The unguided spotter walks have been organised as part of the Isle of Wight Walking Festival 2012, and the author will also be at Borthwood Copse for a repeat walk on Saturday 19th May 2012 (click to see full details), again at 1pm. (The title of the walks are printed incorrectly on the council website – the walks are Spotter Walks, the scavenger hunt is in the autumn – scroll down for details).

Borthwood Copse is owned by The National Trust and many of the photos in the book were taken in the wood. The walk is free with voluntary donations to the National Trust’s Borthwood conservation fund.

Philip Bell says: “It’s the perfect time to see the wood because of the bluebells – which look and smell wonderful! You can also look out for bumblebees, woodpeckers and other spring flowers. The walk is unguided – so you can go at your own pace. It’s around a mile or so, but you can make it shorter or longer as there are various paths. It’s a pleasant circular walk that’s ideal for families and children so please come along and bring a picnic if you want.”

If you fancy a walk and spotting signs of spring in a beautiful ancient woodland, Philip will be at the main entrance of Borthwood Copse, by the number 8 bus stop on Alverstone Road, Winford, near Sandown from 1pm.

If you have an “off-road” buggy with tyres you can still join in and it’s dog friendly, but the National Trust ask that you keep dogs on a lead please. If you come by car, there is limited parking on the road and also a small council owned car park up the Alverstone road (past the turning to Forest Road) on your right.

If you park then walk along to the main entrance to collect a map and Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood Spotter Guide from Philip and he should have a few Beachy Books with him if you want to buy a signed copy or order books.

If you enjoy this spring walk then please come back during the Autumn Walking Weekend (also part of The Isle of Wight Walking Festival) to see how the wood has changed and take part in the Wild Wood Scavenger Hunt!

For more information Contact Philip Bell.

But is it spam? Technically – well, yes but very polite spam. I checked with a number of bookshops on the etiquette of emailing details of books and all were fine with it – how else would I tell them about our fantastic books without a huge advertising campaign and Hollywood movie? It was interesting that many of the bookshops I contacted learned of books on Twitter and Facebook, as well as the traditional channels of reviews, the media and good old word of mouth. If it’s done politely, sensitively, stylishly, and from the heart, I think it’s a valid option for the micro publisher.

I have to say a huge thanks to my mum, who became an honorary member of Beachy Books, and spent the last few months adding bookshops to our database. I then went through the list and filled in blanks, got email addresses and networked on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s taken ages to compile the list and I admit I got very distracted visiting bookshop websites and Facebook pages, virtually browsing and marvelling at some of their cosy interiors, innovative marketing ideas and mouthwatering cakes in the bookshop / café combinations.

I might write a blog post or two on a few of the more innovative or interesting bookshops I’ve discovered in the future, but all in all, it was encouraging to see many of the bookshops obviously still thriving, despite The Booksellers Association reporting an overall decline, in 2006 there were 1500 independent bookshops, falling to 1099 in 2011. It was encouraging to learn 50 new independent bookshops opened across the UK in 2011, however 72 closed.

Most bookshops that seemed to be doing well were selling food, providing additional activities for customers and creating real community spaces. Inevitably there were many I came across that were no longer trading, the owner sadly having died or retired. One was now a tattoo parlour!

This’ll make you laugh (or confirm your view I’m an idiot) because a small batch of bookshops received an email addressing them as “Dear <INSERT NAME>” when I got briefly distracted by my daughter asking for a snack. When I returned to the computer I just sent the emails out! Doh! The lesson is, check your mailshot and then check again. Then check again. Then send it. And then don’t keep hassling them or put them on a mailing list. I sent mine from my email client in small personalised batches with a little message saying I’d never darken their email boxes again if they preferred.

And to my surprise I got some immediate responses complimenting me on my mailshot and our books. I’m happy to say I’ve also already had a few confirmed orders of Jack and Boo children’s books from independent bookshops! Whoop! I’m not planning to retire just yet as I know that a typical response rate from a direct marketing email campaign is around 3-5%, so taking the worst case, that’s a response from around 14 bookshops – assuming none of the emails were invalid, which some were.

Email responsibly kids…

A small independent UK publisher, Beachy Books, has signed a deal with an unnamed Hollywood studio to make a live action version of their popular Jack and Boo children’s books in 2013. An undisclosed Hollywood director is said to be very interested in the project but no official news has been released on the title or plot as of yet. Philip Bell, author and publisher of the Jack and Boo titles, has remained tight lipped. “I cannot reveal who the director is just yet as we’ve still got to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but let’s just say Jack might be wearing a cowboy hat and Boo carrying a whip.”

Twitter has been buzzing with rumours of who might play Jack and Boo in the live action version. A popular Hollywood Gossip blog has been publishing rumours that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson would be an obvious choice. Mr Bell said in response, “I think they could be a bit old. Although if Jack and Boo were CGI they could interact with them – you know, like The Muppets! Ha! I’m thinking more unknown childhood stars really, but it’s out of my hands as I’ve not got any control over casting. If I had my way I’d cast my own children. But my son might expect too high fees. My daughter would simply do it if she got ice cream everyday!”

No doubt whoever is cast in the leading roles will have to be versatile and fit because in the stories Jack and Boo regularly run through woods, balance on logs, spot nature and go beach combing. Mr Bell said, “The film will take elements from the books, keeping to the true nature-led spirit of the adventures but will be a brand new story.”

Watch this space for more news of Jack and Boo go to Hollywood…

UPDATE: April Fool’s 2012! Hey ho, one day perhaps…

We were very fortunate to have Naturalist and BBC presenter, Chris Packham, endorse the book and here’s what he said about it:

“This story lays down a lovely list of things for children to do in the real world of nature. I urge you to read it and then let them enact it for themselves. Only then will we have future generations who will love wildlife enough to protect it.”

You can view a preview of Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood here.

Title: Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood

Description: Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood is a children’s picture book story, for ages 0-7 years, about two children exploring an ancient wood, smelling, tasting, collecting, exploring nature, poetically written and illustrated in full colour with real photos. Includes a woodland spotter guide, scavenger hunt and family activities. An original mix of fun, fact and fiction from Beachy Books, an independent children’s book publisher based in the Isle of Wight.

Author: Philip Bell

Illustrator: Eleanor Bell

Format: Paperback

Extent: 32 pages

Publisher: Beachy Books

Size: 216x216mm (8.5 x 8.5 inch)

Binding: Saddle Stitched

Edition: First

ISBN-10: 095629801X

ISBN-13: 9780956298010

RRP: £5.99

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?