@KOrtizzle

Well it sort of began today...

The day before the official Bologna Children's Book Fair is filled with many fun and productive activities:

- lunch with two agents and an editor (Prosciutto pizza for the WIN).

- window shopping (leather handbags...gorgeousssss).

Bologna 2013 rights guide, notebook for meeting notes, sticky notes for last-minute sales, highlighter and pen (yes, I'm super organized) :)

- adding last-minute foreign sales to the rights guides (the sales that closed between Wednesday when they were printed and today: 3 to be exact with 4 more pending to be closed sometime this week).

- reviewing my appointments for tomorrow and familiarizing myself with what books publishers have bought, both from our agency and other publishers.


Now I'm relaxing, blogging and munching on some really fantastic biscuits with chocolate (my weakness).

Tonight will be quite busy but fun, too:

- Random House party: everyone in publishing goes, so it's a fun time to see those we haven't seen in months or since last year, as well as networking with some new people we may not have appointments with this week.

- Dinner: again with some agents and other publishing folk. Though this time I hear dinner will be in a place where they scrape Risotto out of a parmesan bowl....pics to come if this happens.

- and of course, no Bologna day would be complete without our annual #GelatoWatch13. Stay tuned.


Tomorrow it's rise and shine at 6:30 a.m. To be at the fair by 8 a.m. to snag a good table in the rights center, and our badges and walk around a bit before our first appointment at 9.

More later once the fair is in full swing!

KO

In just 10 days I will be on my way to Bologna to meet with publishers around the world and discuss our agency's awesome titles! (10 days?! Where did the time GO?)

Bologna Children's Book Fair is an annual fair where thousands of agents, rights managers and publishers meet to discuss children's books. It's pretty fantastic. You can read more about it here on the PW web site.

What kind of prep is required?

• Finalizing our rights guide of amazing agency titles: this guide is packed with information on our titles -- blurbs, reviews, cover images, film information, rights sales, you name it!

• Finalizing appointments: My first appointment request came in on December 5, 2012! And we're at about 82 appointments now (in 3 days!). These appointments are why we attend the book fair. The opportunity to meet with publishers face-to-face and gush about our titles is so much fun and a really good opportunity to get our clients' names out there.

• Touching base with scouts: Calling scouts about new deals, letting them know any updates, etc is important so they can update their clients on which titles to keep an eye out for at the fair. This way when I have a meeting, the publisher may already be prepared to say, "Tell me more about TITLE. I've heard wonderful things."

• Touching base with co-agents: Emailing co-agents about new deals, updated, etc so they can touch base with publishers about what to keep an eye out for at the fair, as well.

• Getting new information from my colleagues: What I love about New Leaf is that we're very close and always updating each other on news about our books. It's awesome. And being able to use this information for translation sales really helps. 

Woohoo! GO LIZ!

From Publisher's Weekly's Right's Report

Connie Hsu at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has acquired world English rights, at auction, for The Simpsons character-artist Liz Climo's debut picture book, Rory the Dinosaur, about a young T. rex named Rory and his dry-humored dinosaur Dad, based on the comics from lizclimo.tumblr.com. Publication is scheduled for spring 2015, with another untitled picture book due in 2016. Kathleen Ortiz at New Leaf Literary & Media was the agent.

Well...I'll let her announce it for herself :)

Check out her site at lizclimo.tumblr.com!

Illustrator Sarah Marino will be illustrating the repackaged covers for Lois Ruby's middle grade mysteries STEAL AWAY HOME and SOON BE FREE for publication in 2013 and 2014 by Simon & Schuster's Aladdin imprint. Kathleen Ortiz of New Leaf Literary & Media did the deal.

Marino is a children's book illustrator and visual development artist with Reel FX who's worked on movies like Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, and the upcoming 2014 animated feature from Guillermo del Toro: The Book of Life. Her portfolio is viewable at sarahmarino.com.

Co-Agent: a literary agent who assists in handling a subright on your behalf.

We work with 22 co-agents who cover about 35 territories. Co-agents are essential to selling foreign rights because they know exactly what the current state of the publishing industry is in their territory, and they have close relationships with publishers and editors.

Just like there are many, many literary agents here in the US, there are many, many co-agents overseas. I was really lucky that when I started with my current agency, I got to research and build partnerships with co-agents based on my past experiences and based on research I'd done. All of our co-agents are absolutely fantastic, and I love working with them on an almost daily basis.

I keep co-agents up to date on our projects, and pitching new projects is one of my favorite parts -- especially when they write back to say, "This is incredible! I read it, and I love it!"

A couple of examples of how co-agents and I work together just from this past week:

- Tuesday I received an e-mail from our Polish co-agent. Part II in a series of e-mails regarding the status of publishing and some mergers in Poland. Super helpful. Very detailed. And I can use that info  to see if any of our clients are affected and whether or not they will be affected if we get offers in the future.

- Wednesday I got notice of a possible pre-empt offer. So I called up JP (awesome Brazilian co-agent) and he was like, "Yea...I'm on the phone with them now. BRB." So I waited and then we spent the day going back and forth with an offer/counter offer/improved offer/counter offer until we were both happy. (the author was super happy when I emailed the offer for their approval!)

- Wednesday I also got a phone call from Donatella (awesome French co-agent) who wanted to chat not only about an incoming offer this week but also about how some terms needed to be updated for an offer we finalized a while back. She sent over the contract, and I'll be looking it over shortly.

- Today I went back and forth with a couple of co-agents about some tax updates (more on taxes and foreign later!)

In the meantime, there were many emails with updates on marketing plans, covers, pub dates, a couple of offers to be negotiated, and more happy info. I also received and distributed about four different contracts from Turkey, Hungary, France and Italy.

I've decided I want this clock. But  with worldwide time zones. So. Awesome.

How do I work with them when there's a 5-6 hour time difference from NYC to Europe, let along 8-9 hrs from Seattle, WA to Europe? Easy. I wake up between 5-6 a.m. And if I'm working with Asia, it's easy. It's 6:32 p.m. here and 10:32 a.m. in China. So if I get any emails, I can get info back ASAP before bed. Europe? 5 a.m. Seattle time is 2 p.m. in France. Plenty of time to finish up anything that comes in.

Also, many of our European co-agents actually try to keep East coast time. Which then makes it even easier to keep in touch. The other day I had a phone call with a French publisher and a client, and it was about 9:30 p.m. his time -- but it was the best time for him so it worked out.

Co-agents are fantastic, like I said. And they're a joy to work with. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings!

Did you know who co-agents were before this post? Curious! :)

~KO

All of these books feature a to-die for romance. Come and swoon with us!

My SQUEE face, per FizzyGrrl

Will YOU be there? BECAUSE IT WILL BE AWESOME.