BUSINESS
THE SALARIYA BOOK COMPANY
The Salariya Book Company was founded in Brighton in 1989 by David Salariya, with the aim of building an independent children ' s publishing brand that would prize innovation, humour and quality above all else. A global publisher, they see books as an invaluable learning and development aid, especially in the first few years of life, so their wonderful range of titles are not only entertaining and stimulating, but also highly engaging and interactive.
Hi David. What inspired you to launch Salariya? The core aim has always been to make our books fun, accessible and to create a sense of wonder in children about the real world.
What do you consider to be the most important characteristics for a children’ s book? You have to consider each book in terms of what it is trying to achieve: picture books for preschool children can be fantastical and have bold illustrations, where information books for schoolage children should be clear, accessible and engaging. However, as a general rule, you can engage with children through the use of humour both in the text and illustrations. Reading is such a personal experience, so children should be able to find the material they enjoy without a parent or teacher having too much control; if a child enjoys reading comics, make sure they have comics.
Do you feel there are children’ s books out there that transcend cultural differences? Books that have a very original concept- where the artist or author has a real individual look or voice- work well; and also you can just be lucky that a subject ends up chiming with a global trend. I am astonished that we have books from our‘ A Very Peculiar History’ series translated and published into Turkey, China and Taiwan. Christmas, Greek myths and vampires are not subjects which you would immediately think of as being popular in these countries, but they are. Our highest global sales are in the USA and China, which are clear cultural opposites, but that in our experience enjoy the same kind of material. Much of the broad appeal of our books is based in the humorous presentation of concise, razor-sharp information.
How do you choose the themes for your book collections? We choose the themes of the information books using general subject headings like‘ The Tudors’, or‘ Ancient Egypt’, and then we look at how the subjects can be interpreted- that is when reinvention of the subjects starts and creativity comes into play. We have just commissioned a new book to be published next year which will look at the role of women in WWI.
We have a commitment to publishing information books which will hopefully grab attention, such as our recent series of‘ You Wouldn’ t Want To Live Without’ titles, which use lively, quirky illustrations and easy-tofollow text to explore in a child-friendly way how inventions and natural phenomena that are taken for granted, such as trees, toilets or electricity, have revolutionised our lives.
Is there a standout children’ s book that you’ ve discovered over the years? Why? We commission the material for many of the books we publish, but there have also been a few‘ discovered favourites’, all with brilliant pictures, which we’ ve published in English for the first time. Two of these are The Chicken Who Had Toothache and
The Dad With Ten Children by Bénédicte Guettier. The Dad With Ten Children is interesting because fathers, especially ones caring for their children, are usually absent from children’ s books, but the dad in this book is very hands on, caring singlehandedly for 10 unruly young children.
What does the future hold for Salariya? Aside from continuing to produce innovative print books, we’ re also thinking of new ways to develop some of our flagship brands, including building online games and apps that will tie in with our core titles, and taking a stage version of our book You Wouldn’ t Want To Be In The Great Fire Of London! to Edinburgh. It will have a cast of thousands- all played by two actors! We’ re hoping that this production can be toured around UK schools as well. We’ ve also just launched our new e-commerce website, which for the first time will allow us to sell our titles directly to our audience, as well as providing teachers and students with a range of free and fun classroom activities.
The Salariya Book Company 25 Marlborough Place Brighton BN1 1UB
01273 603306 www. salariya. com
@ theSalariya
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