I know you all like to be kept up to date with exciting new developments in the Greenhouse. And what could be more thrilling than to tell you that we have a new intern at the agency! He arrived a few weeks ago and here’s one of the very first shots of him hard at work.

Our intern’s name is . . . . But wait.  Human Resources have just told me that I can’t reveal his true identity due to his age (18 weeks), so I’ll refer to him by his pseudonym.

People, meet Wee Man.

And because I know you can’t wait to hear all about him – his background, his academic rigour and literary interests, and the profound role he will no doubt play in shaping the Greenhouse in years to come, I invite you to share this staffer’s very first interview.

Wee Man, I know you are small in stature, but mighty in intellect.  Can you tell us a bit about your academic background and what led you into the world of books?

WEE MAN: Sure, Sarah. To be honest, I was always a high flyer (though I say this with humility).  I started leaping off sofas from an early age and then graduated speedily to stairs. Just give me a platform and I’ll make the leap! In terms of college, I majored in many genres and periods of literature – English classics, biography, historical works, metaphysical poetry. I’m eclectic, really – they all taste good. There are so many great books to sink one’s teeth into and I’m always hungry for more.

Oh, and hot news! I’m about to go back to college to take a Masters. It’s basically an intensive course in obeying them - Masters, I mean.  We’ll be covering a lot of ground in a very circular way – basic walking to heel, sitting and staying.  There’ll also be a lot of ‘bonding’ with other students, which could be challenging. I should graduate with Honours in Bottom-Sniffing, but face-to face debate with Retrievers is an area I’m still working on.

After that who knows – I may go for a doctorate.

I see. That’s impressive. And can you tell us a little about the books have influenced you most? It’s interesting that you chose to intern in a specifically children’s agency.

WEE MAN:  I know. Some have actually said that kids’ book are a bit of a step down after my work on the theories of Proust but that just makes me growl. Sharon Creech’s LOVE THAT DOG influenced me deeply (I’m constantly recommending it). MARLEY AND ME is OK up to a point (ie, where he dies), but that Marley was a bit of a goody-two-shoes; I could have shown those journos some tricks that would have made their eyes pop. If we’re talking about that dread Banned Books list, I’d have to nominate OLD YELLER. What is it with dogs and death? Enough already.

What isn’t widely known (sorry about the shameless self-promotion!) is that I’m currently shopping my own novel to movie agents. Titled FANGS TO WEE MAN, it’s a dystopic in which a normal suburban family is terrorized by a shape-shifting dachshund that morphs from cute puppy to hell-raising werewolf.  Basically it’s hot paranormal fantasy, with a spritz of autobiography. Genre-busting and, frankly, terrifying.

Well, we wish you all the best with that project, WM. But on to what readers REALLY want to know. What’s it like to work in the Greenhouse – and what is The Boss like?

Ha ha, yes! So much I could tell you on THAT one, but I value my position too highly.  Actually, I don’t see that much of The Boss – other than her feet (and let me tell you, we’re in line for a mani-pedi, know what I mean?).  But I do hear her a lot, jabbering away above me at the desk and thundering on that keyboard. Gets pretty hard to sleep, truth be told.  She says the same things a lot: ‘Show not tell, show not tell, show not tell’.  And there’s a lot of sighing. ‘Squeeze the juice from the fruit’ is another one. Then it’s all, ‘Voice, voice, voice’.  Let me tell you, I get quite tired of HER voice, and I bet I’m not the only one.  Oh dear, now I’ve said far too much!

The past week has been all action, despite (or maybe because of) it being the dog days of summer. The new Greenhouse YouTube channel going live. A starred PW review for Sarwat Chadda’s DEVIL’S KISS; Borders Book of the Month in the UK for Harriet Goodwin’s BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43 – and a deal with Tricycle Press in California for new Greenhouse client Winifred Conkling. The Boss has been free with the milkbones, I can tell you.

In terms of our work day? It’s a tough schedule. We’re in the office early till late.  ‘We’ being me, The Boss, and Aunt Lucy. . . .

Aunt Lucy????

Yes, sorry. Shouldn’t really call her Aunt Lucy in a professional context, but it’s hard to break the habit.  She’s senior to me, extremely hairy and extremely bossy, plus she has an enormous nose (ha, ha! So bite me, Auntie. She’s REALLY sensitive about that nose!).

OK, to be truthful she’s nine years old and thinks she’s ‘all that’ because she used to be a showdog.  Actually, she’s still quite elegant in a faded kind of way, but basically thick as a plank, though don’t quote me.

Miaow!  So a little friendly rivalry around the water cooler, eh?

For sure. Bone Wars form a major part of our day. She takes mine, I take hers. She may be big (especially in the derriere), but I’m the ambitious one.  I’ve nearly cracked the whole toilet inside-or-outside issue (well, almost nearly) and now I’m on my way to make Senior Agent.  I love working with writers, but I’m tough – my bark is nearly as bad as my bite. And I really do work like a dog – took home five manuscripts last weekend, and by Saturday night I’d already shredded two.

Thanks, Wee Man, for all your insights. Finally, tell us what you feel about the whole ‘growing and nurturing’ aspect of Greenhouse. What does all that green imagery mean to you?

Hey, I am the ultimate green guy – I was a shoe-in for Greenhouse! I love chewing acorns, I chase leaves as they dance in the breeze, I can watch a caterpillar for hours, and I will happily eat whole sticks (and vomit them up again) . . .

Ooops, sorry, just checked the Blackberry and I’ve got to dash – running late for a meet-and-greet with the mail man.

It’s been illuminating, Wee Man. And we wish you all the very best as you make a name for yourself (other than that of ‘Squirty McGuirk’) in the children’s books world.

Publication days – especially for debut authors –should be savoured to the full! And none more so than today, which marks publication of Harriet Goodwin’s first novel, THE BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43, in the UK and Commonwealth.  The publisher is Stripes, the fast-growing, two-year-old fiction imprint of Magi, a UK market leader in full-colour publishing.

Harriet was the second author to be signed by Greenhouse, back in the days when the agency hadn’t even launched – a huge leap of faith on Harriet’s part, which makes it even more exciting to see EXIT 43 out in the stores.

Every author’s journey to publication is long and arduous, so publication is that first great moment in the sun.  Over to Harriet as she shares her big day with us.

Hi, Harriet, wonderful to welcome you to the Greenhouse blog – and also to the ranks of our published authors!  Firstly, can you give us a quick outline of the story of THE BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43?

Thanks, Sarah! It’s great to be here. The book is about a boy, Finn Oliver, who is plunged into an Underworld populated by the Woken Dead. As he falls, he collides with a Victorian spirit-girl, Jessie Sherratt, who is on her way up to the surface to visit the local graveyard.

Together, Finn and Jessie must save the Underworld from destruction by releasing the ancient Firepearl from its elemental enchantments at the centre of the Earth. But can they reach it before their evil adversary gets there first – and is the Firepearl quite what it seems?

I know you trained as a singer, and that’s really been your principle career. So how and when did the writing bug first bite you? Was it always something you loved to do?

I think I always knew that I could write – but up until several years ago I had never had a really great premise with which to work. Then, a few weeks after the birth of my fourth baby, I had a vivid dream about a boy crashing through the surface of the Earth into a magical Underworld.

I remembered the dream in the morning and decided I had to turn it into a story. It was just too exciting to ignore! And so began eight months (nearly the same length as a pregnancy – funny, that!) of short, furtive bursts of writing. I told absolutely no one what I was doing: finding the time to do it with four young children to look after wasn’t too easy, and I knew that if I blabbed about my secret little pastime it would lose its magic, and that would be that.

Was it difficult to find an agent and get a book deal? Can you tell us about the journey you made and the stages and processes you went through?

My journey to becoming a singer was long and arduous. Comparatively speaking, my journey to becoming a writer was ridiculously quick. I wrote my first draft (in longhand, as I didn’t have a clue how to use a computer back then!) and then sent it off to the [British] literary consultancy, Cornerstones, for a report. This I found enormously helpful: I learnt very quickly how to ‘show not tell’ and sharpened up my dialogue. After rewriting the book I entered it into the inaugural SCBWI Undiscovered Voices competition and was flabbergasted to discover that I had been chosen as one of the twelve winners. Sarah, who was on the judging panel, met up with me in London and took me on – and there then followed a period of intensive rewriting, followed by submission. I got the two-book deal with Stripes in April 2008.

You have four young children. (A moment’s respect as I can’t imagine how you get any writing done at all!). Did they inspire the story of EXIT 43 and have you found it helps to be a parent when you’re writing for kids?  Also, how and where do you write and is it a problem juggling so many different parts to your life?

Usually it’s not too much of a problem juggling the areas of my life. My singing is wonderfully physical and a great antidote to sitting up in my writing shed with my head down. But right now, with the launch of EXIT 43 going on, the editing process for the second book starting up, and ideas for future books coming thick and fast, I am getting to feel a little unhinged. As I write this, my third child is tipping a Peppa Pig beanie character off his dumper truck into a puddle of spilt Ribena – and I am doing absolutely nothing to stop him…

On the positive side, writing is far more conducive to domestic bliss than singing. I stopped opera work some time ago, as I hated being away from the children. Now I just do concert work, which usually involves rehearsing on the afternoon of a concert and performing that evening. I am almost always back that night to plant a kiss on each of their slumbering cheeks before reaching for a glass or two of Chardonnay. Writing is relatively easy to work around family life: I write in a summerhouse at the top of the garden. There is a lovely view of our cottage from it, and an even lovelier lock on the door!

I don’t keep to a rigid daily word count. I am a bit of a perfectionist and know that if I forced myself to reach a specific target each day I would probably self-combust. But I write something every day and keep a notebook with me at all times. Sometimes it takes me a while to lose myself in my story at the beginning of a writing session, but once I get sucked back in everything is usually fine. Certainly writing is not easy, but I am getting better at knowing instinctively when something sounds right in my head.

I wouldn’t say my four children inspired the story of EXIT 43, but they certainly help me keep my feet on the ground – and they always come first. All this writing excitement is great for them too: my two eldest (11 and 9) are coming to both my local and my London launch parties – and they are soooo excited. The two little ones are getting involved too: they each have their own signed copies of EXIT 43 (with seriously weird things written inside involving - guess what - Peppa Pig) which they keep proudly in their bookcases along with their Mr Men books and Curious George.

As to how I find the time, I do no ironing (yes, really, no ironing) and watch no TV. OK, so we all go around in crumpled clothes, but so what?

Are there any tips you could give aspiring writers who are seeking to get published? Anything you wish you had known two years ago?

Write a little every day, so that you don’t lose your thread.

Get your backstory right (this is something I’m still learning about – but wow, does it make a difference!)

Trust your instincts. When something feels right, then it probably is.

Authors often feel that not enough is done to market and promote their books once they actually get on to the shelf. What publicity and marketing will you (and your publisher, Stripes) be doing for EXIT 43?

Stripes has been fantastic in helping me to fix up two launches (one local, one in London), a number of school visits and several website interviews. They have also hosted an EXIT 43 dinner for key booksellers and librarians, at which I spoke. But I am also being very proactive myself: I have set up my own website (http://www.harrietgoodwinbooks.com), done a number of newspaper interviews, spoken on local radio and circulated information around the many choirs with whom I have sung as a soloist. I can think of absolutely no one who hasn’t wanted to help.

You have a two-book deal, and I know you’re already hard at work on your second novel. Can you tell us a bit about that?

It’s called THE EXTRAORDINARY LEGACY OF ELVIRA PHOENIX and I’ve just finished the first draft. It’s not a sequel to EXIT43, though it is for the same age-group (8-12).

At the start of the story, Phoenix Wainwright is handed a letter from his dead mother, instructing him to return to her childhood home and dig into the peculiar mound across the river. But little does he know that he is on the brink of re-triggering an ancient and malevolent curse: Gravenhunger Manor is a dark and mysterious place, poisoned by its own terrible history. Together with Rose, the daughter of his father’s new girlfriend, Phoenix embarks upon an extraordinary adventure, uncovering a stash of fabulous treasure inside the earth...and a whole lot more besides.

Can you describe three aspects of writing ‘craft’ that you feel have been most important as you’ve developed as an author?

1. Learning how to show not tell. (easily the most important)

2. Knowing your backstory inside-out.

3. Not being afraid to scrap sections of work that aren’t quite right/ don’t fit.

Finally, how has this past year been for you, and how does it feel to be published?

The past year has been a steady build-up of work and excitement. Working with Jane Harris, my editor at Stripes, has been an enormous pleasure – she is fantastic, and has a great sense of humour. All the while I have felt wonderfully supported by Sarah, too. And it was great to hear the news of Danish rights to EXIT 43 being sold just a few months ago.

As to how it feels to be published...well, I remember a wonderful Easter concert I sang in a few years back, a St Matthew Passion in Lincoln Cathedral, in which I was one of the soloists. Everything was perfectly right that night: the venue, the music, the occasion. I stood up to sing Erbarme dich, the big mezzo solo, and I felt an incredible sense of warmth the whole way through the aria. I feel exactly the same now. Unbelievably lucky and happy to be where I am.

Congratulations, Harriet – we’re all wishing you the very best of success for the launch of THE BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43. And we’re raising a glass to your future writing career!

Dear Anonymous

It’s been a while since we were in touch, but this time I thought it should be me who initiated a conversation. Because while we are old acquaintances, I have never before sought you out or told you bluntly how I feel about our relationship.

Firstly, let’s refresh our memories with the details of our most significant encounters.

Top of the list has to come our very first introduction.  I was fourteen years old, and you will probably remember that it was the first time my parents had ever left me alone for a couple of nights in our big, old, sixteenth-century house with its dark backyard and secluded location.  I can still recall my nervous prowling from room to room, flicking on light switches to make sure mysterious bogey-men and unnamed monsters weren’t lurking in the shadowed corners and closets.

So who would have thought my worst fears would come true and that would be the night you would first telephone me to say hello?  You were watching me, you said, and you had been watching me for a while – and didn’t I know who you were because you were always near? I could hear the dark pleasure in your voice; your slow, steady breathing.

Anonymous, it is hard to convey the fear you stirred in me as I stood holding the phone in that unlit room. Who were you? What did you want with me?  And why were you laughing at my silent terror? You knew it would be a very long time before my home, my street, would look familiar or safe again. You knew that you had planted a thought in my head which would stay for months.

Fast forward a lot of years, and now I am a businesswoman – professional, much too busy, a manager of many people, awash with schedules and deadlines. So how could I know that Thursday morning would be the day you would re-enter my life? A different guise, a different agenda, but the same old anonymity.  A package, postmark blurred, heaped innocently with the mail.  I ripped it open and pages spilled out – a letter, suggesting that you knew a lot about me and only had my best interests at heart. But you didn’t – because I have spent my life working with language, and I heard the vicious twist of the knife in your voice as you set out to undermine and destroy. And then the same the following Thursday - the carefully repeated performance, the blackness of your impeccable timing, knowing that a simple day of the week could become imbued with an anxiety that made it hard to breathe.

But, there is more, isn’t there. Now I’m an agent and I meet you again, for you, Anonymous, are the one who wrote to me, complaining about my blog. I actually thought you had a point, and goodness knows I’m not perfect; I do try to listen and learn. But your message has all the hallmarks I’ve come to expect from my old friend Anonymous – the self-righteous air, the mean-spirited tone, though this new model comes with the added piquance of implacability. I offer to telephone you if you would reveal yourself – but no, Anonymous is not a forgiver or forgetter. And certainly not a discusser. You are safe out there in your dark virtual cave and there’s no way you’re coming out into the light.

There have been other flirtations between you and I, and now, Anonymous, I see you everywhere in this literary world - on blogs, in chat-rooms, in Secret Agent contests and Amazon reviews - anywhere where people congregate, and especially where you might have a chance of bringing down the successful. I discover that most well-known authors have encountered you somewhere, some time. And while they try to laugh you off and ‘grow a thicker skin’, I think you know better than any of us that there is something strangely malevolent about the faceless intruder, ‘the paw under the door’.

And now, unsurprisingly, I see you start to approach my own clients, popping up on their sites, undermining their equanimity, ripping into their work, and I rise up like a Mother Lion, because, Anonymous, I’ve had enough of you.

I have tried to think whether there could be any good reasons for you being The Great Unnamed. But I can’t come up with any, because I believe that if you have something to say you should stand up and say it face to face, or at least with your name attached.  And anyway, if you have good intentions how strange it is that your words are so rarely kind or uplifting or generous.

Let’s face the facts. You enjoy the darkness and the freedom you find there. Because if you came out into the startling light of accountability you would be caught, transfixed, by our eyes, and any face-to-face encounter would force you to acknowledge the humanity of those you address.

Anonymous, we have a history, you and I. Our relationship was born many years ago when I was young and powerless and alone in a dark house.  But now there’s something I want to tell you straight. To be anonymous is to be cowardly. Own your opinions, admit to your feelings, and find ways to express them that would allow for genuine dialogue. It’s time to stand up and be a . . . man? A woman?

Now the tables have turned. Because, Anonymous, now I am watching YOU.

Yours sincerely

Sarah Davies
The Greenhouse Literary Agency.

My first West Coast visit, and I’m with Randy Newman – ‘I love LA!’

I headed out west with all the excitement of an early pioneer - in search of film agents, movie makers, blue skies, beautiful people, and all the star-studded cast of SCBWI’s massive summer conference. And was I disappointed? No! Fold back the roof, put on the big dark glasses, point me in the direction of Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, and man – this is the life. Here’s the church where Elizabeth Taylor got married; there’s Michael Douglas’s pied-a-terre; and Hi there, Nicholas Cage! Oh, those wreaths are on MICHAEL JACKSON’S front gate? And isn’t that the house where they filmed Ocean’s Eleven?

You should always be walking forward, and Greenhouse’s steps this week (as I stood in Tom Hanks’s footprints on the Walk of Fame) felt like big strong strides.

Just in case you don’t know, SCBWI LA is a whopper of a conference.  For you Brits reading this, think of the biggest writers’ event you’ve ever attended – and multiply by . . . let’s say a hundred times? Here you’re on a big canvas, with people from many backgrounds and many time zones (except, of course for Wyoming, the only non-attendee state in the Union), all gathered to learn about writing, talk about books, network, wear bizarre costumes at the Blue Moon Ball – and get very, very over-tired. It’s a full-on assault, it’s a thousand interesting people, ten thousand stories (fictional and real) all in one place. And if you’re on the Faculty, as I was, it’s extraordinary.

So, bearing in mind I arrived in town three days before the conference to see film agents, here are my LA highlights.  For which you need to know that the Agents’ Panel (Dan Lazar of Writers’ House, Marietta Zacker of the Nancy Gallt Agency, Brenda Bowen of the Sanford J. Greenburger Agency, Kelly Sonnack of the Andrea Brown Agency, Stephen Fraser of the Jennifer deChiara Agency . . .  and me from Greenhouse) was a line in the sand in various ways, so this has to be divided into BPH (Before Panel Highlights) and APH (After Panel Highlights).

BPH

Driving from the airport. Blue skies, no humidity, NO MOSQUITOS, palm trees, big big highways.  It’s been an exciting road from London to get here, and I’m not talking about the mileage.

My room at the Hyatt – a.k.a. Base Camp for a week.  A big table covered in draft speeches, business cards, files of work, water bottles, submission lists (nothing stops just because I’m away), battery chargers for Kindle and Blackberry. And pink swim goggles. How cool that Shark Week is on HBO? Nothing like relaxing in the evening to the sight of limbs being chomped off by Great Whites.

My balcony – and the glass edifice opposite (home to top agents CAA). Through the central ‘hole’ in the building I look at the distant hills and wonder what’s out there. Frankly, it’s a giant metaphor.

Big corporate film agents; small boutique agents; agents who love books; agents who drop names that make you blink. Ah yes, downstairs is Will Smith’s company? I see, so you represent Miley Cyrus? Through the big and the small, I have my chosen group – the film agents to whom Greenhouse will offer partnership on our upcoming projects with film potential. We don’t want an exclusive tie-up with one agency – we want personal passion and belief; the right agent for the right project. The film business is very, very tough and these are the guys who do the deals out here.

Watching the hotel fill up, in a matter of hours, with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of SCBWI conference attendees.  It’s a swarm! An inundation! I skulk behind a plant with my cappuccino, watching.

The hotel Business Center. Like a mole I inhabit this dim, underground world for hours at a time. In fact, the manager even gives me a discount – he’s so sorry for anyone shut down there when the sun and pool are calling from above. It’s here I receive the two-book offer on my recent submission. And it’s at the Faculty Dinner, out under the stars, that I realize other top NY editors want it too!

Listening to Sherman Alexie kick off the conference with his extraordinarily powerful speech. And then meeting him in the lobby. Be still, my beating heart, I am in awe of this man.

Critiques, critiques, critiques. In the world’s chilliest room, I do seven half-hour one-to-ones with writers. Show not tell, imbue your writing with a sense of place, try to focus your story in those early pages – I find myself repeating the same tips.

Finalizing a deal for a middle-grade novel by one of SCBWI’s Regional Advisers. What could be more exciting than letting an author know at this conference that they will be published!

Lunching with old friend Riley Ellis of Fox at the studio’s Commissary. Riley (film scout and executive producer) was involved with LAST OF THE MOHICANS and MARLEY AND ME, and so many more films. We talk about many people and many books.

Lying in the sun in an armchair out on the hotel’s deck. I sink behind my Kindle, my nametag concealed, reading manuscripts and listening secretly to fascinating conversations between writers. Everyone has a story – how they came to be here, their dreams.

My birthday – and phone calls/texts from my family in various parts of the world (sister in Spain, sons in London and the West Bank). My first workshop: ‘Writing and Selling in the Global Marketplace’. A fair turnout as I talk about selling rights, being published abroad, contractual issues.  Did they enjoy it? Did they find it interesting?

Birthday dinner in Beverly Hills with Elizabeth Law (Egmont) and fellow Brit/former-publisher-turned-film-scout Fiona Kenshole (Laika). Elizabeth spots someone famous at the next table – I know his face, but goodness knows what his name is.

THE PANEL – Looking out from the stage at 1,100 people. Aware of the giant images of ourselves behind our heads. Searching carefully for the right words to answer Lin Oliver’s questions about our agencies and the marketplace. Knowing how important the nuances are, and the privileged role we have in guiding authors towards publication.

APH

The Golden Kite Awards. Richard Peck, Richard Peck, Richard Peck. If I could speak half as well as him I would have to die happy.  Here is greatness.

Smiling and chatting and answering questions – a lot. No more incognito. No more manuscript reading on a quiet Kindle.

Talking and talking, holding a plate of food, and a glass of wine – simultaneously - at the New Moon Ball. Everyone is so friendly, and the costumes are amazing – well, at least my dress is blue.

My final workshop: ‘A Recipe for Writing the Breakout Novel: 5 Ingredients for Success’. A lot of people. More than I’d ever have believed.  Greenhouse authors Val Patterson and Lindsey Leavitt are at the back as I read from their books, which feels very special. I love this – just love it. OK, I’ll be honest – I’m having a wonderful time.

Flying home overnight – drained but exhilarated. I unpack and go straight to my computer. Things don’t stop, and I have an auction to prepare for. Someone once said – ‘If you do the job you love, you never do a day’s work in your life.’

Los Angeles. Inspiring, significant, strategic, exhausting. Fun. And I’m already excited at the thought of going back.

It is summer, and in the mist of early morning the boat sways silent as a lily pad.

It is summer, and the heat fragments me to so many summers past. The filthy shack in Brittany, the silent Rhynnog mountains, the shooting star over a Sicilian amphitheatre.  Time concertinaed at the scent of sunblock.

It is summer, and I achieve a personal best – sixteen mosquito bites on one leg.

It is summer, and with the sun blazing outside I do three deals beneath a ceiling fan’s languid spin. I laugh quietly to myself and say hah! to the idea that publishers aren’t buying books.

It is summer, and we hear there are two pups left in the litter of wire-haired dachshunds.  We are going to see them.  (I think we all know where this is going.)

It is summer, and Anne-Marie Conway becomes a professional writer with a three-book deal for STARMAKERS with Usborne in the UK.  She demonstrates so much I know to be true about this business – that it is the equation of talent plus determination plus flexibility that pays off.

It is summer, and I wonder how you can never have enough white, wide-leg pants in the closet – and yet they look like rejects from Planet Zog during the remaining eight months of the year.

It is summer, and I hope that people will choose my talk on ‘Writing and selling in the global marketplace’ at SCBWI LA.  Because I will be far from home on this birthday, and I’d like to share it with you.

It is summer, and the humid night is loud with the scratching, chirping rumpus of cicadas and frogs.

It is summer, and Simon & Schuster win a tense fight for UK and Commonwealth rights in Brenna Yovanoff’s FE.  Two auctions, two sides of the Atlantic.  And we have unequalled reach, unequalled knowledge, for these transatlantic deals.

It is summer, and soon I will walk down Avenue of the Stars for the first time.

It is summer, and I bake my first brownies – like molten lava, laced with 97% chocolate and four kinds of nut, you will expand simply by looking at them.

It is summer, and I sell Lindsey Leavitt’s novel, SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, to Scholastic in the UK.  She now has four English-language publishers (Hyperion US/Egmont UK for PRINCESS FOR HIRE and Bloomsbury US/Scholastic UK for SEAN). I am very, very satisfied at this exploitation of rights –the first task of the literary agent.

It is summer, and I would like to lie outstretched on the cool grass and stare up at the sky.  But it’s not time to stop yet, there is so much more to do.

It is summer, and we have helped to change some people’s lives for the better. The best job in the world, and the greatest privilege.

It is summer.

1 Even a cod can be sacred

I must admit that I wouldn’t have been convinced had I not gone to Boston for the first time last weekend and seen the Sacred Cod with my own eyes.  For those who don’t know, the Cod hangs in splendour in the Massachusetts state house—and is now, for me, the emblem of a city which has grabbed my heart. Boston has it all – history (tons of the stuff), coffee shops, elegant new buildings, boat trips across the harbour, ancient graveyards, crabcakes of succulent loveliness, antiquarian book stores to die for.. . . and Beacon Hill, which has now become # 46 (in no particular order) of ‘places Sarah would like to live.’ Britain’s favourite food – cod and chips – will never look the same again. And long live Boston Cream Pie!

2 There are some eras during which one is fortunate not to have lived

Part 1: I had always considered myself pretty knowledgeable on the First World War (the 1914-18 variety), partly due to having spent many happy hours as a child/teenager pulling my father’s books on the subject out of his glass-fronted mahogany bookcases and reading accounts of the Somme (and other holocausts) that were entirely inappropriate for my age. And also because the man my Granny really wanted to marry (as opposed to his brother whom she actually did marry) died at Ypres. However, Hew Strachan’s extraordinary TV series that Husband and I are currently watching night after night has immersed us in a grey, grainy, great-coated misery that reveals things we didn’t know – Italian soldiers fighting high in the Alps. And oh, the poor Serbs . . .  A great, groaning agony that spat out a new world.

Part 2: Yesterday I added Antietam to the list of civil-war battlefields I have visited.  British people don’t grow up knowing much about the American civil war so here, only a few miles from the first battle of Manassas, I have made it my business to find out.  On September 17, 1862, McLellan and the Union army met General Robert E. Lee and his army of Northern Virginia near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The result – known as Antietam after the creek of that name - was the bloodiest day of combat in American history. Thousands died in the Cornfield. Thousands died on the Sunken Road, known now as Bloody Lane. Twenty-three thousand in all. We walked through the soft, shimmering grass of summer and saw them.

3 Parents never stop worrying about or missing their children

I have one in the Middle East, somewhat ill, doing things that are anxiety-inducing, in extreme heat. I have another four weeks off starting at U California, but currently one visa short of a full load. Need I say more.

4 It is not a good sign when you dream about your Blackberry

But that is what I did last night. It seems that in my dream I was in New York at some publishing event, attended by those lovely people from Egmont USA.  Regina Griffin was (in my dream) moving house, and suddenly – before my eyes – my Blackberry doubled in size and turned into a Garmin sat-nav.  Panic – where were my emails???? They had vanished and all I could see were roads.  This could either mean I’ve become very preoccupied with the planning for my upcoming trip to LA. Or it could just mean I’ve gone completely mad.

5 There is nothing like the exaltation of facing down your demons

I have two major demons.  One is Not Yet Ready to be Discussed.  The other, I conquered this week. It is embarrassingly feeble, so please be nice to me as I confess. Here goes:  ‘My name is Sarah and I used to be scared to swim with my face in the water.’ Now I can, with the help of my pink goggles.  OK, it’s a silly, small thing to you – but a great big thing to me. And now I can even do the crawl. Family members are in a state of shock; all the former order of the world has been overturned. Sarah’s hair gets wet. An old dog can learn new tricks! 

6 Everything matters to a writer

This is what I really, really believe – that everything we do and feel, all the things we experience, MATTER to our writing. Because these are the things that we are, and our writing comes from that place within us. What else can there be? The craft of writing simply orders and shapes that which we know. This is what I have:

Three blue flowers blooming among the waving grass of Bloody Lane. A fragment of stained grey coat that vanishes as I turn my head. The ache in my heart because however hard I try, I can’t make things ‘right’ for the people I love. An unfolding map that writes my onward journey. And the silence at the bottom of a deep, blue pool. 

It is from all these, and so much more, that I lay down my words.

7 Always keep a good horse to hand

Paul Revere knew this, and all those years ago he saw the lanterns, leapt on his horse and went charging out of Boston, yelling (though actually he didn’t really), ‘The British are coming! The British are coming!’

So, polish your bridle and prepare the oats.  Mr Revere was right. The British are indeed coming – and our names are Sarah and Julia.

Enjoy your week and take care.

This photograph may look like it’s a picture of a lonely heron holding out for a fish amid the tumult of Great Falls (Maryland), after a Spring of incessant rain.

It’s actually a picture of me (and Julia – you’ll have to imagine there’s a second little heron) watching the Greenhouse submissions pour into our inbox.

They arrive in ever greater numbers, and thank you for them. Hold my Blackberry in your hand and you see them slink in silently throughout the day across the timezones from the East Coast, then in the evening from the West Coast, then during my night and morning from the UK and Europe. There is probably no hour, day or night, when a submission for Greenhouse isn’t arriving for either Julia or I. Surely, I think, we must reach a point where everyone who’s going to write a novel has sent it? But no, and it’s the same every day of the year – even Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, the height of summer . . . you writers sure do have some energy!

So this week I thought I’d focus on submissions, not having mentioned them for a while and because I’ve also looked at lots recently.

The first thing I want to say is that they are ALL taken seriously.  We open every one knowing that this moment, this writer, this work, could be crucial – here could be the fish that the heron has sought for so long! The next one we open and read could be the mega-seller of tomorrow and we dare not miss it, because the bestseller of 2012 will probably come just like this – silently, without bells and whistles.  That is the focus we bring to you, so you should never feel your submission will be overlooked.  Our commercial (and literary) antennae are waving in the wind as we read, all ready to pick up a whiff of possibility.

So what can you do to help yourself – and to help us?  Because I see the same things again and again and again in submissions, I’m going to give you my top tips for submitting, though I admit that this is initially going to look more like a list of what NOT to do. I apologize in advance if I hurt anyone’s feelings, but some things just have to be said.  Here goes:

1. Always do what the agency (and I mean ANY agency, not just ours) asks you to do in terms of submission. And to find out what that is, read their website – don’t just take info from either a hard-copy or online guide. Both of these (especially the hard copy) can be out of date.  Greenhouse changed its submission guidelines in September 08 – to e-submissions only – but we’re still getting paper submissions, often without either SASE or email address.  And I still get attachments, which we also don’t accept.  I reply to what I can, but it’s frustrating and time-consuming – and there’s no way we have time to write snail-mail letters back to you.

2. Only submit the kind of work the agency says it’s interested in. I receive adult fiction, religious work, short stories, picturebooks, illustrations, even TV scripts – all of which we don’t represent. If you see any listing that says we take adult work, please let me know. Probably 20% of submissions we get are for genres that we don’t represent.

3. Beware cut and paste! I laugh a lot when I’m addressed as Dan Lazar (that was the latest), the Prospect Agency etc etc.  Or when people tell me they are enclosing an SASE (with their email). Also, I’d like to announce that my name is SARAH DAVIES, not Sara Davis, because multitudes arrive with my name wrong (in fact, one has just arrived even as I write this). It’s not a life-and-death thing, but would you like constantly to be addressed by the wrong name? Especially when writers are telling me they’ve read our website and are sure I’m the perfect agent for them.

4. Around 50% of submissions open with either a) a character getting up in the morning (often eating breakfast) or b) moving house or c) a dream. Sometimes all these together. I’m not saying this is wrong, exactly – I’m just saying try for a more original opener. Oh, and another 10% start with a loud noise: WHAM, BAM, POW, CRASH, RRRRING!

5. Less is so often more. Don’t overwrite your first sentence in an attempt to be attention-grabbing. Eg, ‘The tumultuous pain rampaged through every seething capillary like a mallet pounding on Lucifer’s anvil.’ How about this instead: ‘My head hurt.’ Your reader’s attention is not seized by adjectives and adverbs; it’s all in the expectation you set up. How about this line: ‘I had a farm in Africa’.  It takes confidence and skill to write with simplicity.

6. If you are going to write about ‘a girl with powers’, you will have to be a great writer and have a particularly great plot.  Yes, supernatural, dark stuff is very commercial, but you’re in a zone where you’ve got huge competition right now. Those ‘powers’ are going to have to be really original and well depicted.

7. Be careful of making comparisons between yourself and any top author, whether it be Pullman, Meyer, Salinger, Rowling etc etc. You immediately set the bar so high for yourself you’re doomed not to measure up. And anyway, we already have all those great authors – what we’re looking for is someone new!

8. If I turn you down (which I try to do courteously) don’t rush back to tell me ‘Then you’ve missed out on something amazing and it’s your loss’.  And please don’t immediately send another submission, and then another, as if we’re robots who have no other deserving authors awaiting our attention. If you have another work to show us, then drop us a little note first asking if we’d like to see something more from you. If we liked the writing in your first piece (but didn’t love the plot) we’ll say yes, but don’t just blitz us and then chase us up if we don’t respond. You are submitting to people, not a ‘process’.

9. Beware writing/submitting massive work. I flinch when I see that someone’s written 100,000+ words. And also if you say your submission is the first in a 7-book series, of which you’ve already written numbers 1-6. (The one exception to this might be if it’s a very young, high-concept series.) It’s going to be hard to sell a huge debut novel, and publishers are going to be wary of committing to a long series. Much better to get the first book absolutely right, though you could map out a second if you want and maybe even write a one-page outline. The problem is, if you do rush ahead and write all these sequential novels, what happens if you get a deal and your editor wants a complete rewrite of Book 1 – as they almost certainly will. Suddenly you’ll find that all the other stories don’t work because the foundations were wrong.

10.It’s good (of course) to engage our interest from the start, but you don’t need to ask us ghastly questions in the first few sentences of your query.  Eg, ‘Have you ever wondered, Ms Davies, how it would feel if your children were slaughtered by a serial killer?’ Or ‘Can you imagine, Ms Churchill, the sensations you’d have if your entrails were pulled out through your nostrils and eaten by crows?’ No, I haven’t, and she can’t, thank you very much, and we don’t intend to start now.

11 Please don’t send either a) a two-line query without even giving your name at the end (because you’ve sent the attachment – hah! - to 5000 other agents and it’s a pain to write personally) or b) write a query the length of War and Peace, containing every twist and turn of your plot. A page-length query suffices nicely.

12 We give you the chance to show us your fabulous writing and request five opening pages to be pasted into your email. So why do so many submissions contain no writing?  It is your chance to shine! Plus, if we like your query we then have to email back again and ask for some writing – again, when we’re trying to make decisions on so many submissions in a timely way, this is frustrating (and it can be easier just to say no without asking for the writing).

13 Don’t outline at length your ambitions for a movie, TV series, or global merchandising deal (unless of course you have some outstanding qualification for being able to make these happen). Everything starts for us with the writing, and the book. If we sign you up and get you a book deal then other things at least become possible.

14. We are not enthusiastic about work that teaches children ‘lessons’. Of course, every great story will have meaning and depth, and leave the reader with things to think about. It’s also true that ‘the best fiction teaches us more about ourselves than about the characters’.  But writing that heavy-handedly aims to ‘educate children about life’ isn’t for us. We believe children and teens deserve entertainment without a barely hidden agenda.  (Besides, I tend to think it’s we adults who need ‘educating’ rather than children, but that’s another issue . . . )

15. We also aren’t interested in fairy stories.  And while both Julia and I adore animals, especially dogs and cats, the truth is that there are tons of animal stories (and anthropomorphic animals) around, and your work is going to have to be really original, quirky and strong for us a to find a home for short, young, animal-centric fiction.

Now you hate me. Well, I hope not because we do try really hard to read your work carefully and get back to you (yes, we know you need closure, even though our ‘official’ guidelines say we only respond to those we want to take further).

So far it’s all been negative – but what do we actually WANT you to do in your query?

1. Read our submission guidelines – and follow them.

2. Remember we are only human and we are looking at around 100 per week (on top of all the other work we do).

3. Keep your query short and concise, giving us rapidly the key points we need to know: length, target market, one-paragraph plot outline, short bio of yourself.

4. Try to write simply and effectively, with an interesting, original start (remembering that you are mainly setting up the reader’s expectation of what will follow).

5. If you’ve got other stories in the pipeline and we’ve rejected you, don’t just send more – ask us first if we’d like to see something else you’ve written.

6. Do your homework. Are we the right agents for you? Approach all agents individually and carefully. Because when you get the details right, it makes us sure you’ll also be a meticulous writer.

Do all this and we’re delighted to hear from you. And as two little herons staring into the foaming torrent beneath, we’ll be all poised to swoop down and pluck the plump fish. And that fish could be YOU!

Oh, and just a couple of little afterthoughts:  To the gentleman (presumably) who enquired, on a certain writers’ chat board, as to my marital status?  Yes, I am married and my husband is VERY FIERCE, so you’re out of luck, though your interest is flattering. And to the tiny minority of you who are absolutely and genuinely terrifying, please note - I have a huge dog, with slavering jaws and a taste for human flesh. Honestly.

What is it about books?

At some point in 1983 the pictures in my childhood album start featuring a new motif. All of a sudden there’s a book in every photo. That’s me in the pink dress, reading Noddy to my grandmother.

Like many of you, I was a big reader as a little one. I’ve just spent a couple of days with my seven-year-old niece and she reminded me of that fierceness of feeling I had for books when I was her age. Can you remember learning how to read? It was so hard. The panicky tears, the pudgy, balled fists, lots of stamping and stubbornness. And then click. So begins a life-long love.

There is a headiness to those first few years of reading. I see it in my niece. Finding the right buy in a bookshop comes with all the fervour of a particularly high-stakes Easter-egg hunt. Those shimmering pink covers, those cover-mount giveaways and deliciously packaged, and oh-so-collectible, series reads. She carries her book out of the shop like it’s her most beloved piece of jewelry.

As a five year old, every Wednesday afternoon I’d practically hyperventilate with excitement before my trip to Battersea Library in London. Meg and Mog, Where The Wild Ones Are, Dr Seuss. And then later The Worst Witch, an Asterix and Tintin obsession, Sweet Valley High, Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton – who was contraband in school. Of course, the classics; The Secret Garden, The Borrowers, Narnia. Then, in come James Herbert, Stephen King and Jilly Cooper.

Can you remember your favourites? The ones that appealed to the bonkers five year old in you, the adventure-hungry eight year-old - the push, shove and wanderlust of the thirteenth year? Or the first time you realized that books could be very, very scary? Goosebumps, for me. The first book that made you sob till you were sick? Watership Down.

Storytelling used to be cave paintings and tree carvings, dance and song, and stories passed down the generations in front of the hearth. It was social. When I watch my niece read, I realize that books are also about the opposite. They’re about unplugging from the grid. She’s unplugging from computer games, TV, white-noise and household chatter. She’s withdrawing from us and occupying some space elsewhere.

In those early years books mean independence and taking control. They’re about important, grown-up, decisions in shops and libraries. They’re about new and fierce loyalties to characters and authors. Once you learn to read, a five-hour car journey isn’t the purgatory it was before. It’s transformed into midnight feasts and sea swimming competitions at Mallory Towers or sharks, desert islands and treasure hunts with The Hardy Boys.

When my niece and I get back from the bookshop she sits on the sofa, cracks the spine on her book and off she goes. She’s so focused on the faraway, her forehead is scrunched and I can almost hear her brain buzzing. She’s reading a bit above her age and I know the story has some scary bits. She looks so brave to me with her little white knuckles and her mind a million miles away. She makes me think of everything books gave me when I was little. I can see her heading past the blurred edges of the map and I realise that in that moment I’m watching her grow up.

Last Saturday night I sat outside a diner on New York’s 7th Avenue, eating cheesecake and smiling up at the moon.

It has been one of the best weeks in the short history of the Greenhouse – packed with progress, excitement, and affirmation that we’re doing some things right and are truly on our way.  Alone in the city on that warm night, and staring up at that moon, I was suddenly ‘surprised by joy’ – as C.S. Lewis once said.

Let’s go back to where my last blog post ended, with me wearily slumped over my keyboard in England. I arrived back in the US Tuesday lunchtime, unpacked and sat straight down at my desk, where (apart from a few muddled hours of sleep – I dream constantly about not having plane tickets) I more or less stayed until 7.30pm the following night, when I finally settled the deal that dominated my British trip.

After an enormous amount of interest among US publishers, and a number bidding in a big auction that finally went to ‘best offers’, Brenna Yovanoff’s debut YA novel, FE (not Fae or Fey, please note – FE is the chemical symbol for iron) will be published by the team at Razorbill, Lexa Hillyer and Ben Schrank, in a 2-book deal.  For any of you who don’t know, Razorbill is the teen imprint of Penguin US and the people behind the NYT blockbuster, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher. Razorbill loved FE from the start, and I knew this was a very special acquisition for them.

I’ll be posting details of Brenna and the book on the Author section of this site as soon as I can, but I can tell you that Brenna’s voice is elegant and strange, and her story is darkly compelling.  I can practically guarantee that there will be considerable international interest in it.

The hero of the story is Mackie Doyle, a brooding, bass-playing teenager who seems like everyone else in the perfect town of Gentry, but who is hiding a big secret: he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby 16 years ago.  Now, the dark side – those who live under the Hill – wants him back, and Mackie must decide where he really belongs.  Will finding love with feisty, vulnerable Tait finally make him worthy of the human world?

I know many of you aspiring writers must at times doubt that you can find representation through the usual agency submission process. You are one of thousands, and I’m sure you wonder if agents even look properly at your material.  Well, Brenna’s story may encourage you.  She appeared in my inbox last August when I was especially inundated. Her submission immediately made me sit up (something in the way she expressed herself?), I asked to see her whole manuscript, and we then began an editorial process together that resulted in the complete rewrite that went out to US publishers this May – so nine months after our first encounter.  Brenna is a star at revision, a big talent, and it’s been an exciting journey to see FE develop.

Deal done, up at 5am the following morning to fly to New York – only to sit on the tarmac for ages due to fog at La Guardia.  Frustrated, I felt my Blackberry vibrate, took a quick look – and saw we’d had an offer on another project.  Hooray!

A day whirling around New York, seeing a bevy of editors, then off to BEA (see photo). If you’ve never visited the Expo, let’s just say it’s vast, it’s sensory overload, it’s the entire US book industry clamouring at each other in a comparatively small area. You walk miles, you regret wearing heels, you think you may start hallucinating, you think, ‘Why don’t those &*%! [expletives deleted] drummers just SHUT UP!’ and ‘Oh, there’s NEIL GAIMAN’ as you’re swept past the booth where a semi-naked lady is handing out fliers . . .  Grabbed a bagel at the Children’s Author Breakfast, repressed a huge urge (unlike Tomie dePaola) to sing ‘The Hills Are Alive . . .’ when Julie Andrews spoke, and then enjoyed ten minutes alone with Meg Cabot (in glorious lime-green dress) for the first time since I stopped being her publisher at Macmillan UK. (Oh, did I ever tell you I stayed with Meg at her house in Key West?  But that’s another story, which will never be told.)

On to numerous other publisher appointments (lovely to at last meet Nicole Geiger from Tricycle in California, and Richard Florest from Weinstein Books). Then Greenhouse author Sarwat Chadda (DEVIL’S KISS) appeared, flanked by his Hyperion entourage. Chosen as one of the Fall’s breakout YA authors, Sarwat had been flown out to NYC from London for this year’s new YA Buzz Panels, chaired by Scholastic editor/author David Levithan. Big thrill to hear Ari Lewin of Hyperion talking about DK at the first panel (to a huge audience – not even standing-room only), and then to watch Sarwat himself talk about the book next day on the Author panel – the lone Brit amid a bunch of up-and-coming American authors. Not the easiest forum, especially with all the noise and exposure of the Downtown Stage where anyone passing could listen in.

Then on with Sarwat to meet Tim Ditlow, his audio publisher from Brilliance – and a great chat with the head of Amazon Books division.  By which time I think both Sarwat and I were wondering what incoherent insanity was coming out of our mouths. As we parted ways (both flying back early next morning – him to UK, me to DC), I headed straight for an unoccupied table to vacuum up a large cappuccino and blueberry muffin in peace – only to find myself in (unsolicited) discussion with a doctor specializing in pediatric medicine and seeking a literary agent . . .  Aaaagh.

For me, BEA ended with Egmont’s lovely first-anniversary party. Very nice canapés, amazing band! Since they are publishing our Alexandra Diaz’s OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS this was a chance to celebrate with a team that is one of New York’s nicest – Elizabeth Law, Regina Griffin, Doug Pocock (and to meet Greg Ferguson and Alison Weiss for the first time). Greenhouse and Egmont US were born about the same time, so there’s always been a bit of a connection between us.

Pitched up back home Sunday afternoon – surprisingly sprightly, though I do say so myself.  And more good things waiting for me:  fabulous and classy advance proofs of Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE and Lindsey Leavitt’s PRINCESS FOR HIRE.  A final jacket image for OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS (see the Author section on site), and a really attractive and commercial author website-in-the making from Harriet Goodwin, nearly ready to go live.

So what do you think I did on Sunday night?  The Husband (bless him, for without him most things domestic would collapse) had got tickets to the open-air concert venue at Wolf Trap to see Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, and SHAWN COLVIN in concert.  Shawn is in capital letters because she is one of my all-time favourite singer-songwriters who really inspired me to sing in the 1990s. She is everything I’d like to be musically – great lyricist, great guitarist. Oh, and she’s beautiful too.

As we sat there on a rug, on that warm, perfect night, I drank a glass of wine, thought about the week - and felt full of joy at how good the world is. Remember this, Sarah, I thought. Remember this. And I smiled up at the moon. 

‘I enjoy reading your blog because it never lacks adventure,’ said someone who wrote to me recently. 

Adventure? I thought.  Moi? But over this past week I’ve been thinking about it – and perhaps she’s right! Starting an agency, from scratch, in another country, has been the most extreme, exciting, challenging, back-against-the-wall thing I’ve ever done, and I never stop realizing how it’s changed my life from the relative straitjacket of my old corporate publishing days. 

One thing I do a lot of now is – travel. Yes, here I am back in England again – formerly my first home, but now my second. And it’s lovely to be here, especially with all my close family and friends around me. Here, every hour, every day is different – not a vacation but a temporary change of lifestyle and pace.  Is it adventurous? Is it a little crazy?  I’ll let you make up your own mind as I take you through the highlights of my past couple of weeks . . .

1.  One week before I leave for England: Do a deal! Yippee!  Sell debut author Cindy Callaghan’s middle-grade novel, KELLY QUINN’S SECRET COOKING CLUB, to Aladdin (Simon & Schuster). This story always makes me feel hungry. It’s fun, it’s pacy, but it also features amazing ice-cream confections called ‘Super Swirleys’. Oh, and there are recipes too!

2. One day before I leave for England: Do ANOTHER deal!  Hurrah! Did I mention that doing deals is one of my favourite activities in the world?  I sell Sarah Aronson’s BEYOND LUCKY to Dial (Penguin Putnam). This story is sort of about soccer, but it’s also about friendship, self-discovery, forgiving – and it has a really strong voice. Sarah’s first novel, HEAD CASE, was published by Roaring Brook, so very pleased she decided to join Greenhouse– one of our first already-published authors.

3. Still sitting at desk two hours before taxi to airport arrives. Hand luggage still in disarray on carpet. Big Submission just sent out could turn nuclear. Two responses within hours. This is extraordinary. Load all relevant contact details for editors on to Blackberry and contemplate how to handle this from 4000 miles away, five hours removed from East Coast, and even more hours from Author. Say goodbye to Husband and Lucy (a.k.a. the World’s Best Dachsund). Husband is jealous because there are special Henry VIII exhibits in UK right now (500th anniversary of accession to throne). Lucy just looks sad.

4. Airplane. Other passengers watch MARLEY AND ME; I write moderately amusing speech for Sarwat Chadda’s UK launch party and read 2 submissions on Kindle before falling asleep.

5. Touch down 6.15 am, and straight to flat, nipping out of taxi to purchase milk and bread. It is cold. I didn’t bring enough garments – or the right ones. A valve on the boiler (furnace) is leaking. It could flood the flats beneath. A new valve costs enough to bail out Iceland’s whole economy.  How can this square lump of metal be so small, so boring, yet cost so much?

6. More publishers responding to Big Submission. Yes, it is turning nuclear.  Look at Blackberry every 30 seconds and worry constantly that all technological connections to inbox could crash. (NB: This is quite hard for family and friends who haven’t seen me for 3 months).  Yes, the transplanted Greenhouse Operations Room is up and running! Clean the windows.

7. Stand on a chair at Dulwich Picture Gallery and make speech at DEVIL’S KISS launch party, along with Puffin’s Lindsey Heaven, as Knights Templar run around outside in the drizzle, bashing each other with swords. We have a lot of champagne, but then it’s not every night I’m with the British Greenhouse posse – Julia, and authors Sarwat, Jon Mayhew and Michael Ford. Bask in the glow of realization they’ve all become friends – this is the Greenhouse I dreamed of.

8. Meet with Julia and Kevin – our new contracts manager, a.k.a. ‘the smiling assassin’.  This is a man who ENJOYS warranties and indemnities. Enough said. Would YOU want to negotiate with him? Fortunately he’s on our side.

9. Attempt to muster prevailing spirit of righteous anger. British Members of Parliament have been charging all manner of bizarre things to their expenses. Duck ponds, second homes, electric mixers, antique furniture, for starters. There is a wonderful eccentricity about all this – ah, I’m home!

10. Meet with Rowen and Charlie - my brothers, my heroes. Actually, our web designers who created the Greenhouse site, and to whom I run wailing when things crash or when I’m just technologically baffled. We hug a lot, and they get quite excited as we talk about developing the site with innovative new goodies.  Their eyes light up as they foresee techno-fun ahead. I’m told that first of all we have to look at costings. Doh, just poop on my parade, why don’t you.

11. Read submissions late at night - and look at Blackberry every 20 seconds; it quivers at my side like a loaded gun.  Many important emails arrive, and I call excited Author of the potentially Big Book, which is brewing nicely. Finesse BEA schedule – Meg Cabot, Laura Langlie (her agent) and I are attempting to meet up after several years (I published PRINCESS DIARIES in the UK) and it’s not proving easy. Hear that my lovely authors/friends will donate me their room in Betsy’s Bed & Breakfast establishment for July Vermont conference, so I can have aircon in boudoir – a break from trickling perspiration. Flat, however, is freezing - turn on fan heater.

12. Start Tudors fix by visiting Hatfield House, where young Tudor royals were sent either to be educated or put firmly in their place. Look at Princess Elizabeth’s ‘garden hat’ and silk stockings and stroll around knot garden, imagining when Mary ventured out to see her dad, Henry VIII, only to have him ignore her – after all, she’d been cut out of the succession in favour of Elizabeth (who was herself later cut out in favour of Edward), so she was nothing but trouble. Sit on damp grass photographing big purple flowers like puffballs with telephoto lens. Wireless signal wobbly, but manage to send emails from behind large hedge.

13. Sons celebrate their birthdays. More Tudors fix as we visit the Tower of London, where Son texts constantly (what can I say – it’s his birthday), and I stare equally at a) my Blackberry and b) sixteenth-century graffiti gouged into the walls by tortured prisoners. Email New York publisher who has offered on Big Submission; contemplate sending them greetings from the Bloody Tower, which is where I really am. See many suits of armour belonging to Henry VIII, and Son and I comment on the enormous size of Henry’s rear in later life. Those thighs were like tree trunks.

14. Make legendary shrimp and egg sandwiches for ongoing birthday bonanza. The secret is all in the mayo ratio.  Stay up late as everyone still working on East Coast. Sit writing blog post at midnight, with the remains of large chocolate muffin scattered in front of me, and double-chocolate chips glued to keyboard. Look at Blackberry as I sip steaming cuppa. Await more offers. They are coming – oh yes, they are coming.

15. Sleep.

16. Blackberrrrrrrrry. . . . . .

17. Contemplate my adventurous life.

May 7, 2009, is a very, very special date.  Today marks the publication of our first Greenhouse title.  DEVIL’S KISS by Sarwat Chadda publishes today in the UK with Puffin – to be followed by a US edition from Hyperion in September. Seven other countries (France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Indonesia, Holland, Japan) have currently acquired rights in the book, and an audio edition will be coming from Brilliance Audio in due course.  Sarwat signed with Greenhouse in Fall 2007, when the agency was still being formed, and he went on to secure virtually simultaneous US and UK deals at auction (with just a weekend in between!) in March 2008.  You can find out more about Sarwat and DEVIL’S KISS on the Author section of this site, but now he’s magically dropped in on my blog to tell you the story of this extraordinary year in his life.

Hi Sarwat.  You’ve featured a lot on the Greenhouse website over the past year, so it’s great to welcome you in person. You were the Greenhouse’s first-ever client, so tell us – what’s it like to be a Greenhouse author (if I dare ask!)?

Very nice. I was pretty anxious when we first met, having no real idea what to expect. There was a sense that this was going to be an adventure, no matter how it turned out.
I remember speaking to one or two of the other writers as they were joining Greenhouse and there’s a great feeling of solidarity with the other ‘seedlings’ as we’re mostly debut authors all trying to find our way. I love the range of the Greenhouse writers and how different our journeys are turning out to be.

It’s weird to think it’s only been just over a year since it all started. A lot has happened!

The story of how you got your book deals for DEVIL’S KISS is quite exciting. Can you tell us about it – and did you ever think something like this would happen to you?

Never in a million years. It still feels like I’ve won the lottery. I remember working at the first rewrite over Christmas and sending it to you on New Year’s Day. It was when you contacted me the following day saying you’d read it and loved it that I started to hope I had something good. Then there were the crossed fingers when it went out to the publishers, both in the US and the UK.

My wife and I had forced ourselves not to have too high hopes. If we were lucky we could get our carpets replaced and maybe cover our holiday costs. Our best-case scenario was for me to stick at the day job and maybe, just maybe, in five of six years make a gradual move into writing. But I never imagined that I’d become a writer full time.

I had a running joke at work that I’d quit engineering before my fortieth birthday. Can’t believe I actually did that with two weeks to spare.

We all know it’s very hard to get published, so give us some insights into how you got there.  Going back in time a bit, when did you start writing, how long did it take you to write DK, find an agent, and get to submission point?

I think one of the things that holds people back from their full potential in writing is that they see it as a hobby that pays. I always saw it as a career change. So I put in as much effort as I could, imagining it as a second job. So I read a lot of those ‘how to’ books, I went on courses and tried to get myself involved and understanding the publishing business. Everyone talks about how you wouldn’t imagine playing a gig just because you’d picked up a guitar. The same applies to writing. Don’t think you can earn a living just because you’ve sat down at your keyboard.

The key issue was that the learning never felt like hard work. It felt like playtime.

The rewrites were endless. Fortunately, I write pretty quickly but still it’s hard having the guts to scrap EVERYTHING you’ve already done and start again. DEVIL’S KISS began in Autumn 2004. Between that version and the one that got the book deals I’d rewritten it maybe three or four times from complete scratch. The last (and biggest rewrite) was once I signed with you. From signing with Greenhouse in November 2007 to getting it to the publishers in March 2008 I tore the entire story apart and not one aspect of it survived, not even the title. But my goodness, it was worth it!

Nothing is wasted. All those words I scrapped over the years meant the ones remaining were the strongest. The stale plots were abandoned so what I had left was red and bloody. For me I think my selling point is the passion I feel for my subject. The writing isn’t that sophisticated. What I aim at is getting my story across as powerfully as possible.

DK is very dark and actually quite violent.  Where did the inspiration for the story come from and how did you work out where to draw the line in terms of content, given your teenage readership?

I’ve always loved action stories and gothic horror, so wanted to combine the two. I love Bernard Cornwell and Clive Cussler, but their heroes are the best of the best. You never really feel the hero is ever in mortal danger. I wanted to give my hero a real run for her money and test her to the limit.

The London setting helped immensely. It’s a unique mix of ancient and modern. I used to work in a modern air-conditioned building five minutes away from Temple Church, which was consecrated in the twelfth century. I’ve been out on the streets before dawn, watching the mist roll off the Thames. I love history and the way it creates our present. Writing supernatural horror allows me to take this quite literally. I wanted somewhere very modern and very ancient, like London.

Interestingly, your main protagonist – Billi SanGreal - is a fifteen-year-old girl.  Did you find it hard to write from a teen-girl’s perspective?

No, not to begin with. There are issues at fifteen that are relevant to girls and boys. Identity, the idea of becoming an adult and the responsibilities that brings. Rebelling against the normal order of things, like your parents.
I remember what it was like being fifteen, and the decisions I had to make about what sort of person I was going to be. It’s a time for choices and it’s hard to pick the right ones. There are pressures all around, from parents, friends, and teachers, most well-intentioned. Billi’s in the same position, but her choices have life-and-death consequences.

That said, I have been picked up on where I’ve strayed off the female perspective. Fortunately, having female editors and my wife as a first reader helps. Curiously, writing the romantic scenes wasn’t hard. Billi’s consumed with self-doubt. That’s something I identify with.

So you’re publishing in the UK today and in the USA in September.  Given your deals were virtually simultaneous, I know you’ve been working with both American and British editors at the same time. What is it like to be a truly transatlantic author? Has it been hard to work for two publishers at the same time and are their approaches different?

Ari [Ari Lewin at Hyperion-Disney in the USA) and Lindsey [Lindsey Heaven at Puffin UK] have worked together to make this pretty seamless, collaborating on their edits and sending me only one set of notes. For a while after that my main contact became Lins as we worked on the UK edition.

However, there are different demands from the different markets. I delivered the Puffin revision last Autumn, knowing I still had time to continue working on the Hyperion version, which wasn’t due out until five months after the UK edition. Then my main contact became Ari.
The two books are subtly different. I’d be interested if anyone could actually spot the differences. Of course, I’d be very happy for everyone to buy both.

I know you’ve got a lot of publicity lined up on both sides of the Atlantic.  Can you tell us what you’ve done to help promote yourself, and what your publishers are doing for you?

Oh, the blog – and completely rebuilding my website, www.sarwatchadda.com. I started the blog last year, thinking I’d get bored after a month or two. I probably never really appreciated the world out there on the Internet. I’m still trying to find a balance between blogging about writing, and blogging about books.

I’ve a week of school visits, starting this Thursday. Done one already and it was a laugh. I got the audience to write their own ending to the story then act it out. Fortunately no-one was hurt.
I’ve a trip to New York coming up and will be attending BEA at the end of the month. I’m on a YA panel with other writers so it’ll be great to talk shop with them. I’ve just taken part in the Crystal Palace children’s book festival in London and did a reading there, and that was fun. Met a lot of other writers and I loved the camaraderie. We all know how lucky we are to be part of such a cool profession.

You’ve come such a long way in the past eighteen months.  Imagine you are talking to all the aspiring writers who read this blog.  From your own experience, what tips would you most like to share with them?

Write what you love. It’s the only thing that will see you through. Writing’s the closest you get to revealing your heart so make it worth it (but not worthy).

I know you’ve got some foreign deals, so DK will appear in other languages, thanks to our sister company, Rights People. We tend to think most about the market in our home country, so what’s it like to be published in other parts of the world?

Very, very cool. C’mon, I’m going to be published in Indonesian, how cool is that? Went to Bologna for the international children’s book fair in March. Meeting my foreign publishers there really brought home the enthusiasm people have for books. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever come across. You do it because you love it. Not because it pays well, not because it gives you status, not because it’ll make you popular at parties. There’s something magical about books and storytelling.

Not giving away any state secrets (of course), are you able to give us any clues about what you’re writing next?

THE DARK GODDESS. It’s the sequel to DEVIL’S KISS and takes Billi way out of her comfort zone and drops her in Russia to face Baba Yaga, the fairy-tale witch.

If I have a style it’s that I take ancient legends and myths and put a modern spin on them. Baba Yaga is an avatar of the Earth Mother. Her job is to protect the Earth. She’s had enough of the damage Mankind has inflicted on the planet and is now going to do something about it. Something very drastic.

I think as a species we’re slowly waking up to the idea that we’re not aloof and detached from nature. We’ve tried to conquer it, not realising nature always wins. Always. Humanity hasn’t been on the planet for that long. The terrifying fact is that with us gone, everything else will be better. Baba Yaga represents all those species that have suffered under the dominion of man.

Take us through a typical day in your life as a writer.  How do you organize your time?

Oh, my day is terribly domestic. Once I drop the kids off I try and write a thousand words. Usually in the morning. I try and avoid emails until the afternoon. Actually, one of the advantages about having a transatlantic set-up is that my afternoon is your morning. I feel I almost have a double-day, which means writing when everyone’s asleep too, but that’s cool. Afternoon and early evening is family time. My worst habit is the tendency to write on Saturdays.

I focus on monthly word targets, so there’s some scope for the unexpected. The target is usually about 20,000 words. That’s separate from rewrites, but I divide those up into chapters per week, leaving two weeks to polish before I need to return my manuscript to the publisher.  That’s the ideal arrangement.

One thing I do miss is the chit-chat and larking about of an office. I socialized a bit (a lot, truth be told) in the office. Working alone means I’m probably quite manic now when let out in public.

Your life has changed a fair bit in the past year.  Tell us about that – and how do you see the year ahead?

The main thing is that I love my job now. Really, really love it in a way I feel embarrassed trying to describet as ‘work’. Like I said earlier, it feels like playtime. Which is weird because, when you think about it, it should really be very boring. Sitting alone in a room for days and months upon end.

I spend much more time with the kids. Being away from them so much was something I always regretted when I was a wage slave. To be honest, I think there are times they probably wish I wasn’t around quite so much. In a few years I’ll probably evolve into one of those embarrassing dads, if I haven’t already.

I want to become much more disciplined with my writing over the next year. I’ve still got loads more to learn (like where to put inverted commas) but that will probably be how I feel for the rest of my life.

If you could choose just one word to describe how it feels finally to reach PUBLICATION DAY – what would it be?

Delirious.

Thanks so much, Sarwat - and congratulations!  We wish you a wonderful day and much success to DEVIL’S KISS in all its incarnations.  We’ll be keeping track of your progress in the years ahead.  And also, of course, talking to other Greenhouse authors as they experience their various literary milestones.

Just back from a gorgeous weekend in the Shenandoah, where the sun shone, the flowers were brilliantly lovely, and I clumped around in shorts and hiking boots taking endless photographs in my quest to master light meters and variable exposures. Come anywhere near me and I’ll bore you to death with shutter speeds, F-stops and much more camera-related blah blah blah. If books weren’t my first love (and if English Literature hadn’t been the one thing at which I really excelled in school), I’d probably be found in a studio somewhere, trying to make unattractive people look beautiful, or taking giant photos of insects.

Now it’s Monday morning and I’m at my desk.  But wait! As I peer around my monitor what do I see? A small, furry, red-and-black creature fast asleep on my office sofa!  A number of really good things happened last week, but Lucy – our charming, funny dachshund, who arrived last Sunday – was the best of them. Lots of you were so kind to me when Hogey, our beloved Golden Retriever, died in January, so I wanted to let you know about Lucy’s arrival – and also, of course, share this rather beautiful photo with you.  Lucy is a former champion showdog, eight years old, who needed a ‘forever home’, and somehow we just knew we were the people to fill the gap.  Now the Greenhouse has a Hound once more – a quarter the size of the previous resident, but just as good at a) showing up for work on time b) snoozing on manuscripts and c) demanding walkies. But sometimes walkies and distraction are just what I need, and I’ve made many of my best decisions while ambling up the road with a dog. I wonder what jubilations Lucy will witness in the next few months and years. Oh, it’s good to have a canine staff member again – take a promotion immediately, Lucy!

Apart from dogs, there is another thing that makes me very, very happy – and that is DOING DEALS.  I love it.  I revel in it. I love the strategising and the organizing, the mental mosaic of submissions, the pondering of editors’ personalities and idiosyncracies, the composing/re-composing/re-re-composing of my submission email – and the heart-in-the-mouth moment as I click ‘send’ and a manuscript (born of effort, garnished with dreams) floats away. I feel like I’m sending my baby out into the river on a little craft made of bullrushes . . . Who will discover the baby? Who will give it a home? Who will nurture it as I nurtured it?  How dare anyone push that baby away!  Yes, as you can see, it all gets just a bit personal. As someone once said about soccer – ‘It’s not just a question of life or death, it’s MUCH more important than that.’ Isn’t that how you feel as an author?  Well, despite my hard and flinty exterior (oh, I can always dream), as your agent I feel it just as much.

So this should be a GOOD WEEK, knowing, as I do, that an offer is on its way on a manuscript that’s been out.  It’s really very much like a love affair (OK, so now you can forget the baby). When I submit work, I’m hoping to find that one person – or sometimes more – who will feel they are the perfect match for that book, that author.  A weird kind of chemistry comes into play and sometimes you just know that one editor, one house, is going to be the betrothed – there will be an engagement ring, a marriage, a future.  So it is written, so it is done!  When that happens, I have done my job as Chief Matchmaker, and there is immeasurable satisfaction in that.  We don’t need lots of suitors – we just need one very long and happy marriage!

But other editors, in other countries, are falling in love too.  Miles away, an editor in Denmark fell for the charms of Harriet Goodwin’s THE BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43, and last week we had a confirmed deal for Danish rights – with a publisher named Forlaget Flachs (don’t even try to pronounce that one, especially after a few gin and tonics).  At some point Harriet’s going to see a book on her shelf that speaks to the Danish market – what will the cover image be like?  What will the title look like in Danish? The one thing we can be sure of is that it will look surprising (as other languages always do), and we’ll be amazed all over again at how the market for children’s books can be so similar and yet so different, around the world.

What else does this week hold?  Various possibilities, as I wait with bated breath and crossed toes for responses on a few things out in the wide blue yonder.  One thing I’ve learned – enthusiasm alone does not a deal make.  Excited emails are great – but show me the colour of the money. I believe nothing until I see the money! So all to play for on a variety of fronts – but now I’m just being annoyingly cryptic.  To distract me I’ve got a lot of planning to do – flights, hotels, meetings for my next trip to New York in late May. I’m spending part of my time seeing editors, part at BEA where Sarwat Chadda will be speaking at a YA Buzz discussion and autographing THE DEVIL’S KISS.  If you’re attending, get in that line – be there or be square! Then there are more flights to book, handouts to plan, breakout sessions to agonize over, for SCBWI Los Angeles in August. This is a new one for me – and it’s big.  Do I want to be great?  You bet – and that’s going to take a lot of prep; I don’t believe in leaving ANYTHING to chance.

Sorry to leave you, but I must get on. Re-reading this piece, I’m feeling a whole lot of love. For the beautiful mountains and rivers of the Shenandoah. My love for books, authors and deals, and for the excitement and mystery of this international business.  But also my love for photography – colour and image - and for my adorable new friend, an elegant, middle-aged, long-haired dachshund named Lucy who snores on my sofa as I write. And finally, upcoming deals make me think about the weird chemistry that draws one editor to love one author’s work - the best platform for great publishing - and my role as professional matchmaker.  That’s the kind of love that makes me know I’ve done my job right.

There’s a whole lot of sun outside, and a whole lot of love in the Greenhouse this morning.  Get writing, people, and feel the love!

I quite often read about the mystery of literary agents.  That to many aspiring writers, agents appear to inhabit some arcane universe, entered only by secret handshakes, coded and cryptic messages, insider knowledge.  And that their decisions are unfathomable and capricious, if not downright cruel. A bit like the election of a Pope by the cardinals, dark smoke probably appears from our windows if an aspiring writer doesn’t achieve representation; white smoke means they’ve hit the jackpot – a new Pope! Everything’s going great!

But where is the logic? How we must be hated sometimes as we sit in judgment in our throne-room, making trite comments (or even worse, no comment at all) on work over which you’ve laboured for years. How you must long to say very rude things to us, shove that middle finger in our faces – and yet you daren’t, because we’re the magic portal by which you can find yourself suddenly teleported on to the desk of a publisher and living the dream.

It’s a tough life as an aspiring writer, but despite what you think, it isn’t all ambrosia for agents either – or publishers.  This is a tough food chain, and the risk and the disappointments and the hunches that go right or wrong travel both up and down the line, all the way to the top. As agents we’re less likely to be sipping champagne than sitting in a Starbucks (because you can only look at contracts so long) with ten manuscripts on our e-reader, wondering where to begin. And there’s nothing to describe the physical sensations you get when an email headed with the title of a current submission plops into the inbox – and you know that this is the long-awaited response from an editor on your author’s work.  Will the smoke be dark (a ‘no’? A ‘can’t decide yet’?) – or could it just possibly (please, please, please!) be white? Deal or no deal – it’s all focused on that moment and it can make you feel positively sick.

If you’re an emotional, passionate person (er, like me), it’s a rollercoaster that can have you sinking to the floor with head in hands, or jumping up and down whooping like a kid.  Or sometimes just wanting to grab an editor by the neck, shake them and yell, ‘Look, just let me know, can you? Enough of the delays, meetings, discussions, vacations, dental appointments - just get on and make a %$#@ decision!’ But it’s no good – we are professionals. We must breathe deeply and be charming, measured and understanding, tempering the excitements, absorbing the pain, always staying positive and encouraging for the author who is hanging on our every word. Because after all, we are omniscient, right?

Most weeks are a mish-mash of so many different events – small victories, setbacks, lots of ordinary office stuff. But then there are the occasional flaming moments of glory – the ones that change everything and bring the sun bursting out. Ha ha, I’m an agent – and there’s nothing to beat it in the world!

I’ve had a few of those moments in the past week or so.  Most excitingly, closing a deal yesterday for Lindsey Leavitt’s teen novel SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, which has been snapped up by Caroline Abbey at Bloomsbury US. So many deals are fascinating sagas, with their own mini-stories attached, and that was true in this case. Bloomsbury narrowly lost out to Hyperion last summer as underbidders for Lindsey’s PRINCESS FOR HIRE. I know that hit them hard – they really loved Lindsey’s wit and voice. So when SEAN went out a few weeks ago, they were really excited to have another crack at acquiring her. It all went swimmingly and we’re so delighted to have SEAN (a novel Lindsey wrote before PFH) with them. And good to know there is still a market for a funny, quirky, poignant contemporary teen love story in our current market. Have a look at our Author section and you’ll see more about SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, which is such a fun and lovely story.

But there have been more bits of great news too.  A mini--auction in the Netherlands for PRINCESS FOR HIRE, resulting in a three-book deal with Uniboek (and I’ve just heard today that other foreign houses have had good preliminary reads following Bologna).  A deal by Hyperion with lovely Tim Ditlow of Brilliance for audio rights in Sarwat Chadda’s DEVIL’S KISS, as well as Rights People’s sale of Japanese rights to Media Factory. Sarwat’s first radio interview on the BBC Asian Network (a star is born).  Great cover proofs of Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE, which looks so classy and enticing. And a new speaking gig lined up in Miami with SCBWI Florida for January 2011 – and more engagements on the way.  Then there are the other things going on that I can’t tell you about (hey, it’s true – we really are secretive!) – the submissions that are out, the revision of the hot manuscript I’m awaiting next week, the quality manuscript I’m currently reading . . .

The one thing I can say about being an agent is that there’s very rarely a dull moment!

Welcome to my world. Today, the view from my desk, over my Vegas boots, is set fair – and the smoke is definitely white.

It’s a good thing President Obama married Michelle when he did, because otherwise one of my two sons would have whisked her away.  Or possibly both. Never mind that they are only 22 (yes, both of them) and spend most of their time in London; age and distance are no object when it comes to their reverence for the gorgeousness of the First Lady.

You see, Europe loves the Obamas.  My husband now gets greeted excitedly by customs men at London’s Heathrow airport, simply because he is American and wearing his Obama hat.  French publishers struggle incoherently (zut alors! C’est merveilleux!) to express their excitement over a bottle of wine in a Bologna restaurant, even as Monsieur Sarkozy hovers gnat-like at the President’s shoulder in his desperation to absorb some radiance from the Sun King. And now even the Queen has dropped centuries of stiff-upper-lip and let Michelle embrace her.  What is the world coming to! Touching? Smiling? By rights, the First Lady should be in the Tower by now, waiting to have her head chopped off.

These last two weeks have been all about Europe – both in the big, bad world of politics, in the children’s books industry, and for me personally. It’s not all been easy.  Protests in London (I’m sorry, but what on earth is there to protest about? None of us are exactly thrilled about the economic situation). And then for me, getting sick just before I flew to Bologna for the book fair, and staying sick for the whole thing. In fact, I couldn’t speak (though Julia might say that was a welcome relief). I can tell you, I was mad as a hornet to be lying in bed with a tray of room service while my buddies were sauntering over the cobblestones to La Antica Osteria Romagnola for another smashing dinner, but hey ho, one has to at least try to be mature. The main thing is that it was a great fair for the Greenhouse. Julia and I had bags of appointments (even if I did have to whisper and croak), there was loads of interest in our foreign rights, and follow-up manuscripts are going out to publishers all over the world.  Oh, and we’re also anticipating our first Japanese and audio deals, which is all very cool. Sure, the fair was a bit quieter than usual in terms of the number of feet on the floor, but the editors who were there definitely felt they had a great opportunity to score the best projects around, which made them feel pretty smug.

Then it was on from Bologna to Paris, and a few great days’ vacation in the city with French family and friends.  I love it, I love it, I love it.  I love the grandeur of the architecture – the insanely splendiferous vision of Louis XIV (really quite a small dude, but with awfully big hair) who popped up new palaces on a weekly basis.  Louis XVI who just didn’t see the end coming, and whose Marie-Antoinette was playing milkmaids down at the farm instead of contemplating the possible severance of her head. I love the epic vistas, the gleaming gold leaf, the sun turning stained-glass into jewels; the centuries’ old collection of armour over at the Musee de L’Armee (sorry, no accents on this keyboard), the squares, the gardens and ‘etoiles’. And I love the wallopingly huge edifice of Napoleon’s tomb.

Yes, I have a weakness for a really good tomb. Because at a tomb you can stand and imagine; a tomb is the ultimate leveller; it sorts out the ones you need to go and visit, even in death, and those whom history has passed by. And in Paris there are some crackingly good tombs for all of us obsessed with books and writers. Here on my blog photo is Jean-Paul Sartre, ensconsed down at Montparnasse with Simone de Beavoir. But I also paid a visit to Voltaire, Dumas, Victor Hugo – and Baudelaire. None of them may quite have the tomb-perfection (thin blue light, gloomy hugeness) of General Foch, or the panache of Serge Gainsbourg’s last resting place (‘je t’aime, je t’aime, Jane Birkin . . . ‘), but we know, don’t we, what they contributed to books and letters and how, in their strange and magisterial ways, they influenced us to follow behind, struggling in their wake to master big ideas and this great and difficult craft of words.

Europe. Here is history, untold centuries of it, layered in buildings, books and language.  But also the present day – a political community, hub of commerce for the children’s books industry and so much more. Europe is like the glass pyramid outside the Louvre – the startlingly new abuts the casual grandeur of antiquity.

Can we make what we write and create speak to the present day and to a global marketplace - but also worthy of the vast literary heritage from which we come?
Now that’s a tough one. But you know what? I think we should try. 

I think I’m going to make it.  It was touch and go at times, but I prevailed.  The fog has cleared, I’ve climbed up the tree and can almost see the plain below . . . Yes, there’s scope for metaphor in the hectic days leading up to the Bologna Book Fair!

Some of you will know all about Bologna, others of you will have vaguely heard that something bookish happens there. But still more of you may be thinking . . . Bologna? What’s that? Here then, in my first-ever self-interview, is a guide to everything you need to know about the Bologna Book Fair.  Including the bits that most professionals will never tell you.

So, Sarah, what and where is Bologna? 

Bologna is a very beautiful town in northern Italy – in fact, it is the capital of Emilia-Romagna, located between the Po River and the Apennines.  It was founded by the Etruscans in c. 534 BC and has had a long, varied, and at times rather bloody history since then.  It is home to the oldest university in the world – the Alma Mater Studiorum, founded in 1088.  It is also, apparently, consistently rated one of the most attractive and desirable Italian cities in which to live and . . .

Sarah, do us a favour and shut up.  What we REALLY want to know is – why are you going there?  After all, you’re supposed to be a literary agent of children’s books, not a medieval scholar.

Doh, you Philistine. OK, Bologna is also home to the annual international children’s book fair, which is held each Spring in a gigantic complex of exhibition halls just outside the city. Publishers, agents and other industry professionals flock to Bologna for about 4 days to do business, to talk about business they might do, and to make and cement the networks of connections that could enable them to do business in the future. It is a melting pot of people, information, images, languages - and business cards are the currency of this huge international melee.

Wow! But why do you need to go all that way just to see people?  Aren’t internet and email good enough?

You’re a spoilsport, aren’t you! Though you’ve got a point – or you would have if this business was a science and not an art.  You will never get around the fact that this is an industry lubricated by the oil of relationships, and (as in any business) you tend to engage in commerce with those you know – and like.  You chat with them, and you know their tastes – so you submit work to them.  They’ve seen your wares – so they ask to see something you’re representing.  You pick up ideas, information and tips ‘on the wires’ (you might say). What is hot, what will be hot, what’s out there, who’s snapped up something good.  It’s a buzzy business and it’s the job of publishers and agents to be up to date with the buzz.  Plus, actual deals are often done at the fair (though not so much with fiction, which requires a longer read), with a lot more in the subsequent follow-up. Bologna can be worth thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars or pounds to a publisher. It’s a trade fair, it’s about buying and selling – it’s not a writers’ conference (though some organizations like SCBWI have events running alongside).

OK, enough already, you’ve convinced me.  But what exactly is being bought and sold? Not actual copies of books, surely.

You’re right! Every book is a Work – an intellectual property in which there are numerous ‘rights’, which are sliced up and sold in different segments.  These segments are what are sold at Bologna – or in which interest (with a view to sales) is solicited.  For Greenhouse, being a transatlantic business, the most important segments are the US/Canada and UK/ Commonwealth chunks. Then there’s the ‘translation rights’ chunk, represented (usually) by my colleagues in Rights People. Film/TV (aka ‘dramatic’) and merchandising rights are further chunks, which we always retain to be sold separately, while audio (physical and non-physical formats) is up for debate, often but not always falling in with volume rights, along with electronic.  All these chunks are of interest at the fair.
I pitch some Works at Bologna which haven’t even been submitted to publishers yet, while chunks of the rights in others have been sold already.  Last year the baby Greenhouse had only sold one author by the fair - this year we have a whole portfolio. 

How does it all work, what does it look like, and who goes?

Imagine rows and rows of exhibition halls, a bit like warehouses. There are grassy bits with benches in between the halls, where you can grab a cappuccino or panini and sit if the weather’s good.  If it’s bad you run between them. US and UK have a couple of halls, with European halls adjoining.  The further you go the more exotic it all gets – Iraq, Africa etc etc. I’ve never been to the furthest reaches, but it’s a real eye-opener to the sheer scale of the industry. The halls are packed with publishers’ stands, most designed so you can’t see inside (for fear of piracy), and with giant ‘panels’ of book jackets on display. Agents have an area all their own, with lots of small tables for one-to-one discussions.  Mostly, attendees schedule their days in half-hour slots, often without a break from 8.30 to 6pm.  Sellers tend to remain on their stand; buyers walk miles between stands.

Who goes?  Publishing rights-selling staff (they sell - and are the engine-room of the fair), senior editorial staff (they want to buy – and are looking for new projects), scouts (both book and film), agents, representatives of more niche businesses – whether marketing, ebook/electronic, retail. And trade journalists. Though this year will be leaner than most, due to the global economy. Authors are sometimes hosted at the fair – if they are a really international property. This year Greenhouse is taking Sarwat Chadda (DEVIL’S KISS) for 24 hours. It’s a brilliant opportunity for him to meet face to face nearly all his international publishers in one place and at one time.  Even if we all have to go to Italy to do it!  But then, from London it’s a very quick hop.

Come on, Sarah, we know this is really all about great food and lots of fun, isn’t it?

Well, it’s true that you won’t starve at Bologna, and the evenings are a highlight. You scramble back to your hotel for a very quick turnaround, then usually out for drinks/dinner at one of the city’s many great restaurants (you have to book early!).  The food is fantastic, usually lots of little courses, and it’s fun dining out with people you don’t normally get to see – especially when they’re from different parts of the world. I’ve been to around 10 fairs and have got to know a lot of people. I always say this is a very international business, and at Bologna you live and breathe that.

So, go on - tell us the bits that most people don’t know. Like you promised?

Aha, I knew it! You want the good stuff. OK:

The Pink Bar:  This is down at the bottom of the Via Independenza and is where the hard-core, cool people hang out till the early hours.  By midnight I can hardly stand up I’m so shattered, so you’ve got to hand it to anyone who’s still up for it at 2am. Often you can see quite famous authors there, looking a bit wild.

The Bologna Haircut and Outfit:  It’s lost in antiquity, but everyone (well, everyone female) knows you have to get your ‘do’ done just before Bologna. And there must be at least one new item in your suitcase. It’s just law. Could be because we pasty-faced, lumpy-looking Brits and Americans have to stroll up and down past the fabulously beautiful Italians, all chic little Armani suits, tans and black manes of hair.  It’s tough in a place where even the bus drivers could model for Vogue.

The Book of the Fair:  This is what you always wish you had.  This mythic Work that is so hot it’s practically sizzling, that sets the halls a-buzz with envy and speculation. Who’s got it, who wants it, what they have paid for it or would pay for it.  Believe me, if you’ve got The Book you just float as people lurch up to you with wine-glass in hand hoping to stand in the shadow of your greatness.

The Bologna illness:  It’s guaranteed. You’ll get it before, during, or after.  Take your pick. This year I’ve chosen before. Or it’s chosen me.

The Lost Luggage: Ha ha! Always gleeful schadenfreude when it happens to others - as it does every year, to Americans.  Because there’s nothing more horrific than imagining oneself at the fair without even a spare pair of underpants.

The Dark Glasses:  What you see on the faces of many ‘industry professionals’ as they sit in Bologna airport, waiting to fly home. If you talk without ceasing for 18 hours per day for 4 or 5 days, stay up much too late and get up much too early, drink too much prosecco and eat way too much mascarpone . . . well, only enormous dark glasses can save you now.

Thank you, Sarah, though why I should thank you for going to Italy, I don’t know. Rumour has it that you’re even going off on vacation after the fair to an Undisclosed European Destination.  Tell me it’s not true or I’ll hate you even more?

Er, actually it is true – but only for a few days.  Back in the hotseat on April 1.  See you then!  Ciao!