BookStop 2020 Results Crush 2019 Numbers |
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SCBWI BookStop 2020 was the best year ever for this annual promotion and member benefit. This year's program, which was designed to help members promote and sell copies of their recent books, showed record engagements, proof positive that the reading public is still hungry for fresh new releases from SCBWI members. One huge improvement was that in 2020, total pageviews jumped to 67,562, as compared to 47,361 in 2019 -- a massive 43% increase. 1,342 SCBWI members took part this year--independently published members compromised 799 pages while 524 were traditionally published. A significant increase in paid advertising, social media postings, promotion incentives, and targeted emails worked with a pandemic-driven need for children’s books to help kids learn and find joy and entertainment through reading.
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Manuscript Gallery Added to the 2021 Winter Conference!
Get Your Manuscript in Front of Hundreds of Editors and Agents
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2021 Winter Conference artwork by Jenin Mohammed |
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Yes, you read that headline right! Winer Conference attendees are invited to showcase their manuscript in the first-ever SCBWI Online Winter Conference Writer’s Gallery. This opportunity is FREE to all attendees.
If you are registered for the Winter Conference, we invite you to upload either a synopsis or the first 500 words of one of your manuscripts. You can also submit a link to a full picture book dummy posted on your website! Over 100 editors and agents will be invited to peruse the gallery during the conference, and they’ll reach out to authors whose work hooks them!
If you are not registered for the Winter Conference, click HERE for more information and to register.
The deadline to upload your pages to the gallery is February 12, 2021. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to get your work in front of industry professionals.
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Winter Conference Scholarships for BIPOC, Student Writers and Illustrators Now Open |
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This season's BIPOC Scholarships will be awarded to ten Black, Indigenous and People of Color, with five of the scholarships reserved for women. This grant is generously sponsored by Christopher Paul Curtis, and will include tuition to the 2020 SCBWI Winter Conference (February 19–February 21), including access to all Zoom Keynote Conversations, the Editors Panel, the Agents Panel, and Up-to-the-Minute Market Report, and Behind the Scenes look at New York Publishing. Illustrators will also win free tuition to the Illustrator Intensive, Illustrating Without Borders, on Monday, February 22.
Click HERE for more details.
Eligible BIPOC writers can submit HERE and illustrators should apply HERE. The deadline is January 30.
We are also accepting submissions for the Student Writer Scholarship (SWS). Full-time University students (over the age of 18) may submit a cover letter and five-page writing sample to win free tuition to the Winter 2021 Conference. CLICK HERE for more information on how to apply. The new deadline is January 30.
Submissions for the Student Illustrator Scholarship (SIS) are due on January 19, and will allow two full-time students studying illustration to attend the 2021 Winter Conference as well as the Juried Portfolio Showcase. CLICK HERE to apply.
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For over fifteen years, Matthew Winner has devoted his career to the furtherance of children’s literature. In his role as a school librarian, his work stands as an example of how a creative and engaged librarian can be a crucial influence in the life of a child. There’s no doubt that everyone in the SCBWI loves librarians, and recognizes them as advocates for kids as readers. But did you know that the guidelines of the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) also include the importance of teaching digital citizenship, inquiry skills, recognition of diversity, and the formulation of fundamental community values? A good children’s librarian leads from the library, the beating heart of a school.
Let’s look an just one example of how a school librarian’s work can accomplish these goals.
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What is #DisruptTexts, anyway? If you’re engaged with educators on social media, you’ve probably seen the hashtag floating around lately. Perhaps you’ve seen it discussed in the context of book pairings or educator guides (disclosure: my publisher, Penguin Young Readers, worked with #DisruptTexts on such a guide for my novel DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY). Or perhaps you’ve seen it brought up in examinations of what constitutes “the literary canon”. But what is #DisruptTexts, anyway, and why does it matter to us as creators of children’s literature?
Founders Tricia Ebarvia, Lorena Germán, Dr. Kimberly N. Parker, and Julia E. Torres—all educators and advocates for equity and inclusion—put forth four pillars for engaging with texts.
- Continuously interrogate our own biases and how they inform our thinking.
- Center Black, Indigenous, and voices of color in literature.
- Apply a critical literacy lens to our teaching practices.
- Work in community with other antiracist educators, especially Black, Indigenous, and other educators of color.
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A Crystal Ball Prediction
by Deborah Halverson
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January is typically the time of retrospectives, but in the spirit of good riddance, let’s cast our eyes forward. The health of our special market is uniquely unpredictable in this tenth month of nationwide lockdowns. Even so, as we roll into tiered vaccinations and flex the new skills, insights, and advancements that 2020 forced upon us, trend-lines have emerged. The publishing industry has shown resilience in keeping the supply chain chugging despite early fears of buckling, and Trade (consumer books) has slimly bettered 2019 sales. This, from an industry often likened to a dinosaur with an ocean liner’s maneuverability. The successes have been hard won and patchy, however. Here are some predictions for the children’s book market in this uniquely unpredictable year.
People will continue buying books for kids. Sales for every children’s book format—print, digital, downloadable audiobook—rose during the pandemic. The kinds of books being sold has changed, though. Sales of puzzle and activity books and books that supplement distance-learning juiced nonfiction numbers. That trend will likely continue at least through the first half of 2021, since many K-12 students will remain distance-learners for much, if not all, of the remaining 2020/21 academic year. After the school year ends? The crystal ball gets cloudier then. The National Retail Federation predicts overall consumer buying to continue at its current pace until summer, and then to boom as people leave their homes and spend money on activities and experiences despite record unemployment and economic hardships. Will the get-out-and-spend mindset allow for sitting down with new children’s books? 2020’s surprising sales performance leaves room to hope.
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Anyone looking to self-publish or sign with an independent or hybrid publisher knows that it’s not always easy to determine which self-publishing services are legit and which ones are scams. Fortunately, there’s a service out there that does this work for you! The Alliance of Independent Author’s (ALLi) Self-publishing Watchdog Desk monitors the self-publishing industry and warns authors about companies that are scams or are run by people who are greedy, callous, or manipulative.
The Watchdog Desk monitors the self-publishing industry in two ways. First, they generate a Partner Membership list of services that align with ALLi’s strict Code of Standards. Any publisher, freelance editor, or service provider listed in the ALLIi Partner Directory has been strictly vetted for value, quality, and ethics. The Watchdog Desk also maintains a database of the best and worst self-publishing services. ALLi’s database rates hundreds of self-publishing service providers and identifies companies who overcharge, over-promise, under-deliver, or in any way exploit authors.
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Calling All Picture Book Writers! |
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SCBWI is thrilled to share the wonderful news of a brand new International Picture Book Writing contest and a fantastic opportunity to showcase your work. $45,000 in prizes and an opportunity for a publishing contract.
Astra Publishing House, minedition Switzerland, minedition France, and Thinkingdom China just announced the creation of the Astra International Picture Book Writing Contest, a unique competition open to all children’s picture book writers, regardless of publishing experience or country of residence. Designed to encourage, discover, and honor talented writers of picture books for children ages 3–8 from all over the world, the Astra International Picture Book Writing Contest has been created to foster literary excellence in books for young children and promote international cooperation and understanding through picture books.
Leonard Marcus joined Astra Publishing House to help bring this exciting project to fruition. “I've had lots of experience over the years not only as a judge of children's book competitions and prizes but also as a planner/director of contests and awards. Each one has its own identity. Our new Astra contest is all about raising the profile of the writer's contribution to an artform that is often thought of mainly in terms of its illustrations. It's about celebrating the talent of writers who work supremely well in this deceptively simple artform and it's about concretely supporting their careers.”
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On Labels: Microaggressions in Our Children's Literature Community
by Alby C. Williams
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Alby C. Williams
@AlbyWilliams
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There’s a particular type of pain that comes from existing as a Black person in white spaces. It’s like a scald, where your skin is tight and stiff, but you can numb yourself to it as long as you protect yourself from being touched. After a lifetime in white schools and white jobs, I’m used to all that white supremacy can throw at a Black person, and I protect myself by being cautious around new people.
All this is to say that when I attended the Summer Spectacular, I knew what I was getting into. I’ve been in kidlit spaces before, and in my experience, they’re dominated by white women. I usually fade into the background in these situations, falling easily into the old role of “the quiet one” from my school days, even though that’s not who I am. This time, I saw that there was an LGBTQIA+ social during the Spectacular, and I knew I wanted to participate.
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Reading List art by Maple Lam |
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The new and improved PAL member Recommended Reading List has taken off in just two months and is proving to be a hit with book lovers. The change from one large list per year to themed, curated monthly lists has made for a more manageable, more browsable listing for book buyers.
The List is now at 11,845 total pageviews far outpacing 2019 by three times the number. A large part of this can be attributed to the ease of finding what category of book you’re looking for. Curating the books by YA, chapter books, anthologies, bilingual/Spanish, picture books and others it makes potential favorites easier to find. Here’s how the pageviews look by category to date.
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Publishers Weekly Special Offer for SCBWI Members |
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Publishers Weekly has a special offer for all members. Two great ways to stay on top of the latest in children’s books releases, or to stay in touch with children’s books all year long.
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Equity & Inclusion Corner
SCBWI Celebrates Queer Voices Panel Jan 14, 2021 @1pm PST #SCBWIVoices
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Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer April Powers |
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We had such a wonderful response from the Sticks and Stones and the Stories We Tell panel curated by Pat Cummings that we have decided to launch a series to celebrate underrepresented voices in children’s literature. The SCBWI Celebrates OwnVoices series will be free to members and nonmembers alike, so we hope you will listen in and invite your friends. Our inaugural 2021 session will host seven LGBTQ+ creators as they share the joys and challenges of bringing queer representation into their work, in a discussion about inspiration, intersectionality, and telling the stories you wish you had as a kid. We have confirmed Phil Bildner as the moderator as well as J Yang, Kalynn Bayron, Abdi Nazemian, Alex Gino, Mike Curato, and Bill Konigsberg for the panel. Human beings are a series of stories. The more we know someone’s story, the better we find connection and understanding of one another. This series will be an ongoing offering through our Equity and Inclusion Committee. Religion, Disability, and Cultural Diversity are all on the agenda. Your feedback and suggestions are welcome for these and future sessions. We hope to offer opportunities for connection after each session. Some Zoom socials will be for all attendees and some will be just for members who identify with that community. Following the January 14th panel, members of the LGBTQ+ community will be invited to participate in a Zoom social. We hope you will join us for the series.
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We are thrilled to announce that our Giving Tuesday drive raised $3013.23, 100% of which will be given to disabled creators of children’s literature through our fund. There are no limits to what we can achieve together and no limits for what the fund can do for creators if we keep paying it forward. Borrowed from the We Need Diverse Books clarification of disability, “we subscribe to a broad definition of disability, which includes but is not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, and mental illnesses (this may also include addiction). Furthermore, we subscribe to a social model of disability, which presents disability as created by barriers in the social environment, due to lack of equal access, stereotyping, and other forms of marginalization.” We invite you to peruse and suggest additions to our disability resources page.
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Regional Corner: Hong Kong
by Mio Debnam
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SCBWI Hong Kong, reflecting the nature of our city, is a diverse and dynamic group of writers and illustrators. We’re a fairly small chapter – we constantly hover around the 50 member mark. It’s hard to grow as HK is quite a transitory place, but we have a staunch core of local and long time HK members, as well as a revolving cast of people from all over the world, who join and enrich our group for a few years before leaving to go to new places.
The fact that HK is a small city works to our advantage – nowhere is more than a short journey away, so when we organise socials, critiques and events we get a good number of our members turning up, which means that a decent proportion of our members are engaged. This makes it easier to get to know each other well, network, and make friends too.
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Draw This! is our monthly prompt word for illustrators. Artists can post their DrawThis! entries on Twitter and Instagram.
There is no longer a gallery for DrawThis! View all entries by searching the tag #SCBWIDrawThis.
Due to Instagram's freeze on all general tags, we unfortunately needed to delay the announcement of the October and November winners. But we are thrilled to be able to announce them now!
The October prompt was VOTE.
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The November prompt was SNEAKY.
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The January prompt word is: "Luminous"
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Want to appear in the next issue of INSIGHT? Post a picture to social media and tag it #FacesofSCBWI |
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Tami Charles with her YA novel MUTED
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Elisa Boxer and son read her debut picture book THE VOICE THAT WON THE VOTE
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LeUyen Pham with her picture book INSIDE OUTSIDE
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Carmen Rubin reads her picture book HONCHO HATES MUD
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Ritu Anand reads THE TROUBLE WITH CHICKENS by Doreen Cronin and Kevin Cornell
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Jasmine Paul poses with her book A BOY, A BUDGET, AND A DREAM
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Susan Hughes with her book WALKING IN THE CITY WITH JANE
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