Food Network star and cookbook author Giada De Laurentiis has inked a deal with to publish a children’s book series.
Penguin Young Readers Group’s Grosset & Dunlap imprint will publish the first Recipe for Adventure book on September 3rd. William and Morris Endeavor Entertainment agent Suzanne Gluck negotiated the deal for world rights with publisher Francesco Sedita.
The series … is aimed at readers ages 7-10 and follows brother and sister Alfie and Emilia as they are transported to famous food cities around the world, where they learn first-hand how food cannot only take you places but can also bring you back home.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Yesterday Alice Pope offered another in our series of SCBWI TEAM BLOG pre-conference interivews with
Annual Winter Conference faculty. Alice talked to a handful of editors and agents on receiving and giving manuscript feedback.
SCBWI's Annual Winter Conference in New York is just eleven days away! If you're attending, you may be planning your outfits and your evening activities in the city (which you certainly should), but you should also be thinking about how to make the most of the event. So I checked in with a few of the editors and agents participating in the conference to ask for some advice to pass on to you.
Today's topic: CRITIQUES
Editors Krista Marino (Delacorte), Franceso Sedita (Penguin) and Jennifer Rees (Scholastic) and agents Kerry Sparks (Levine/Greenberg) and Kary Kole (Andrea Brown) are participating in the Writers' Intensive that kicks off the weekend of conferencing. At this day-long event, writers have the opportunity to get feedback on a manuscript from a several editors and agents, and writers offer feedback to one another.
Intensives have limited space for writers and this year's Writers' Intensive (as usual) sold out super fast. But even if you aren't attending it, you probably have been or will be in a critique situation, whether at a conference with an editor or agent, one-on-one with a critique partner, or in a critique group setting. Here are some things to keep in mind offered by our group of industry insiders.
Although the Writers' Intensive is sold you, you can still register for the Annual Winter Conference and rub elbows with industry insiders like the ones above. Click here for information.
Francesco Sedita is Publisher of Penguin imprints Grosset & Dunlap and Price Stern Sloan as a writer himself (MISS POPULARITY, SPACEHEADZ with Jon Scieszka).
He went to his first job interview in platform shoes and a ruffled tuxedo shirt. "They took one look at me and said: You should work in publishing."
He thinks we're in a really exciting time in publishing. "Nothing is going to happen to to book. It's not going anywhere."
Grosset & Lunlap was known as a licenced publisher for many years. He's been focusing on a strong middle grade publishing program for age 0-10.
PSS is the original publisher of MAD LIBS. "I think of it as the obnoxious little brother of Grosset." He considers PSS as a laboratory to play with new formats (for example, a $9.99 picture book--they're done four so far and they've gone out well, he says).
Two Grosset series that launched this summer:
FRANKLY FRANNIE by A,J. Stern about a little girl who thinks she should work in an office; and
GEORGE BROWN CLASS CLOWN, by Nancy Krulik.
Fancesco was and is a reluctant reader. He wants to publish titles that will draw in reluctant readers.
He suggest writers don't submit more than on imprint at the same company. It's one big team, and they would share material with other editors at other imprints that if they think there's a fit.
He believes you need to know the rules before you can break the rules, but we're at a time when the rules are bending.
Penguin had become more profitable, he feels, because the president of the company encourages his editorial staff to take risks and innovate, and it pays off. "If you're not making mistakes, you're not taking risks," Francesco says.
The price points are very low at his imprints (usually not over $9.99; FRANKLY FRANNIE is $4.99). He likes to take risks on new voices. He loves the idea of someone starting out at Grosset and creating a great series. He feels there's a negative connotation to the term "mass market," and doesn't like to use that term to describe what he publishes.
Franceso is one of the team members at Penguin who is exploring what material they can produce on new digital platforms. He says that writers should not concern themselves with new platforms or app associated with their text unless it's absolutely essential to the concept of the story.
Parting words of advice: When you go home and write (after the conference), shut the door on what you've learned and write for yourself. Write the story that YOU want to write. If you create the right things, we'll throw all the rules out the window for you.
Francesco Sedita--vice president and publisher, Grosset & Dunlap--is completely charming!! One of the things that he's focusing on right now is boy books for reluctant readers. Something that allows kids to say, "I can do this!" (reading)
He himself was a reluctant reader, which was why he really loves working on these types of books. And he believes that children's books are still selling, and they will continue to sell.
For the attendees, he had some advice: "Forget everything you've heard here--go home and write."
Focus on the story you want to tell. The rest will come later. All and all, he was inspiring and energetic. In fact, he really made me want to write MG!!
-Suzanne Young
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These books look great. I will check them out. Thanks for the heads up!
Pragmatic Mom
Type A Parenting for the Modern World
http://PragmaticMom.com
I blog on children's lit, education and parenting.