After Bologna Children's Book Fair 2015

As announced previously, I've been to Bologna Children's Book Fair this year. 

It was my second time there and I'm glad to say the whole experience was much better than expected, even better than last year. 

Maybe it helped that the weather was absolutely lovely ;)

This year I spent only two days at the fair but I feel like I was able to make the most out of them. 
It helped the fact the fair wasn't as busy as last year, and because of this everybody was a bit more relaxed and with a bit more time on their hand to spend to review illustrator portfolios. 

Claire and I right before going in. Excited faces!

Also, this year I was able to focus my energies a bit better. Instead of running around like a crazy person, I decided to focus only on the publishers I knew I had a good match with. 
This saved me a lot of time and lot of rejections. 

I think one of the reasons why this year went much more smoothly, it's because I was able to follow some of the tips I wrote down last year (here the blog posts from last year, if you fancy reading them).
So now I feel like I can give even more tips!
Here some useful things I learnt/I did this time around:

-Going with someone makes everything easier! 
I was very lucky to be able to share this year experience with Claire Shorrock. 
She is one of my studio mates and other than being very lovely, she also has a similar style to mine. Both very useful things when choosing a fair buddy! 
I noticed how much easier and less stressful was to approach the publishers when you're with someone else. 
So I would definitely recommend hitting the fair with a fair buddy, both for moral and physical support (someone that holds your bag while you're in the toilet will make your life much easier). 

Claire putting her poster on the wall

-Bring as much promotional material as you can
On the first day, I failed on this... I almost run out of all my promo material in just a couple of hours. I can't tell how frustrated I was with myself, I should have brought more!! In the end, I was able to manage but for the rest of the day I had to bit quite selective. So be generous and bring as much promotional material as your shoulders can bare! 

My cards on the wall

-Bring your own lunch or buy lunch first thing in the morning
You don't want to waste 45 minutes of your time queuing for a sandwich. Especially at lunch times, snack bars are always incredibly busy so my recommendation is to bring your own food. Another option would be to hit the bars way before 12pm and buy the food you're going to eat later in the day. 

Lunch break!

-Get organised: pockets, rucksack and comfortable shoes are a given
Everybody is different in the way they like to get organised to spend the days at the fair.
I had a small A4 portfolio which was easy to keep in my hands all the time.
Also, I was using a small tote bag where I was keeping my promo material, water and my notebook. This way I didn't have to open my rucksack all the time. 

-Bring any published sample you might have
Showing my portfolio with my best work was great but I think publishers get more excited when they can see an actual published book. 
I brought along four of my published books... Very heavy to carry around all day on my back but I think it was worth it!

Making friends while queueing for a meeting

-Be ready to talk comfortably and confidently about your own work. 
It's always a bit awkward and nerve-wracking when a publisher is browsing your portfolio during a meeting. I figured I would look way more professional and confident if, instead of just standing there without saying a word, I could talk a bit about me and about what they were looking at. 
I would suggest to give a couple of info about where you live, what you've worked on in the past and how you create the work. 
That should give an interesting insight that complements what is in your portfolio. 

Pizza with some lovely Italian illustrator friends

-Always ask for the art director/publisher contact details. 
This is absolutely ESSENTIAL and, in my opinion, even more important than leaving your promo material to the publishers. This way, you will be able to follow up with an email to remember them about your meeting. 

-Find accommodation in the centre of town
Unfortunately the fair is a bit far out the city centre, so if you get accommodation close to it, it might get a bit tricky in case you want to explore the city in the evenings of go out for dinner with other illustrators. 
Usually everybody meet in the centre, so my suggestion is to get accommodation somewhere near there and get the bus to the fair in the morning (bus 35 from the train station goes directly there). 
In particular, I would suggest to get accommodation somewhere close to "via indipendenza", a pretty big shopping street that connects the train station to the main square.

-Submit your work to the illustration exhibition and get in for free!
If you do this, they will send you a free pass to the fair. Highly recommended! 
Keep an eye on the BCBF website or, even better, subscribe to their newsletter. Deadline for this is usually around October. 

Me and Anna Clothier, author of Humphrey Bookworm (coming out later this year)

-Try to meet with people you have already worked with
Before the fair, I contacted some of the people I worked with in previous projects and ask them if they were going to attend the event (as they say... even better than finding new clients, it's to be able to keep the ones you already have). 
I think it makes such a big difference to shake hands and finally meet someone in person, instead of being just a name in an email address. I feel this is an essential step in creating a solid business relationship with someone, even if you've already been working with them for a while. 
Especially, it's good to prove them I'm not a crazy artist, but a reliable person they can keep trusting ;) 

Me and Kristine (publisher at Magination Press) holding Lucy In The City, book coming out later this year

Overall, I feel very satisfy with the whole experience. The only thing I wish I did, it's to bring a dummy book with my own story in it. My friend Claire did and it was great to see how many incredibly useful tips the publishers were giving her about her story. 
This is something I will definitely try to do next year!

Getting ready for Bologna Book Fair 2015

It's that time of the year again, when illustrators from all over the world are getting excited about the upcoming Bologna Children's Book Fair. 

This year is going to be the second time I'm attending the event.  

Hopefully it's gonna be a bit easier than last year, since this time I should know what to expect.

For example, this year I didn't bother at all to book appointments with the publishers before the fair. 

Last year I sent at least 50 emails trying to book appointments. Out of those, I managed to schedule only 3, and 2 of them completely forgot about the meeting. 

You can imagine how frustrated I was with that. 

Unfortunately, this time I'll be able to attend only for a couple of days. 

It might be a bit risky, since last year I didn't get much done on the first day due to the fact every single publisher was too busy to pay attention to me. But hopefully I'm going to have enough time anyway to meet them and give away my samples. Basically, I will have to be fearless and incredibly determined. Fingers crossed! 

Here below are some photos of the promotional material I'm going to bring along with me this year. 

I have to say last year I did a good job planning my promo material, so this year I'll basically stick to the same plan. 

Same as last time, I've got a neat portfolio printed with Blurb. 

I like Blurb products because they're extremely customisable and always beautiful.

My portfolio this year is 25 x 20 cm, 24 pages, with a hardcover ImageWrap (last year I went for the dust jacket and I didn't like the easy tendency for the paper jacket to tear in my bag) and ProLine Pearl Photo Glossy (a bit more fancy looking than the uncoated one I had last year, but still with a lovely matte finish).

As always, I'm very happy with Blurb products.

Also, I've printed about 35 mini portfolio that I will leave behind to as many publishers and editors I can. 

I'm convinced that leaving behind a small portfolio packed with all your best work is much better that just leave a single card. 

Same as last year, I printed these with Pixartprinting. I must say, even if I tried to follow instructions for image preparation accurately, the colour reproduction is not the best, but in the whole I reckon it's a fairly good product for the price you pay. Hopefully publishers will be too smitten from my illustrations to pay attention to colours ;)

Lastly, I also made a little cardboard box that I'm planning to fill in with postcards and attach to the Illustrator Wall. 

I didn't get much at all for my Illustrator Wall last year and I'm quite positive I won't get much from it this year either... 

But since it's such an institution and awesome idea, well, why not...!

For more tips on how to prepare for the fair, my follow up impressions please have a look at my last year posts. 

PS= Sorry for the bad quality photos, but my camera is broken and my phone's camera is not very good, so working on that...

After Bologna Children's Book Fair 2014 - part 2

I'm still ruminate on my days at the fair, they were a tangle of emotions and events. It's taking me a while to metabolise everything. 
Here a report of each single day... 

Illustrators wall

My first day was a bit depressing. Nobody seemed to have time to look at my portfolio, publishers were all very busy and the fair was sooooo crowded. Going to the bathroom meant wasting at least 30 precious minutes. 
Also, I was very anxious, I wanted to do everything and being everywhere at the same moment. I felt I didn't have enough time to do all I wanted and every minute seemed incredibly precious. 
So I run like a crazy person from hall to hall without taking a break, being really grumpy about all the wasting-time queueing and, as you can imagine, by evening I was a mess. 
Also, both the appointment I managed to schedule months earlier with two big publishers didn't happen since they basically forgot about me. 
Not exactly a good day. 

The main space at the entrance

My second day went definitely better. The fair was visibly less crowded and everything seemed a bit easier. Maybe because I started understand how things were going to be done, not sure, but I finally managed to show my portfolio to people and leave a lot of promotional material. 
By 5pm I was so incredibly tired I could barely walk, so I decided to go home take a shower and nap. Best decision ever! Completely refreshed, I went out for dinner with a bunch of people and eat tortelli. That's the way!

Dinner with some illustrators

My last day, Wednesday, was a piece of cake. Compared to Monday, the fair was deserted and everybody was much more generous with their time. I even had a few meetings in which the publisher and I digressed about my imminent move to Bristol or my life in Australia... It was definitely a much more pleasant way to get to know people!
Also, lots of other publishers were dedicating a couple of hours to see illustrators.
I managed to give away all the mini portfolios I had left (about 15) and at the end of the day I felt like I spoke with tons of people!
It was definitely my most successful day at the fair. 


I think next year I'll try to stay Thursday as well, people told me publishers like to get rid of books so they don't have to carry them home. To me, it seems like a good enough reason to stay!

Some of the awarded books

Visually speaking, in my opinion no one beats Italy, Spain and Korea. Illustrators from those country have a sense of colour and composition that really amazes me. 
My aim is to look more into those country's publications and try to learn something from those geniuses...

Also, I was VERY impressed by the work made by the students at the MA Children's book illustration of Cambridge.
Their work was astonishing!! The stand had dummies everywhere the students creates during the course. I couldn't believe my eyes. I predict an excellent career for at least a third of those students. A friend of mine told me the course is very hard but incredible. 
I could SERIOUSLY think about doing the course. Maybe in a couple of years time... 

Cambridge School stand (Marta Altes in the left corner)

I think the most useful comments about my work were given by the publishers who rejected me. 
In particular, I was told my style was very "British" and therefore not suitable for a lot of publishers. It wasn't the first occasion people told me that, but when you hear the same thing from four different people on the same day, well, it definitely gets you. 
I feel I have already a better idea of which market my work could fit in and what are the different trends in each different part of the world. 
It such a complex field, this fair definitely made me understand I still have A LOT to learn and develop and A LONG WAY to go. 

I read a lot before going to the fair. I wanted to be prepared! I'm that sort of person, I like to do be organised, especially when it comes to work. 
Anyways, everybody I spoke to said the fair was incredibly huge. And their were right, it is very big. But honestly, when I went there, I really wished there was more. There were four halls in total and it might be I'm a very eager person (or maybe only masochist) but I really wish there was at least one more hall to browse. 

Malaysian stand

My resolutions for next year:

-Attend some talk. I didn't attend ANY talk. I felt like I had to much too do to just sit down and listen. 
And there is so much going on all at once that I didn't even noticed that both Oliver Jeffers and Bianca Pitzorno (my favourite Italian children's book writer excellence!!) gave Crazy, right?? Especially because I had downloaded the events schedule and underlined what 
I don't know exactly how I missed that, but this is the proof there is so much interesting stuff going on all at once. 

-Attend events outside the fair. There were lots of interesting events all over the city especially exhibitions I really wanted to attend. But in the evening I was always so tired I just couldn't bare the idea of going out again. 
But, as I said already, next year I'm going to train (and maybe try to be less anxious) and hopefully I won't be burnt out at 6pm! 

-Coming along with other people. I think it might be good coming along with other illustrators, especially for moral support. Even coming with a friend or boyfriend (a met a lovely girl who came with her mom, so sweet!!) could be useful, especially if they offer to carry your bags!! :) 

-Buy some books. I spent 3 days looking at books and in the end I didn't buy even one. Insane, I know. Next year I'll make a fund only for buying books!!

Goodbye!

After Bologna Children's Book Fair 2014 - Part 1

The entrance

I'm home after three crazy days in Bologna. 
As I predicted, it was a truly great experience. 
So many things happening all at once, so many people to talk to... and of course for an illustrator working alone all day, this is totally unusual. 

There are so many things I could say about this experience that it is difficult to know where to start. 

Maybe I could start saying I have a very good feeling about the contacts I made at the fair. 
I managed to show my portfolio to a lot of editors, publishers and art directors and I received mainly positive reactions. 
I also managed to give away all 45 mini portfolios I made, and everybody was very impressed by the fact I was leaving them with a sort of mini book, instead of a simple business card or postcard. I think making those was well worth it! 

At the fair

Now that I've been there, I feel like I can give a few practical tips on how to survive the fair at best! 
Here you go... 

-Bring your own lunch! There were so many people at the fair that my lunch break on Monday was a true nightmare. I queued for 20 minutes to find out they run out of vegetarian options. So I had to find another cafe (there are a few) and queue again and in the end the only vegetarian option they had was pizza. Then I queued for 30 more minutes to get my pizza. 
That night I went to a supermarket and bought some ingredients to make my own sandwiches for the following days. Best idea ever!
Otherwise, some friends suggested you buy lunch right outside the fair (not sure where tho) before getting in in the morning. VERY recommended, especially if you don't eat gluten or meat (that's pretty much all the sell). 

-Attend for three days at least. The first day wasn't great for me in terms of appointments but I managed to book some meetings for the following days, when people's schedules were still quite free.
However, Wednesday for me was the most successful day, since everybody was less busy and had more time to spare and look at my portfolio. So I would highly recommend to spend at least 3 days there, if you're serious about finding contacts. 

At the fair

-Don't waste time with the publishers that don't display books with your style. The few times I tried to propose myself to such publishers (I thought, why not? you never know!) they rejected me straight away. It's a waist of time and also kills the mood. 
I know it's tempting going to every one but try to be picky. Publishers have a very clear idea of what they're looking for. 

-Bring a neat, compact portfolio. I printed mine with Blurb and everybody really liked the fact it was neat and bounded as a book. Much easier and faster to look at instead of the big a3 portfolios with loose sheets lots of people had. 

-After giving your card, always ask for THEIR business card. I read this in a blog last year while gathering info for Bologna. Best advice ever!

-Wear VERY comfortable shoes. If they happen to be ugly, don't worry: no one will pay attention. 

Bologna city centre  

-If you can, train beforehand. I'm not joking, your body will thank you enormously, trust me! There's nothing worse than working while being tired and physically exhausted. I failed on this but next year I'm definitely going to train!! 

-Try to do a quick tour of all the halls on the first day. This is because lots of the publishers put out a sign with general meeting times for illustrators. 
Also while doing this, ask to the big publishers if they book appointments for the following days. Some of them do but their schedules fill out quite quickly. 
I missed the opportunity to show my portfolio to Milan, a big french publisher because I turned out at its stand only on Wednesday and the appointment schedule was already booked out. Damn it!! 

-Put something on the Illustrators Wall, you never know who's going to see it!!

My bear poster on the wall. It's not super clear but I built a pocket to put postcards in

-Bring a lot of promotional materials. In my case, I brought some mini portfolios along with lots of postcards. I think next year I will invest in making more mini portfolios and less postcards, since I used them a lot more and I ended up having lots of postcards leftovers. So choose whatever you think would work best for you and make lots of it to give away to as much people as you can. 

-Bring a pen and a notebook, to write down email addresses, names or meeting times. 

-Wear layers of clothes you can take off or put on. It was a bit tricky because outside was freezing cold and inside was quite warm. So instead of a coat I wore a light jacket with lots of layers underneath. Next time I'll make sure to wear clothes with pockets too (for some reasons most of my clothes don't have them!)

-My accommodation was quite close to the fair, which was great, so I could easily go there by foot. However, the city centre was quite far (30-40 minutes walking) and at night, after walking all day at the fair, there was no chance I would walk all the way to the city to meet with friends for dinner. So maybe the best would be to find a place right in the middle between the fair and the centre which is where everybody usually goes for dinner. 
Or be ready to pay a taxi (like I did). 

The view from my room

-If you have some, bring a few published samples. People who had the time to interview me were interested in seeing those too. I read publishers would like to see dummies too, I didn't have any but I suppose it's a good idea to bring them along as well. 



In the next post I'll write about my personal experience at the fair (impressions, emotions, dark moments... yes, I had those too!!). Stay tuned!! 

Getting ready for Bologna - Promotional material

Bologna Book Fair is just around the corner... I'm excited and terrified at the same time!!:) 

Before taking off, I wanted to show some promotional material I made for the event. 

First of all, my mini portfolios. I printed 45 of them and I'm going to leave those at editors and publishers during meetings and portfolio interviews. 

I figured I wanted to give people something more that just a postcard, especially to publishers I see a good fit with. 

Hopefully they're going to appreciate the extra effort and like the range of pictures!

On the first page, I wrote a brief introduction about myself and my work (previous clients, where I live, etc) together with a small photo of myself (they might remember my face in case we meet at the fair!).

On the last page I put some testimonials from previous clients. I figured is always good for publishers to know that, despite rumours, illustrators are actually reliable people!!

Also, I printed 200 hundreds postcards with two different designs, to leave behind when I will run out of mini portfolios. 
And I'm going to use these also for the Illustrator wall, which will have a A3 poster with my bicycle bear logo and a cardboard pocket where I'll be able to put some postcards. 
I'll publish a photo of this when it'll be all set up at the fair!

I printed everything with a European website called Pixartprinting. They were very fast and everything turned out really nicely, especially colours. 
I'm definitely going to use these guys again!

Everything it's finally ready for the big event... if you want to follow my Bologna adventures I would suggest you to follow me on instagram, I predict I'll be publishing tons of pictures!! :D :D

I hope to see you there!!!

Getting ready for Bologna - Portfolio

As I mentioned a while ago, I'm getting ready to attend my first Bologna Children's Book Fair. 

In order to do that, I had to prepare a portfolio that I will show around to as many people as possible. 

I spent some time pondering and evaluating different possibilities on how and which company to print my portfolio with. 

As always, I manages to find invaluable information researching online. 
The followings are links to blog posts about putting together a children's books portfolio. Very useful stuff!

Squid 101: What I like to see in an Artist's Portfolio by Brooklyn Arden
Portfolio comparison - What made an SCBWI winner by Eliza Wheeler
Putting together a Prize-winning portfolio by Molly Idle
Mentee Porfolio vs. Grand Prize Winner Portfolio by Juana
How to put a Children's Illustration Portfolio together by Juana

Personally, I decided to print mine with Blurb. 
Blurb is a website that allows you to print books of all sorts. 
It's not too expensive and the products are top-notch. 
The thing I really like about Blurb is that it gives you total design freedom. 
In fact, Blurb allows you to use Indesign in order to customise every single aspect of your book. Awesome!!
Also, Blurb gives you a good range of different covers and papers. 

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. Here are some photos of the printed portfolio. Hopefully it will make a good impression! :D

These are the rules I tried to stick to while choosing the images for it:
- Only very strong work
- Not more than 20 images 
- Keep images from the same project together for continuity
- Start and finish with the strongest images
- Don't use many single images but mostly 2 or 3 images from the same project

Also, I made sure to ask for advice to a couple of illustrators friends (strongly recommended!!) in order to have a different point of you on my work - soooo difficult to judge your own images! :/

Getting ready for Bologna - Rebranding

As I've already mentioned a few weeks ago, this year at the end of March I will be attending the Bologna Children's Book Fair and I cannot start to tell you how incredibly EXCITED I am about this!!:D

It will be my first time at the fair, so I'm trying to gather as much info as possible in order to arrive prepared and don't leave with that horrible feeling of "ooooh if I knew that before". I hate that!

So I'm trying to plan everything out very carefully and meticulously. 
These are my three main priorities prior the fair:

-Rebranding 
-Portfolio and promotion materials
-Booking publishers meetings 

This blog post is about rebranding.  
Basically I just wanted to give a bit of a refresh to my general image. 
I had the same logo for a while and I felt it didn't really reflect the style of my work anymore. So I changed that with something more appropriate to what I do now. Hope you like it!:)
Consequently, I had to change the look of my twitter, blog, instagram, facebook, you name it. 

I also updated the portfolio on my website and changed my About page completely. This great article from zero2illo explains the reason why you should probably do that too, and basically how to get the most out of your about page. 

Also, I decided I would finally try to implement a mailing list form so that I will start sending out a newsletter regularly with updates about my publications. I think this could be useful, especially every time I have a book or an app coming out that I want to share with the world. 
So if you're interested in getting notified with my latest publications, you can sign up here.

Last thing I did was to add some clients testimonials on my website. I know, this could sounds a bit like a show off, but I often receive nice feedback from clients so I thought, what the hell, why not put them out there making sure other people can read it too. 
Sometimes shameless promotion is the way to go... 


PS= If you're an illustrator and you're going to Bologna, please let me know! I don't get the chance to meet other illustrators very often, so it would be good to meet a bunch of creative peeps! 

Bologna children's book fair... here I come!!

BIG BIG news!! 

I've just bought a flight ticket to Italy and FINALLy next year I'll be able to attend Bologna Children's Book Fair.. wooooooo!!!

Since I'm an organisation freak, I'm already organising everything. I'm too excited to just wait!! 

Actually, the only thing I managed to get done so far is to book a place to stay. I found a little nice place on Airbnb not far from the fair. 

Also, I did some research looking for what other illustrators wrote about their experience at the fair in the previous years.
Luckily, I've found a lot of people who posted about it. 
Here below are some of the best ones I found so far. 
If you are planning to go, I would HIGHLY recommend reading these!!

Genie Espinosa

Maria Bogade

Kariona Chapman

Miriam Bos

Marloes de Vries 

Emily A. Fox

Mel Macklin

I will post later on about my fair preparation. There is so much to do!! 
Still 6 months to go, but I can't wait already! :D