Picture-Perfect Pacing with Rotem Moscovich

Rotem Moscovich is the Editorial Director of Picturebooks at Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers. She's worked with many talented creators, including Greg Pizzoli, Minh Lê, Dan Santat, Doug Salati, Julie Fogliano, Ryan T. Higgins, Mac Barnett & Shawn Harris, Antwan Eady, Doreen Rappaport, Adam Rex, and Marla Frazee. Rotem loves picturebooks with clever characters and inspired/ing art, and connect with chapter books and graphic novels with characters that have inherent motivation and earned agency. rotem.nyc

A special aspect of the picture book is that it has a dual audience. The book is meant to be read aloud. The physical act of reading the text out loud while looking at the pictures.

Some books to sit with and consider pacing, and how that pacing helps to satisfy.   

Rotem has attendees look at a typed manuscript of Snow by Uri Shulevitz and decide where they would put the page breaks.

Make a book map with your own manuscript. Using a picture book storyboard (32 or 40 pages). Here's a great resources for that: Debbie Ohi Resources

Print out your manuscript in 3 columns using 8-9 point font. Cut it up to find your best pacing. 

Attendees hard at work.

Rotem Moscovich: The Road to Acquisitions

Rotem shares a few acquisition stories, here is one:

She reads us To the Sea by Cale Atkinson. It's important to be able for an author/illustrator to describe their story in a nutshell because Rotem does the same thing when she's doing a presentation for acquistions.

She asks us how we would position To the Sea, what its key note would be, the audience throws out:

• friendship story
• problem solving
• summer
• adorable characters
• bold illustrations with limited palette
• being seen

From that we get this nutshell: "A touching friendship story with stunning art about finding someone who really sees you."

Rotem then helps the audience hone their nutshells!

At Hyperion, marketing approval is integral to an acquisition. If Rotem thinks marketing might not "get" a potential book, she will do rounds of work on something before it goes to acquisition (that's a big deal given her time demands at work are for acquired books, which means Rotem does this additional

Rotem talks a little bit about the profit and loss statement, the P&L. Which is roughly: The quantity that they think they can sell in the first year + what they think they should pay the author + what the royalties look like ÷ if the book can go into board book eventually and/or ebooks x how other comparable books are doing in the market + the square root of π...

If Rotem is bringing a manuscript to an acquisition meeting, she will also bring her choices for who will illustrate to help the meeting attendees envision the project more fully.

The World's Most Wonderful Rotem Moscovich: Editors Panel

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Rotem is a senior editor at Disney Hyperion and the bee's knees.

Her answer to the question, what makes a compelling book is: "Emotional connection, whether picture book or novel. And how is this book different? A new voice, or point of view? Does it impress me?

Dream project? Rotem says: Really want to find a middle grade novel that makes you cry... and is happy, like Anne of Green Gables. For picture books it has to be AWESOME.

Wendy asks if there was a book that hooked you from the beginning and went on to do well in the market/critically?

Hook's Revenge by Heidi Schulz is the book that comes to mind first for Rotem, and she's happy to announce the sequel will be out in September.

What's the difference to you in a project where you acquire it, but it needs a lot of work, vs. a project you don't accept?

"It's having the vision of how to help the author make a book sing. The book has to go to the right editor and the right house, it's an alchemy."

A book you wish you could have worked on? Rotem says, Dory Fantasmagory, it's hilarious.

The Editors' Panel Begins!

#LA15SCBWI Editors' Panel underway

From Right to Left:

Moderator Wendy Loggia, executive editor at Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books (primarily MG and YA)

Jordan Brown, executive editor with Walden Pond Press and Balzer + Bray at HarperCollins Children's Books

Allyn Johnston, vice president and publisher of Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Rotem Moscovich, senior editor at Disney-Hyperion

Sara Sargent, executive editor at HarperCollins Children's Books

Julie Strauss-Gabel, vice president and publisher of Dutton Children's Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers

Alison Weiss, editor at Sky Pony Press