IN DEPTH


SCOUT NATASHA FARRANT HAS ALSO ENJOYED SUCCESS AS AN AUTHOR HERSELF


Company Spotlight Natasha Farrant


Scout’s honour: Farrant on market’s fluctuations The literary scout Natasha Farrant, who won


the Costa Children’s Award for her own novel in 2020, discusses how the pandemic has n


affected publishers’ buying patterns, and ket


the trends—or lack of—in the kids’ mark Charlotte Eyre @charlotteleyre 22 15th June 2021


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ovid-19 has “accelerated” the trend of overseas publishers being pickier when buying children’s books from the UK, according to scout Natasha


Farrant. Farrant—whose clients include Hachete Livre in France, Germany’s Carlsen Verlag and Italy’s Piemme, as well as production company Lime Pictures—said overseas publishers had already started to buy fewer books before the pandemic started, mainly because of budget concerns. It’s cheaper to publish local authors, partly because there are no translation costs, and local authors are more available to take part in events such as school visits. “My clients are only buying books they feel really sure about,” she says. “They want to fall in love with a book and taking a chance on a book is even more rare.” When previously books would oſten be pitched overseas at around the same time as they went out in the UK, now they are being delayed before being sent out. “I’m seeing publishers and agents holding back until they have a really polished manuscript,” says Farrant, who is herself


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