Okay, so we've got a good, juicy question for you, Helen here. And it's about was this. It's very short and sweet. It's pips for running workshops slash school visits.
Helen:This is good, though. I know, it's a really short question. But the answer is really juicy to this. So one of the other ways that you can make money when you're starting out making picture books is to do school visits, if you're up for it, you know, it's not everybody's cup of tea. And I've never been pressured. I've never had a publisher asked me to do this. But I just I absolutely love school visits. And you can charge a bit of money. I mean, schools are not massively wealthy. So you don't make a huge amount. But it's really good fun. It's a good way of trying your new book idea out with kids, and seeing what genuinely works with a group of kids and what doesn't, I just find it really good fun. But it's only good fun if you've really set your boundaries, because it's so easy for everything to go completely wrong. And I remember in the early days, when I first started doing it, and didn't realize that boundaries are really, really important on school visits, things would happen, like, I would turn up expecting to see, say, for classes of 30 children. And I think, well, what could go wrong, that would be fine. And then I'd get there. And they would forget that organized an author come in. And there'd be no tech person to set up the slides. And, you know, because I'm a Mac person and skills are not Mac people, either. They're all PCs. And then they'd say, Oh, by the way, we're just having an assembly, would you mind just talking to all 400 children in one go. And having never done it before, I'd be like, give it a go. I mean, I have to say it was good in the long run, because I really learned how to do it. And the first ones I did were pretty rubbish. But you're very, very quickly learn what works and what doesn't work. But we're way easier. If you say, you know, when you're first starting out, you might only want to see 30 children at a time. So you just lay out that I'll see 30 children at a time. I'll do 45 minutes, and then I'll need a break. And I like to have the break by myself without the children coming in. Because by then you're so tired. You really really need some of your own space to have a little break. What other things do I ask for I asked never to be left alone with the children because in the UK, you don't actually need it. An author doesn't need to have a background check. But you must never be left alone with children. Sometimes their schools are so hectic, they forget that. What are the things I've written a little list of all the other things that I pay for them before I arrive? Or yeah, tell them what I need. I'll need a flip chart and paper and pens that do work.
Unknown:Like this, you said provide a child to help carry my stuff?
Helen:Yes, because I usually turn up with a suitcase full of things because I've got this lovely old fashioned suitcase with stickers all over it. And so not only you are your new person arriving in the class, who's not a teacher, but you have a mysterious suitcase and they get very excited. But often, you've asked for a flip chart, stand and paper. And then they expect you to carry your suitcase, your backpack and your flip chart from class to class. So I always ask if there can be a couple of children who are my helpers all day. And of course, the children love being your helpers. So that's good.
Tania:What do you ask them to call you?
Helen:Oh, yeah, I set boundaries with the church as well as with the teachers about what I need. Then when I arrive in the class, I set boundaries with the children. So I always say, so while I'm here today, you can call me Helen. And we're going to have a practice of being really noisy. But when I do this, and this is a podcast, so you can't see. But I basically sweep my hands out in front of me like stop silence. I said, when I do that you all have to be quiet. So let's have a practice. So that I teach them when we can go chaotic and crazy. And when I need them to be really quiet. Otherwise, you end up shouting. And by the end of the day, you can't speak anymore.
Tania:That must be really hard for you know, illustrators who have not had any experience of the classroom situation to go into a school cold. Yeah, I
Helen:found it really hard. It took me a while to realize that if I didn't set up those boundaries, by the time I went home, I thought was good die of exhaustion. It was just so tiring.
Unknown:Yeah, and especially when they're excited. Yeah, they'll just be like,
Helen:Oh, they're so excited. And they're all shouting out and you draw something there and they're all screaming it is chaos. And it's brilliant, as long as you can just shut them up when you need them to be quiet so you can do a quiet bit
Unknown:and then enjoy that as well. Only the structure that like I'm looking out for a drink, they love it, they need
Helen:it, they need it. Nobody enjoys it when it just goes into chaos. The other thing I do is I break my 45 minutes into five minutes section. So I'll do this for five minutes then this then this and then I have a couple of extra five minute activities up my sleeve in case we get through it fast. Or I can leave some out if we have a particularly fun class that we ended up talking about. Crazy things that dads have done and stuff like I love all those stories. Secret. Oh I love all this secret stuff. made me so happy. That's so funny. And a recent one I did a completely out of the blue totally dry hadn't spoken to me at all this little girl said, Guess what I'm allergic to? can't guess you have to tell me and she said, what's it walnuts? Amazing. Chose charts. I love those charts. And I feel like it feeds my work. So although it's tiring, as long as you set all the boundaries in place, so that the schools know what they need to do for you, when you're in the class, the children know what you expect of them. They have really, really good fun, brilliant, will you
Tania:do a kind of guide to this in one at one of our courses?
Helen:I would love to do that. I'm gonna do that. We'll do it. We'll put in the picture book course. And we'll put it in the business course a guide on what to charge what you need to tell the school before you go to checklist be so handy, wouldn't it? I wish somebody had told me that on my first school visits, because I didn't know I had any power in it. So I was just like, hello, I'm here. You tell me what to do. But then you kind of get your over, you get used a bit too much. Or, you know, it's just
Unknown:the schools are so busy. They don't have time to be like, well, actually, this would be really useful. So if you show up like the expert that you are, yeah, that's what you need to do. Yes.
Helen:Yeah. So good.
Tania:Can you just tell us about the sticker bid?
Helen:Oh, yes. I always take stickers. So what I realized after my first few visits is you go into class and you say, Oh, I'm Helen Stevens, and I write children's books, they immediately forget your name. And they think you wrote all the books in the world. Because they're kids, and they're brilliant. So what I do at the end of every visit now is every single child that I've seen gets a little sticker with that has the cover of my book on it. So when they get home, their parents know who visited the school. So I get them all to line up before as we're saying goodbye. And I go around to each one and stick a little sticker on the jumper. And you know, I love doing that as well because some of them are scared of stickers. So you have to be a little bit careful. And then some of them just want you to put stickers over their entire uniform and go with that because that's sort hilarious. Oh, yeah, so stickers can't go wrong with stickers,
Tania:I've got a picture in my head of you as Prince Phillip shaking the hands of famous people.
Helen:I have to tell you about what I did on stage the other day. So at the at the end of the performance, this is in a theater 400 overexcited six year olds, it was so much fun. And we all they had a riot we had me and the author had arrived. It was so much fun. And as we left the stage, we had to go into the audience and like through by the side of the audience up the stairs to the door at the back of the theater. And all these six year olds or put their hands out like we were like rock stars. So as we went along, we're like
Unknown:did you feel like a sports person screaming I love you
Tania:you'll never
Unknown:Oh, it's so delight is so fun children will have felt the same thrill that touched her hand.
Tania:Remember, there will always be a kid in class who wanted to be close to the visitor wanted to be favorited by the visitor. So they've got a lot of motivation.
Helen:There's always one when you're in a class, it's usually a little girl who sits like they'll sit down right beside your legs right beside them. And while you're talking this stroke your legs.
Unknown:My child does that at the library when we go to nursery rhymes on the lady reading the nursery rhymes.
Helen:Oh, I love that. It's so lovely. If
Tania:you picked the right career, it's just perfect, isn't it?
Helen:I love it. I love it. Yeah, but you need to all have boundaries in place. Same when you do theater visits and book festivals and all of that. You need to tell them what you need. Yeah, otherwise you get there. And it's just a disaster. I went to one book festival. I won't say which one, but it's a very big famous one that everybody wants to do. And they invited me along. I just won the day before the dandy Picture Book Award. So I was on a high and they flew me down to the hair festival. Oh, you said it. I'm sorry. Maybe we should be? No, well, it's true. So we don't need to go and it was kind of 20 years ago. So they sorted their actor,
Unknown:the person who was working on the bit that may be gone died. And they gave me some
Helen:nice foot cream to say sorry for this, but I flew down to the festival. And they've not put me on the itinerary. So there were only two children there. And one of the children had an absolute meltdown and just cried during the whole thing and it was pouring down. Oh it comes down from all that traveling for two children one of whom was crying the whole time and then I went home I would want more than foot cream. They gave me foot cream and a box of champagne like lots of bottles of champagne and box. I couldn't carry them because I was getting the train home it was too heavy. So I just had to leave a fiasco me Yeah. Yeah,
Unknown:I suppose that's because you'd that's you couldn't really control that. Could you notice them? Well I actually
Helen:do now. So if you're inviting me, please share it on social media, I'll share your things. Don't forget to tag me. If I share something, please share it back. Don't forget to put me on the itinerary. So good to have those boundaries. Because yeah, you're right.
Unknown:I suppose, knowing that you
Helen:have that power. It takes a huge amount of effort to do those things. And if they don't put the effort in back, it's just demoralizing. Yeah.
Tania:What's your rider as the Chris
Helen:should be? That's going on three different flavors. Marmite crisps family size by
Tania:two questions, right? One is already is hardcore money question, what kind of thing Do they pay how much
Helen:the book festivals pay hardly anything. Like you're lucky if you get 100 quid. So if you're doing it, you're doing it for the publicity, of promoting your book. They pay you hardly anything but the publisher pay for the hotel and they pay for your travel. Sometimes I've asked for more, and they will pay me more. But you might as well. You're doing it because you've got a new book out. And you get all the chat around. You been at that particular festival. So the social media reciprocation super important. Yeah. And if there's any religions that have interviews, and yeah, sometimes they send photographers and take pictures, sometimes they forget or double book you with another Yeah, another festival I went to that I put a lot of effort into, I got there. And they'd put there was supposed to be a clown on after me. And something happened. And it was the time all the kids come out of school and walk past this festival. And I was on. So I said yes, because of that brilliant, really big crowd. This for some reason, the clown couldn't go on after. So he was an attempt beside me at the same time. So virtually all the kids went in there. Oh, no, yeah. If you do it, you're really doing it, you're on risk. And you can ask to make sure everything's done properly. But still, it doesn't always happen.
Tania:Okay, so how about our poor schools? And there's probably a difference between what an independent school can afford and what a government school can afford, it'd be
Unknown:different. Yeah. What level of your career as well, I suppose. I guess.
Helen:So. Yeah. And I think the more experienced you are so on your webs on my website, I don't. I do have a school visit on there at the moment. That is just a virtual school visit. Because it's so time consuming to travel to a school and do a visit. I do them really rarely now. Even though I love them, because they can be really hard work. There's a lot of traveling it is like, Yeah, we don't want to do it or not. And
Tania:we don't live in the best place for accessing other schools to it. Yeah.
Helen:So yeah, right. So what I would do is really lay out on my website, all of the years of experience I've got what they can expect of me what I expected them, what educational level my workshops are good for, when I say workshops, that makes it sound very educational, and they're mostly silly. And loads and loads of reviews. And then I'll charge sort of 350 400 450 for school visits, but most schools can't afford it. So now and again, I'll do one for free of what lots of people virtual one, isn't it? Yes. Why I have this virtual school visit there now because you want all schools to be able to experience it. And the next best thing is a virtual school visit was gonna say, oh, yeah, this is a really good thing lots of people do. And if I was about to really go in for school visits again, I would do this as they say, your visit a private school where they'll pay you properly, you might get 450 500 pound for a day, but you ask them to invite in a local public school. So that everyone, everybody benefits from it. That's cool. Which is a really good idea. Definitely. Yeah, it's
Unknown:not just them. Getting the good stuff. Yeah,
Helen:yeah. But don't do a school visit for like, unless you're really promoting a book and you're desperate to do it and you love playing with children. Don't do it for 100 pounds or something was too much wine. If
Unknown:you looked around the corner, that's you might as well get a medal. No, of course.
Tania:The exception is your own kids. Yeah,
Helen:of course. I've done pie schools for free for years until now. She's 15 and does not want you to visit. But yeah, I've done all her schools for free. And I have a favorite school stonnington School in Northumberland, who I would always do because this is all gorgeous. The teachers are very excited about it. They've worked with them beforehand. They always do everything you need. They give me a nice quiet classroom at lunchtime with a really good lunch. Nice. So yeah, I've got my pet schools.
Tania:That's got to be an important part if they're so if they've done a lead up and the kids know the book, and they're really familiar with it, do they usually do that? Or do you come in cold? They don't know who you are.
Helen:It's a mix and it doesn't really make much difference. And the fun thing is, like it doesn't make much difference because I'll read the book and certain points I'll say, What do you think will happen next? And so whether they've read it or Not half of the children will have forgotten it anyway. something ridiculous, you know, it doesn't really make a big difference except that having the teachers very engaged and not marking homework while you're doing it. Because sometimes that happens. Sometimes teachers chat at the back of the class. And kids turn around and look at them while you're trying to do your thing. Because the kids know better, how rare so having a school where the teachers are really engaged, it's brilliant, because if the teacher is sat on the floor with the kids, and putting their hand up with the kids, and that's just incredible, because the kids then just join in, they know their teacher is relaxed. Yeah. And they go with it. Whereas if you've got a really strict teacher, often the kids, you ask them a question, and they're all silent. And the term slowly look at the teacher like, Are we allowed to answer? That's really sad. It shows
Unknown:the value of a good teacher.
Tania:Have you ever done kind of workshops at museums or big book shops, you know, a lot of children's book illustrators, Marian disaster that at, you know, various kinds of events and museums that they'll do a big workshop painting and
Helen:a half there a mixed bag as well. So my experience of a bookshop visit as always been pretty well, you can't guarantee a crowd, even if you do it at school, leaving time how many are going to get in, read if you've got a new book out, and it's really worth it, do it. But the school bookshop, I don't think I've ever been paid by a bookshop. If it's a really really popular bookshop with lots of customers with really engaged managers, you know, like an indie, an indie bookshop is worth it. Sometimes I'll go in and paint a window. I'll be there all day and sign books while I'm painting the window. That's good fun. But it's usually for free. So you need to have a new book out somewhere of our museum museums. Yeah. Same as a book festival, except usually a school as a museum. have sold tickets in advance. You've got a guaranteed audience. Yeah. Which is good. And you need to tell the museum what you need for your little workshop. Yeah, yeah. I've done bookshop visits before where they've said to me, will you come in on Saturday morning and be there for an hour, and I get there, no children will be there. And there might be one in the picture book section that you go, would you like to come? So I don't know. If there's an event around a bookshop with a sign in afterwards, that's more successful.
Tania:And probably if if a publisher as arranged a kind of marketing agent to set something up, and they really want to push it? Yeah,
Helen:I remember once my publisher set up a little bookshop to her. So I had a new book out and we did a tour of book shops all in one dog one day, that was really good, because it was all one day, it was really concentrated. Each bookshop had a massive stack of books. I have done museum visits before where I've forgotten to say to them, make sure my books are in the shop, because you think well of course they're going to do that you get there you do a u event. And there's no books in the shop so they nobody can even go and buy one totally. So you've really got to be on it, telling them exactly what you need and never assume
Unknown:it's gonna say don't assume things. Yes, yes, this book shop people are busy running the company and then they might miss that obviously.
Tania:Can you tell us as well about remember the the event that you set up in the town hall. We just invented it. I was I thought this was such a brilliant idea.
Helen:So she could do that day. So when I wrote how to hide a lion, I just moved to our little seaside town of Barrick and when I moved here, I got the idea for how to hide a lion because because this is a really silvery gray town with silvery gray stone walls and buildings and we get these sea mists that come in. It's really silvery. And I'd been drawing the town a little bit to try and make myself feel at home here. And one day after doing this drawing, I thought you need something yellow in amongst all this gray What if it was a lion and so then I wrote how to hide a lion. And then when it came out, I thought the in how to hide a lion. You can see Beric townhall in the book, I thought would it be good to have a launch in the town hall? So the townhall costs nothing for a day does it so cheap is cheap, 50 quid or something for a whole day or so a bit
Unknown:more than that. It's still in the grand scheme of things it's afford.
Helen:This was like 15 years ago, and it costs nothing to hire the town hall. So we hired the town hall. I should describe the town hall. It's like an ancient Guild Hall isn't a
Unknown:dog pointy building, right? Yeah, hi.
Tania:Everyone thinks it's a church because it's got a big old spy. It's not like you think of a town halls got a big that's usually got the wrong time.
Helen:prison cells or prison cells upstairs where they used to imprison smugglers because we're a fishing town. It's really interesting building such a place to hold the town hall. And then in the wake up to the launch party. I've visited every single school in barrack I remember how many that is but maybe six or 10 schools. And in every school, every single child made a house in Beric. And I gave them all the same color palette so that when they put them all together, they would look right because Barrick has a real distinct color palette, orange roof tiles, and then some houses are blue roof tiles and these silvery gray walls. I bought some habitat wallpaper that looked like silvery gray walls. And they all had to stick that on their houses. And some of our lots of schools made little fishing boats out of cardboard. So every child's object was really beautiful. And then on the launch party, we brought every single object together, which was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. And we made them into barracks. So we put the river coat with all the boats on and all the houses and the town hall. Oh, it was incredible. It was really good. And then in those school visits, I, I'd rehearsed with all the children. When you go home tonight, tell them there's a party at the town hall and you really want to go what do you have to say to your parents, and they would all say, and we got huge, huge amount of children there. My publisher came along and we had stacks of books to sign. My mom made cakes. We serve cakes and tea slash just it was so much. That was brilliant. Have you got photos?
Tania:Still?
Helen:I will have somewhere on an old phone. Yeah, it was amazing. You should post them on your on your Instagram. I'd
Tania:love to see well.
Helen:I'll dig them out.
Tania:That's genius. That's gonna be the best book launch social outreach childhood event ever.
Helen:It was really good. Yeah, it was brilliant. Good party.
Tania:Do you think your next books as well ought to be a collection of all the weird things children have ever asked you that would make such a great book, wouldn't it? That would
Helen:be so good. Have we used up our entire podcast time talking about it's worth?
Tania:So well onto the next one. Next. Next set of questions.
Helen:Yeah. Questions tomorrow. Tomorrow's podcast. Yeah, brilliant.
Unknown:Let's do it. Okay. Yeah, by the end of that one.
Tania:Yeah. Bye for now.