Chicago, Chicago, That Wonderful Town!

What could be better than Chicago in the summertime? That’s what thousands of librarians and teachers must have asked themselves before setting out for the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. (Below: Katie sets up our booth.)

The Annick booth was a busy place as people stopped by to see what was new. It was great to hear so many say that they had a number of Annick books in their collections. We also heard many comment on how innovative our titles are, and how they look forward to getting our catalog. Our featured titles for the fall—Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road, The Kids @ the Crossroads series, and Camp Fossil Eyes—attracted a lot of attention. And the fortune cookies we gave away to promote The Chinese Thought of It were a big hit.

Backlist titles got a lot of attention, too—both the Little Black Book for Boys and the Little Black Book for Girlz drew enthusiastic responses and generated lots of discussion around the booth for their frank and honest approach to often controversial subject matter. But it wasn’t all work. We managed to take in an architectural tour of the fabulous Chicago skyline, explore the Magnificent Mile, and had some great meals. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again in Boston for the Midwinter Meeting.

For more photos, check out our ALA 2009 album on Flickr.

Would you like another cappuccino? Or, how to do business at the Bologna Book Fair.

We've just returned from the Bologna Children's Book Fair where Annick exhibits every year in order to meet with international publishers. What do we do there? Aside from consuming a lot of cappuccino, gelato, and other Italian culinary delights, we have a booth to display our recent books and present them to foreign publishers who may wish to acquire rights to publish our books in their market (depending on the market, that may mean publishing in translation).

Here's a photo of the corner of our booth this year:


We set up meetings in advance, every half hour for the three and a half days of the fair, and meet with about 60 different publishers and sub-agents from countries in Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, Australia, Latin America... It's really exciting finding that synchronicity, talking with a publisher from across the planet who shares our publishing sensibilities and aims. There's a wonderful global community of children's publishers out there. And personally, I love working with people from different countries and cultures and languages. Books really can bridge cultures!

Preparation for the book fair begins about three months in advance with the booking of appointments, preparation of catalogues, and cover blow-ups, shelf talkers, and other booth display materials. And the follow-up - that is, sending publishers the books they requested to review - can also take months, but the results can be very rewarding and very exciting (see The Little Black Book for Girlz goes to Italy! for an example of what can result from a book fair).

Though we've only just returned, here are some of the Bologna highlights this year:

• Receiving an unexpected offer from a prestigious Italian publisher for The Apprentice's Masterpiece by Melanie Little (the cover of which is featured in the large poster in the photo above). Stay tuned for an announcement of an Italian rights sale!
• Hearing several publishers describe The Bite of the Mango (to be published September 2008), the astounding true story of Mariatu Kamara's voyage from victim of war to UNICEF Special Representative co-written by Susan McClelland, as the most outstanding book of the fair! We expect international rights sales of this memoir will be swift.
• Receiving so many compliments on the quality and innovation of our books (kudos to our editors!)

So now it's all about follow-up. And the great thing about cappuccino? It can be enjoyed while working here in Toronto too.

The Little Black Book for Girlz goes to Italy!

We've just received the Italian edition of The Little Black Book for Girlz - hooray! Annick published this daring, cool, informative book on healthy sexuality for teen girls in 2006 and we’ve sold publication rights to four other publishers around the world – Arcana in Italy; Random House in Germany; Milan in France; and Editions Enfants in Quebec. What’s so cool about this book? It’s written by teen girls for teen girls so addresses the real questions girls ask each other. (But of course it’s also vetted by health experts to ensure the info is accurate…). It was a project of St. Stephen’s Community House, a community-based social service agency in Toronto. Check ‘em out: http://www.ststephenshouse.com/

But back to the groovy Italian edition…

It’s so interesting to see how a publisher in a different market will package the same book. Check out the Italian cover next to the Annick cover below. Very different, huh?

There's been lots of talk around the table at tea time and we all notice how confident and sassy the girl is on the Italian cover. There's a chick who's comfortable with herself and her sexuality! You go, Girl.

The other editions won’t be published for another year or so, but when we have the covers, don’t worry, we’ll stick ‘em up here!