Reaching Your Target Audience Online:
A Guest Post by Greg Pincus...

Happy New Year readers! I've been away from my office for weeks, I've trudged through the snow, I'm back at my desk, and I'm starting off 2010 with a guest post by Greg Pincus.

Greg's guest post was sparked by a comment he left on Jane Friedman's There are No Rules blog which I asked him to expand on. (Click here to read the post and the comments.)

Read on–and please leave comments yourself if you can offer advice about reaching an audience of young readers online...

If you’re an author or illustrator who’s blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking or using other social networks to build your platform, you need to think strategically about who you’re going to reach online and how you’re going to do it.

Some choices are easy–you’re not likely to use LinkedIn to appeal to the kids who read your picture books. But if you write YA, in particular, you often have to make some more complex choices since your potential readership is actually online…and in large numbers.

Teens, however, don’t use the web the way adults do. As a result, most author/illustrator blogs and websites don’t attract teenage readers unless the author is already known to them. Twitter connections follow a similar pattern.

This means that if you’re offering up a “this is my journey” or writing advice or book review blog or just tweeting as as yourself, you should focus on appealing to the gatekeepers rather than teen readers. If you want to reach your core readership, you need to consider building a community around a central idea or offering up interactivity that your potential readers want and can’t replicate elsewhere. Some examples:

• Author P.J. Haarsma built a game which attracted a huge audience that became the core supporters of his books. The game community helped test storylines and championed the books to their friends, too.

• The women behind Readergirlz have built a community around authors, books, and reading. The site is a destination offering interactivity, changing content, and projects that involve offline participation, as well. While the site is not directly about the Readergirlz “divas” themselves, the connection to the readers still exists for them individually as well as collectively.
  

• Finding underserved, pre-existing communities can be an effective path to having a teen readership, as Lee Wind has done with his blog I’m Here. I’m Queer. Now What the Hell Do I Read?. Again, the community here is not directly about Lee’s writing… and it’s a mix of gatekeepers and teens.

In all these cases, helping the community grow involves consistently creating content, understanding what your site’s readers want, and making sure your own career goals don’t come in conflict with the wants of your readers.

There are great success stories with authors connecting with their readers via social media. Ellen Hopkins’ use of MySpace and John Green’s use of videos and Twitter–where he has over 1,000,000 followers including members of his core audience–are two notable examples. For most of us, however, social media remains a difficult way to connect to a large network of teen (or younger) readers.

There are many good resources for learning how teens use the Internet. A good place to start is with the work of danah boyd and by looking at sites that already work.

Have you had success reaching your core readership online? Do you know other good ways to attract teen readers? I’d love to hear about them as, I suspect, would everyone else trying to reach them.

Find Greg Pincus online:

• The Happy Accident
• Gotta Book
• On Twitter

Should You Be on Facebook? Is Tweeting Really Necessary? Talking Online Presence with Loren Long...

I took Monday and Tuesday off work this week for no other reason than to use up some PTO (that expires at the end of the year). One of my Monday activities way having lunch with illustrator Loren Long and his wife Tracy. (Loren also lives and works here in the Nati.)

During lunch at the cafe at Joseph-Beth Booksellers (because I thought it appropriate and because they have great vegetarian chili), Loren, Tracy and I talked a lot about online presence. Loren has a website but has not ventured much beyond that. Does an author with more than a dozen fabulous books under his belt--who works with publishers like Philomel and Simon & Schuster, who is on the Jon Scieska's Trucktown team--need to be blogging? Be on Facebook? Twitter? It couldn't hurt.

It's no secret that authors/illustrators have a big responsibility in their own promotion. The more you're out there, the more connections you make, the more friends you have, the more conversations you get into, the better. Networking should start before you get published (see Christina Katz's Get Known Before the Book Deal) and keep rolling along once you have a book or two or ten out in the world.

That doesn't mean you have to use every social network avenue available. Twitter is not everyone's cup of tea. And heaven help us if everyone had a blog. But if you've got a blog's worth of things to say that would be interesting/useful/informative/inspiring then go for it. If you enjoy being part of the conversation and can fit it into your schedule, tweet away. But if these things aren't you, if they'd be drudgery, move along. But at least try things out to see what fits--you might really enjoy participating in the conversation. (And sometimes that conversation will be about your work.)

Speaking of work, here are a few of my favorite Loren Long covers. So so beautiful. (And now I'm off to hang up my autographed Otis poster.)

Tomorrow: National Bookstore Day and Buy a Book, Save the World!...


For the second year in a row, a group of book lovers who've organized on Facebook is gearing up for "Buy a Book, Save the World!," which kicks off tomorrow in conjunction with PW's National Bookstore Day, "a day devoted to celebrating bookselling and the vibrant culture of bookstores."

Here's the message posted on the Buy a Book, Save the World! Facebook page:

Well, it’s that time again--the Buy a Book, Save the World! 2nd Annual International Holiday Bookstore Bookpush! Last year was a brilliant success, with our numbers surging over twenty-five hundred strong, all for the love of reading.

How can you participate? It’s easy. All you have to do is pledge to visit your local bookstore and purchase a book to give as a gift. Remember--try and give preference to independent stores if you can, though we love all our booksellers.

This year, we’re doing something a little different. Instead of kicking off on Black Friday, we’re getting started a little early. Tomorrow begins a Publishers Weekly–sponsored initiative called National Bookstore Day. One hundred and forty independent bookstores from around the nation are participating with raffles, author signings, and discounts to celebrate the occasion. What better time is there to start our International Holiday Bookstore Bookpush? Contact your local Indie and see if they’re participating. (If they're not, encourage them!)

So get out, invite all your friends, spread the word about Buy a Book, Save the World!, and enjoy National Bookstore Day! Happy Shopping!!!

Tomorrow I'll be visiting Joseph-Beth Booksellers here in the Nati (which I do quite often). Jamie Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,
will be signing at 1PM.

I'll Be Live Blogging from the SCBWI Conference in New York!...

Right now I'm in my second day of being held hostage in my house by snow and ice. But it's stopped snowing, and I'm sure the snow emergency will be lifted tomorrow. And I'm assuming everyone at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is working really hard on the runways so I will have no trouble or delay for my trip to New York on Friday.

Yep--Friday I'm headed to NYC for the SCBWI Annual Winter Conference and I'll be serving as SCBWI's Official Blogger from the conference floor! I'll have my laptop and my iPhone and I'll be keeping you abreast of all the conference happenings throughout Saturday and Sunday. (I get in Friday afternoon, so I'll offer a few Friday posts as well.)

Here's where you can my find SCBWI conference news as it happens:

• For my SCBWI conference reports, visit the as-yet-unpopulated SCBWI conference blog. (I'm going to work on that next.)
  
• You can follow SCBWI on Twitter for some quick and dirty updates.
  
• You can follow me on Twitter for those I'm-totally-in-the-elevator-with-Richard-Peck tweets as well as some scoopage from the Friday night VIP party during which I will mingle with Very Important publishing peeps and tweet anything noteworthy.
  
• And if you're on facebook, you can join the Fans of SCBWI group and follow the status updates.

It will be almost as if you're all there in person!

(Now I'm off to plan my outfits.)

Blogger of the Week:
Laurel Snyder...


Laurel Snyder, you will learn below, is a long-time blogger who's not afraid to be herself in cyberspace--with a few rules. Soak up her advice below and click here to visit her blog.

You blogged on Kid*Lit(erary) from April 2007 until March 2008. You began blogging on your website on December 2007. Will you tell me your motivation behind starting each of these blogs, and why you stopped blogging on Kid*Lit? I'm interested in your evolution as a blogger. (Because why wouldn't a full-time writer with small children have plenty of time to keep up with two blogs?)

Ha! You don't know the half of it. I started blogging around 2000, after going to SXSW with a webby friend. At the time, my blog (lonelysongs.com) was personal, VERY personal. I posted all sorts of sordid things about nasty ex-boyfriends. I don't think I really had a clear sense for what the web was yet. I did all of that in dreamweaver, and had to upload through this funny ftp window, using dialup. I can't believe I bothered!

Then, I took that down and discovered Blogger. I built a new site called Jewishyirishy.com, and again, it was personal, but not THAT personal. Lots of poetry blogging and religion rants and an attempt at community building for kids of Jewish intermarriage.

When I began writing for kids and knew I was going to be publishing, I decided I needed a new focus for my blogging. Honestly, I wanted a site that wasn't riddled with naughty words. Something I wouldn't get in trouble over when parents found it googling my name. I also wanted a chance to think in a more critical/academic way about children's books. Hence, Kid*Lit(erary) was born.

BUT, after 2 kids were born, I started blogging for pay at Jewcy, podcasting at Nextbook, AND I sold a novel on proposal (and was expected to write it), I didn't have time for the reviewing I'd been planning. So I just killed the site and began an author blog, which I update now and then.

Whew! Sorry to go on so long. Looking back, I realize I'm a fickle sort of blogger, huh? But that's nice thing about blogs. Like haircuts, you can always start over if you mess up!

You started blogging well before your first books were published. Would you advise new writers, even those without book contracts, to work on their Web presence?

YES! Absolutely. But I think people do it for the wrong reasons sometimes. I don't understand when people blog because they're concerned with marketing themselves before they publish. Marketing is tiring and time-consuming and it will kill your soul and get in the way of your writing. Blogging isn't marketing. It's a productive, generative, creative way to think online. It's a starting point for community building too.

What do you do to maintain your own presence online (blogging, reading other blogs, Twitter, etc.)? How much time do you devote to that?

All of it. Facebook and Twitter. Blogging and reading blogs (in Jacketflap reader, mostly). Commenting on other people's blogs. I'm on several listservs. I love it all. I think the real trick is just to limit the amount of time you spend online. I use an egg timer when I'm trying to write. When it dings, I go offline. Hard to measure it in hours when I'm not regulating myself. With two toddlers underfoot I'm online a lot, back and forth all day in 30 second intervals. Twitter is perfect for me for that reason.

What kind of posts will readers find on your blog? Are they certain types of posts that get more response than others? (When I blog about Brussels sprouts or my '80s prom dress I get a lot more hits and comments than when I offer industry news, for example.)

Yes, well, I'm (I think) in the Kidlitosphere minority on this issue. My blog is an extension of ME, and I am a loosey-goosey, ranty, accident-prone, haphazard gal. I rarely censor myself much, and my blog is all over the place. Despite my best efforts to keep a "clean" site, I still can't seem to stop from losing my temper online. But I think the more blunt I am, the more people respond.
Popular topics have been my hatred for snooty adult writers who don't appreciate the amazing value of kidlit, fluffy kidlitters who don't understand why "literary" writing is more artful than crappy commercial writing, my confusion over Israel and Palestine, and my WRATH at über-protective mommies who use too much Purell and make their kids sleep in helmets. Ha!

What advice would you offer new bloggers?

Just that a blog is published material. So we should all remember--it is one thing to be a crazed maniac online, and quite another to be a DUMB crazed maniac. If you want to say crazy things, try to sound smart and funny. Smart funny writers can get away with almost anything.

And please, for the love of Mike, do not tell us anything you don't want your boss (or your husband) to know.

Tweet, Tweet: Do You Twitter?...

A few weeks after the SCBWI LA conference last summer, I was emailing with agent Michael Bourret and he mentioned something about being on Twitter. What is this Twitter, I asked? He sent me a link and I joined. (If you don't know what Twitter is, click here. There's even a video.) In a nutshell it's a micro-blogging platform. It's sort of the Facebook status update minus everything else on Facebook.)

For several months, I only followed a handful of people and had a handful of followers. Every so often when I was bored I'd search for new people and companies and newspapers to follow. Then I got an iPhone and now I'm becoming a bit of a Twitter fanatic. I stop myself from checking it all day long. I tweet (that's what you call the posts) at stop lights. I read tweets right before I go to sleep. It's a little like crack.

A few minutes ago I got a notice that F+W Media was now following me (that's my company) which only proves that, officially, everyone is tweeting. And, really, there is a great publishing presence on Twitter. Check out this ever-growing list of publishers, agents, publicists, and bookstores which I'm sure is not comprehensive. Off the top of my head I thought of four agents I follow who are not on this list. (If you want to find lots of publishing folks, also check out who I follow. You need to have an account to do so.)

For writers it's a quick and easy way to stay up on what your favorite publishers, agents, authors, and bookstores are doing. You can also follow The Onion, John Hodgman, Wil Wheaton and The Daily Show Producer Miles Khan, which are my personal favorites. Shaq, Britney and the like tweet as well. And, of course, me: http://twitter.com/alicepope.

Twitter is the new Facebook; Facebook is the new MySpace; MySpace is the new Friendster; and Friendster is so five-minutes ago.

I'm So Winning the Friends Contest...

My husband recently discovered facebook and I'm amazed it took him this long. He's very outgoing and very interested in other people. (He's a psychotherapist, so that trait works for him.) There's nothing he likes more than a roomful of strangers and I think he could have an interesting conversation with a doorknob. He's taken to facebook like fish to water, his own giant room full of strangers, nearly-strangers and friends.

However. He's only got 87 friends. This morning I noticed that I (semi-quiet, generally-a-bit-frightened-by-a-room-full-of-
strangers) am only two friends away from 400.

Two of you out there want to friend me so I can go razz my husband about how much more popular I am? Click here for my profile.

Tips on Facebook on the YALSA blog...

This post on YALSA's blog called "The Amazing Power of Facebook" is directed toward teen librarians who are looking to connect with teen readers through the social networking site. I think a lot of the tips could apply to writers looking to connect with young readers through facebook, however.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Blog of the Week:
Susan Gray's Gottawrite Girl...

"I started blogging to better live and breathe children's literature," says Susan Gray. "Gottawrite Girl is my shrine to the genre. It features everything I love reading as an aspiring author, from interviews and publishing news, to musings on the writing life."

Susan, whose day job writing for a DC non-profit doesn't satisfy her yearning to write from the heart, says she "wanted to get closer to 'my people,'" through blogging. "Gottawrite Girl lets me create my ideal writing life! My best life-moment sprouted from Gottawrite Girl. I finagled my way into the National Book Fair as press and interviewed Katherine Paterson. Slam dunk of a day. I'm also making silly-wonderful friends! And I'm supporting my fellows with every interview."

Facebook, Susan says, has been invaluable for bolstering her blog. "I have a happy number of Gottawrite Girl 'fans' that I constantly update. And it's a great way to attract author interviews."

When she's not blogging, Susan is working on her first YA novel, and writing for Lucy Magazine. "My trembling but tenacious dream? That happy God-coincidences like this will include my novel becoming real. I will collapse," she says.

My Session and Why I Wish I'd Brought a PC...

I skipped Mark Teague's ballroom session to prepare for my first breakout, Keeping Current on Market Research: Websites, Blogs, Listservs & Networking. I checked my notes, practiced my intro, made sure there was no spinach between my teeth, etc., and went to check out the Westside room where my session took place (which was pretty rocking--big, fancy chandeliers, a stage).

When I viewed the setup, I realized I had no cord to plug my Mac laptop into the projector. The conference coordinator called the blue-shirted AV dude who kinda said that's a shame; there's a Mac store in the Mall. So I was just slightly freaking. Here it is, my first LA conference gig, I'm talking about blogs and websites, and I have no visuals; my week of collecting screen shots all for naught.

Then the audience (bigger than I expected and very patient) came to my rescue. Jennifer Bailey offered her zip drive and SCBWI Florida RA Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld offered her brand spanking new Cadillac of a PC. My heroes! Thank you both again for your help.

So, a bit rattled, I made it through the hour of PowerPoint. And it was fun. I wish we would have had more time for Q&A because I was getting some interesting questions. One writer asked how to get readers to her blog. I talked a lot about professional blogs and networking with writers and editors and agents, but not so much about readers. I suggested connecting with bloggers who are booksellers and librarians, who will in turn reach her readers. Tina Ferraro, half of the blogging duo behind YA Fresh, suggested utilizing MySpace. Her YA readers head to her blog for regularly contest or give-aways when she makes MySpace announcements. And in my informal Thursday night survey, other authors agreed--MySpace is great for connecting with readers; facebook more for connecting with other writers and people in the industry.