Spotlight Writers: Donna David

Donna David, published children’s picture book author

Donna published her debut children’s picture book, Oh No, Bobo!, in 2019 with Quarto Publishing and has recently announced her second book, Farmer Llama, with Macmillan Publishers, which is due out next spring. I had the loveliest chat with Donna to find out about her journey to published author, from finding an agent to her top tips for aspiring children’s picture book writers.

How it began …

“I did a degree in English and worked in a school teaching PE for a couple of years before I had my three children. Over the next ten years, I read a lot and wrote a bit and I sent a couple of stories off to magazines but nothing really came of it. It wasn’t until my youngest was in school and my husband was in Afghanistan and I had quite a lot of time in the evenings, once my children were in bed that I decided I’d give it another go … And this time I decided to take it more seriously. I had nothing to lose and just kept going, and I’ve been writing properly for about 6 years now.”

The book

Tell me about Oh No, Bobo!?

“Oh No, Bobo! is a gentle introduction to the theme of consent for very young children. It’s about a naughty orangutan who cuddles and strokes his friends when they don’t want to be and the message is that it’s lovely to be cuddled and hold hands with your friends as long as they want it. It came from the #metoo movement and I think teaching consent shouldn’t start with teenagers but be taught in a basic form from the moment children start interacting, really. I think books are just a really great way of teaching young children very important subjects like that. Five publishers were really interested in it, so it was obviously a theme that publishers wanted.”

 How long did the writing and publishing process take you from start to finish?

“I knew I wanted to write a story about consent but then it went through various guises. I began with children starring, then one editor suggested changing it to animals. Then there were penguins but that didn’t work so well, and eventually we got to jungle animals. The actual writing time took a few days but then I’d send it to my agent and then she’d send it to editors, so with all the various edits it probably took a few months back and forth. What you read now is not what the first draft looked like at all; it’s completely different.”

“My next book, which is out next spring, I signed that one two and a half years ago, so it can take a long time to get illustrated and go through the process, and this one was delayed 12 months as well, because of the pandemic.”

Finding an agent

How did you go about finding an agent?

“I realised that to get in with the ‘big 5’ publishers [Penguin Random House, Hachette Livre, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt], they’re not going to even look at your texts unless they come from an agent. I did submit to some smaller publishers that accept submissions without an agent but, ideally, I wanted an agent, so that I could go out to as many publishers as possible. The Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook lists all the agents, what they’re looking for and what their submission guidelines are. For picture books, it tends to be three complete texts. So I had three texts ready and a covering letter and I just sent them out. Initially, I didn’t get very far. I had a few standard form rejections with no feedback and a few nicer ones which gave me a little bit of hope. Then I went to Winchester Writers’ Festival where there was lots of workshops and one-to-ones and I met three agents, one of which is my agent now. I showed her a text which she said wasn’t ready but she obviously saw something there and asked to see more. That’s how our relationship started.”

What happened next?

“Honestly, when I signed with my agent, I thought I’d made it then and that the book deals would come rolling in but it wasn’t like that. The rejections still came in. It was two and a half years before I got my first picture book deal, which really surprised me. We’re told that getting an agent is the dream and it is the absolute dream but it’s certainly not a guarantee of a deal. I have a couple of friends that signed with an agent really quickly and had their first submissions accepted so it does happen but I’d say that’s a lot rarer than my process. I had lots of real near misses; the editors would like it but the sales team would say no. One-by-one they dropped out for various reasons, but fortunately Quarto didn’t and it was great working with them.”

Working with a publisher

How much were you involved in the design of your book?

“They’ve always asked my opinion, but I have never not liked it. So I don’t know how much power I would have. It’s still very much a team effort but they have to think about things like sales and appeal, so I think they would have the final say. The books I’ve worked on have had an art director and an editor. They’re the experts and have worked really hard in the industry and they know what works. I really trust the editing team; they’re fab at what they do and the covers I’ve seen so far have been amazing. I’ve been really lucky.”

 Is there anything you wish you’d known at the beginning of your publishing journey?

“Yeah, the time and how long everything takes. I always reply to emails really quickly but at the other end are agents and editors that are so busy, it can be weeks before they reply to you. For example, my next book, Farmer Llama, went out on submission in March last year and I didn’t get an offer until December because there were all these hurdles for the publisher to jump over, so it was nine months of waiting, which is not uncommon. And I wish I’d known that and also how many stages your book has to go through before it gets accepted. I thought once an editor liked your book, you were pretty much guaranteed a deal. So when it fell at the final hurdle, I was so disappointed because I didn’t realise that happened. It would have been really easy to give up then because the disappointment was crushing, but it’s really common for a deal to fall through at the last moment and I didn’t know that.”

Tops tips for aspiring picture book authors

What advice would you give to someone thinking of writing a children’s book?

“Read as many picture books as you can. It’s great to read books from ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, but what you really need be reading are the books that are selling now. Supermarkets are like the holy grail for picture books.  A certain kind of person goes to a bookshop but everyone goes to a supermarket, so if you get your picture book into supermarkets, it’s going to sell hundreds if not thousands. So, have a look at what the supermarkets are stocking because they’re the super commercial texts and also the ‘buy one get one half-price’ tables in book shops and see what it is about them that is doing well.”

“Read lots, really study the market and write what you enjoy, because if your books don’t sell for quite a long time, it’s really important that you’ve enjoyed writing it.”

Would you recommend writing in rhyme or prose?

“I would say don’t write in rhyme unless you know you’re really good at it. I wrote in rhyme from the beginning and I wasn’t very good and those books were never going to be sold. So I practised and practised and practised and I have now sold one. But rhyming texts are really hard to translate so unless you’re brilliant, publishers will always go for prose. Even if your story is brilliant, if your rhyme and your rhythm is off, they won’t take it. So, get people to read it back to you and if they’re stumbling over the rhythm then it needs more work. The best way to improve your rhyming texts is to read loads of them, so read Julia Donaldson, Lucy Rowland, Catherine Emmet, Lu Fraser – they’ve all done so well and their books are so well written.”

On dealing with rejection …

“Nearly every author I know has had many, many rejections, so it’s really important not to give up.”

“Your first book might not sell, but if that’s what you want to do, if that’s what you want to then be, be prepared to write more than one book before you get your first deal. Especially with picture books, agents and publishers don’t want an author who can only write one book; they want to know they can invest in you for the future, so you need to show you have a back catalogue and can produce more books.”

On the pandemic and publishing …

“This year has been particularly slow because of the pandemic. Everyone’s a bit cautious and a bit nervous. And publishers are understandably going with their really established authors and the ones they know are going to sell and not taking as many risks. It is a tricky time, definitely.”

How have you found marketing your book amongst the Covid restrictions?

“Especially for children’s books, school visits, festivals and events are perfect marketing tools for your books. I do love doing events and school and library visits but I haven’t done an in-person school visits since before Bobo came out because of the pandemic. It’s all been virtual, which has been a real learning curve because you want the children to be really excited and enthusiastic but on Zoom you can’t hear anything and they can’t hear you. So I’ve had to develop my workshops so they’re still really interactive but instead of shouting out answers, they have to do an action so we can hear each other. And then I factor in a bit of noisy time where they can shout and cheer but then we have to bring it back down. I’ve done some local ones and some others all over the UK, so that’s been really good.”

What have you got planned next?

“Farmer Llama has already been announced because it should have been out this year but was delayed a year because of the pandemic. It’s a funny, silly book about a farmer who’s a llama who gets into battle with a field of cows who are being really awkward. And it’s illustrated by Fred Blunt; his pictures are so funny and they really make me laugh … So we’re really hoping the book sellers get behind it, but we won’t know until Christmas time. Then I have another series of three rhyming picture books coming out, so I’ve got a really exciting year next year!”

 You can find out more about Donna at www.donnadavidauthor.com.

Her debut picture book, Oh No, Bobo!, and upcoming release, Farmer Llama, are available to buy and pre-order from Amazon.