Our new landlord, Konglomerate

A new landlord is usually not your friend. Not necessarily your enemy either but generally there is just a faint relationship formed which is centred on how reliably you pay the rent.  Our new landlord, however, is a big, warm, funny Greek man called Kon.  We call him Konglomerate, after the character Con Glomryt in The Desperate Dwarf. His father was a property developer who sold everything in the seventies and went back to Greece where he discovered more relatives than he had remembered. He returned to Australia a few short years later, a lot poorer than he left, and had to start his property empire again when prices had more than quadrupled. Dad passed away and Kon now looks after the properties. What makes Kon so unusual is the extraordinary generosity he has shown us.  Pick whatever carpet you want, never mind about the price. You like those blinds? You can have them. I'll install a brand new air conditioning system and new vents while I'm at it. Yes, you can choose the new kitchen and the tiles. You'd like me to cut a hole in that wall and make a doorway?  Sure, I'll do that and please, let me buy you a ton of Haighs chocolates to take back to the girls.


I admit I was skeptical. I was suspicious. I worried that this was all too good to be true but every time I visit the new office to check on the progress of the work, he's done what he said he would. And he buys me coffee at the cafe across the road where we go in through the back door and the MIB that run the place seem always to have something to say to Kon.


Last week as I sat with Kon and two of his friends drinking my skinny cap while they downed their short blacks, they told me that now they had this close relationship with a children's publisher, and they know this is a lucrative business, they are going to write a children's book. I told them we had an excellent rejection slip. All three swung around and fixed me with their suddenly steely eyes.


'We don't take rejection well,' they said as one.


I'm pretty sure they were joking ...

Some thoughts from our Driver.

Competition!

Omnibus author Ian Irvine is having a monster (or should that be 'demon'?) of a competition over at his Facebook page. He's giving away 300 books in 200 hundred days! If we weren't all focused on words here on the bus, we'd be able to do some proper maths but it's definitely more than one book a day to be won! With the third book in the Grim and Grimmer series, The Desperate Dwarf, out next month and the final, hilarious book, The Calamitious Queen, out in June 2011, this competition must be Liked. So go Like it, people!

 

Your conductor needs a ticket to the Bahamas

There is not enough chocolate in the world to make moving an entire office feel easy. In ten days we will find all our possessions in some large trucks on their way to the even smaller cottage down the road. Time to replace two-drawer filing cabinets with four-drawer cabinets to make more space and, of course, that means taking all the files out.  While they're out I thought I might as well re-organise them. Are we the only publisher who keeps detailed files on each book?  And why is it that those files are so hideously out of order? And while I'm at this particular whinge, have you ever tried to file email correspondence in order when threads are pages long and copied from halfway through or a third of the way or even again and again from the start with five minute intervals separating them?


I have to pack my library, again.  Hard decision time so I could do with some advice. Is it best to shelve a picture book library by title, author or illustrator?


Should I take my tiered cake-plate collection to the new office or finally take them home?  (Who, I wonder, keeps their cake plate collection at work?) I've taken down the wooden thingos that my husband made and hung in my room.  It's amazing how much dust something hanging from the ceiling can gather over six or seven years.  I know the big armchair won't fit in my new room so does anyone want a great big blue armchair?  It's very comfy and lots of VIP bottoms have plonked down in it over the years.  Hardly any wear and tear either.  VIPs have awfully soft bottoms it seems; I think its all those cashmere clothes they wear.


Well, here's my stop. I'm off. 


P.S. Please don't send any manuscripts till we either a) get settled or b) return from the Bahamas.

The aforementioned Bahamas (pic courtesy of here)

Some thoughts from our Driver.

Hello, 2011!

'Tis the start of a new decade, when it seemed we hadn't really got the hang of the last one yet. And we're told that babies being born now, our readers and future readers, are going to be called the Alphas. Wow! And there will be a lot of them. It could get squeezy on this old bus.

So in honour of the Alphas, here is a sneaky peek at what will be rolling off the Omnibus digital presses for these digital babies (and their older brothers and sisters) this year.

Doom Bunny and the Monster Catchers by genius-girl writer-illustrator Loren Morris is out in February. She prefers stripey socks and irreverent humour and eats monsters for breakfast. Loren is amazing.

And in March we will be super excited to see Randa Abdel-Fattah's new book The Friendship Matchmaker sitting on the bookshop shelves.

The final installment in the horrorific and hilarious Grim and Grimmer series, The Calamitous Queen, is out in June. Will Ike ever overcome his awkwardness? Or will his innards just be devoured by the screeching imp Nuckle, once and for all?

In August a new four-book series called Raven Lucas by Christine Harris will be hitting the shelves, technology all charged up. Because sassy, determined girl investigators don't carry magnifying glasses anymore, they carry smartphones.

And, oh, it's so exciting - a new series by Emily Rodda! Yes, folks, you heard right, a brand new series! The Golden Door will be out later in 2011.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2011 from all of us at Omnibus Books, 

Dyan, Celia, Joanne, Gina and Patricia

See you in the new year!

Image from Zizzy by Penny Matthews and Danny Snell

Published in 2010 by Omnibus Books

Image copyright Danny Snell

Christmas favourites

We love babies here on the ol' omnibus, so naturally we have a special fondness for the Christmas nativity. Because really, when animals and babies take the stage together whose heart wouldn't be warmed? In The Nativity, Julie Vivas brings a light and gently humorous touch to a traditional version of the story.

And in Wombat Divine the collective genius of Kerry Argent and Mem Fox give poor old Wombat, who tries out for all of the other parts unsuccessfully, the starring role as the sleeping baby Jesus.

And for something just a little different, for older readers, check out Pilot & Huxley and the Holiday Portal. You'll never think of Frosty the Snowman in the same way again ...

We like ...

Freya Blackwood guest blogging at Readings about the creative process behind our very own Harry & Hopper. Definitely one of our favourite multi-award-winning picture books this year and, well, ever.


Harry & Hopper by Margaret Wild and Freya Blackwood