Leaping into 2024 with Katherine Roberts' original publisher Chicken House

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2024 is a leap year, which means we all get an extra day in February to write our next masterpiece. This extra leap day, proposed by Julius Caesar more than 2000 years ago to keep our calendar in sync with the seasons, is traditionally added at the end of the month on February 29th. I make no apology for mentioning it now because there is a rare open submission event happening on that extra day at Chicken House, the original publisher of my debut novel Song Quest.

For 24 hours only, debut authors of fiction for young readers are invited to enter their (finished or unfinished) first novel into Chicken House's Open Coop.

Open Coop 29th February 2024

Although there wasn't an official Open Coop back when I submitted Song Quest (Chicken House itself was still an idea in an egg at the time), I followed a similar route to publication by sending in the early chapters of my book myself. In those early days I had no agent and knew nobody in the business, so I simply worked my way through the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook starting at 'A'. I was prepared to go all the way through to 'Z' in my quest for a suitable publisher, but in the end I didn't have to send out that many proposals, which was probably just as well since back then we didn't have email, which meant everything had to go by post lovingly wrapped in padded envelopes. You really felt as if you'd made a submission in those days.

In his coop/editorial office at what was then Element Books, Chicken House's founder Barry Cunningham picked my manuscript off his 'slush pile' to take on a fabulous journey that resulted in Song Quest winning the inaugural Branford Boase Award. The book went on to enjoy publication in America with Scholastic US, on the way securing me a lovely agent in the late Maggie Noach, who at that time agented Anthony Horowitz and David Almond among other names far more talented than me. In other words, it was a fairytale beginning to my career.

So if you're a debut children's author with an unpublished manuscript burning a hole in your computer, don't delay because this is an 'eggs-ellent' opportunity not to be missed!

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Katherine Roberts writes fantasy and historical fiction for young readers.

Her debut novel Song Quest has enjoyed several editions since it was first published in 1999, and is currently available as both paperback and ebook from Amazon and the other main digital stores.

SONG QUEST

Two further books in the Echorium Sequence, Crystal Mask and Dark Quetzal, also first published by Chicken House, are available in ebook or paperback.

 You can find more details of these books on Katherine's website.

Comments

Griselda Heppel said…
Ooh exciting. Are they still running the Times/Chicken House competition? Years ago I entered it but, ahem, got nowhere. It was an annual prize promising a publishing contract, and I did wonder if that was high risk for the publisher, to be confident in achieving a publishable, preferably best-selling manuscript every year.

What a wonderful way to mark leap year. I hope lots of aspiring children's/YA writers see your post - and others - and submit their first novels. You did AMAZINGLY, with no agent. to catch Barry Cunningham's eye with Song Quest, and many congratulations for all your success with that and subsequent books.

Thanks for posting this to encourage new writers.
21 February 2024 at 10:52
Katherine Roberts said…
Thank you, Griselda. Yes, they still run the Times competition - that is slightly different as it is judged as a competition and I think you have to pay an entry fee, whereas the Open Coop is free :-)
21 February 2024 at 15:36
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