I have little recollection of what happened earlier in the year, and I’m assuming not much significant as the only blog posts this year start in May 2011. However behind the scenes much work was happening on figuring out what our next move would be: Is Beachy Books a one book wonder? What book should we publish next? How could we sell more of our first book?

Before we had time to think, our first children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures, won the Children’s category of the DSJT Writing Magazine Publishing Award. This really gave us a boost and we had some very supportive feedback and praise from our wonderful social network Twitter crowd, who have continued to grow and be brilliant throughout the year.

To celebrate the award, we republished a new cover (unfortunately it was too late to put “Award Winning” on the cover as we’d started the process before knowing we’d won). We received helpful feedback on our first book’s cover and also on the price from various people including book sellers and industry people. The feedback was noted and we created a fresh new look that would unify the design and work across future planned Jack and Boo sequels. Crucially, we dropped the cover price from £7.99 to a winning £5.99, which we felt was a better RRP to the end consumer, but allowed less room for trade discounts.

We published Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood (the difficult second book, as we made changes after getting constructive criticism from a professional – changes we think improved the book however!), an adventure inspired by our family love of wild woodland and celebrated with a fantastic foraging walk in the local woodland where some of the photos in the book were taken. I was invited into a local school to read the book, where I did a story and book making workshop with the kids and displayed their wonderful story books at the Quay Arts Book Fair. Oh and we met our wildlife hero, Chris Packham, who kindly wrote some inspiring words about the book, which we used on the back cover. We also got some great promo for the book in a competition in the Wildlife Trusts’ Wildlife Watch magazine.

2011 saw the first time I’d been kindly asked to write guest blog posts. Some of the highlights covered my most cherished childhood picture books, how I introduced my son to the joys of Fighting Fantasy books and a ramble on book categories. Thanks to all who asked and I look forward to future offers!

We didn’t want to wait long to get on with the next book, and besides I needed something to distract me from the slog of trying to get our books into bookshops and other retail outlets – no easy task! So, In October Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day was published, just in time to go on sale for Christmas. One of the highlights was getting a call from the manager of our local Waterstone’s telling us we’d sold them all on Christmas Eve and did we have any more? Unfortunately, we didn’t have any stock in at Beachy HQ due to all our other books getting sold at various events and to other shops – doh! Must order more stock next Christmas!

To finish the year I did a reading of Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day and some activities at a local school, which was scary but an incredible experience – one I’ll be hopefully repeating in the new year.

I wonder what 2012 will bring? In spite of the world being on the “brink” of financial ruin, the planet continuing to heat up and the prospect of wall-to-wall Olympic coverage in the media, Beachy Books is going to push things further and really make our mark. To whet your appetite we have the following new year resolutions:

1. Publish a new Jack and Boo book.
2. Publish a new fiction book for children that’s nothing to do with Jack and Boo (shock!).
3. Commence an exciting publishing project with a local primary school.
4. Jack and Boo wild walks for the 2012 Isle of Wight Walking Festival.
5. Start Project X (not even I know the exact details of this).
6. Save the planet.
7. Tweet!

Happy New Year to all our friends, family, Tweeps, supporters and fans! We love you!

I’d prepared loads of research material, read the book aloud a few times and planned things to do, plus I’d set beeping reminders on my phone so I could dash in time from one classroom to another. Fortunately my job was made easier by the headteacher who based me in one room and arranged for each year group to shuffle in throughout the morning.

My heart was pumping as the first class from year 3 walked in along with a few parents. I had wanted to use the electronic whiteboard to display a digital copy of my book, complete with turning pages. Unfortunately – or typically – the laptop took ages to do anything and I couldn’t control the pages directly on the whiteboard. As I waited for the technician to help me sort the laptop out, the class sat in embarrassing silence on the floor – it was unbearable, so I suddenly announced, “I’ll do it the old fashioned way!” and sat down and started to read from the book. Before long, the class was captivated (mildy interested) and I was away. Soon hands fired up as I turned pages and we got into a great discussion about winter wildlife.

I got so engrossed I hadn’t realised the electronic version was now working on the whiteboard behind me, so when I saw it I proceeded to read from the book, but this time with the benefit of the huge stadium version on the board – very useful to point out things in the book dramatically. There was soon a sea of eager hands waiting to get involved.

For years 2 and 3, I used the themes in the book – winter wildlife, hibernation, migration, snow – as the basis of a quiz, which really got the kids thinking. A child threw out a great fact about stoats that I didn’t know, which prompted me to remark: “That’ll teach me to stand up here pretending to be Chris Packham!”

I ended each reading and discussion with a “make” by showing the class how to make a plastic bottle birdfeeder and gave out instructions so that the children could do the same over the Christmas holidays.

Year 1 and reception were amazing fun too. They got so involved as I read the story and it was fascinating to hear the difference in questions they had. Sometimes a hand would fly up to answer a question, I’d look at them to answer, but they’d suddenly drop their hand and say, “I’ve forgotten now!” and giggle! More often than not, a child would ignore my question and tell me an anecdote about how they made a snowman once – brilliant! I found I got so involved in talking to the children I forgot I’d read a page of the book. A particular highlight was hearing the reception children call like two tawny owls, “t-wit” and “oo-oooo!” It took me ages to get them to stop calling. Great fun.

To finish, I had brought in some ice – not just any ice, Beachy Books Christmas Ice! This was an icecream tub filled with garden leaves, berries and sticks, a few shakes of glitter and then popped into the freezer over night. I was suddenly surrounded by a sea of hands all wanting to touch the ice. They went mad! One boy asked me, “Is it REAL ice?” It was even more impressive when I removed it from the tub and held it aloft for all to see the frozen layers while melting water dripped into a bucket on the floor. Before long we got into a mini science lesson discussing what was happening to the ice and how it felt to touch.

And so, before I knew it, the half day was over, and the last class skipped out chanting “Jack and Boo! Jack and Boo! Jack and Boo!” – I kid you not! I got some great complimentary feedback from the headteacher, teachers and parents and I even sold a few books to parents for Christmas surprises. Later in the day I had children greeting me as “Hello, Mr Bell!” which was very odd and a few saying they’d enjoyed it, so I guess I must have made an impact. I only hope the children learned as much as I did. To paraphrase Bruce Forsyth: “Keeeeeeeeeeeeep learning!”

Look out for Jack and Boo visiting more primary schools in the new year.

Title: Jack and Boo’s Snowy Day

Description: Beachy Books’ winter book follows the adventures of Jack and Boo as they venture out to play on a snowy day, seeing wildlife hard at work hunting for food, following animal tracks, appreciating nature. Written in free verse prose style, mixing illustrations and real photographs, it includes activities to do on a winter day in the snow and a double-page winter wildlife spotter guide.

Author: Philip Bell

Illustrator: Eleanor Bell

Format: Paperback

Extent: 36 pages (32 interior pages, glossy cover)

Publisher: Beachy Books

Size: 216×216mm (8.5 x 8.5 inch)

Binding: Saddle Stitched

Edition: First

ISBN-10: 0956298028

ISBN-13: 9780956298027

Publication date: 3/10/2011

RRP: £5.99

Age: 2-7 years

Where can you buy our books?

My son was overjoyed to finally find a mermaid’s purse the other day on our first visit to a small stretch of shingle beach along East Cowes esplanade, on our lovely Isle of Wight. He has eyes like a hawk, and spotted it amongst shiny black bladderwrack. Inspired by my first find of a mermaid’s purse years ago, I used it as inspiration for a page in our seaside children’s book Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures:

I spot sea glass
for my bucket
sandblasted
in storms
a lost jewel
from a mermaid’s
purse.

Mermaid’s purses are the egg cases of skates, dogfish and rays. I think the one my son found is from a common British shark, known as the lesser spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) or commonly referred to as a dogfish. Egg cases are laid by female dogfishes in shallow waters and the tendrils help them to attach to seaweed. After they hatch, the egg cases are often washed up on the coast for small children to find. The Shark Trust’s Eggcase website is keen that you go to their website and record any mermaid’s purses you find, as numbers of rays and skate have declined in recent years. There’s loads of information on egg cases and if you find one on a beach they have a great identification page to help you classify it.

So, what are you waiting for? Get out on the beach and start hunting for mermaid’s purses! But if you find a mermaid’s handbag, please don’t look inside as the contents are a closely guarded secret. Happy treasure hunting…

As the day progressed I regularly got to give out scavenger hunts and maps to families with children, some being regulars to the wood, others pleased to have discovered the wood for the first time, and many saying they’ll come back to walk again. I sold 2 more books, making a grand total of 5 – not enough to retire on, but certainly more than I expected for a small outdoor event.

It was great to hear people walking out of the wood reporting back on tales of seeing families walking around with the scavenger hunts picking up acorns and beech masts and spotting red squirrels. I also got a few leads for future events working with children and the Isle of Wight County Press photographer turned up for a photo shoot with our children in the wood, so we are hoping for some great publicity in the next paper if we’re lucky.

I’d like to thank the senior and local warden of the Isle of Wight National Trust for letting me do the event at Borthwood Copse, to the local paper and all the people who helped promote the event and who came along today.

We will be arranging a companion walk to this one, next spring, in Borthwood Copse, when the wood will be full of drifts of bluebells, and also look out for more Beachy Book walks coming in the future.

On my frosty walk today I encountered a herd of cows blocking the style I needed to cross. Bearing in mind this is the same field I got chased by sheep in during summer, I really didn’t fancy my chances, so I opted for the country lane instead. Still, all grist for the mill…coming soon… Jack and Boo’s Terrifying Run from a Herd of Evil Cows!

Chris Packham – Naturalist and BBC broadcaster.

To celebrate the launch of Beachy Book’s second children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood, Island author and award winning publishers, Philip and Eleanor Bell, are inviting families and children (or anybody who loves a walk) to a free wild walk and scavenger hunt in Borthwood Copse, one of the Island’s most ancient areas of woodland, owned and managed by The National Trust.

The event takes place on Sunday 23rd October, between 12 and 3pm, at Borthwood Copse, Alverstone Road, Apse Heath, off the A3056 Newport-Sandown road. There is a small Parish Council carpark near on the Alverstone road. Also No. 8 bus stop outside the Borthwood entrance.

The family walk is about a mile long, can be done at your own pace and is suitable for young children accompanied by adults. The paths around the wood may be muddy so bring wellies if you need them. Philip will be at the main entrance to Borthwood (on Alverstone road) to meet you and give you a wild wood scavenger hunt and map, which, if completed and returned to him, offers £1 off the purchase price of a signed and personalised copy of Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood. Beachy Books will be donating £1 from the sale of each book to help The National Trust’s Borthwood Copse conservation work.

Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood contains photographs taken in Borthwood Copse and the adventure was inspired by the authors’ own family walks with their two children. Philip Bell says, “Our children can be reluctant walkers at times, but when we get them out on a woodland walk they have a real adventure full of imagination, nature spotting and scavenging. And in autumn, when the leaves are turning golden and red, the wood looks gorgeous.”

Following on from their first award winning children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood is set in an ancient wild wood. Under canopy of trees they forage like squirrels from spring to autumn, for new shoots and summer fruit, windfall seeds and fallen leaves. Climbing logs, jumping roots, avoiding woodland trolls, spotting butterflies, listening to cuckoos and woodpeckers, counting ducks and even finding a secret swing deep in the woods. The book is both part story and part nature spotter guide, with real photographs taken in some of the Island’s most beautiful woods, including Borthwood Copse.

Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood is priced at £5.99 (ISBN: 9780956298010) and can be ordered direct from the publisher, or purchased at Waterstone’s in Newport, Made On The IOW or ordered via Amazon and other online retailers and bookshops.

Over the past few months I’ve noticed, mostly through using Twitter and social networks, that people are increasingly accessing the web from iPhones, iPads and other smart phone devices. When I viewed the old website on a mobile it looked dreadful – you had to scroll all over the place and zoom in. I hope my changes have now addressed this and this new website should shrink to fit, so to speak.

The other main change is at the top of the site, you’ll hopefully see a nice page-flippable Beachy Books catalogue so you can scroll through all our books (2 so far, with 1 more coming at Christmas. OK, it’s not loads but what do you want, blood?). I could have knocked this out in Flash, a bit like I use for my book previews, but devices with little ‘i’s in their names, iPads, iPhones, etc, in their wisdom, don’t run Adobe Flash. I hope my solution provides a universal book catalogue that should work across devices. I admit, on a small screen, you may need to still zoom in to see the detail.

UPDATE: I’ve temporarily disabled this “flipping” book at the top as, ironically enough, causing problems on iPhones and some other phones. Hey ho, back to the drawing board.

Anyway, I’d appreciate your feedback, especially those with smart phones, tablets, etc. As I say, it’s not set in stone so I can tweak it as we go.

UPDATE – Known Issues:

On mobile devices (and narrow screen displays) there’s a gap that appears under the “flipping” book catalogue at the top and the main menu. Yes, this is annoying and crap of me. This is one of the bugs I have yet to fix. If anybody can fix it I’ll give them a free Jack and Boo book.