the core competencies. Feel free to refer back to earlier chapters in order to help you with certain aspects. 

Once you have completed the exercise then reflect upon it. Are there any aspects to the material that are unclear to you? Using the resources we have provided both in the course and in the further reading sections, you might conduct your own research into gaining a further understanding into the relevant topic(s). How have you integrated the core competencies into your work? How have you considered and approached issues of diversity and inclusivity?

Skills Builder 1: Turn adult non-fiction into a middle-grade title

You are an editorial manager at a children’s publisher building a new list of middle-grade non-fiction. For this you have been asked to pilot the editorial development of a first title turning adult non-fiction into a book (and potentially ebook) for a middle-grade audience. This book could be read in school but is not supposed to be purely educational in character, thus suitable for private consumption, too. 

To do this task you really need the book in front of you so pick a book you are familiar with that has illustrative potential, something similar to one of the books suggested below:

• Living Planet: The Web of Life on Earth by David Attenborough
• https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/living-planet-the-web-of-life-on-earth-david-attenborough?variant=39624156512334
• Sista Sister by Candice Brathwaite
• https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/candice-brathwaite/sista-sister/9781529415292/ 
• Human Kind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
• https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/humankind-9781408898932/ 
• The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
• https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/109/1098577/the-body/9780552779906.html
• Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth
• https://www.kateraworth.com/ 

Option A: Your task is to work through the content, write an outline on your conversion strategy, as well as come up with a converted sample spread that you find suitable to illustrate said strategy.

Option B: Alternatively, focus exclusively on the illustrated aspects of this middle-grade edition.  Find the style of images and illustrations that you want to use and put together your findings as a brief for an illustrator and/or picture researcher.  Think about how many images are needed, whether they can be sources or must be custom created to meet the brief. How much space will the images take up and how much must be left for text.

Skills Builder 2: Picture research for a children’s book

You are working for a children’s publisher. They are planning to publish a new title that could potentially set off an entirely new series. Here is what they know in terms of product development so far:

Specifications: 40 pages, full-colour book block, hardback binding with a full-colour dust jacket

The book will deal with environmental issues in a very child-friendly, story-oriented way.

The book will contain no text, the message will be conveyed via illustrations only [for inspiration look at Cynthia Alonso’s (2018) Aquarium]

Suggested reading age 5-6, but should be attractive to all reading ages, including adults as a gift book / coffee table book

You have been asked to find suitable images and a suitable illustrator for the production of the title – specifically, think very carefully about inclusivity and diversity.

10.6 Chapter Summary

You should be able to: 

• demonstrate skill set (core competencies) via the activities
• reflect on your own strength and skill set and identify areas that you would like to develop further
• pitch yourself to clients as having the required skills to work in the children’s and YA sector of publishing

10.7 Course Conclusion

Over the ten chapters of this course, we have focussed on the critical aspects of Children’s and YA publishing. You have critically engaged with cultural and industry debates relating to children's, educational and/or young adults' publishing as well as researching, identifying and evaluating the production and reception of books and digital products and services for children and young adults.

You have explored and analysed the roles of significant players in creation and dissemination of intellectual property for children and young adults in international and global environments and you have also learned how to synthesise and critically comment on data trends relevant to children's, young adult and/or educational publishing to identify national and/or international developments.

We hope that you have enjoyed this course.

References

Tivnan, T., 2022 ‘Young love: picture books oust children’s fiction for the first time in two decades’ [online] 21 January The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/young-love-picture-books-oust-children-s-fiction-first-time-two-decades-1300961