Nosy Crow's Blog, page 176

Nosy Crow in the Early Years Classroom - a guest post by Gabriella Shelhot

Gabriella Shelhot is a Stage 1 Teacher in Sydney, Australia, who’s kindly agreed to share with us her experience of using our apps in the classroom.

“I like the series Nosy Crow and the apps that they make because they tell you the story and you get to play the story at the same time.”

Year 2 Student

How many of you out there give a child an iPad to keep them occupied for half an hour while you’re getting dinner ready? How many of you download an app that is not meaningful or purposeful to your child? Or, how many of you out there get story apps that read to you and tell you when to turn the page in a monotone voice?

I was one of those people that could answer ‘yes’ to these questions, until I discovered Nosy Crow. I came across Nosy Crow while at the Young Learners Conference in Sydney. The conference went over two days and I heard many speakers from a variety of professions and companies discussing the rapidly moving digital age and the use of technology, particularly iPads in the classroom. Tom from Nosy Crow was the speaker whose message stuck with me the most. He came across as very passionate about the story apps that Nosy Crow create.

The next thing I knew he was showing us their latest story; their version of Jack and the Beanstalk. For about 10 minutes I felt like an excited child. Tom explained that Nosy Crow was all about “new incredible reading experiences” and I couldn’t agree more. It’s an experience that takes the reader on an adventure. One of the Year 2 students at school has described the Nosy Crow apps as allowing you to be “in control”. She explained, “I like the app Jack and the Beanstalk because you can rule the app the way you want to, it doesn’t rule it for you.” Even a Year 2 child understands the idea that certain apps taking control for you, rather than the user being in control.

At our small, one-stream school in Sydney we are very fortunate to have iPads to enhance teaching and learning opportunities. The question that was hovering around in the teachers’ mind was, how do we use them to their full potential and get the most out of teaching and learning?

Tom’s passion rubbed off on me and I was eager to bring the love for these story apps back to school. The children have found a great enjoyment for Jack and the Beanstalk and absolutely love the story. We recently purchased Little Red Riding Hood. The students use the apps during our Literacy sessions. The reason we went with Nosy Crow over a basic digital story is that the children are far more engaged. Every time a student uses the app there is a high level of participation in reading and of them being in control of learning.

Thank you, Gabriella! If you’ve not seen our Jack and the Beanstalk app before, you can watch the trailer below, and find it on the App Store here

Why self-publishing (again) is not for me - a guest post by Nicola Morgan

Today’s guest post, on self-publishing, is by author Nicola Morgan.

Many writers, previously published or not, talk excitedly about why they enjoy self-publishing. Let me tell you why I don’t.

I’ve self-published (only as ebooks) three of previously published YA novels and three adult non-fiction titles which hadn’t been published before. From these books I make a welcome income of around £250 a month – a figure that is remarkably constant. So, why have I not enjoyed it and why won’t I do it again?

It’s damned hard to sell fiction! (Over 90% of that £250 is from the non-fiction titles.) Publishers know this. They also know that high sales are not always about “quality”, which is precisely why very good novels can be rejected over and over. Non-fiction is easier because it’s easy to find your readers and for them to find your book. Take my book about writing a synopsis, for example; anyone looking for a book on writing a synopsis will Google “books on writing a synopsis” and, hey presto, Write a Great Synopsis appears. But if someone wants a novel, the chances of finding mine out of the available eleventy million are slim. This despite the fact that they had fab reviews and a few awards from their former lives.

But some novels do sell well. So why don’t mine? Because I do absolutely nothing to sell them. Why not? Well, this is the point. Several points.

First, time. I am too busy with other writing and public-speaking but, even if I weren’t, the necessary marketing takes far too long (for me) and goes on for too long after publication: the very time when I want to be writing another one. This is precisely why publishers tend only to work on publicity for a short while after publication: they have other books to work on. We may moan but it has to be like that – unless a book does phenomenally well at first, you have to keep working at selling it.

Second, I dislike the stuff I’d have to do to sell more books. Now, this is where you start leaping up and down saying, “But published authors have to do that, too!” Yes, and I do, but it’s different. When a publisher has invested money because they believe in your book, you obviously want to help them sell it. But when the only person who has actually committed any money is you, the selling part feels different. It’s a case of “I love my book so much that I published it – now you need to believe in me enough to buy it.” I can’t do it. Maybe I don’t believe in myself enough. Fine. I think books need more than the author believing in them. The author might be right and the book be fabulous, but I tend to be distrustful of strangers telling me they are wonderful so why should I expect others to believe me if I say I am? And I don’t want to spend time on forums just to sell more books.

Third, I love being part of a team. Yes, I’ve had my share of frustrating experiences in the course of 100 or so published books, but I enjoy the teamwork – even though I’m an introvert who loves working alone in a shed; I love the fact that other people put money and time and passion into selling my book. It gives me confidence and support. They won’t make money if they don’t sell my book and I still like and trust that model.

And I especially love that once I’ve written it and done my bit for the publicity machine and done the best I can for my book, I can let it go and write another.

See, I’m a writer, not a publisher. I may love control – the usual reason given for self-publishing – but I mostly want control over my words, not the rest. (That control, by the way, is never lost to a good editor, and I’ve been lucky with genius editors.) So, yes, I am pleased with the money I’ve earned from self-publishing and I love what I’ve learnt about the whole process, but now I’m going back to where I am happy to do battle for real control: my keyboard.

It’s all I want to do.

Nicola Morgan is an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction for all ages. She is an expert speaker and writer on the teenage brain and adolescent mental health and has produced a unique range of multimedia teaching resources for schools: Brain Sticks™. A novel is in progress. Sort of.

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Find out more and buy tickets here.

Take a look inside The Grunts in a Jam - and win a copy!

Next month we’re incredibly excited to be publishing The Grunts in a Jam, the HILARIOUS third book in the brilliant Grunts series, written by Philip Ardagh and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. And today, not ONLY can you read the book’s opening for the first time – you can ALSO win a copy!

The gloriously grubby Grunt family head to a country fair so Mrs Grunt’s mother can enter her homemade jam in the Preserves, Jams and Jellies Competition. What could possibly go wrong…?

Well, plenty (this IS the Grunts we’re talking about). Add a nose-biting squirrel, escaped bees, rogue fireworks and crashing biplanes (AGAIN!) and you’ll see why poor Sunny and Mimi have a lot on their plate. And that’s BEFORE the Grunts end up in jail.

Here’s a very first look inside the book:

And you could win the book! To enter our competition, all you have to do is tweet your favourite joke from one of the first Grunts books, The Grunts in Trouble or The Grunts all at Sea, to @NosyCrowBooks (if it’s too long to fit in a tweet, feel free to take a picture, and if you can, try and fit in the hashtag #TheGrunts) – and we’ll pick our favourite at the end of this week.

Here are a few of my favourites from The Grunts in a Jam to get you started…

Mrs Grunt threw open a window at the side of the caravan and stuck her head out. “Keep the noise down, mister!” she yelled. “Some of us are trying to watch to the goldfish.”

This is an absurdist masterpiece, worthy of Monty Python, and I immediately hear it in the voice of Terry “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!” Jones.

Mr Grunt grunted, pulling a small woman’s purse from his trouser pocket. I don’t mean “a small woman’s-purse” in that the purse was small. I mean “a small-woman’s purse” in that the purse belonged to a small woman: Mrs Lunge. Mr Grunt had decided to look after her purse for her without wasting time by asking her first.

A classic of the form. And I find the name “Mrs Lunge” sort of inexplicably funny.

To say that Mr Grunt was lucky might be a bit of an exaggeration because a lucky man wouldn’t get chased by bees and end up tripping over a rope and setting off a load of fireworks including the prototype Oomph 5, which in turn brought down a plane.

This builds and builds to a fantastic comic climax, and then there is an almost bathos-like effect to the fantastically abrupt, hilariously casual, ending.

The Grunts were in a jam, or, to be more accurate, they were in a holding cell underneath a courtroom.

This needs no explanation. It is a formally perfect joke.

So, what could be easier? Tweet us your favourite line from Book 1 or 2 and win Book 3!

And if you can’t BEAR the the uncertainty, you can also pre-order The Grunts in a Jam here.

Good luck!

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Find out more and buy tickets here.

Congratulations to the new Booktrust Writer in Residence!

Somewhat belatedly (it’s taken a while for the full, momentous nature of the news to sink in), we were extraordinarily excited by the news that Philip Ardagh, The Grunts author and beard-wearer, has been named as Booktrust’s new Writer in Residence!

Philip will be writing for the Booktrust website on subjects including his passion for libraries, his determination to promote inclusion and diversity in children’s literature, and, in all likelihood, his exceedingly bushy beard. And you can read his very first post for Booktrust here.

Here’s what Philip had to say about the appointment:

“I was delighted to be asked because I’m a huge admirer of the work Booktrust do to promote reading. I’m also delighted to have the opportunity to inflict my thoughts on anything and everything – including books and beards – on an unsuspecting public.”

The residency will last six months and Philip will write a new blog every Monday – at the end of his residency, he’ll share an exclusive work on the Booktrust website. You can read The Guardian’s reporting of the news

If you’ve not yet been introduced to Philip’s work, here’s a look inside The Grunts in Trouble, the very first book in the hilarious series, illustrated by Axel Scheffler:



Buy the book online.

There’ll be some VERY exciting Grunts news here on the blog tomorrow – come back then to find out more.

We can’t wait to see what Philip has to say for Booktrust – keep an eye on their website!

It's the last day to get Early Bird tickets for the Nosy Crow conference!

Today’s the very last day to get Early Bird tickets for the Nosy Crow conference, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Children’s Publishing (But Were Afraid to Ask) – don’t delay!

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

And in case you missed it, we’ve just announced a brilliant addition to our (already glowing) line up of speakers – author Jeff Norton will be talking about new ways of reaching readers (you can read more here.)

You can read our full roster of speakers here – we’ll be announcing the exact programme for the day shortly.

The conference is taking place on Saturday, September 13 at the St Bride Foundation in London (just off Fleet Street) – it’s an all-day event, and the ticket price includes morning and afternoon tea and coffee breaks, lunch, and a glass of wine and home-made cake at the end of the day (where you’ll have the chance to chat with fellow attendees, speakers, and members of Nosy Crow).

Whether you’re an aspiring author, or looking to find out more about working in publishing, or are a teacher, librarian, parent, or other children’s book enthusiast, this event is for you! We’ll demystify every stage of the publishing process, from submission to publication, with expert views from every area: retailers, journalists, editors, agents, social media experts, and – of course – authors.

You can book tickets at the unbeatable Early Bird rate for the last day here – the sale ends at midnight tonight (GMT). We hope you can join us!

It's August publication day!

Our August titles are out today! We’ve got some truly BRILLIANT books out this month, and something for everyone – picture books, novelty books, and fiction. Here’s what you can find in bookshops now:

It’s publication day for Playbook Castle, the third fantastic Playbook, illustrated by Britta Teckentrup with paper engineering by Corina Fletcher. An ingenious novelty package comprising a pop-up storybook, which then unfolds and transforms into a 3D playmat with cut-out cardboard pieces, this an absolutely BRILLIANT book that will provide hours of fun.

Buy the book online.

Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Safari is out today – the fantastic follow-up to last year’s Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm. With its sturdy, split pages and spiral binding, 121 possible combinations, silly names and animal noises to make you giggle, this hilarious rhyming flip-flap book in a fun format is perfect for pre-schoolers. Little readers will adore flipping Axel Scheffler’s animals again and again to see what crazy creatures they can create – and to find out what strange noises they make too! And there’s an app, too – you can find out more here.

Buy the book online.

Use Your Imagination by Nicola O’Byrne is in shops today – the brilliant new picture book from the illustrator of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-winning Open Very Carefully. This is another wonderfully clever, inventive picture book all about storytelling and the power of imagination – the story of an imaginative rabbit, who outwits a wolf and becomes the hero of his own adventure. And like Open Very Carefully, this is also a brilliant celebration of the physical book in all its glory, with a STUNNING fold-out final spread. Here’s a look inside:

Buy the book online.

It’s publication day for My School Musical and other Punishments, the third HILARIOUS novel by Catherine Wilkins, author of My Best Friend and other Enemies and My Brilliant Life and other Disasters. When Jessica gets roped into the school play she finds herself strangely allied with arch-enemy Amelia when her best friend Natalie becomes crazed with stardom. Meanwhile, Jessica’s dad is concerned at plans to build a new road through nearby parkland and is now living up a tree. So far, so normal! Clever, knowing, and wonderfully true-to-life, these books are brilliant for 9+ readers who love funny books. Here are the first three chapters:

Buy the book online.

And last but not least, The Palomino Pony Rides Out by Olivia Tuffin is out today – the second volume in this fantastic new series that’s absolutely PERFECT for pony-mad 9+ year olds. An exciting sequence of soon-to-be-classic pony books, The Palomino Pony Rides Out is FILLED with action, adventure, and a genuine love of horses. Here’s a look inside:

Buy the book online.

Congratulations to all of today’s authors and illustrators!

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Early Bird tickets are available now.

Jack and the Beanstalk has received a Parents' Choice Award!

We’re incredibly proud that our Jack and the Beanstalk app is the recipient of a Silver Honor in the Mobile Apps category from Parents’ Choice! Silver Honors are given to excellent products that “are designed to entertain and help children develop universally ethical attitudes, and rigorous standards and skills”, and Jack and the Beanstalk joins our other fairy tale apps, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood (all recipients of the Gold Award) in being recognised by Parents’ Choice.

Here’s what Parents’ Choice had to say about Jack and the Beanstalk:

“In this very Nosy Crow take on the childhood classic, the story begins true to its origins – Jack’s mom tells him they don’t have any money, so he must sell Daisy, the family cow … Readers are presented with a treasure trove of interactivity. Prompted to touch a blinking blue button, characters speak and react – with smartly written lines and voices that are well directed and performed. Jack and his sidekick Mouse explore the giant’s castle, hunting for the keys that unlock the different colored doors. A series of nine playful challenges from simple to more complex include pattern recognition, following instruction, manual dexterity, problem solving and more uses a range of skills and technology … Once again, Nosy Crow delivers a fairy tale squarely into the 21st century.”

You can read the full review here.

And here’s the trailer for Jack and the Beanstalk:

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our new apps, you can join our Apps Mailing List here – we have an exciting announcement to make tomorrow!

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Early Bird tickets are available now.

Come to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group!

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

As so many people are away in August, we’re skipping a month, and so the next event will take place on Wednesday September 3 (at the usual time and place – here in the Crow’s Nest, 10a Lant Street, from 6.30pm onwards).

And given the timing, we thought a back-to-school theme would be appropriate, so we’ll be discussing two recent boarding school novels which epitomise a recent trend for nostalgia-tinged fiction: Murder Most Unladylike, the first book in a fantastic new Agatha Christie-meets-Enid Blyton series by (former Nosy Crow intern!) Robin Stevens, and The Glass Bird Girl, by Esme Kirr, which Amanda Craig describes as being “sensitively written … a cut above most fiction for girls of nine-plus.” And as a bonus secondary text, points will be awarded to those who bring along a copy of Malory Towers, which, it seems to me, will INEVITABLY come up in the course of the evening.

Murder Most Unladylike is available to order online here, and The Glass Bird Girl here.

If you’d like to come to the physical event at our office in London, send an email to tom at nosy crow 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.

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!

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Early Bird tickets are available now.

Save the Forest Pixies!

There are only 95 Forest Pixies left in all of Witchworld. Friends of the Forest Pixies need your help to protect their future.

About the Forest Pixie:

Forest Pixies are the most agile of all pixies. They’re easily distinguished from other pixies by their incredibly long tails (the stretchiest of any creature in Witchworld), bright yellow-green tufts of hair and long limbs. These mischievous, playful creatures are excellent swimmers but their favourite pastime is climbing to the top of a tall tree, wrapping their tail around the highest branch and jumping! Their tails are SO elastic that the pixies never reach the ground, when they’re a few centimetres away they’re snapped skyward.

Fun Forest Pixie Facts:

Their favourite tree to climb is a Woldenbore

A group of Forest Pixies is called a band

The best-selling computer game Pixie Panix is based on their mischievous antics

Why they’re endangered:

Sadly, following the devastating fire at Freefall Forest, only 95 Forest Pixies remain.

Their entire natural habitat was destroyed and, left without any food or shelter, the surviving Forest Pixies had nowhere to hide from pellolligans on the prowl. New trees have been planted in Freefall Forest but even using the strongest super-speedy growth potion it will be 10-15 years before the pixies can return home.

What’s the Sanctuary?

The Sanctuary is a safe and secure temporary home for the pixies, built by Friends of the Forest Pixies. The top secret location is over half a mile square with high walls and nets to keep predators out. It re-creates the pixies’ favourite part of Freefall Forest with two tall trees for climbing, a lake for swimming, bushes and shrubs for hiding, and mud to roll in.

How you can help?

By wearing a Save The Forest Pixies badge and spreading the word! Email mary@nosycrow.com with your address.

Witchworld, by Emma Fischel, will be out next month. You can pre-order it online here, or take a look inside below. If you’re a bookshop, librarian or event organiser, do get in touch – the badges come in bags of 25 and we’ve also got Witchworld badges, bookmarks and posters.

Have you heard about our upcoming children’s publishing conference? Early Bird tickets are available now.

A brilliant new speaker for the Nosy Crow conference!

As seems to be becoming a Friday tradition, we’ve got lots of news about our upcoming conference on children’s publishing, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Children’s Publishing (But Were Afraid to Ask).

We are sad to announce that unfortunately, Julia Eccleshare is unable to speak. Julia kindly accepted our invitation with the caveat that there was an off-chance that she might be asked to speak in Mexico (in which case, she’d go to Mexico), and, as things have worked out, this is what’s happened.

However, the (very silver) silver lining is that this leaves room for us to cover one of the other areas that we really wanted to include in the day, but couldn’t previously squash into our packed programme – in this case, an exploration of ways, other than traditional publishing, that authors are finding to reach their audiences.

And we couldn’t have found a better speaker to cover this topic: we’re INCREDIBLY excited to say that author Jeff Norton will be talking about reaching readers in the 21st Century. Jeff is the author of Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie (Faber) and the MetaWars series (Orchard). He’s currently Executive Producing for Trucktown, a new TV show based Jon Scieszka’s books. Previously, Jeff managed the Enid Blyton literary estate, produced the award-winning Choose Your Own Adventure movie, and worked in Hollywood. Jeff’s on the web at www.jeffnorton.com and tweets as @thejeffnorton.

And here he is in his own words on the subject he’ll be covering:

“To crib from A Tale of Two Cities, I think the children’s book biz right now is both the best of times, and the worst of times.

Creatively, we’re in a golden age of writing and illustration. There’s never been a better time to be a young person hungry for stories. The classics are available and a talented pool of authors, and their publishers, offer up new classics every year. Plus, no longer confined to the pipeline of traditional publishers, authors and illustrators are finding digital paths to readers via wattpad, iTunes, amazon, and even the humble pdf document (I first read ‘Go the F*ck to Sleep’ as a viral pdf that did the rounds….and now own a hardback copy).

In theory, it’s easy to reach readers, but in reality it’s never been harder to actually get their attention. Books are not just competing with other books, but with TV, VOD, video games, card games, social networks, email, texts…not to mention what I call the ‘Three Ss of adolescence’: School, Sleep, and Social lives.

Some have heralded digital as a panacea of opportunity. But, just because you put something on the internet, it doesn’t mean that anyone is going to see it.

But you’ve got a story to tell; and I’m assuming you want an audience. Sitting around the campfire alone is a pretty lonely place to be.

On the 13th of September, at the second annual Nosy Crow conference, I’ll do a deep dive into ways to reach readers. I’ll share some things I’ve learned, some mistakes I’ve made, and look at what other authors are up to.

The readers are out there, but the big question is: how do you get them around your campfire?”

Thank you, Jeff – we can’t wait to hear what you have to say! You can get your ticket for our conference here, or with the form below – Early Bird tickets are available for one more week. And if you missed last week’s news, we’re also offering a discount to any librarians who’d like to attend – you can find out more here.

We hope you can join us!

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