Interview with Harold Underdown
by Barbara Odanaka
[I've lifted this from Barb's personal web site, Skateboard Mom. She wrote it for Authorlink.com, and it should be available there too, but I can't find it. It appears here word for word as it appears on her site, with a few additions to correct an impression that I am no longer editing print books, when in fact I am still editing them. This does not replace the earlier interview I have on my site--it updates it. H.U.]
Like
most children's book editors, Harold Underdown has a passion for the printed
(and illustrated) page. So it raised more than a few eyebrows last year when
the Charlesbridge editor announced he was leaving traditional publishing for
the Wild, Wild Web.
On
Dec. 1, Underdown became editorial director and vice president of ipicturebooks.com,
founded last year by industry veteran Byron Preiss. The site allows users
to purchase fully-illustrated, ready-to-download children's e-books for about
five dollars per title. Underdown says the company intends to become the
source for children's books online, and with the recent announcement that
AOL Time Warner acquired a majority stake in the venture, the future looks
promising indeed.
Underdown hasn't broken all ties with print publishing, however. This month,
his book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books,
appears in bookstores both real and virtual. The 362-page reference guide,
co-authored by Lynne Rominger, offers a wealth of industry insights, a taste
of which can be found on a special section of Underdown's
popular Purple Crayon website.
Authorlink columnist Barbara J. Odanaka spoke with Underdown in New York last month, following the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference.
Authorlink:
Let's start with your new book. There are a lot of guides on writing for children.
How is yours unique?
Harold
Underdown: This is different from all
of the books out there because they tend to fall into two categories. They
focus either on how to write, or they're market guides like the Children's
Writer's & Illustrator's Market. We're not doing either one of those.
What we have done is create a comprehensive, general guide to children's publishing
as a whole. From how to get started writing a book, [recognizing] the different
kinds of books out there, how your motives as a writer affect what you do,
how to format a manuscript, how to read a catalog and figure out what a publisher's
doing, how to deal with a contract... All the way through to how you can build
a career. That's the final chapter.
Authorlink:
Did you write the book from your own experience or..?
Underdown:
There are parts of the book that are written directly from my own experience
[and parts where] I contacted several dozens authors and illustrators and
editors and agents that I know and asked them questions.
I
also more formally interviewed some editors [because] I wanted to give people
a sense of what editors are like. We're not these gods up on a podium somewhere.
We're people who love books and working with creative people.
Authorlink:
Let's talk about ipicturebooks. You're a guy who's worked for some very traditional
publishers. Did you ever dream say, two years ago, that you would be doing
e-books?
Underdown:
No. The initial impetus was a very personal one. I was simply tired of commuting
to Boston. I took the job at Charlesbridge [in 1997] on the understanding
that I was not willing to move to Boston and that we would work out some kind
of commuting arrangement. We did, and that was fine, but I was the head of
the trade division, editorially, at Charlesbridge and I had staff. I had to
be in the office [more than part-time to be effective].
So, I started looking around New York for work. It became pretty apparent
that opportunities, at least at my level, were pretty limited at the traditional
publishers. I found out, though, through people I knew, about ipicturebooks.
I was told they were looking for an editorial director and they wanted someone
with publishing experience. So I called Byron Preiss and talked to him.
Authorlink:
And?
Underdown:
First, you need to know that I
am still editing print books. They are part of our program, and so I haven't
completely left the "traditional" world.
One thing
that interested me about ipicturebooks is that a lot of the business is about
converting existing books into e-format and finding good out-of-print books
and putting them back into print, in effect, electronically. As an editor,
I've seen books that I've edited go out of print. It's frustrating. I don't
like to see that happen. I also thought it was very interesting to think about
what you could do with e-publishing beyond just straight conversion of a book
into straight electronic format.
It's
a very flexible medium. You can do something very simple, just text on a page--it
can be cheap, cheap, cheap. Or, you can do a complicated book that's really
no longer a book--one that's become another kind of visual storytelling--and
everything in between... A book that has words that you can click on and have
them read out loud to you. A book that has a few pages [with animation]. A
book that has a bifurcated story line where you can click on links and take
the story different directions. A book where you can add your own name. We
are exploring the possibility of having books that can be personalized with
somebody's photo... We're looking at books that not only have animation in
them, but animation that is, in effect, created by the child. There are a
lot of possibilities.
Authorlink:
Don't CD-ROMs already let kids to do some of those things?
Underdown:
Well, this is a lot like that. To some extent, it's simpler and it's less
expensive. It's very hard to get a CD-ROM---at least not until it's been remaindered,
as it were---for less than twenty dollars. We're offering a lot of our titles
for five.
Authorlink:
I may sound like a paranoid mom, but has anyone given any thought to the safety
concerns of having
a kid at the computer so long, such as ergonomics, eyestrain? I mean, why
encourage kids to be on the computer even more than they already are?
Underdown:
Well, our website is not for children--these are books that have to be purchased
by an adult. We will later parts of the website accessible to children. But
we can't do
anything about ergonomics and eyestrain.
Setting up a computer correctly and limiting a child's time on it is up to
the parents. But what you have to think about is, would you rather have a
kid online playing a multi-player game like Doom, or online reading a book?
Authorlink:
Fill us in on the AOL Time Warner deal. How will it change things?
Underdown:
It doesn't really change things because we've been planning for that all along.
The negotiations went back quite a long ways. When Byron first came up with
the idea of doing ipicturebooks, the question in his mind obviously was: from
where does the funding come? He pretty early on looked to find an investment
partner and that became Time Warner. In fact, when I took the job something
of the sort was already expected.
Authorlink:
So that helped your decision then?
Underdown: [Big smile] Ohhh yes. I don't like venturing out into the great unknown.
Copyright 2001 by Barbara Odanaka. All rights reserved.
