Nosy Crow's Blog, page 62

I Am The Seed and Alphabet Street have been shortlisted for the Hearst 2019 Big Book prize!

The 2019 Big Book shortlist has just been unveiled, and we are thrilled to see that it includes both I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year and Alphabet Street!

Returning for the second year, the Big Book prize is run by Hearst UK, as part of their awards and accreditation initiative, aimed at discovering the best new fiction and non-fiction titles in UK publishing.

The top books were chosen by the Editors of the eight participating Hearst brands: Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Prima, Red, Best, Digital Spy, Cosmopolitan, and Harper’s Bazaar.

Judith Secombe Managing Director, Commerce & Good Housekeeping Institute at Hearst, said: “I’m so excited to see Big Book continue to go from strength to strength as it enters its second year. The quality and calibre of the books on our shortlist is a testament to how passionate both our Reader Panel and our editorial experts are about giving recognition to great storytellers. We’re so pleased to be able to share our top picks with our highly engaged audiences who we know respect and trust our opinion and recommendations.”

Both I Am the Seed and Alphabet Street are shortlisted in the Red Children’s Illustrated category.

I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon and collected by Fiona Waters, is a lavishly illustrated collection of 366 nature poems – one for every day of the year, including leap years. Filled with familiar favourites and new discoveries, written by a wide variety of poets, this is the perfect book for children (and grown-ups!) to share at the beginning or the end of the day, or just to dip into.

Here’s a look inside the book:

Alphabet Street, written by Jonathan Emmett and illustrated by Ingela P Arrhenius, is a bright and fun interactive book, perfect for little hands.

There’s so much to discover in this ingenious little book! Read the story, lift the flaps, enjoy the funny rhyming text, learn the letters of the alphabet and, then, when you’re finished, flip the book and have fun with the playscene on the reverse!

Watch the trailer below:

You can read the full 2019 Big Book shortlist here.

The winners of Big Book will be announced in June. Best of luck to Frann, Fiona, Jonathan and Ingela!

Take a look inside Christopher Edge’s The Longest Night of Charlie Noon

Next month we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing The Longest Night of Charlie Noon by multi-award-winning author Christopher Edge – a mind-bending mystery for 9+ readers combining cutting-edge science, gripping adventure and real heart, from the author of The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, The Jamie Drake Equation and The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day. And today we’re delighted to share a very first look inside the book – you can read the opening chapter below!

Secrets, spies or maybe even a monster… What lies in the heart of the woods?

Charlie, Dizzy and Johnny are determined to discover the truth, but when night falls without warning they find themselves trapped in a nightmare. Lost in the woods, strange dangers and impossible puzzles lurk in the shadows. As time plays tricks, can Charlie solve this mystery and find a way out of the woods? But what if this night never ends…?

The Longest Night of Charlie Noon is a  timeless novel for anyone who’s ever felt lost.

Here’s a look inside the book:

Pre-order the book.

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No Ballet Shoes in Syria is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of No Ballet Shoes in Syria by Catherine Bruton – a captivating story, filled with warmth and heart, with wonderfully authentic ballet writing and an important message championing the rights of refugees.

No Ballet Shoes in Syria tells the story of Aya – eleven years old and newly arrived in Britain with her mum and baby brother, seeking asylum from war in Syria. When Aya stumbles across a local ballet class, the formidable dance teacher spots her exceptional talent and believes that Aya has the potential to earn a prestigious ballet scholarship. But at the same time, Aya and her family must fight to be allowed to remain in the country, to make a home for themselves and to find Aya’s father – separated from the rest of the family during the journey from Syria.

Perfect for fans of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes, Lorna Hill’s Sadlers Wells series, and Pamela Brown’s The Swish of the Curtain, this is beautiful, classic storytelling.

Beautifully narrated by Lara Sawalha, you can buy the audiobook of No Ballet Shoes in Syria from Audible, Amazon, and iTunes now – and you can listen to a preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

You can also read the opening of the book below:

Buy the book.

And here’s author Catherine Bruton discussing some of the inspirations behind No Ballet Shoes in Syria:

Nosy Crow has won the 2019 Independent Publishers Guild Marketing Award!

Nosy Crow is a winner!

Last night, the most enormous bunch of us – Kate, Adrian, Imogen, Michela, Erin, Frances, Rebecca, Hester, Julia and Tom, spent the evening at the IPG Independent Publishing Awards.

Our awards table, clockwise from far left: Hester, Julia, Rebecca, Erin, Frances, Michela, Imogen, Tom, and Adrian (picture taken by Kate)

It is a big old risk to bring a bunch of people to an awards ceremony: the stakes are high, and I have a bit of a superstitious belief in the “curse of the full table”: the award night to which you bring a full table of staff or guests, is the award night you win nothing.

But we won the new and shiny Independent Publishers Guild Marketing Award.

Hester, Julia and Rebecca, with our Independent Publishers Guild Marketing Award

This is what the judges said:

“Nosy Crow had another superb year of marketing in 2018, when its focus was on retailers including Waterstones, Amazon and independents. It built brand recognition in schools and libraries too, organised many successful author events, and refined its digital marketing via Instagram, YouTube and other platforms. It’s hugely impressive—strategically thought out and really well executed. It’s a 101 of how to run marketing campaigns.”

As I do for most of our award entries, I put together the award entry. But here’s the thing: the day before, I’d been a speaker at the IPG conference, and had talked about the challenges of growing fast. One of the things I’d talked about was the need for me, as a founder who was involved in so many of the details of Nosy Crow early on, to let go. And there are kind of milestone moments when you realise how much the business has moved on. For me, writing the entry for this marketing award was one of those moments.

I’d asked Hester, Rebecca and Tom (with Julia) to pull together the information I would need… and what they sent to me made it clear they were all doing so many things that I didn’t know anything about. They were planning and acting with – to me – such impressive responsibility and autonomy and coming up with, and executing, such clever ideas. We don’t actually spend a massive bunch of money on marketing relative to our sales. Our turnover was £15,000,000 last year and our third party marketing spend cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds rather than millions of pounds. It is true that a lot of our costs – PR and social media, for example – are overhead costs rather than third party marketing costs. And it’s also worth saying that our third party marketing costs are focussed on generating our UK sales (abroad, it’s our partner publishers who work on marketing our books) so our marketing costs as a percentage of our UK sales are much higher than our marketing costs as a percentage of our overall sales. But in any event, inventiveness, focus and a sense of getting the best value out of our marketing activity is key to our success. So I was actually quite lumpy-throaty reading about all the things we’d managed to pull off on a tight budget.

We were shortlisted for Children’s Publisher of the Year, which we’ve won four times in the last seven years, and congratulate Bloomsbury Children’s Books for winning. We were shortlisted for the International Achievement Award, which we’ve won three times in the last seven years, and congratulate Kogan Page on winning. While it was hard to feel anything other than delighted for the incredibly bouncy and happy winning one-man medical publisher, Zeshan Qureshi, we were sad that our own entirely brilliant Ola Gotkowska didn’t win the Young Independent Publisher of the Year Award, for which she’d been shortlisted four times previously.

As I write this, on the train returning from Oxfordshire to the office, I feel both very proud of Nosy Crow, and of the marketing and PR teams in particular, and very pleased and relieved to have avoided the “full table” jinx.

Amazingly, Nosy Crow’s fourteen (!) IPG Independent Publishing Awards

New May Books!

It’s our May publication day!

We’ve got some wonderful new books out this month – from brand new lift-the-flap and board books for babies and toddler, to beautiful new picture books and illustrated non-fiction, and incredible new fiction, there’s something for everyone!

You can watch our new books video below, showcasing all of our brand new books:

Here’s a closer look at what you can find in shops now from Nosy Crow.

Where’s Mr Astronaut, by Ingela P Arrhenius:

Buy the book

Animal Families: Safari, illustrated by Jane Ormes:

Buy the book.

Animal Families: Forest, illustrated by Jane Ormes:

Buy the book.

Sing Along With Me! Hickory Dickory Dock:

Buy the book.

Superhero Dad and Daughter, written by Timothy Knapman and illustrated by Joe Berger:

Buy the book.

Superhero Dad and Son, written by Timothy Knapman and illustrated by Joe Berger:

Buy the book.

The Same But Different Too, written by Karl Newson and illustrated by Kate Hindley:

Buy the book.

The Suitcase, by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros:

Buy the book.

National Trust: Go Wild at the Seaside, written by Goldie Hawk and illustrated by Rachael Saunders:

Buy the book.

British Museum: Find Tom in Time, Ancient Egypt, illustrated by Fatti Burke:

Buy the book.

Not My Fault, written by Cath Howe

Buy the book.

We Won an Island, written by Charlotte Lo:

Buy the book.

An Otter Called Pebble, written by Helen Peters and illustrated by Ellie Snowdon:

Buy the book.

No Ballet Shoes in Syria, written by Catherine Bruton:

Buy the book.

Congratulations to all of today’s authors and illustrators!

Ola Gotkowska is shortlisted for the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize

The shortlist for the 2019 Kim Scott Walwyn Prize has been announced today, and we are incredibly proud that Nosy Crow’s contracts manager, Ola Gotkowska, has been shortlisted.

The Kim Scott Walwyn Prize recognises the professional achievements and promise of women in publishing, is open to any woman who has worked in publishing in the UK for up to seven years. Founded in 2003, the Prize honours the life and career of Kim Scott Walwyn, who was Publishing Director at Oxford University Press and who died in 2002 at the age of 45.

Ola took on the role of contracts manager at Nosy Crow only last year, having worked in our rights department for six years, until receiving a diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease  in April 2018. Now she applies her customary brilliance to our contracts department – and we are so pleased that her work has been recognised in this way.

In their reporting of the prize, The Bookseller write:

“The judges were “incredibly impressed” by Gotkowska’s rights achievements and highlighted “the fortitude and courage with which she has adapted to her changing life circumstances” after she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2018. “It was obvious from the genuine praise she has received from all quarters that she is a joy to work with, a real and demonstrable asset to a publishing house, and an inspiring mentor to more junior colleagues,” said the panel.”

The winner of the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize will be announced on Tuesday 28th May at a prize ceremony at Stationers’ Hall in central London, and you can find out more about the prize here.

Congratulations, Ola!

 

Watch Cath Howe read an excerpt from Not My Fault

This week we are incredibly proud to be publishing Not My Fault by Cath Howe – the second book from the author of the highly-acclaimed, award-winning Ella on The Outside. And today we’re delighted to share a preview of the book – you can watch Cath reading an excerpt from Not My Fault in the video at the top of this post, and read the opening chapters below.

With a hugely authentic and insightful voice, incredibly well-realised characters with real depth, and a compelling sibling relationship at its centre, Not My Fault is an uplifting story of family, forgiveness, and finding out who you are – perfect for fans of Jacqueline Wilson.

Maya and Rose won’t talk to each other. Even though they are sisters. Not since the accident. Maya is running wild, and Rose doesn’t know what to do.Now Maya and Rose have to go away together on a week-long school journey. But will the trip – and a life-threatening adventure – fix their relationship… or break it for good?

You can watch Cath read from Not My Fault in the video at the top of this post – and here’s a look inside the book:

Not My Fault will be in shops from May 2nd – you can pre-order the book here.

The Middler is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of Kirsty Applebaum’s gripping debut, The Middler – an atmospheric story for 9-12 year-olds of forbidden friendship, loyalty and betrayal set in a near-future world.

Eleven-year-old Maggie lives in Fennis Wick, enclosed and protected from the outside world by a boundary, beyond which the Quiet War rages and the dirty, dangerous wanderers roam.

Her brother Jed is an eldest, revered and special. A hero. Her younger brother is Trig – everyone loves Trig. But Maggie’s just a middler; invisible and left behind. Then, one hot September day, she meets Una, a hungry wanderer girl in need of help, and everything Maggie has ever known gets turned on its head.

Brilliantly narrated by Adjoa Andoh, you can buy the audiobook of The Middler from Audible, Amazon, and iTunes now – and you can listen to a preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

And you can also read the opening of the book below:

Buy the book.

Come and work for Nosy Crow: we’re hiring a Biblio Assistant and a Fiction Editor (Maternity Cover)

We currently have two roles to fill at Nosy Crow – we’re looking for a Biblio Assistant, a Marketing Assistant, and a Fiction Editor (maternity cover).

Biblio Assistant

This is an exciting opportunity for an organised and hardworking individual to join Nosy Crow’s Operations department on a temporary basis as a Biblio Assistant. We have recently added the Production and Rights management modules of this system to our Biblio package, and the person in this role will assist the Operations Manager in bedding in the modules and maintaining our database.

Key responsibilities and tasks:

To enter historical data into our database
Carefully check data as it is inputted to ensure it is correct
Working with Nosy Crow staff to optimise systems
To provide support to the Operations Manager in maintaining the Biblio system

Key skills, characteristics and capabilities:

Experience with Biblio is essential
Accuracy and an eye for detail
Strong numeracy
Experience in an administrative role
Friendly with a can-do attitude
Good Microsoft Office skills
Some experience of working in the publishing industry

This role is a fixed term contract for three months, is full-time and based in our office near to London Bridge. The successful candidate will have the right to live and work in the UK.

To apply, please email your CV, accompanied by a covering letter of no longer than 500 words, to Alex Dickinson (alex@nosycrow.com) with the subject heading Biblio Assistant, telling us where you heard about this position.

Fiction Editor (Maternity Cover)

We have a brilliant opportunity for an experienced Editor to cover a maternity leave on the Fiction team. You will work across an exciting children’s list, liaising with authors and illustrators and working with the design team to produce high quality titles to schedule. An eye for detail and excellent organisational skills are essential.

Purpose of the Job

The role of Editor includes taking titles on at first draft and beyond, and working with authors, illustrators and designers to deliver the books on time and to a high standard.

The Editor reports to the Head of Fiction.

Key responsibilities:

Managing titles from first draft through to finished book
Liaising with design and production, and keeping to schedule
Liaising with authors, illustrators and their agents
Editing, copy-editing, proofreading and checking layouts and advances
Writing cover copy and sales copy

Key skills, characteristics and capabilities:

The ability to edit sensitively with clarity and conviction
The ability to spell and punctuate accurately, plus a strong visual sense
To be a strong team player with good communication skills
The ability to take the initiative and prioritise your workload
Experience in editing children’s books
Basic design skills using InDesign is desirable

The successful candidate will have the right to live and work in the UK.

To apply, please email your CV and a brief covering letter to Kirsty Stansfield (kirsty@nosycrow.com). We look forward to reading your application.

The closing date for applications for each role is midnight on Monday 6th May.

Nosy Crow is an equal opportunities employer. We believe that employing a diverse workforce is an important factor in success and make recruiting decisions based on applicants’ experience and skills. We welcome applications from all members of society irrespective of age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief.

Running On Empty by S. E. Durrant has been shortlisted for the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award!

The shortlist for the 2019 Little Rebels Children’s Book Award has been unveiled, and we are thrilled to see that it includes Running On Empty, by S. E. Durrant!

The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award is given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) and recognises children’s fiction which promotes social justice or social equality, challenges stereotypes or is informed by anti-discriminatory concerns. There are seven titles on this year’s shortlist, and the winner will be announced at a special ceremony on July 10th.

A beautifully told story of unorthodox families, grief, adolescence and running, The Sunday Times called Running on Empty “lyrical, moving and realistic”.

AJ’s grandfather has always been the one to keep his unusual family together, so when he dies things start to unravel at the edges. AJ is worried about his parents but they don’t really seem to notice. In order to deal with his grief and to keep his anxiety at bay, AJ does what he and his grandfather did best: running. Round and round the Olympic Park, aiming for the cross country trials, running to escape, AJ only seems to be heading ever closer to disaster. Running On Empty is a beautiful book about false starts and emotional journeys, with hope as the ultimate finishing line.

Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

And you can also listen to the first chapter of the audiobook edition of Running on Empty, read by Joe Jameson, below:

Buy the audiobook.

You can find out more about the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award, and read the full shortlists, here.