Me in the media : Jake's Bones

I began collecting bones in 2008, when I was six, and in 2009 I started blogging about it. The first newspaper article about me came a year after I started, and ever since then I've had a slightly higher media profile than most children my age.

Some of the newspapers I've been featured in include: The Times, The Telegraph magazine, The Independent, The Guardian, The Sun, Daily Mail, The Herald, the Mail on Sunday, Sunday Mail, Scotland on Sunday, The National, the Dundee Courier, the Perthshire Advertiser and the Strathallan Herald.

For live TV I have appeared on The One Show, BBC Breakfast, BBC Winterwatch, BBC Radio Scotland (three times), and BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live programme. For pre-recorded and other pieces I have appeared on BBC Newround, BBC Autumnwatch, CBBC Wild, The One Show, STV News, STV Glasgow, and the BBC News Website.

For radio I have appeared on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live programme, Radio Cornwall, and on BBC Radio Scotland I have appeared on Fred Macaulay's programme (twice), Out for the Weekend (twice) and The Kaye Adams Show.

For my TV work, I have appeared alongside Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham, Nick Baker and Ben Garrod, and I was live on primetime BBC1 or BBC2 for most of those.

I have been featured in Scottish Field magazine, BBC Wildlife magazine and the BBC Autumnwatch blog, and have written guest articles for The Big Issue, the RSPB's "Bird Life" magazine, the Wildlife Trust's junior magazine, The Big Issue, the Cairngorms Tourist Board and author Cathy Cassidy's blog.

I have given talks to all sorts of audiences, from nurseries and libraries all the way to big book festivals, including the Bath Childrens' Book Festival, the Wigtown Book Festival and Faclan, the Hebridean Book festival.

A lot of bloggers my age ask me about how to get media coverage as if that is the only thing that matters. The most important to do is always to do something worth writing about, and show that you can stick at it. I had blogged about collecting bones every week for a year even before I had my first article written about me.

As of February 2016, I took a break from this blog.

2015 press coverage

December 2015: The Dundee Courier ranked me at #24 in their Impact 100 list of the most influential people in 2015. They said: "He has the potential to make a difference in the future, both in terms of conservation, and how we see the natural world".

November 2015: I travelled to the Eden project for the announcement of the Royal Society Young Person's Book Award with my editor Jo Bourne. My (our !) book was shortlisted in the final six, but Lord Professor Sir Robert Winston was the winner. It was a great day anyway, and we spent the morning at a workshop teaching children how to make plaster casts of impressions.

While there I gave an interview to Radio Cornwall about the awards.

October 2015: I gave a talk and did a book signing at Faclan , the Hebridean Book Festival in Stornoway.

September 2015: I did a drop-in residency workshop at the Wigtown Book Festival, Dumfrieshire. You can read about it here.

September 2015: Scottish Field ran a big piece on me by journalist, author and naturalist Polly Pullar.

August 2015: I gave a talk (with Paolo Viscardi, the scientific advisor on my book) to Gravesend Science and More club.

July 2015: I was asked to help promote Kelvingrove Museum's fundraising campaign, and spent a day with the media getting publicity for it.

Here's the piece for STV Glasgow's News At Ten (I'm speaking at 1:48 and 6:23)

Here I am in The National newspaper:

I wrote about that day here.

June 2015: I wrote a guest piece for The Big Issue. You can read it online here.

June 2015: BBC Radio Scotland's "Out for the Weekend" programme

I did two pieces out on location looking for bones, which were broadcast in June and July 2015.

June 2015: Radio 4's "Saturday Live" programme.

I was invited down to London to Radio 4 as a guest on Saturday Live. It was great fun, and I wrote about it here. You can listen to the programme on the BBC website here. My part is about 1hr 15mins in.

June 2015: CBBC's Newsround

Presenter Martin Dougan came to film me at my house, and out looking for bones. You can read about how it was behind the scenes here, and see the clip on the Newsround website here.

May 2015: I did two slots with my dad for BBC Breakfast at their studio in Manchester.

The first clip is here:

And here is the second clip:

In May 2015 my book was one of six shortlisted for the Royal Society Young Person's Book Award:

The Guardian was the first to announce the shortlist.

That got coverage in The Times (in print and online), The Courier and Sunday Mail:

In May 2015 I was ranked as one of the top 50 most influential conservationists by BBC Wildlife magazine (although they got my name slightly wrong).

That led to a LOT of media coverage:

May 2015: The BBC News website:

May 2015: The Herald:

May 2015: The Courier:

May 2015: The Scottish Daily Mail:

May 2015: The Perthshire Advertiser:

May 2015: The i (the smaller version of the Independent newspaper).

May 2015: The Kaye Adams show, BBC Radio Scotland:

2014 press coverage

December 2014: Perthshire Advertiser: "Jake meets his wildlife hero"

December 2014: Strathearn Herald:"Bone boy Jake meets wildlife hero"

December 2014: The One Show, with Sir David Attenborough

I was asked to fly down to London to appear as a guest on the show with Sir David Attenborough, and they showed the clip I filmed at Bristol Museum with Ben Garrod:

We discussed how I began collecting, how I clean bones, and together we identified three mystery bones which were brought into the studio: a hippo humerus, a whale's ear bone, and a 110m year old dinosaur vertebrae.

During the show they showed another piece which I recorded for The One Show with Ben Garrod at Bristol Museum where we identified some more mystery bones from a box which had been unopened since the museum was bombed 70 years ago.

I blogged about my appearance on The One show here, and about filming the piece at Bristol Museum here.

November 2014: CBBC Wild Behind The Scenes, Series 2, episode 9 "My Wild Life"

November 2014: RSPB Bird Life magazine guest article: "The Bone Detective"

October 2014: Bath Children's Literature Festival talk. (I blogged about it here)

October 2014: Guest blog post, author Cathy Cassidy's blog.

You can read my guest blog post here.

September 2014: Perthshire Advertiser "Jake to go into the Wild on CBBC"

September 2014: CBBC Wild, Series 2, episode 1

I blogged about the behind-the-scenes filming of CBBC Wild here.

August 2014: Launch of Korean version of "Jake's Bones".

I wrote a special Korean blog post here.

July 2014: Wildlife Watch magazine guest article: "The Bone Ranger"

June 2014: Guest-curated a display at the Horniman Museum, London (more about it here)

May 2014: Was asked to present a copy of my book to Prince William and Kate.

I blogged about meeting the Royals here.

April 2014: The Courier: "No bones about it: Jake is a great young naturalist"

April 2014: Perthshire Advertiser "Bone collector Jake, 12, fills pages with passion"

April: Guest blog post, Cairngorms National Park Blog: "Telling roe and red deer apart"

You can read it here.

April 2014: Featured in BBC Wildlife Magazine.

March 2014: Strathearn Herald: "Young Author's talk"

March 2014:"Meet the Author" Talk at Strathearn Library

I blogged a little about my talk here, with some extra pictures.

March 2014: Dundee Courier: Standalone photo about the book talk.

March 2014: Book launch for International English edition. I blogged about it here.

February 2014: My book was published in the UK !

February 2014: BBC Radio Scotland. Macaulay and Co

I like this picture. It shows me outside the BBC Scotland HQ in 2010 (when I was first there), and just before the Fred Macaulay show in 2014:

January 2014: Perthshire Advertiser: "TV and book fame for bones boy Jake"

January 2014: Strathearn Herald: "Jake's back on TV nature show"

January 2014: BBC2: Winterwatch Unsprung

I blogged about being behind the scenes at Winterwatch here (with lots of pictures).

2013 press coverage

February 2013: Daily Telegraph Magazine: "Meet the children blogging about their world"

You can read the Telegraph article online here.

March 2013: Sunday Mail "Book Deal for Bones Blog Boy"

March 2013: Scotland on Sunday: "Bones of a book deal for Jake, 11"

March 2013: Perthshire Advertiser: "Bone collector Jake's book deal"

March 2013: The Sun: "Indiana Bones"

March 2013: Parentdish "Blogging schoolboy lands publishing deal to write about bones"

You can read the article here.

March 2013: Kid's Blog Club: "11 year old blogger lands book deal"

You can read that article here.

November 2013: Interview with Museum Minute.

2012 press coverage

December 2012: After testing the book at the Frankfurt book fair, I signed my first book deal ! But it was still a secret for now. This is me signing the contract.

November 2012: Mentioned by The Times in an article about child bloggers.

September 2012: I was first approached by my publisher, and we began planning ideas for the book.

August 2012: The Times. "Child bloggers: how to win friends and influence people at 9"

The Times article was important because it was seen by my publishers in London, and led to them offering me a book deal.

June 2012: Disney Club Penguin: "Guide to the wonderful world of the web"

March 2012: Perthshire Advertiser: "Bone Hunting schoolboy finds blast from past"

March 2012: Daily Mail: "Boy's bone-hunt goes down a bomb"

March 2012: The Sun "WW2 Bomb shock for skull boy Jake"

2011 press coverage

November 2011: Perthshire Advertiser "Braco's Jake set for Autumnwatch fame"

November 2011: BBC Autumnwatch

I wrote about being filmed for BBC Autumnwatch here.

2010 press coverage

My very first coverage came in July 2010, after I had been blogging for about a year. Press coverage in 2010 included The Mail on Sunday, The Courier, The Sun, Perthshire Advertiser, STV News and BBC Radio Scotland.

July 2010: Mail on Sunday: "From schoolboy to skullboy: the bone collector aged 8"