Nosy Crow's Blog, page 173

Nosy Crow Bundles on the App Store

Last week, as anyone reading this on an iPhone or iPad will undoubtedly already know, Apple released iOS 8, the latest version of their mobile software. And with it came one or two features that were particularly interesting for us.

There’s lots of good stuff around Family Sharing. The iBooks app now comes pre-loaded onto new devices (which is great news for our new iBook picture books). And, perhaps best of all, Apple have introduced App Bundles.

App Bundles allow developers to offer groups of apps at a discounted price – something for which we’ve been waiting for a while. All of our apps are still available for individual purchase, but now you can buy some of them in a pack – and save some money by doing so! And, if you already own some of the apps included, you can complete a bundle and only pay the balance for the remaining apps.

So, you can now buy both of our Rounds apps, Franklin Frog and Parker Penguin, for the EXCELLENT price of $5.99/ £3.99 – only $1/ £1 more than the individual price for each app. Illustrated in a bold, graphic style – using only circles and divisions of circles – and with ingenious interactivity, original music and lively child voice narration, these apps combine a warm, accessible wit with educational content, making them perfect for both the home and the classroom. Learn about biology with dozens of fun facts about frogs and penguins, and join in with every stage of each animal’s life – the apps are GREAT for inspiring enthusiasm and teaching young children about the natural world.

Buy the Nosy Crow Rounds Bundle on the App Store.

Or you can buy all four of our award-winning fairytale apps
for the UNBEATABLE price of $9.99/ £6.99 – compared to $19.99/ £11.99 if you bought the apps individually. Experience The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Little Red Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk as you’ve never seen them before!

Buy the Nosy Crow Fairytales Bundle on the App Store.

Or if you’re new to our apps (and perhaps have just bought your first iPad or iPhone and are new to the App Store, too), then our Nosy Crow Super Bundle is for you! Featuring TEN of our award-winning story apps, this is a fantastic starter pack of essential kids apps. You can get ALL of the fairytales, AND the Rounds app, AND our two Bizzy Bear apps, Bizzy Bear on the Farm and Bizzy Bear Builds a House, AND two apps by Axel Scheffler, Animal SnApp: Farm and Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm – and all for $19.99/ £13.99 – a FANTASTIC saving down from $43.99/ £26.69.

Buy the Nosy Crow Super Bundle on the App Store.

If you buy one of our bundles, we’d love to hear what you make of our apps! Do please leave a review on the App Store, or get in touch on Twitter, Facebook, or on this blog.

Come to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group - we're discussing The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan

Would you like to come to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group?

In October we’ll be discussing the 2013 Carnegie-shortlisted title The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan. Julia Eccleshare calls it, “a startlingly original piece of fiction written in verse; most simply a brilliant coming of age story. First love, friendship and quiet courage combine in this spare and beautiful story that will leave you sad, happy and wanting more from this fantastic new voice in children’s fiction.”

We’ll be meeting on Thursday, October 16 at 6.30pm, here at the Nosy Crow offices – 10a Lant Street, London, SE1 1QR. If you’d like to come to the physical event at our office in London, send an email to tom at nosycrow dot com and we’ll try to fit in as many people as possible. If we can’t save a place for you this time, we can, if you’d like, keep you on our waiting list for cancellations and add you to our mailing list for future events.

You can order the book online from Waterstones here.

If you can’t make it here, we’d love for you to join in online, either on Twitter with the #NCGKids hashtag, or in the comments section of our blog for the evening.

We’ll post some discussion points for the book a little closer to the date – we hope you can join us!

Nosy Crow will partner with the National Trust to create a children's book list

Well we can tell everyone now.

And we think it’s exciting news.

We are going to be the exclusive partners of The National Trust for their children’s book publishing programme, which will be jointly branded with the Nosy Crow and The National Trust logos. The books will be available not just through the National Trust’s own 200 shops but also through, as they say, “all good bookshops” and any other shops that would like to stock them from March 2016.

I cannot begin to tell you what a great time we’ve had already thinking of books that we could make and commission for the list. They have to fit our Nosy Crow commitment to publishing child-focussed, parent-friendly books. They also have to fit The National Trust’s focus on protecting, and making accessible to the public, huge tracts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s landscapes from the Jurassic Coast to a quarter of the Lake District, as well as preserving and ensuring access to history and cultural heritage from ruined Corfe Castle to Beatrix Potter’s house. The more we think about it, the more ideas we have, and we already have a good sense of the programme for the first couple of years, but we’d be interested to hear from authors and illustrators (and their agents) who would like to propose ideas. (If you’re submitting and don’t have an agent, please look at our submissions guidelines).

We were already planning to develop our activity book list and also to introduce some non-fiction books, but this partnership with the National Trust gives us such a terrific springboard into these areas of publishing.

It’s really great for us, but also, we think, great for The National Trust, as children’s books are such a growth area for its shops: across 2013-2014, sales of children’s books through the shops grew 600% and the Trust has 1.4 million family members.

Katie Bond, who is the publisher of The National Trust, and who, after 14 years at Bloomsbury knows her publishing onions, said: “I went to see lots of publishers, but it was Nosy Crow that really stood out to me – they are such a dynamic company, who can do the whole range, from baby books through to young adult.”

Nosy Crow will partner the National Trust to create a children's book list

Well we can tell everyone now.

And we think it’s exciting news.

We are going to be the exclusive partners of The National Trust for their children’s book publishing programme, which will be jointly branded with the Nosy Crow and The National Trust logos. The books will be available not just through the National Trust’s own 200 shops but also through, as they say, “all good bookshops” and any other shops that would like to stock them from March 2016.

I cannot begin to tell you what a great time we’ve had already thinking of books that we could make and commission for the list. They have to fit our Nosy Crow commitment to publishing child-focussed, parent-friendly books. They also have to fit The National Trust’s focus on protecting, and making accessible to the public, huge tracts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s landscapes from the Jurassic Coast to a quarter of the Lake District, as well as preserving and ensuring access to history and cultural heritage from ruined Corfe Castle to Beatrix Potter’s house. The more we think about it, the more ideas we have, and we already have a good sense of the programme for the first couple of years, but we’d be interested to hear from authors and illustrators (and their agents) who would like to propose ideas. (If you’re submitting and don’t have an agent, please look at our submissions guidelines).

We were already planning to develop our activity book list and also to introduce some non-fiction books, but this partnership with the National Trust gives us such a terrific springboard into these areas of publishing.

It’s really great for us, but also, we think, great for The National Trust, as children’s books are such a growth area for its shops: across 2013-2014, sales of children’s books through the shops grew 600% and the Trust has 1.4 million family members.

Katie Bond, who is the publisher of The National Trust, and who, after 14 years at Bloomsbury knows her publishing onions, said: “I went to see lots of publishers, but it was Nosy Crow that really stood out to me – they are such a dynamic company, who can do the whole range, from baby books through to young adult.”

Nicola O'Byrne's Open Very Carefully wins the Picture Book Prize at the Stockport Children's Book Awards

Last night Nicola O’Byrne and I were lucky enough to be invited to Stockport for the Stockport Children’s Book Awards. I assured Nicky we were in for a good night because I’d been to the award ceremony with Chris Edge the previous year when he was a winner with Twelve Minutes to Midnight. And we weren’t disappointed – Kay and her team at Stockport libraries organised a cracking event.

The theme of the evening was ‘Glamorous!’ so, suitably attired (Nicky in a GORGEOUS hand-painted silk dress. Mine was at the cleaners…), we were whisked to the Cheshire Conference Centre. Performance poet Ian Bland was our MC for the evening and, to warm things up, he was soon leading the audience in a lively rendition of The Dinner Lady Dance. And at this point I think it’s only fair to say, Nicky and I can MOVE. Those dinner lady hand gestures were OURS: graceful, fluid, impeccably timed…

ANYWAY, then the Mayor of Stockport, Councillor Kevin Hogg took to the stage and was funny and affable, while displaying a real enthusiasm for reading, and especially reading for pleasure. He was eager to enthuse the children present to do the same: read widely and read what you love was his message. If you love a book, and it fires your imagination and takes you into another world, never mind what anyone else says about your choice, just read it. Wise words…

Nicky’s Open Very Carefully won the Picture Book prize, and she was the first author to collect her prize – some beautiful artwork from one of the children involved in the prize. And Nicky, who we can safely say has an eye for these things, complimented its excellent colours and composition.

Nicky and I would like to thank Kay, Wendy and Maria for taking such excellent care of us and organising such a fun night. And we HOPE to see them all again next year.

Exciting new adventures for Bizzy Bear

This month we’ve published Bizzy Bear’s Big Building Book! by Benji Davies – a lavish, large format, Bizzy Bear gift edition with five robust mechanisms, perfect for toddlers who love to play at being builders. And Bizzy Bear just can’t be stopped! He’s off on two new adventures in January, with Bizzy Bear Deepsea Diver and Bizzy Bear Dinosaur Safari – and I think they’re the best books in the series so far.

Here’s a look at the covers in action:

I cannot BEGIN to describe how much I love these new Bizzy Bear books: the colours are fantastic, Benji’s artwork is great, the mechanisms are very satisfying (and child-friendly), and the subjects are just brilliant: these are perfect board books.

Here’s what ALL of the Bizzy Bear books look like together:

Both books will be out in January – you can pre-order Deepsea Diver here and Dinosaur Safari here.

And if you’d like to stay up to date with all of our latest book news (and have the chance to win copies of Bizzy Bear), you can sign up to our books newsletter here.

Goldilocks and Just the One Bear is now available as a read-aloud iBook!

A little while ago we launched fantastic iBook editions of some of our picture books, enhanced with read aloud audio, music, sound effects, and text highlighting.

And today we’re releasing one more! You can now find Goldilocks and Just the One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson on the iBook Store – and it’s the first of its kind.

When we announced our launch list of iBook picture books, we said that we didn’t want to sacrifice any of the beautiful design of a print picture book. And that was especially true of Goldilocks and Just the One Bear, which uses lots of lovely hand-lettering by Leigh throughout the book:

However, as WELL as retaining the unique, appealing design of our books, we were also committed to finding ways of truly taking advantage of a touchscreen device to enhance the picture book experience – by adding read-along audio and text highlighting, for example.

Combining text-highlighting with hand-lettering like this proved to be very difficult – and as far as we know, isn’t something that’s ever been done before – but we’re very pleased to say that we’ve found a way of doing it. Working with Circular Software’s CircularFLO technology, we’ve managed to produced a beautiful, unique edition of Goldilocks and Just the One Bear, which not only does justice to Leigh’s wonderful artwork, but also includes our signature Stories Aloud audio and text highlighting.

You can find the book on the iBook Store here for only £2.99

And you can find each of our other picture books on the iBooks Store with the links below:

We hope you enjoy these as iBooks – and if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it.

The verdict on our second children's publishing conference

I was up at 6.00am on Saturday morning, icing cakes for the second Nosy Crow conference, which took place at the St Bride Foundation in London. And while I will admit to being biased, I think the day had a great atmosphere: a packed house (who’d travelled from as far afield as Dublin, Bath and Glasgow) listened to inspiring, imaginative, insightful and very interesting talks from speakers including agent Hilary Delamere, Waterstones assistant children’s buyer Florentyna Martin, social media expert Adam Tinworth, the Bookseller’s Children’s Editor, Charlotte Eyre, authors including Helen Peters, Tracey Corderoy and Jeff Norton, and members of the Nosy Crow team.

I won’t rehash the whole day (fantastic speeches were delivered, useful notes were taken, intelligent questions were asked and answered, sandwiches and cakes were eaten, wine was drunk, conversations were had and friendships struck…) – instead, I thought I’d just share what some of our attendees thought of the day and said on Twitter afterwards:

Thank you NosyCrow</a> for brilliant conference !!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCConf?src=hash">#NCConf</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/farmgirlwriter">farmgirlwriter thejeffnorton</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TraceyCorderoy">TraceyCorderoy

— Mai Haruno (@Mai_Haruno) September 14, 2014

Heading back to Glasgow after a totally inspiring conference NosyCrowBooks</a></p>&mdash; joanne carmichael (jannasandandsea) September 14, 2014

NosyCrow</a> AMAZINGLY word packed, tip filled, funny, useful,inspiring,day. What a jolly bunch u all are. I&#39;m inspired <a href="http://t.co/7GIgqRxfSw">pic.twitter.com/7GIgqRxfSw</a></p>&mdash; Carla de Wansey (ArtyKoala) September 14, 2014

Thank you NosyCrow</a> for creating and all sharing <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCConf?src=hash">#NCConf</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/farmgirlwriter">farmgirlwriter thejeffnorton</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TraceyCorderoy">TraceyCorderoy inspires "believe in the impossible"

— david vallade (@davidvallade) September 14, 2014

Great day at the NosyCrow</a> conf yesterday. Inspiring stuff but also the friendliest event - met so many lovely peeps <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ncconf?src=hash">#ncconf</a></p>&mdash; Soni (ickleson) September 14, 2014

Brilliant day with fantastic speakers at the #NCConf yesterday. Thank you so much NosyCrow</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NosyCrowBooks">NosyCrowBooks!

— Lucy Rowland (@lucymayrowland) September 14, 2014

NosyCrow</a> Really Great day today Kate. Thank you So Much! Really informative &amp; yummy cakes! Can&#39;t wait until the next one. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCConf?src=hash">#NCConf</a> x</p>&mdash; Ahrani Logan (AhraniLogan) September 13, 2014

Fab day NosyCrow</a> conference! Learned a lot and laughed a lot - really inspiring speakers. It was great! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCConf?src=hash">#NCConf</a></p>&mdash; Kirsten Muntendam (KMuntendam) September 13, 2014

Great day NosyCrow</a> children’s publishing conference. Wealth of info &amp; lovely people. Well worth the trip to London! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCConf?src=hash">#NCConf</a></p>&mdash; EricJamesAuthor (EricJamesAuthor) September 13, 2014

Fantastic day at the Nosy Crow conference! Tons of great speakers with so much information! Enjoyed it! #NCConf

— Publish Something (@PublishSomethin) September 13, 2014

On train back to Bath – knackered but inspired after great Nosy Crow conference. Loved the Welsh bird! #NCConf

— sharon (@digforbrands) September 13, 2014

Very interesting day at the #NCConf NosyCrow</a> in London lots to think about</p>&mdash; Steve Brown (SteveSketchesIt) September 13, 2014

Kicking-off Monday highly motivated after #NCConf (also glowing with new girl crushes in TraceyCorderoy</a> and KateWilson <a href="https://twitter.com/NosyCrow">NosyCrow )

— The Jellybeans (@TheJellybean7) September 15, 2014

A few of our attendees also wrote (more comprehensive) round-ups of the day – you can read two here and here.

Thank you VERY much to all of our speakers for their fantastic talks, and to everyone who came along and made it such an excellent day. See you at the next one!

The Nosy Crow Conference is taking place tomorrow!

Tomorrow’s a busy day for us Crows: our second conference, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Children’s Publishing (But Were Afraid to Ask) is taking place – a whole day of talks devoted to de-mystifying the industry. We’ve got some INCREDIBLE speakers lined up from all sectors of publishing – agent Hilary Delamere, Waterstones assistant children’s buyer Florentyna Martin, social media expert Adam Tinworth, the Bookseller’s Children’s Editor, Charlotte Eyre, authors including Helen Peters, Tracey Corderoy and Jeff Norton, and members of the Nosy Crow team.

There are just a couple of hours left to book tickets – if you’d like to come along, it’s not too late! You can buy your place with the form below, or here.

Event Registration Online for Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Children’s Publishing… powered by Eventbrite

And even if you can’t make it to the event itself , we’d love it if you take part online! You can follow all of the day’s action on Twitter with the #NCCONF hashtag. Here’s our full schedule for the day:

The hashtag is #NCCONF – we hope you can join us!

"The Best Moments in Reading" from Alan Bennett's The History Boys

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”

Alan Bennett, The History Boys