IBW2015: the slingshot effect, or how to get to Pluto using only books

This post is a biggie. It will take us deep into the world of books and independent bookshops. It will also take us to the very edge of the solar system.

Hold on to your hats...

The last few weeks have been *busy* for us - the end of June means the end of term, and that means prizes and school gifts, the start of lots of visitors visiting the beautiful town of Abingdon (from all over the world) and the Summer reading season. And nice weather just means there are more folks out on the street...

In recent years this heady mix has also included Independent Bookshop Week, a chance to celebrate the passion, expertise, quirkiness and general wonderfulness that is the world of independent bookshops.

In recent years we have taken advantage of the tremendous support of publishers and authors to put on events and set up promotions. This year has been no different.

Bookshops have a love/hate relationship with events. Good events are some of the best experiences we have, and create real magic in the shop and around the community. But the sheer range of events that we put on - bookgroups, children's activities, author readings, signings, not to mention all the online activities - mean that it's tricky to get the balance right. Too few of the right events and customers won't come. Worse, if you do too many, you risk collapsing with exhaustion, or just distracting yourself from the basics - being a great bookshop.


Given our enthusiasm for all things space at the moment we are going to share with you what we did during IBW2015, and share with you our theory of bookshop events. It's called 'the slingshot effect' and it has everything to do with a journey that reaches its climax next Tuesday, as a small, fragile satellite bristling with technology whizzes past the dwarf planet Pluto.

We want you to think of that satellite as an independent bookshop. The story of how it got there remarkable, and stories are what we are all about...

First up for us was the annual Carnegie Shadowing event at Abingdon's Guildhall. Six secondary schools, over 100 pupils, get together, are mixed up into different groups, and spend a day preparing and then 'pitching' short performances about each of the shortlisted books. We're extremely proud to be one of the sponsors of the event - and we also sit on the panel of judges, reviewing and awarding prizes to the best reviews.

The amount of energy generated - and the sheer enthusiasm about reading and reviewing often challenging new books - is infectious and hugely enjoyable. As in previous years, some of the shortlisted titles generated a lot of controversy. But, as in previous year, the children involved proved themselves resilient, open-minded and mature in the way they considered the books.

As one young reviewer said of 'Buffalo Soldier', the eventual winner, "It captures your heart in a stunning way by really highlighting the travesty of war. It lingers on how you can't wash away blood, no matter how hard you scrub".

A big annual event with a halo of good stuff surrounding it. This event is a bit like Saturn.

Then Independent Bookshop Week began in earnest. We had shop visits by school groups from three separate schools. We were able to talk to them and get them excited about books - as in previous years, some of the children had never visited a bookshop before. Even our customers got involved at one point, becoming ad hoc reviewers amongst the bubble of enthusiasm and new titles from newly-discovered authors.

Chaotic. Intense. The readers of the future. And given that at least one of our year 10s chose 'The Martian' - Mars seems very appropriate.

On the Thursday evening everyone was utterly charmed by Laura Barnett, author of one of the hottest debuts of the year 'The Versions of Us'. 

On a sultry Summer's evening in a packed courtyard garden, Laura described her writing journey and the themes of her book - which takes three characters on their own journey through three different versions of their lives.

We love doing events with authors at the very start of the literary journey, and Laura is destined to go far. An evening star, with exquisite and beautiful prose, we have to compare her and the event to Venus!

We had plenty of other things going on during IBW2015 - storytimes, promotions - and of course plenty of new titles to recommend to those people coming in to show support.

But on the final Saturday we had a very special event indeed to coincide with the meeting of our YA bookgroup. We had invited Sally Nicholls along to talk to the group - the challenged and delighted of writing for children, and her own journey as a writer - and we were utterly thrilled to learn that Sally's book 'An Island of Our Own' had won the IBW2015 Children's Book Award.

So we were proud to present Sally with her award, welcome some important visitors to the shop, and listen to her talk to the group in the blistering sun of the courtyard garden.

In terms of the temperature, and excitement, this was hot. Sally's fleetness of foot, and her delivery of some very good news means we have to choose Mercury.

(There was also an abortive attempt to appear on BBC Radio Oxford during the week - mission scrubbed due to traffic - 'space is hard' as they say...)

We told you to think about that tiny satellite. In order to get 'New Horizons' out to Pluto quickly, it had to be looped around at least five of the other planets, exactly as if you were using a slingshot and a tiny pebble.

We believe the 'slingshot' approach to independent bookselling is a great one for scheduling events. Some events are big, some are small, all change your trajectory and endeavour to propel you faster towards your distant goal.

And what is that goal? An excited community. A widening readership. Serendipity and discoverability. And the continued existence of a diverse bookselling world.

In short - the very best of what independent bookshops can be.

As you may know, Mostly Books is about to embark on a slightly new direction and the next stage of its journey. To everyone who supported - and continues to support - us, and all the other wonderful independent bookshops out there, thank you!

Independent Bookshop Week 2015 - Laura Barnett, Sally Nicholls, Father's Day and Bookgroups

You know the one about the Texan who goes into the airport, right?

"Give me a ticket!" he demands.
"Where to?" answers the agent.
"Anywhere, I've got business all over!"

Well, that's how we feel during #IBW2015 - so much love around for indies, so many opportunities, authors, events and offers - and all in celebration of the wonderful, the quirky, the unique and diverse world that is independent bookshops.

We've got a whole heap of things going on this week that should give just a glimmer of the amazing range of activities that keeps us viable, relevant and part of our community. But ultimately we couldn't do any of it without your support - so this is also our chance to say THANK YOU for coming to us and entrusting us with choosing those books that will amaze, enthuse and delight.

It's a big responsibility - and we don't take it lightly...

On Saturday, June 20 we have a special Father's Day Storytime taking place - and we'll be unveiling a few surprises as well. Join Nicki and Maddy at 2pm - no need to book, just drop in (and bring little ones!).

We have a rather impressive display of Father's Day book recommendations as part of our 'Buy Dad A Real Book' campaign now in its fifth year. Find out about our dozen choices here.

Who hasn’t wondered ‘What if?’ about their own life? What if you’d taken a particular job, taken that path instead of this one, or that one chance – said ‘yes’ one time instead of ‘no’? The random nature of chance is the subject of Laura Barnett’s ‘The Versions of Us’ – a thought-provoking story about the complexities of human nature and the essentially random nature of life. Laura will be at Mostly Books on Thursday, June 25 at 7.30pm - learn more about this appealing, surprising and fabulously written exploration of fate and destiny here.

(And listen to Laura interviewed on this week's Open Book here)

On Tuesday morning, we have a local school bringing students in to choose prizes - and we'll be on hand to advise and choose the perfect book. This is the first in a series of schools visiting - and is something that creates a fantastic buzz in the shop (in past year, other customers have got themselves involved in some ad hoc recommending!)

Bookgroups are a hugely important part of the bookshop scene, and on Wednesday, the morning bookgroup will be meeting to discuss 'I Let You Go' by Clare Mackintosh. Recent books discussed have included 'All My Puny Sorrows' by Miriam Toews at the Wednesday evening bookgroup (which Nicki describes as 'A small miracle of a book') and 'The Children Act' by Ian McEwan at the Thursday evening bookgroup. Sign up to our newsletter (right hand side of this blog) to find out when spaces become available on any of our groups...

This year, Mostly Books bookseller (and young bookseller of the year shortlistee!) Imogen Hargreaves founded a brand new bookgroup, the YA bookgroup - and on June 27 we are holding a taster session for anyone wanting to come along and discover more about it.

Imogen is keen to make it much more than just a read-and-discuss group - we're choosing the newest and best YA fiction to discuss - but on June 27, we are very excited to be welcoming award-winning author Sally Nicholls, who is coming along to the group to talk about her books, why and how she writes - and what exactly books for teens are.

Sally is the winner of the #IBW2015 Children's Book Award for her latest book 'An Island of Our Own' - so it's doubly fitting that she will be coming along - and as she has offered to even serve behind the till, we are encouraging as many people as possible to come along and meet her!

Kid's Lit Quiz Heats 2012

The Kid's Lit Quiz Oxfordshire/Berkshire Heat took place last Friday at Saint Gregory the Great Catholic School in Oxford. Thirty-five teams from twenty-three schools battling it out to see who went through to the UK final in Coventry on December 6th - and from there to the world finals in Durban, South Africa next year.

To provide moral support - and test themselves against the teams - fourteen children's authors took part, offered up prizes and questions - and signed books throughout the event.

Many of our favourite children's authors were there, including (out of shot on left) Susie Day, Marie Louise Jensen, Sally Nicholls, and (from left to right in the photo above) Julia Golding, Michelle Harrison, Lucy Coats, Linda Newbery, MG Harris, Dennis Hamley and Richard Knight. The man in the hat incidentally is the legendary Kid's Lit quizmaster Wayne Mills.

(Richard's own experience of the quiz can be found here)

Quite a formidable line-up...with so many schools to co-ordinate between, and a tight schedule, the event is organised with military precision. We were there to support the authors with a bookstall - with a percentage of sales going towards costs of running the quiz:

The quiz was closely fought for more than two hours, but the teams emerging victorious were:

1st: Cherwell School 
2nd: Oxford High School #2
3rd: Abingdon School #1 (Yay! Go Abingdon!)

Think there was only a point or two in it...

Despite the time pressures, I did manage to catch up with several authors - and as always I'm struck by the sheer effort, hard work and creativity (from a business point of view) going on in what is a fast-changing and challenging environment in which to be an author. Many authors are embracing the digital world, and using the opportunity to do different things and experiment with publishing direct to eReaders - whilst still retaining a commitment to the physical book (and independent bookshops, it must be said).

(As an example, take a look at Michelle Harrison launching her own website Tickey End with merchandise inspired by objects adorning her 13 Treasures series. How cool is that?)

A big thank you to co-ordinator Jacky Atkinson for the opportunity to be a part of this global event - take a look here for more details about the Kid's Lit Quiz...

Oxfordshire Book Award 2012 - cake and five questions with Patrick Ness and Nadia Shireen

This year's Oxfordshire Book Award ceremony took place on October 4 at Abingdon School, and we were once again very honoured to be running the bookshop on the day. Here are the covers of the books from the three winners: Patrick Ness for 'A Monster Calls', Tony Ross illustrator of Gangsta Granny, and Nadia Shireen, author and illustrator of 'Good Little Wolf':

 

Hold on a second, those aren't books - that's CAKE! 

Yes, one of the great traditions of the Oxfordshire Book Award (as well as the Carnegie Shadowing Forum) is the most fantastic cakes produced - and eaten by children from the ten schools attending.

As usual, we set up whilst the ceremony was going on - and then authors and children piled into the hall, signing tables were hastily set up - and children got to meet the authors that attended.

Below you can see all the authors that attended - from the top, Patrick Ness, Nadia Shireen, Tony Ross, Katherine Langrish lurking behind Sally Nicholls and finally Jo Cotterill at the bottom:

(We interviewed both Sally and Jo at last year's Oxfordshire Book Award - and Jo has written a fab account of this year's awards here).

Pupils pose with Patrick Ness...

...whilst students from Henry Box School show off their signed copies...

We grabbed a few minutes with two authors at the event - and in time-honoured tradition asked them five questions about their writing life...


Five questions with...Patrick Ness' Writing Life


1.    What are you working on at the moment?
A bunch of short stories.

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
Write a book that you, yourself would like to read. You’ll be surprised that a lot of people don’t.

3.    What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?
Best – as a children’s writer, you have the best readers in the world. The worst thing is not being to go to every school that requests you come.

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?
I write a lot in the London library. I take my laptop and write there.

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?
'The Knife of Never Letting Go'. It was really when that book took off, which was a delightful surprise!

Next we talked with author and illustrator Nadia Shireen...


Five questions with...Nadia Shireen's Writing Life


1.    What are you working on at the moment?
My third picture book which is due out next year.

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
Keep plugging away, and don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. You should please yourself first, because if you are not enjoying it, you can tell in the drawings. But it can be hard!

3.    What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?
Best: being paid to do what you love. Worst: there isn’t really a worst. I used to commute to a job, and now this is so much more enjoyable. I guess loneliness can be a problem, but you could work in a studio with other artists if that was a problem.

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?
I always have music. Music is hugely important to me. It helps me relax, gets me in a drawing frame of mind.

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?
Pure luck. I was spotted at a graduation show, people liked my work.

Book frenzy week!

It’s been a week of hurtling through book-related celebrations that has left us feeling exhilarated at so much enthusiasm for books, exhausted – and suffering from a severe case of bookshop envy.

Recovering as we were from the previous week’s excitement with Cathy Cassidy – and Our Lady’s school in Abingdon hosting their first book festival (with more than an author a day visiting the school) – on Thursday we were up and ready to run a bookstall for the Oxfordshire Book Award ceremony – 300 children, 5 authors and a lot of cake.

With only about half an hour to transform a school dining room into a book buying and signing palace, it was a race against time to deliver, unload and unpack 25 boxes of specially chosen titles – from all the current new crop of interesting writers, bestsellers – but, primarily titles from no fewer than five guest authors at the Oxfordshire Book Award ceremony.

The Oxfordshire Book Award is run among primary and secondary schools in Oxfordshire with the aim of encouraging reading and lively debate about reading. And if the enthusiasm for book buying is any sort of gauge of success – all this encouragement has definitely created a severe case of bookitis among all the pupils who attended.

There was certainly a lively enough atmosphere as we served up books at the same time as the children were served up afternoon tea refreshments at Abingdon School, following an afternoon of listening to the guest speakers. There was a chance for children to meet some of the prize-winning authors, as well as guest authors Jo Cotterill, SL Powell and Sally Nicholls.

Award-winning author Malorie Blackman (winner of Secondary School Category for ‘Boys Don’t Cry’) was kept busy signing and meeting her fans.

Axel Scheffler, best-known as illustrator of The Gruffalo, won Best Picture Book (Primary School Category) for ‘Zog’, and the queues for him didn’t die down until everyone had to be dragged back to school for the end of the day.

The awards are judged by children across schools in Oxfordshire. They also picked Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Shadow’ as the winner of the Primary Book award.

Our sincere thanks to Gabby, Jo and Sally for their assistance in manning the bookstall. I don’t suspect for a minute they knew what they were letting themselves in for, but it was too late to prepare them when someone suddenly yelled ‘they’re coming’ and the next 40 minutes went by in a blur of recommending titles and scrabbling to find enough one pound coins.

The atmosphere wasn’t much less frantic at the opening of Barefoot Books in Summertown (piccies below).

The whole place is enticing enough to host a children’s party, let alone some storytelling. It’s a beautiful space for selling books.

It’s wonderful to be able to add Barefoot to the list of Oxfordshire booksellers and we hope their incredible programme of events means many people will make the trip to Summertown and fall in love with Barefoot Books.

We were lucky enough to grab a little time with two of the authors on Thursday – our thanks to Sally Nicholls and Jo Cotterill.

Five questions with . . . Sally Nicholl’s writing life
Sally Nicholls is the author of two books. 'Ways to Live Forever' is about a boy with leukaemia, and won the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize. It is currently being translated into sixteen languages. 'Season of Secrets' is based on the pagan myth of the green man.

1.    What are you working on at the moment?
I am trying to put together a submission for my next book. I am at a really very early stage with putting together my ideas and it might be a ghost story. I’ve also been commissioned to write two books for Barrington Stoke, who publish books for reluctant readers.

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
To learn from writers that you love, but not to try to write the same book as they would write – that way your book will only ever be second rate. You have to write the book that only you can write. You have to write about the things you love.

Also – that the first draft won’t be any good, but that is a good thing. A first draft can be as rubbish as you like and this is a positive thing because what’s important is that you have got it written and can start to work on it.

3.    What is the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?
The thing that I like is that you have a lot more freedom. You can write a realistic book and a historical book and they will sit together on a bookshelf. What I don’t like is the fact that a book takes so long to write, it takes several years to finish a book and you are on your own in front of a computer.

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?
I am definitely a procrastinator, I always think a cup of tea would be nice, so for me it helps if I am somewhere else – someone where I know I am there because I am supposed to be writing. I like best to be writing with other people. Getting two or three people together in the same room who are supposed to be writing really works for me because you don’t want to be the one who’s not writing.

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?
It never really felt like I had a breakthrough, more a series of stages. Firstly, getting on an MA course, finding an agent, then a publisher. I had five publishers interested in my first book, so probably my biggest breakthrough was when a publisher actually said they would pay me some actual money. That meant I was able to write and just work part-time three days a week.

Five questions with . . . Jo Cotterill’s writing life
Joanna Kenrick published her first book, Moondance, a picture book for young children, in 2004. Since then, she has published many different books for teenagers and young people, including her young adult novel Red Tears, a story about a teenage girl who turns to self-harm. She also writes a series of books for 9-13s called Sweet Hearts under the name Jo Cotterill.

1.    What are you working on at the moment?
Book 6 in the Sweet Hearts series, which will be the last Sweet Hearts book! It’s due out in June 2012 and is about a synchronised swimmer competing in the Olympics.

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
Read, read, read

Write, write, write

I can’t remember who said it, but, to me, it sums up everything an aspiring writer needs to know.

3.    What is the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?
Best thing: being paid to make up stuff!

Worst thing: constant worry about money . . .

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential bfore you can start work?
Empty house! Absolutely essential!

5. What was your biggest breakthrough?
Getting an agent for my YA novel ‘Red Tears’. It was the first time I really believed I could have a career in writing.