The majority of major book publishers, including the likes of Harper Collins, Random House, Penguin, and Scholastic, have put their weight behind a proposal to offer age suitability guidance on children’s books from autumn 2008.

The plan is to include a new item near the barcode on the back of children’s books stating the recommended age range: 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen. These are to start appearing on reprints around now, with new  publications including them from the autumn.

Elaine McQuade (MD, Scholastic Children’s Books):

Potential book buyers were putting books down because they didn’t know where they stood.

It has taken almost three years of debate to make what seems a very obvious move to become reality and once more demonstrates how slow the huge publishing powers can be. I’ll bet the debates were more about power, control, and influence than doing what is best for their readers.

But the meetings and discussions are not as yet over, with the ‘pioneers’ reaching out to any and all bookselling businesses, and libraries, in the hope everyone will understand their motivation and the potential bonus of this move.

Is it really that tough to understand that people these days need a little help in determining what is best for their children’s edication and entertainment?

In a bookstore, I would suggest this was less of an issue. Trained and knowledgeable staff on hand to help guide potential purchases mean wrong choices are minimised. But this should be a boost for booksales in places such as supermarkets.

We have discussed the financial struggle faced by the majority of published writers in a recent post, but the subject came back to the fore after a short piece in the April edition of Writers Magazine.

The piece covers the story of Catherine O’Flynn, and author who had her book, What Was Lost, rejected by fourteen literary agents, yet won the increasingly prominent Costa First Novel Award. In response, the Independent’s Literary Editor, Boyd Tonkin, offered his input on the expectations of new authors.

“Many illusions about the wealth of up-and-coming authors arise because the media publish wildly exaggerated estimates of the sums involved. Next time you read about a £1m advance, try dividing that by ten – at least.”

He goes on to say that the hope of giving up the day job is less than realistic:

Plenty of acclaimed writers of fiction never give up their previous occupation, or else acquire a new on (in teaching or journalism, for example)”

That last statement troubles me as it is far too black and white to offer a complete picture, and one should note the use of ‘acclaimed writers’, which, as O’Flynn’s experience with literary agents demonstrates, can be entirely disconnected with successful or popular writers.

Many writers may not give up the day job more out of choice than financial necessity. They may simply not be the kinds of authors who have a whole stream of novels queuing to get out, or, and with the level of effort required to produce a novel, not wish to be a novelist full-time. Being a successful, or acclaimed writer, surely does not exclude the possibility of doing it part-time.

Browse Inside this book

I just came across this while desperately trying not to start work this morning, thanks to Stumbleupon.

The complete text of Neil Gaiman’s bestselling novel American Gods is available to read online thanks to Harper Collins’ Browse Inside service. This service provides online access to a total of 500 books, enabling you to read any part of them prior to purchasing.

There is no download option, of course, simply online reading in your browser. I guess this is no different to being sat in the comfy sofa of a bookshop perusing your potential purchases as the online reading experience is going to make it a challenge to get through the entire book - but by no means impossible.

This is an interesting move for a major publisher and I’ll bet there are armies of suits in the halls of Harper Collins suffering sleepless nights over the idea of making stuff available for free on the internet. They know full well, however, that th enumer of people who will use this service for anything more than a pre-sale taster is extremely low, so it acts as a promotional piece rather than an alternative to buying.

Once again, great to see the big publishers testing the online world.