Kate Constable's Blog

Advice From My Daughter

Alice: Mum, you should write a series called "The Bum-Droppers" -- you'll laugh so hard, your bum will drop off. This will improve the money you earn and the prizes you win. Every child will know your name. You must aim to beat Andy Griffiths. People will be screaming for your autograph! They'll be hilarious books that will catch the tweens. The tweens are the starting point. Andy Griffiths will have only a handful of admirers, you need a bagful, you have to make them love you.

This thing needs to be hilarious. You have to make your reader believe there is an actual fight in there. Give them a turnover, give them a hit! That's the kind of children this world needs. They'll fall on the floor and laugh their heads off. You need the exact right peppermint of violence -- too many and you feel sick, not too less, give a teaspoon of violence, 1% of the whole book is violence.

The tweens love good hilarious books, that's practically all they read these days. Catch the boys: whole schools, packs, countries of boys! Andy Griffiths has that. Throw him out of the way! You can do it! Also you have to beat Zac Power.

Put letters in, telegrams, more describing words. Super Gun Ball, come home immediately, your father's had a heart attack. They'd find that hilarious! You must express anger -- maybe a few swear words, but they have to be beeped out. Everyone loves a good swear word. Cars exploding! Maybe a murdering footy player. If you don't grab these teens and tweens, who knows what they're capable of!

Me: So what should these books actually be about?

Alice: (gives me a withering stare) I don't know. At the moment we're just talking about marketing.