What publishers look for in kids' fiction?

Primary Platypus of Duckbill books, Sayoni Basu was a part of Kahani Takbak’s first anniversary celebrations. The following is a transcript from her live chat titled What publishers look for in kids’ fiction?

 The following questions were asked by participants of the live chat:

If I write something on a topic that's 'current', will it still make sense for it to be made into a book that could be read next year or even some years later...

I think it depends on your writing. No topic every totally disappears from public consciousness, and in fact one of the important ways in which a book differs from a magazine piece is that it needs to bring some additional angles to the story, or different points of view. Like poetry, it is often after an emotion has been reflected on in tranquillity that something of lasting value can emerge.

If one were to write a coming of age book set in the 90s do you think it would resonate with digital natives today?

Yes, I think it would, provided one wrote is as a conscious piece of historical fiction. The issues often remain the same, it is just the setting and technology which varies. So, as with all historical fiction, the important thing is that the themes resonate.

What should be ideal length for chapter books?

As long as the story needs to be! Say somewhere between 5000 and 10000 depending on the age group and complexity of the story. But there is no hard and fast rule.

Do publishers typically reconsider manuscripts that have been rejected once?

                                      

Only if it has been substantially reworked. If it is a minor problem, then most publishers would not reject.

Is your publishing schedule from January to December or April to March?

Well, ours is April to March.

What should be ideal length for chapter books?

As long as the story needs to be! Say somewhere between 5000 and 10000 depending on the age group and complexity of the story. But there is no hard and fast rule.

Why do many publishers not like publishing stories in rhyme?

The honest answer to that is because most of the stories in rhyme have such terrible rhyme.
It is difficult to write poetry; and if you are writing in verse, you should really ask yourself the question whether the story really needs rhyme or not. If you feel it cannot be told in prose for some reason, then sure, write in verse; but please make sure it is good.
Kids are very smart and can hear bad metre and bad rhyme and that sentences go a certain way just to fulfil the constraints of rhyme!

When you receive a manuscript, how do you evaluate it? How is the decision to accept made? Do other team members apart from the main platypuses have a say too?

One platypus reads each manuscript. When there is any manuscript with any promise, the other platypuses read it too. Decision making is a joint, collaborative process. There are no main platypuses, there are just noisy ones and quiet ones.

Are there any themes which would be all time favourites of kids (Indian) and hence publishers?

One of the great challenges of writing for kids is that no one knows what they think. For a start, we cluster them into one uniform group--kids--whereas none of us would dream of saying what themes are the favourites of adults! So I suppose there is no one favourite, and kids like as many diverse things as adults like.
I feel one of the responsibilities of children's publishers is to publish on as many diverse themes as possible so that all kids have choices and every kid is able to find that one book which appeals to her/him.

Sports fiction is not very common. Is it because of the quality or lack of demand?

Lack of supply!

Do Indian publishers tend to play safe when it comes to teen and YA books?

Ha! Well, Indian teens and YA tend to play safe by not reading Indian books!

The competition is harder in this segment because teens can and do read adult books. So we at Duckbill feel that any book we publish has to be really outstanding to make an Indian teen read it.

Indian publishers tend to be quite conservative because they do not want to offend often-blinkered parents who think that their teenager has never experienced sexual attraction, done any illicit thing or broken any rules. But that is what being a teenager is all about--difficult choices, and unless books address difficult choices, teenagers are not going to want to read them!

What is the way /procedure keeping do's and don't for writing short stories for children and what's the page limit -have a plot ready esp fiction and language that publishers appreciate.

There is no page limit or word limit--a story needs to be as long as it needs to be! I think the general rule is, do not talk down to kids, do not underestimate their intelligence, and focus on good storytelling. A story for kids is no different from a story for adults, except that your readers are smaller in size, but not intelligence.

Are you willing to consider first readers (pre-Hole book stories)?
Long format(wish) picture books?

We are publishing our first picture books soon, but this is not something we want to do very much of. The reason is this: there are publishers doing splendid picture books already--Tara, Tulika, Karadi, Pratham, Katha. Kids have a choice when it comes to a diversity of reading material in picture books.

One of the reasons that we decided to publish chapter books, middle grade books, and YA books, is because there is relatively less choice for readers in those age groups. And there is still so much more to be published for these age groups that we are reluctant to do picture books despite one of India's finest picture book writers being a platypus.

   

Roughly how many submissions do you receive per month? And about how many do you publish?

We receive probably 80-100 per month. We publish about one book a month.

But a lot of the submissions are porn so they don't really count.

Are stories set in India or 'indian ness' something that you look for?

Yes. Our focus is contemporary stories set in India. We do publish a few non-Indian books but this is only for our Not Our War series, which is about kids who are growing up in conflict areas.

Do you test manuscripts by reading them out to children to see how they react?

No.1. Because mass appeal does not a good book make. 2. Because why children like books and why adults like books is as mysterious as why one person likes bananas and another one likes apples. 3. We know kids are smarter than us but we have read more and we have the power to make decisions.

Suppose a manuscript's language is not that perfect, not riddled with typos and grammatical errors, but misconstructions in places, would you consider publishing it, if the storytelling and everything else is brilliant?

Of course of course! Grammar and spelling are things we can do! Storytelling and everything else we cannot do!

What's the etiquette on following up on a submission? Is there a particular timeframe to keep in mind?

Most publishers specify on their websites how long they will take. Some do so say if you don't hear within x months, it is a rejection.

We have a target of three months, and we pretty much stick to it. It gets a bit messed up when people send us reminders on the same thread because then the new date is when both the mails show up. So we have missed the three month deadline a few times, but usually because of this glitch.

And yes, after the deadline is passed, you should remind the publisher. Who knows? It might have just gone into spam and it might be the masterpiece they are waiting for!

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