they were responsible for making readers of many children who grew up in Britain in the
spartan years of the Second World War. Puffins had the field to themselves for nearly
thirty years, reprinting in long print-runs titles that had originally appeared in hardback
on other publishers’ lists. By the 1990s, most children’s publishers had their own
paperback imprints. And by this time publishing was dominated by the big
conglomerates, whose main business might not be books at all, but who had swallowed
the small family firms driven to the wall by recession and the reluctance of
individualistic publishers to adapt to changing economic conditions.
The publisher’s role, therefore, is different. The job of the editor (which I once
sentimentally defined as providing the sunshine without which few living things can
thrive and which the author, working in isolation, needs to call on whenever required)
has given way in importance to the vital work (now called ‘input’) of the marketing and
rights executives. The publisher can no longer afford to back editorial ‘hunches’, or wait
for the unsolicited manuscript that might prove a bestseller like Watership Down, but
must seek books that meet market needs. Children’s publishers study demography,
analyse the ethnic make-up of the average classroom, make partnerships with film
producers, and look for books that will satisfy children more familiar with computer
games than the printed page.
At the same time, the publisher’s role can be seen as returning to where it began —for
new technology has changed the face of the British printing industry, which was ravaged
by recession in the 1980s, with over 350 companies going out of business. Now printing
facilities can be found within the publisher’s office and authors are producing
manuscripts not in typed form but on a disc format. The publisher can show a jacket
design to an author on a computer screen, meaning that changes can be made without
great expense. With children’s picture books and information books—where the placing
of illustration in relation to the text is such an important part of the publishing process
—computer technology enables the publisher, the author and the illustrator to work on
the design together, as artwork and text are moved at will around the screen in front of
them. Such freedom is a boon undreamed of by John Newbery, and while pessimists
may fear that one day the electronic image will replace the book, most publishers regard
them as complementary, the former a means of enlarging an experience that only the
latter can give.
ReferencesFlower, D. (1959) The Paper-Back, Its Past, Present and Future, with a foreword by Sir Allen Lane,
London: Arborfield.
Harvey Darton, F.J. (1932/1982) Children’s Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life, 3rd
edn, rev. Alderson, B., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hudson, Derek (1954/1976) Lewis Carroll: An Illustrated Biography, new ill. edn, London:
Constable.
Muir, Percy (1954) English Children’s Books 1600–1900, London: Batsford.
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