From the seed of an idea to it being a proper book.

Georgia Byng started to write Albi, the Glowing Cow Boy twenty three years ago, when her daughter, Tiger was nine. Georgia got the idea from seeing a calf in a field with its mum. Tiger really liked the idea of the book and so Georgia got going with it. And she finished it, though it was completely different to how it is now.

At the time, most people didn’t think twice about eating meat and animals. Most people just did it, and Georgia knew that it was going to be difficult to publish a book that suggested people should maybe want to stop eating animals. So she gave up on searching for a publisher. (For those of you who don’t know, publishers and their businesses are the people that turn authors’ manuscripts into the proper books that you see in the shops). Besides she had already started writing another book – this one about a child hypnotist. It was called Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism and was easy to get published.

Before Georgia knew it she had written six books about Molly Moon. And other books too. She was busy making a Molly Moon film too. Then one day, seventeen years after the first version of Albi, her son Sky, who was eleven years old read it and said that Georgia ought to go back to it. He badgered her about it which was lucky because perhaps without his push, she might not have rewritten it. Three years later she got down to the rewriting. So this was twenty years after the first version of Albi was written! Her other son, Lucas read through the new version. It was missing something and after a long chat, they realised that the book needed a villain. And so Rufus Chumley was born. That happened twenty one years after it was first thought about.

As you can see, books can take a long, long time to come into existence. And often many people are responsible for parts of them. For instance Georgia’s fiancé, Guy was very helpful. In the first version of the book, the thing that made Albi more intelligent were the nuggets he eats at the farm. Georgia wrote it that the nuggets had a lot of dust on them and Albi eats a lot of this dust and that is what makes him so intelligent, but then she realised this could be improved by making the intelligence come from something more connected with nature. She was thinking of making him find white milk flowers but Guy suggested that mushrooms were more magical. He was right and so Georgia wrote that the spores come from the sky, falling on a snowy night, flashing silver in the air as they come down. They land in the ground making it pulse with light, before burrowing down into the soil and their light going out. The next day, where the spores have fallen, milk mushrooms sprout in the sun.

After finishing the book Georgia had to have her agents read it. Caradoc King and Millie Hoskins. An agent is a person someone who helps a writer find a publisher. Caradoc is a marvellous agent. He’s been at it for years. He is well-read, which means that he’s read barnful’s of good books. This makes him extra-knowledgeable when it comes to books. He knows what ingredients work well together in stories. Millie is much younger than Caradoc. She is very good at being an agent. She has a lot of energy, and gave Georgia lots of spot on notes to help her make the book better. She found the perfect publisher for Albi. Publishing companies are a bit like stables, with the books being the horses that live there. Hazel Holmes is the publisher who runs the publishing company, UCLan Books. Hazel is a great publisher who has lots of experience finding the right people to get a book looking good and reading well

On the reading front, Hazel found the excellent Emma Roberts who was a really wonderful editor. Perhaps some people reading this won’t know what an editor is or what they do. Well, when they are good, an editor is a bit like a very special, inspiring teacher who reads and thinks about what a writer has written, and then puts constructive notes at the side, with big ticks and congratulatory remarks when the writing deserves them and kind notes when it needs attention, suggesting how it might be improved. Emma is as talented as editors get. She was forensic in her Albi work – spying problems like a keen gardener who has an eye for rusted leaves or mouldy flowers, who points to all of them with her scissors. Without her, the book would have been in some places thin on the bone and in others, flabby. And full of spullung mustookes.

After this all sorts of other people were on board. Various children read copies of the book. Their views were very important. As were the opinions of Georgia’s friends and family who read it. It’s important for writers to be open and listen to what these sorts of readers think and if they are right, to change what needs to be altered.

On the looking side of things Hazel, the publisher found a clever person called Becky Chilcott who made sure all the letters were in a good font, and that spacing was right and she put mushrooms and the shiny cover on the book and designed the look of the pages. She also found the brilliant Levi Pinfold to do the cover illustration and the amazing Angela Cogo to do all the illustrations inside the book. Georgia and Becky wrote up a list of illustrations needed for the book and Angela sent sketches of scenes. Once these were agreed upon Angela completed the pictures.

After everything was type-set and all the pictures were in place, a helpful person called Charlotte Rothwell proof-read the book. She found all the tiny mistakes that everyone else had missed. Then the book went to print on Saturday, November 12th, 2022.

But this was not the end of the book’s journey. Georgia made a website for it with the brainy musician/computer designing whizkid, Steve Jones. He is a very experienced website designer. Georgia puts in the content of the book, with the help of Albi, and Steve makes it work, and adds the moos and spinning mushrooms and all the cool stuff.

And where will the book go next?

Hopefully it will get published in other languages, and will be read on an audio book, by a really good actor. Maybe in lots of languages. With illustrative sound effects in the background if possible. And who knows, maybe Albi’s film will be made eventually?