Children’s book lovers will be watching Matthew Skelton’s Endymion Spring when it releases in Europe and Australia next month.
This fellow’s story cracks me up. He’s thirty-five, he studied at Oxford, has a doctorate, and couldn’t find a full-time job. So what else do you do when you can’t find a full-time job? You pound out a children’s book.
But the part that cracks me up is that “Matthew didn’t think his novel was good enough to publish. But a friend insisted on sending the manuscript to an agent.”
After sitting on the slush pile for a while, the book sells:
Puffin, though, had to win a serious bidding war for Endymion Spring.
“Pretty well every major publishing house in London bid for it. It was absolutely crazy,” says McNally.
So how much was her winning bid — which includes the rights to Skelton’s next book?“It was not an insubstantial sum for a big company like Penguin to part with,” she says. “It was a substantial six-figure sum. In pounds. A substantial one.”
This for a book the author didn’t think was publishable. It is really hard for writers to judge their own work.
The book is compared to The Thief Lord and His Dark Materials trilogy, neither of which I liked (but that didn’t stop them from being best sellers).
I just went and read all the EH entries. I dont’ know which ones you liked more than yours – because yours was clearly the best. I voted. Repeatedly. Hee hee . But really, I did cast my voteS!
Well, thanks, HOLY mama. Glad I could inspire you to such heights.
LOL
I wondered about the voting myself. If I am allowed to vote more than once then I sure want to. Some contests let you vote every day. This contest didnt specify. What if both my husband and I want to vote? Is that allowed?
Someone told me, though, that only the last vote entered counts. After your first vote, every subsequent vote only updates the previous one.
Im not sure about that. =0)
Sooooo skeptical! ; D From EH rules, The Fine Print: “During public voting, no more than one vote per person per week (voting over and over just updates your one vote.) ”
Becky
Yeah, but they say a lot of things on that site that they don’t do. Some weeks three winners, some weeks five. Some days they update, some days they don’t. Heh heh. Ya just never know.
Point well taken. My guess is, that part is built into the computer program (had the same exact wording at another site where voting for something), so it probably is so.
Becky
The Skelton book sounds intriguing. I’m looking forward to it.