It’s all go at Skylark Towers as we prepare for the Bologna Book Fair, taking place in Italy next week, so I thought I’d take a moment to explain what it’s all about . . .

It’s one of the biggest events in the calendar for Children’s Publishing, largely because it’s the one fair that is specifically focused on books for children and young adults – and also because, well, it’s in Bologna! Who can resist such a beautiful old city, not to mention the delicious food and Italian wine? Certainly not us – and not the rest of the children’s publishing world either if attendance is anything to go by!

Every year, publishers from all over the world converge on Bologna to talk about all things Children’s Publishing. It’s predominantly a Rights Fair – which means it’s a golden opportunity for publishers and agents to meet with editors from territories all around the world in hopes of getting them excited about the prospect of publishing, for example, a British middle-grade mystery in Spain or Poland or China!

But it’s not just about the rights deals! Editors come to meet and chat with other editors. Everyone is keen to get a feel for the trends – what’s proving popular, what are editors seeing a lot of, what are they looking for? It’s a great place for gauging the market. If the atmosphere in Bologna feels quiet, you can bet the market’s taking a bit of a downturn. When it’s abuzz with activity, that of course bodes well, and we fully expect the atmosphere to be as bright and bubbly as Prosecco this year, as the children’s publishing market has been very buoyant and that looks set to continue.

Basically, the Bologna Book Fair is a huge networking and business opportunity. A wonderful chance for agents, scouts and publishers to meet with our counterparts from all the countries of the world, talk about the books we love and share a glass of wine (or two!).

Close to the Bologna Book Fair you will find the London Book Fair – not only devoted to children’s books this one – but another great opportunity for everyone to meet and greet colleagues from around the world, so there are a heady few weeks coming up in the world of Children’s Publishing.

Oh, that lovely, thorny issue of ‘age ranges’ in books! It’s a minefield. But never fear! Skylark is here to attempt to get to the bottom of it.

Firstly, all these age labels – Middle Grade, Teen, Young Adult – are merely tools for categorisation, primarily for publishers, booksellers and librarians, who need to know where to put them so they find their way into the right hands.

As a writer you really shouldn’t feel you have to begin a story making sure it fits neatly into one of these categories. However, at some point it is wise, particularly if you are hoping to get published, to consider what your reader looks like and where your book will sit in the market. These bandings do have an impact on issues such as the age of your main character, for example. We know that readers are aspirational and a book will typically have a main character at the top end of the bracket, so for 8- to 12-year-old readers the protagonist would usually be 12 or 13.

It is also definitely worth bearing reading age in mind when looking at the word count of your book. See our previous blog post.

Do note that everyone has a slightly different idea of where these categories fall when it comes to age bands, so you don’t need to be entirely rigid, just aware! Don’t fall into the trap of applying the reading ‘age’ of your own children (or yourself when you were their age). What you need to consider here is how the market will view your novel. And if you’re not sure about that, please go to the library and read, read, read as many current children’s books as you can to get a clearer idea.

Here at Skylark we would roughly break up the age groups as follows:

Young Fiction (2 categories here) – roughly 5-7 years and 7-9 years

Middle Grade – 8-12 years

Teen – 12-14 years (Do be aware, lots of publishers/booksellers don’t use this and put teen in with YA)

Young Adult – 14 years +

We must stress that there is plenty of overlap between the categories because, ultimately, books are jolly hard to categorise!

As we all know, children read at wildly differing levels of ability and maturity so these brackets are NOT prescriptive in any way for anyone buying books – parents, friends, grandparents, desperate party-present seekers – they are JUST a helpful steer! There is much debate about whether books should carry age-banding on their covers. In general, we at Skylark prefer not, precisely because young readers are all so different, but there are strong arguments on either side.

We hope this post helps just a little bit. Ultimately, don’t get too hung up on age-banding. It’s just a useful rough guide!