Former Hardie Grant Egmont publisher Susannah McFarlane is back with a new company and two exciting new series.
Junior Bookseller+Publisher, 7/9/2009

Keen watchers of the children’s book world may have noticed a ‘gap’ in the industry in recent times. Susannah McFarlane, founding co-owner and publisher of Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE), has been keeping a low profile since selling her share of that business in mid-2008.

But while she’s been away McFarlane has spotted some gaps of her own, and her return to publishing this year, under the banner of her new business LemonFizz Media will see her attempting to fill those gaps with two exciting new series.

‘Why don’t girls get to save the world? This is the question behind the first of McFarlane’s new series, an adventure series aimed at ‘newly confident readers’ aged eight to ten which features a code-cracking girl hero who must juggle school and friendship challenges with her double life as a secret agent—and challenges such as saving the world!

McFarlane, who ushered the HGE ‘Go Girl!’ series into being, said the new series ‘EJ12: Girl Hero’ was a response to a dearth of adventure books for girls. While there are plenty of fairy books, plenty of horse books and plenty of boy-based adventure books, McFarlane, who has a young daughter, could not find anything in the girl adventure genre – and saw an opportunity.

‘She loves maths and that’s how she gets into the Shine Agency,’ says McFarlane of her girl hero, codenamed EJ12. The spy agency is trying to recruit spy code-crackers and they don’t seem to mind what age they are.’ In the first title Jump Start, which launches in February next year, EJ12, AKA Emma, is having trouble with gymnastics moves at school. Luckily her secret life as a spy and the gymnastics required for the job end up helping her out in her everyday life. McFarlane, who wrote Jump Start and the follow-up Hot and Cold (which also launches in February), said the stories were intended to empower girls in their own daily lives by offering a girl hero they could identify with. In a nice touch, the books in the series feature only women characters, in a similar vein to the movie The Women. This characteristic of the books is not an in-your-face one, says McFarlane – it just turns out that the characters Emma interacts with happen to be female.

Partnering with Scholastic

McFarlane is ‘co-publishing’ the series as part of a partnership with Scholastic. McFarlane describes her role under the deal as ‘packager plus’. Her agreement with the publisher means she is ‘responsible for the branding and marketing’, while Scholastic will print the books and drive retail and educational marketing.

‘If you’re small you’ve got to admit you’re small,’ says McFarlane of her decision to co-publish. ‘I needed a market partner and I am thrilled with Scholastic.’

The agreement is for an initial three series of a minimum of 12 books. Two more EJ12 books will launch in April next year and another two in June. The second series McFarlane will be launching – in March 2010 – is aimed at boys and is similarly a response to what McFarlane sees as a gap in the market.

The publisher behind the successful ‘Zac Power’ series tells Junior that through her visits to schools and work with kids she has realized that, while the boy spy series has captured the imagination of many reluctant boy readers, ‘there are still kids not reading even Zac Power’ and that insight produced the Zac Power Test Drives series. Looking at what other options are out there for boys, McFarlane saw that there was ‘still an opportunity in fantasy’. Series such as ‘Beast Quest’ are great, she says, but there’s still nothing in that realm catering to the boy reader who is really struggling—boys for whom a picture book might be the right fit in terms of reading level but for whom such books seem too childish.

McFarlane’s solution is her new series Boy v Beast, a series she is creating in partnership with leading educational publisher Louise Park. Boy v Beast will build on boys’ ‘visual literacy’ by incorporating gaming style images and concepts with relatively simple text for books that, while only including 35 words to a page, tell a far more complex tale than most picture books provide. ‘But don’t tell the boys any of that,’ says McFarlane. ‘They are just going to think they are great books.’

And such boys are fussy, she says. Recounting her visits to schools, McFarlane tells Junior that in the world of ‘beasts’ boys are expert. She’s conducted wide consultation on the subject of what makes a creature a monster and what makes one an alien (the presence of external bones or fur figure strongly in determining such things). ‘They’ll tell you if you got it wrong!’ she says.

McFarlane is keeping mum on the third series she’ll be producing with Scholastic, but she is willing to tell us about a separate project she’s working on with the publisher, as an author. ‘It’s a multi-title picture book series that should launch in August 2010.’

So, author, publisher, packager, marketer … it’s looking like a full year for McFarlane. But there’s one thing she’s ruling out. Despite the ‘media’ in her new business name, McFarlane will be sticking to books. The name reflects the fact that McFarlane’s series concepts can be built on in many ways and on many platforms in future – but these developments will be though partnerships she insists. ‘I’m not about to be a television producer—at least not yet!’ she says.

Bookseller+Publisher, 15/07/2009

Susannah McFarlane, former co-owner and publisher of Hardie Grant Egmont, has announced the launch of her new company LemonFizz Media (LFM).

The business, which McFarlane said would ‘not be a traditional publisher’ will focus on ‘a small number of publishing projects that we are passionate about’.

McFarlane told WBN LFM would be ‘co-publishing’ its first three series as part of a partnership with Scholastic Australia and described her role under the deal as ‘packager plus’.

The agreement with Scholastic means LFM is ‘responsible for the brand and consumer marketing’, while Scholastic will print the books and drive retail and educational marketing. ‘I needed a market partner and I am thrilled with Scholastic,’ she said.

Andrew Berkhut, head of publishing at Scholastic said he was ‘very excited to be working with Susannah, one of the world’s leading children’s book publishers’.

‘Susannah’s arrival is not only great news for Scholastic, but also ensures her special new children’s series in 2010 will provide Australian children with more opportunities to explore and develop a lifelong love of reading,’ he said. ‘We expect Susannah’s wealth of creativity and marketing experience will complement our extensive distribution capabilities.’

The first two LFM series will be launched in early 2010. The first, ‘EJ12: Girl Hero’, is an adventure series for girls aged seven to 10 that features a young girl with a double life as a secret agent as the main character. The second series ‘Boy vs Beast’ is aimed at ‘the very young and reluctant reading boy’. Created in partnership with educational consultant and publisher Louise Park, the latter series will be a ‘Pop and Fizz’ production, said McFarlane, reflecting the LFM name and Park’s Paddlepop Press business.

McFarlane’s new venture follows her departure from Hardie Grant Egmont last year. She said it was ‘good to be back in kids publishing and I look forward to renewing old relationships and making new ones.’

Blanche Clark finds out how one mother helped transform the literary landscape for reluctant readers
Herald Sun, 17/7/2010

MOTHER of two and children’s publishing dynamo Susannah McFarlane remembers a sign that summed up the prevalent attitude to children in London, where she lived for seven years. It said, “‘Sorry, no dogs’, then underneath, ‘No children’, with no apology for discriminating against children,” she says. “And all the doors open the wrong the way for prams. It’s as if they are actively discouraging any reproduction.”

The new millennium had dawned and McFarlane was on a career high as managing director of the children’s publishing house Egmont. But for the sake of her children, Emma and Edvard, she returned to her hometown, Melbourne, where she joined forces with Hardie Grant to create its children’s division, Hardie Grant Egmont. The decision was made to add new Australian titles to Egmont’s treasure chest of favourites, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Winnie the Pooh and Tin Tin.

“The Zac Power series was created because my son wouldn’t read, which is embarrassing when you’re a children’s publisher,” McFarlane says. “Emma, bless her, read from an early age and loves it. Edvard didn’t. He loved being read to, and loved the stories, but he didn’t actually like doing it himself.” Then aged seven, he needed a stepping-stone to the popular Anthony Horowitz books. “It’s a bit like jogging. If you don’t regularly jog, you can’t just run a marathon, and that’s what Horowitz represented to him. And he didn’t like fantasy, so there goes 95 per cent of the books for the age group.”

McFarlane helped formulate the plotlines for the Zac Power books and authors were commissioned to write the stories. “It was about having a fast-paced narrative, basically about getting boys who are reluctant readers to turn the page, finish the book and have that satisfaction, and then get them on to reading books that are more textured.”

The Go Girl series was developed to counter-balance the proliferation of books about princesses, fairies and magic. “There were heaps of sparkly books. I love a bit of sparkle, but girls of that age are really into life,” McFarlane says. “There was nothing that represented their world and all those things that are a big deal when you’re that age – like that awful moment at lunchtime when no one is playing with you and you think no one likes you and your life’s probably going to be over, but it’s completely fine when 10 minutes later you find someone.”

After a change of direction at Hardie Grant Egmont McFarlane left in 2008 and sold her 25 per cent of shares in the children’s publishing company. As part of the deal, she was restricted in her publishing activities for part of last year, but the ideas kept coming. “I thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll have a go at writing myself for fun’,” she says.

McFarlane was intrigued by how girls, even confident girls, put themselves down. “I was doing some voluntary literacy work at school, which I still do, and it’s amazing to watch the range of literacy levels in one class,” she says. “This is generalising a bit, but enough to make the point. Boys could stand up and, even if they were speaking complete rubbish, would be so confident, and some of the girls would be saying interesting stuff and would stand up, and say, ‘Sorry’ or ‘Mine’s not very good’.” She was also sick of girls being the sidekick. “Even Hermoine Grainger, who everyone loves, is still only a sidekick.”

McFarlane started her own business, Lemonfizz Media, and created a series of books starring code-cracking secret agent Emma Jacks, aka EJ12, a pastiche of her favourite TV show Get Smart and the Go Girl and Zac Power series. “The idea was there’d be this issue that she’d want to avoid and she’d get called away on this mission, which would echo the challenge she had in real life, and she’d be able to do the mission, no problem, and when she’d get back to her real life she’d realise she could kick the other problem.”

The books, which are published through Scholastic, are pitched at seven- to 10-year-old girls, with books five and six out last month and books seven and eight due in September. Discerning readers may have noticed that there are no boys in the EJ books. “I don’t think any girl I’ve spoken to has picked it up, but there are not any guys in EJ. The pilot who takes her to her mission and the professor are women. It’s there as a nice revisionism.” But she hasn’t neglected the boys’ market. She has produced, in partnership with educational consultant Louise Park, the Boy vs Beast series as a predecessor to the Zac Power series. “The books are fast-paced and loaded with high energy while maintaining a low word-count and simple sentence structure,” she says.

McFarlane says life is hectic and it’s a challenge to juggle work and her children’s needs. “I knew I was possibly working a bit hard when I sat down to watch MasterChef with the kids and they said, Are you going to watch it?’ and I said ‘yes’, and they said ‘You’re going to sit here and watch the whole thing?’”