Chatterbooks Are Go!

By Jo Franklin

I’ve got a number of visits to Chatterbooks groups lined up in November. I tend to spend many hours locked up in my writing cave with nothing but my characters and my mad dog for company. I can’t wait to get out there and meet young readers.

What is Chatterbooks?

The Reading Agency have been coordinating Chatterbooks – the UK’s largest network of children’s reading groups – since 2001. 10,000 children belong to groups, which are run in libraries and schools to encourage reading enjoyment. The groups are run by librarians, teachers, teaching assistants, or volunteers – anyone with a passion for reading.

 Chatterbooks reading clubs help children build a lifelong reading habit. Because everything changes when we read.

If authors are lucky, they get invited to meet their readers.

Jacqueline Wilson discussing books at a Chatterbooks session

Jacqueline Wilson discussing books

My publisher Troika Books, set up a competition in conjunction with the Reading Agency, asking readers what they would take with them to another planet. The prize was some books and a visit from me!

 

Chatterbooks Visits

This month I’m visiting the winning groups from Kingston and Worcester Park, Sutton and I’m looking forward to meeting the Gateshead  group in the new year.

In addition I have a bonus visit lined up. I’ll be visiting Petts Wood Library on 7th November.

petts-wood-library

Petts Wood Library

If you run or are a member of a Chatterbooks group then please get in touch as I would love to come along to talk to your group about being an author and reading and writing.

Help! I’m in the News Visiting Peckham Library

by Jo Franklin

I recently visited Peckham Library to talk about the importance of reading and libraries to their Chatterbooks group. Southwark News came along to take my picture and to write up the event.

Libraries are such an important resource for the community. Not only are they stuffed full of brilliant books, but they also provide much needed study space for students and authors. I wrote Help I’m an Alien in Peckham Library and I am thrilled that they now stock my book.

Here is the page from my scrap book with their report

Jo Franklin scrap book

Me at Peckham Library courtesy of Southwark News

And this is the online article of the same event.

Peckham author comes full circle as she talks to kids at library where she wrote book

Juggling Children’s Author

by Jo Franklin

Being a children’s author is really hard work. I thought it was going to be all about writing books and living the life of an eccentric recluse in a hobbit hole or writing shack. But I was so wrong. I am juggling so many things and I don’t think I am always successful.

Here are some of the things that I have to do every day :

Write my books – This is the best bit of my author life. I’d love to be doing it all day every day, but that is totally unrealistic. It takes me a year to write most of my books. That is partly because I have to do all the other things listed below, but it is also because the space between actually writing is as important as the writing itself.  I like to leave gaps in between writing my drafts so that I can look at my work with fresh eyes and come up with important improvements to the text. The non-writing spaces in my working day are also important. It’s amazing how I often find the answer to a problem in my writing in a pile of dirty laundry.

me-writing-snipped

Jo Franklin at work

Website Design – In case you didn’t realise, this website was designed by me. I hope you like it. The problem with having a website is that I need to keep it fresh so my visitors (you!) don’t get bored and keep coming back to see what I am up to.
I feel I am failing at this. I have to keep reminding myself that I do more on my website than some authors but not as much as others (Pop over to Candy Gourlay’s website if you want to see some awesome content) . And now someone has emailed me telling me that a link doesn’t work and I don’t know how to fix it. Gah!

School Visits – Not only do I have to develop great school visits, I also have to go out there and deliver them. Yes I do school visits and author appearances at libraries and festivals. Here are the details.  Meeting readers is the second best bit of being a children’s author (after writing the books in the place) but the downside is that it is very tiring and normally wipes me out for a day afterwards which stops.

Author Talks St Alphege

Jo Franklin visiting St Alphege school in Solihull

Provide Extra Content – Either on my website or to schools I have visited or will be visiting soon. This means colouring sheets, wordsearches, teacher’s resources, craft activities to go with my books. I have totally failed at this one but it is on my To Do List – honest.

Twitter – I’m on Twitter – @Jofranklin2 – but I need to be better at it. I think I should be engaging in lively conversations with the right people (authors, publishers, librarians, bookshops and teachers) without engaging with the wrong people (trolls and spammers for certain, but also an sort of time suckers that don’t lead me anywhere) while promoting myself, my book and my author appearances (children’s authors need to do many author events and school visits)  without being a promotion bore which upsets people (especially me).

Acronyms and How to Use Them – SEO, HTML, CSS and probably a hundred more that I don’t even know exist at the moment. I am having a go at this but I’m still an amateur which probably shows. Part of the problem is that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is such a black art that it is easy to upset Google by mistake.

FYI – I never mean to upset anyone but it does happen sometimes so if that’s you – I’m sorry!

Video Artist – It’s all about YouTube these days. In fact it’s getting to the point that no one is ever going to get a contract for a children’s book ever again unless they have a YouTube channel and a gazillion subscribers. I currently have two videos on my YouTube channel (as of 10th October 2016) and I will make more but they are so time consuming to make and then I have the added responsibility of making sure that I don’t accidentally post them with obscene words in the subtitles. Don’t ask! I leaned this the hard way.

Photographer – So that I have an unlimited stream of visual publicity material. This is one of my latest efforts. In fairness, I had to enlist the help of my daughter Eleanor because taking a selfie while sitting on a grave is very difficult

jo-looking-wistful-snipped

Jo Franklin pretending to be wistful in Nunhead Cemetery

Ideas Factory – I need to be able to come up with new concepts at the drop of a hat so when my agent lets me know about a new opportunity for some commissioned work I am able to respond instantly. I did this the other week and …. yippee! Sorry it’s secret squirrels for now but it seems to have paid off this time.

Juggling all of the above – The hardest thing of all is that I have to juggle everything. Switching between tasks is very bad for my writing. I am trying to be more disciplined about ring fencing my writing time, but it is difficult because if I get an email from my agent or from a librarian trying to organise a school visit, I have to respond immediately.

So next time you ask yourself the question ‘What does an author do all day?’ think of me juggling all these tasks and more.

 

Chatterbooks Author Visit to Peckham Library

By Jo Franklin, Children’s author

Very excited to announce that I am going to Peckham Library on Thursday 29th September 2016 to visit their Chatterbooks group.

ad-for-peckham-29sep2016

I love to meet my target audience so that I can find out what books they are enjoying reading right now. Hopefully they will be interested in finding out about my life as an author and maybe be inspired to pick up a pen and write something themselves.

Look out Peckham, here I come!