For a few years now, some of the hottest fairy properties on bookstore shelves have been the Rainbow Magic books — U.K. imports written by Daisy Meadows (which is I’m sure is – ahem – a real person’s name) and published in the U.S. by Scholastic. So far "Daisy" has penned at least nine Rainbow Magic series, each featuring at least seve titles, all aimed at very young readers. The shelves of our beginning reader section (which are currently groaning for lack of space from having to accommodate all of these) are currently home to…
The Rainbow Fairies (e.g. Ruby the Red Fairy, Inky the Indigo Fairy),
The Weather Fairies (e.g. Abigail the Breeze Fairy, Evie the Mist Fairy),
The Petal Fairies (e.g. Pippa the Poppy Fairy, Olivia the Orchid Fairy),
The Pet Fairies (e.g. Katie the Kitten Fairy, Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy),
The Jewel Fairies (e.g. Scarlett the Garnet Fairy, Sophie the Sapphire Fairy),
The Fun Day Fairies (e.g. Willow the Wednesday Fairy, Felicity the Friday Fairy), and The Dance Fairies (e.g. Jade the Disco Fairy, Rebecca the Rock n’ Roll Fairy).
As if that’s not already a fairy good-sized load of fairy books, there are (Holy shelf space nightmare, Batman!) two more series coming from Daisy Meadows this winter, each featuring another seven books: the Music Fairies (coming January 2010) and the Sports Fairies (coming April 2010). No doubt many a fairy-loving girl will soon be preoccupied with the difficulties faced by her winged friends in Fiona the Flute Fairy and Brittany the Basketball Fairy, to name just two!
While Daisy Meadows is rapidly covering a lot of thematic territory with these books, I myself am seeing some real sales potential in the areas that have NOT yet been covered by Rainbow Magic. With your help, I would like to enter the fairy successful fairy fray with this: the Book Business Magic series, published under my new penname, Flowering Fields. I know that, thanks to your input, each book in this series will be chock full of fairy exciting adventures and introduce young book lovers to the careers they might want to consider adopting someday.
My outline for the series’ first title, Bettina the Bookseller Fairy, currently looks like this:
Bettina the Bookseller Fairy by Flowering Fields
Bettina the Bookseller Fairy might take home a meager paycheck, but she loves communing with customers during her weekday evenings at Fairy Good Books, where three times she has earned the honor of "Pixie of the Month" for her fairy good customer service skills. Those skills come in extra handy on the day an evil troll leaves his children unattended in the children’s section! Will Bettina be forced to adopt the poor dears?
Now it’s your turn to help this series take shape. What professions do you think should be included in the Book Business Magic series? And what will those fairies’ adventures BE? Please help me fill in these fairy empty blanks by submitting your own title and plot suggestions in the comments below. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Carmen the Copy Editor Fairy
Pansy the Publisher Fairy
Paulina the Publicist Fairy
Damian the Designer Fairy
Lolita the Librarian Fairy
Michael the Marketing Executive Fairy
Fred the Foreign Rights Fairy
To create your own artwork to go alongside the fairies you create for Book Business Magic, visit the "Create a Fairy" page of Rainbow Magic Online. (That’s my rendering of Bettina the Bookseller Fairy at the very top of this post. They didn’t have a tattoo option, or I’d have gone that route.)
Melinda the Managing Editor Fairy Lucinda the Licensing Fairy oh the list could go on forever…
Lucinda the Librarian Fairy, but of course…
Because I need a little magic in the house-cleaning dept., how about Vanessa the Vacumming Fairy, in which the titular character wrestles with dust balls the size of rhinos and subdues a runaway hoover with one neat tap of her sparkly wand. Or maybe…. Priscilla the Plumbing Fairy, in which our pint-sized heroine plumbs the murky depths of a snaky passage and frees an entire household terrorized by–gasp!–a dark and powerful drain clot.
Risa the Remainders Fairy!
Nancy the National Accounts Manager Fairy!
Cara the Cataloging Fairy Alison the Acquisitions Fairy (why, that’s me!)
We hosted the “creator” of this series several years ago when she was touring for another series. She regaled us with some of the rejected titles that the publisher was proposing. I cannot repeat them in public.
girlboss, I take it from your use of quotation marks around “creator” that indeed this “author” is not actually named Daisy Meadows?? Shocking! 😉 Would love to have been a fly on the wall during that rejected titles meeting…
Love this! Once upon a time, I worked in a law firm, and one of the discovery documents for a case included pages from a cereal-naming brainstorm session at one of the major companies. There were hundreds of suggestions thrown out, many of them hilarious. My favorite? Hot Cooked Goo Crunch.
Olga the Overstock Fairy
Audrey the Author Fairy
Connie the Conference/Booth Management Fairy. lol.
Arthur the Book Author Art the Illustrator Cymore the CEO Count the Accountant (there should be some male fairies mixed in this)
Rita the Reshelving Fairy Rita simply loves cleaning up after others. So please don’t put books back, in fact feel free throw them about if you like. Rita will happily swoop in and clean your generous contribution.
Stacy the Storytime Fairy loves to bring books alive for children while their mothers gossip with each other and their small siblings tear books apart and/or chew on them. Of course, this upsets Louise the Loss Prevention Fairy!
my hubby is from UK and we love these books!
Why, you must have Paige the Editorial Assistant Fairy
Selena the Sales Rep fairy? Barney the Buyer fairy? Rathbone the reader fairy? I believe there are actually 4 daisies in that meadow.
Kathy Ambrosius, I love Louise the Loss Prevention Fairy!! And, Julianne Daggett, I wholeheartedly agree that male fairies ought to be included in this mix.
Ramona the Remainder Fairy flits around the busy bookstore, magically making stacks of discounted titles appear. Funny, though, Rebecca the Returns Fairy thinks she recognizes some of those titles from the not so distant past…it’s a very mysterious coincidence. Can Wendy the Warehouse Fairy provide any answers, with her sparkling sale sticker gun? Meet all three of these fairies in the Book Business Magic Super Edition!
Abby the Archivist Fairy (That was my original career and Abby’s my middle name, so maybe I’ll have to pen this one…)
Ravena the Reviewing Fairy – the only bad fairy in the bunch! Descended from the fairy who tricked Sleeping Beauty, Ravena owns a poison pen. Just as well there is another Review Fairy waiting in the wings – Rustle – who can rustle up a great review to improve any author’s day!
I envision a “Rastifaria the Anti-Rejection Fairy” and a “Boracia the Big-Eyed, Shameless Bilking Fairy.”