That sounds logical, but it still feels like it would be my fault if Julien published my books and the outcome wasn’t what we hoped for. They would bemybooks.Mywriting. Surely at least some of the blame would be at my feet.
“Let me ask you this,” Evangeline continues. “Have you guys had any better leads than your books?”
The accelerated reader series immediately comes to mind.I desperately want to see books like that get published. But I understand what Julien was saying too. For the income Squire needs, a niche market might not be the best route at the moment.
“There have been some good sample pieces and a few interesting hooks,” I say, not wanting to admit that we haven’t found the needle in the literary haystack.
“But nothing that you think will take the children’s book market by storm,” Evangeline states.
“No,” I agree. “But to be fair, I don’t think my series is going to do that either.”
“If you don’t agree to let Julien publish your stories, what will happen to Squire and his chance at King?” Hayley asks.
“He’d have to publish something else, I guess. Gamble on another author.”
All three of us seem to think on that.
“Will you let us read it?” Hayley asks. “And maybe a couple kids from the library, since they’re your target audience?”
“Yes.” Evangeline jumps on board. “You don’t trust Julien’s enthusiasm and opinion because of his lack of knowledge about children’s literature. We know books. Let us read the first story, and we’ll give you our feedback.”
“You guys are my friends.”
“We promise to be unbiased if you promise to still love us if we end up agreeing with the other editors who said it wasn’t ready to publish.”
My heart pinches at the vulnerability they’re asking of me.
“Although I highly doubt that will be the case,” Hayley chimes in.
“Okay. I guess ... I guess I’ll wait to hear what you guys think before I tell Julien yes or no.”
22
It took all of Julien’s willpower not to allow his leg to bounce with the same speed his mind was going. Ever since he’d read the little snippet of writing in Martha’s notebook, he couldn’t think of anything else. His brain jumped from wanting to read the rest of her story because he was already invested in the characters but also to see if it was as good as he knew it would be, to finding out a way to talk her into letting him publish the books, to snowballing production and marketing plans to sell as many copies as possible.
Would the romance genre strategy of rapid release work with a middle-grade book? Romance readers were so voracious that an author could release a new book every month and not overwhelm their audience. How many books did Martha already have written? Would multiple new books in the same series in the same catalog work as well with a younger audience as it did at Queen?
On the one hand, if they hooked a reader with the series starter, then that reader could immediately go on to book two without much, if any, wait time, thus generating more sales in a shorter period of time. His dad would have to be impressed with that. On the other hand, if they released the books too quickly, would that hinder reader anticipation and build upand put a damper on any presales? Did that play a big role when it came to the audience of children’s literature? What about marketing innovation from book to book?
Hmm. He needed to talk to Damien, Squire’s marketing manager.
“This next question is for the whole panel.” The voice of the panel moderator brought Julien back to the present.
Julien was currently sitting on stage with four editors from various publishing houses. He’d tried to bow out of having a representative from Squire participate in this panel discussion since it was Caroline who’d originally been slated to fill the role, but the conference leaders had asked him to fill in for her instead.
He’d somehow managed to not have to answer a single question yet, but something told him his luck was running out. Hopefully when the time came for him to speak, the inquiry would be one about the publishing industry in general and not specific to the children’s realm. He still didn’t feel confident in this corner of the market.
“What are your thoughts on industry trends to provide content warnings, or trigger warnings, as they’re sometimes called, in the beginning of books or on the cover itself?”
The woman to Julien’s right reached out a hand for the microphone, which the moderator gave her.
“I see someone here is looking to heat up the discussion with a controversial topic,” she said lightly and was met with a smattering of soft chuckles. “In all seriousness, though, this is an issue that has merit from both sides of the coin. Those of us at Cub Books, however, have decided to not add content warnings to any of our published books. The reason for this is that it is essential to expose children to important topics, and literature is a safe and perfect place to do that. Within the pages of a book, they can explore diverse topics from multiple points of view and develop critical-thinkingskills that would be hindered if we censored their reading material.”
The hand of the editor at the end of the line shot up. The moderator handed him a second microphone. He leaned forward a little so he could look at the original speaker.
“I just want to point out that we’re not talking about censorship.”
The woman raised her brow. “Aren’t we?”
