Editor Interview: Chapeltown Books for Children

children's fiction

Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury, Macmillan,

Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Michael Rosen, Judy Waite, Mary Hoffman, Hilary McKay, Philip Pullman

We are quite conventional in what we accpet for children's fiction However, we don't care how well known the author is either as a writer or in any other field. We're just interested in the story.

Make sure that you know who the reader is. Does your text speak to that child in a voice that doesn't talk down to them? Of course you will have read lots of texts for this target reader and be aware that those children do indeed enjoy them.

The ideal submission is double-spaced in a custom font such as Times New Roman or Arial. The author has spent a long time editing the work so the copy is pretty clean. They have included a bio of between 250 and 500 words. They have included everything asked for in the submission guidelines.

Submitters often do not include everything in one document. We really need exactly what it says in the guidelines. Otherwise we have to chase up bits and pieces and it becomes very messy. Work can easily get lost.

We ask for a bio and we're pleased if people thank us for considering their work. Yes we like to know about previous publications. If the submission is borderline, that they have been published previously or won competitions might persuade us to take a risk on what they're submitting here. For this call it's also important to know what experience they have of children: they should mention that they are a parent, a grandparent, a scout-leader, a teacher etc.

We tend to read the first three chapters / 10,000 words for fiction. If we like the writing we'll study the synopsis and we can usually base a decision on that. If the book is under 20,000 words we 'll generally read the whole book.

We do take notice of presentation and whether the author has followed the guidelines. This is an indication of how professional they are and how they might work with us in the future.
We have three editors. Only one can reject but all of us can accept. If we accept we are also saying we have the time to see this book through the editorial process. Even if we don't have time, we can indicate that we think this submission is acceptable. We won't keep a submission more than three months and if we eventually have to decline an acceptable submission we invite the author to try again in six months time.

Each day after lunch I look at all the new submissions that have come in. A very few will get rejected straight away - usually because they've come into the wrong call, the material is clearly wrong for that call or is entirely the wrong length. The rest will be scored on length, suitability for the call, how easy the text will be to process, the quality of the writing, how well we know the author and their professionalism. When we have capacity for publishing another book - we usually do about two a month but it does vary - we'll offer a contract to the highest scoring author.
We probably spend no more than an hour a day on this. The rest of the time we are editing, proof-reading, designing the book and marketing. And there is other admin, of course.

All of these texts go through three stages of editing:
1. a structural edit
2. a copy / line edit
3. an advanced proof-read
After that the author is given a camera-ready copy to proof and after we have take on any suggestions from the author we do a final proof-read. Some books are illustrated and we spend several weeks with the writer and the illustrator working on the pictures.

Yes, we regularly put our books forward to the Rubery Awards , the Gothem Prize and the Kindle Storyteller Awards. We look out for other opportunities and are open to suggestions from authors.