Boot Camp 2025: planning your launch – Strategy, Promotion and School Visits

Log in and meet your drill sergeants: Candy Gourlay, Sara Grant and Mo O'Hara

Planning for Publication with Sara Grant

Take a Break

Industry Panel: Advice on Working With Your Publisher. With Publicist Nina Douglas and Frances Sleigh, Head of Sales at Bloomsbury

Luuunch!

The How and Why of Digital Opportunity with Candy Gourlay

We Need to Talk About Goodreads with Sheila Averbuch

It's a wrap! See you on Sunday!

Welcome Back and Top Tips from Previous Boot Campers

School Visits: Getting Your Act Together with Mo O'Hara

Industry Panel – Hosting Great Events. With Public Librarian Jenny Hawke and Yvonne King of Authors Abroad

Lunch! Nom Nom Nom

Ask Us Anything! With Candy, Mo and Sara

It's a wrap ... and GOOD LUCK!

Writer, editor, lecturer and mentor Sara Grant is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Editing Your Novel: A revolutionary approach to transform your writing, which will be published by Bloomsbury, June 2025. She also consults part-time as Storymix’s talent manager. Dark Parties, her first YA novel, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Europe. Publishers in the US, UK and Europe, including Scholastic, Little, Brown and Orion, have published ten of Sara’s books for children/teens. She’s taught master’s courses on writing for children/teens at Goldsmiths University and the University of Winchester. She co-founded Undiscovered Voices – which has launched the writing careers of more than a hundred authors.

Candy Gourlay has written picture books, young fiction, middle grade and young adult – which is great because she can now do school visits for all ages. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Waterstones, the Guardian, the Blue Peter, the Branford Boase and the coffee book awards (Costa and Nero). Candy, who has worked as a web and graphic designer, was an early adopter of digital platforms, blogging, and creating video for social platforms. She has given presentations on digital opportunity, virtual events and author platforms for Booktrust, the Society of Authors, SCBWI and the Bookseller Conference. Candy has been a SCBWI volunteer for more than 20 years.

Mo lives in South London with her husband, her two kids and her two (slightly bitey) cats. Mo’s New York Times Bestselling series My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish has been translated into 14 different languages. She writes, picture books, young fiction and graphic novels including Agent Moose (Illustrated by Jess Bradley), young fiction series, Honey's Hive (illustrated by Aya Kakeda), and picture book, Hush Little Rocket (illustrated by Alexandra Cook). Mo has visited schools and festivals across the USA, UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. She programs events for Stepping into Stories Kids’ Lit Fest, has been a SCBWI Pulse volunteer for about twelve years and LOVES doing Boot Camp with Candy and Sara!

I am a public Children's Librarian for Bromley Libraries based at Orpington Library but also part of the Children's Team helping to deliver events and activities across all the libraries in Bromley. I am very active in the Youth Libraries Group (YLG) and passionate about children's literature and library services. I have been a YLG SE Carnegie and Kate Greenaway judge and in 2021 won the YLG award in recognition of my work with children and young people. I am currentlyChair of the Youth Libraries Group and also Vice Chair of the GLL Literary Foundation, operated by the charitable social enterprise GLL, which supports authors in writing, inspires reading and champions public libraries.

Yvonne runs the UK department of Authors Abroad which arranges for children's authors, poets, storytellers and illustrators to visit schools, libraries and festivals throughout the UK. She will be sharing how they choose which authors to take on, tips for what makes a successful author visit and what factors a school considers when choosing who to book. She will also give an insight into the difference between managing bookings as an individual or using an agency.

Nina Douglas has been a publicist for over 20 years, both working at major UK publishing houses as well as working as a freelance publicist. Her time in-house was spent working at Scholastic, Hodder Children’s Books, Random House Children’s Books/ David Fickling Books, Orion and Hachette, and she was associate PR Director for Barrington Stoke. Nina now runs her own business, ND PR. In 2021 Nina launched an author/ illustrator training strand to her business with Lit Up, soon to be expanded with a new offering, the Pocket Publicist. Nina can be found mostly on Instagram - @ninacdouglas And also (less frequently) on Twitter - @ninadouglas

Frances is currently the Head of Children's Sales at Bloomsbury, leading the UK Sales team and creating market leading strategies for best selling brands and authors such as the Bunny Adventures, Katherine Rundell and Harry Potter. Prior to this she worked at Nosy Crow for over seven years, selling in the award winning Felt Flaps: Where's Mr/Mrs series, as well as Pip and Posy, Shifty McGifty and Christopher Edge.

Sheila M. Averbuch is the author of middle-grade thriller Friend Me (Scholastic Press New York) and is the UK's first pitching champion for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI.) She holds degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities and a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust, and she co-founded the SCBWI network in Scotland. Sheila lives with her family near Edinburgh.