The Industry Panel begins!

 The Outlook on Children's Publishing in 2025

Our panelists, from left to right: TeMika Grooms (moderator), Andrea Pinkney, Wendi Gu, Wendy Loggia, and Francesco Sedita

Editors' Panel: Laura Godwin and Francesco Sedita

Laura Godwin is vice president and publisher of Godwin Books, an imprint at Macmillan.

She was the publisher of Henry Holt Children's Books for 20 years, and has been with Macmillan for more than 25 years.

Her authors and illustrators include: Mike Curato, T.L. McBeth, Kenard Pak, Margarita Engle, Nikki Giovanni, Karen Katz, Peter McCarty, Eric Carla, and Misa Saburi.

She and Francesco Sedita were among the six editors on a panel informally called Six Editors, Five Questions. A long SCBWI tradition, the panel is a spot for editors to get together and share insight about the industry from their unique perspectives.

Francesco Sedita is the president and publisher of Penguin Workshop at Penguin Young Readers (formerly known as Grosset & Dunlap). His authors include Ann Hood, Dolly Parton, Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Kate Wetherhead, Giada De Laurentiis, Nancy Krulik, Lin Olver and Henry Winkler.

The imprint focuses on the Who Was? series, Mad Libs, and middle grade.

Francesco is also the author of the Miss Popularity series and is an executive producer of The Who Was? Show based on the New York Times best-selling series he publishes. It airs on Netflix.

Here are a couple of the answers they gave to Lin Oliver's questions.

What makes you stop reading a manuscript? What drives you to continue reading? 

Francesco: What we really look for—we love a wink or a smile in a manuscript we're reading. We'll never publish a book that has a baby in a dumpster. The thing that keeps me going is if I'm smiling, and if there is a pulsing heartbeat throughout that story. Is there real passion, and is it pace-y?

Laura: She wants to be intrigued by a story, a voice, a topic, a take on a topic. She would stop reading if something thinks chest rhymes with sick. (KIDDING! SHE'S KIDDING!)

What don't you want to see? 

Laura: Seeing a lot of books on refugees. It's a very important topic, but it tends to be a little one note, and it things are being rushed out to touch on the topic. It needs to go deeper than just being on topic. Another thing that's similar... "strong female character." Of course it's important, but it has to be more than just mentioning that as a category.

Francesco: Unicorns. We get a lot of unicorn stuff. How much do we need? He thinks there are too many books that are overtly for girls, and that's wonderful, but it's a lot. "Let's figure that out."

There are other ways to think about books besides just for boys and for girls.

He wasn't a reader as a kid. "I hated reading." His mission is to make books fun for kids.

The Editors' Panel is About to Begin!

Moderated by Lin Oliver, the panelists are:

Left to right: Krista Marino, Amanda Maciel, Elizabeth Law

Left to right: Laura Godwin, Namrata Tripathi, Francesco Sedita

SCBWI TEAM BLOG Pre-Conference Interview: Advice on Critiques From Editors & Agents

Yesterday Alice Pope offered another in our series of SCBWI TEAM BLOG pre-conference interivews with Annual Winter Conference faculty. Alice talked to a handful of editors and agents on receiving and giving manuscript feedback.

Below is a bit from her post. Click here to read the full interview.  

SCBWI's Annual Winter Conference in New York is just eleven days away! If you're attending, you may be planning your outfits and your evening activities in the city (which you certainly should), but you should also be thinking about how to make the most of the event. So I checked in with a few of the editors and agents participating in the conference to ask for some advice to pass on to you.

Today's topic: CRITIQUES

Editors Krista Marino (Delacorte), Franceso Sedita (Penguin) and Jennifer Rees (Scholastic) and agents Kerry Sparks (Levine/Greenberg) and Kary Kole (Andrea Brown) are participating in the Writers' Intensive that kicks off the weekend of conferencing. At this day-long event, writers have the opportunity to get feedback on a manuscript from a several editors and agents, and writers offer feedback to one another.

Intensives have limited space for writers and this year's Writers' Intensive (as usual) sold out super fast. But even if you aren't attending it, you probably have been or will be in a critique situation, whether at a conference with an editor or agent, one-on-one with a critique partner, or in a critique group setting. Here are some things to keep in mind offered by our group of industry insiders.

Although the Writers' Intensive is sold you, you can still register for the Annual Winter Conference and rub elbows with industry insiders like the ones above. Click here for information.

Francesco Sedita: PANEL--A View from the Top: 4 Pulbishers Discuss Our Industry

Francesco Sedita is Publisher of Penguin imprints Grosset & Dunlap and Price Stern Sloan as a writer himself (MISS POPULARITY, SPACEHEADZ with Jon Scieszka).

He went to his first job interview in platform shoes and a ruffled tuxedo shirt. "They took one look at me and said: You should work in publishing."

He thinks we're in a really exciting time in publishing. "Nothing is going to happen to to book. It's not going anywhere."

Grosset & Lunlap was known as a licenced publisher for many years. He's been focusing on a strong middle grade publishing program for age 0-10.

PSS is the original publisher of MAD LIBS. "I think of it as the obnoxious little brother of Grosset." He considers PSS as a laboratory to play with new formats (for example, a $9.99 picture book--they're done four so far and they've gone out well, he says).

Two Grosset series that launched this summer: FRANKLY FRANNIE by A,J. Stern about a little girl who thinks she should work in an office; and GEORGE BROWN CLASS CLOWN, by Nancy Krulik.

Fancesco was and is a reluctant reader. He wants to publish titles that will draw in reluctant readers.

He suggest writers don't submit more than on imprint at the same company. It's one big team, and they would share material with other editors at other imprints that if they think there's a fit.

He believes you need to know the rules before you can break the rules, but we're at a time when the rules are bending.

Penguin had become more profitable, he feels, because the president of the company encourages his editorial staff to take risks and innovate, and it pays off. "If you're not making mistakes, you're not taking risks," Francesco says.

The price points are very low at his imprints (usually not over $9.99; FRANKLY FRANNIE is $4.99). He likes to take risks on new voices. He loves the idea of someone starting out at Grosset and creating a great series. He feels there's a negative connotation to the term "mass market," and doesn't like to use that term to describe what he publishes.

Franceso is one of the team members at Penguin who is exploring what material they can produce on new digital platforms. He says that writers should not concern themselves with new platforms or app associated with their text unless it's absolutely essential to the concept of the story.

Parting words of advice: When you go home and write (after the conference), shut the door on what you've learned and write for yourself. Write the story that YOU want to write. If you create the right things, we'll throw all the rules out the window for you.

Francesco Sedita-Writing Mass Market Fiction

I'm so excited to sit through publisher and writer Francesco Sedita's breakout session on writing mass market fiction. His resume is truly impressive!! Including Saturday Night Live!!!!!!! He's currently works at Grosset & Dunlap and Price Stern Sloan, two imprints at the Penguin Young Readers Group. Oh, and he's awesome.



Francesco mentions that he feels like the words "mass market" aren't very fair. Just because it's mass market does not mean it's lower quality. Some great examples of their series are:

Frankly Frannie


George Brown Class Clown

Bedeviled



In mass market, think about what will interest the modern child. How can you appeal to them, whether it's through unauthorized biographies of pop figures or movie tie in books. There are so many different directions an author of mass market fiction can go. And Francesco's imprint is always looking for new writers to keep the voices fresh.

Check out the books above! I personally loved Bedeviled!!

Suz

Series Fiction with Francesco Sedita

Francesco Sedita--vice president and publisher, Grosset & Dunlap--is completely charming!! One of the things that he's focusing on right now is boy books for reluctant readers. Something that allows kids to say, "I can do this!" (reading)


He himself was a reluctant reader, which was why he really loves working on these types of books. And he believes that children's books are still selling, and they will continue to sell.


For the attendees, he had some advice: "Forget everything you've heard here--go home and write."

Focus on the story you want to tell. The rest will come later. All and all, he was inspiring and energetic. In fact, he really made me want to write MG!!

-Suzanne Young