So I have mentioned my friend Jessy's YA novel, "The Wandora Unit," before (now out, BTW). Her publisher has sent review copies to all the usual places. What can they do to increase the chances that it will actually get reviewed?
- s t e v e
from Bookmarklet
Send a copy to Fuse8 and Tasha Saecker. Both do a Lot of reviewing and are highly respected kidlitblog reviewers
- Abigail
You'd be surprised how weird YA publicity can be. I'm deep in the throes of it with my friend's new novel.
- Kendra <3 Three Lions
You can't really persuade any of these publications to review a given book. They get inundated and make their choices however they can. There are over half a million books published in the US a year now. It's difficult. The best thing to do is write a great book with a good opening and hope your publisher gives it a great cover and a description that hooks readers. And tell yourself...
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- barbara fister
Kendra! Ahhhhh! Frank Portman, right? Would he mind if Jessy and I contacted him? Jessy loves "King Dork," made me read it, described her book as "King Dork for girls" when shopping the book, etc. Email/DM me if you can.
- s t e v e
Barbara, on the one hand I'm sure you are right. On the other hand if someone here works or writes for one of those journals and knows people, etc., I think we could affect the way they make their choices. Not looking to bribe anyone or anything, just to say "hey, would you give this book a 30 second look instead of a 5 second look when deciding whether to review it?"
- s t e v e
Oh goody, I am on friendfeed. I tried my trusty name/password combination and it seems I feed friends here. Steve, Kendra, I actually sent Frank Portman a fan email when King Dork first came out. He didn't hide his email then (maybe he does now). He wrote me a nice note back. I didn't mention that I started peddling my YA manuscript as "King Dork for girls" or "King Dork for poets."
- Jessy Randall
This is "King Dork for girls"? Jessy, you should try to talk to Frank. He's leaving for his book tour of sorts today for Andromeda Klein, but I'm pretty sure he'd be happy to talk. I'll pass this along.
- Kendra <3 Three Lions
Kendra, thanks! I actually had lunch with Frank's editor at Delacorte a couple of years ago. She liked my Wandora manuscript enough to take me to lunch when I was in town, but not quite enough to publish it. Her advice to me probably is what got it published, in the end. Barbara, I know what you say is true. I'm just trying to do all I can for my book. Ghost Road Press is small and...
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- Jessy Randall
Good luck figuring it out. I have written features for LJ and now do a weekly column for LJAN. Score so far: reviews of my books in PW - 2; reviews in LJ - 0. [scratches head]
- barbara fister
Barbara, St. Martin's must have done all this kind of stuff for you, right? Or did you pound the pavement a bit? I'm wondering what the big-publisher experience is like compared to the small-press experience (which involves me lying awake at night trying to think of people to send the book to, and presumably my publisher doing the same thing but for all the Ghost Road books).
- Jessy Randall
They asked me where advanced reader copies should be sent for reviews and did mail them out (I got a couple of newspaper reviews from reviewers I recommended who cover the genre I write in). Next time I plan to buy some ARCs myself and send them to bloggers who might be interested. As the number of MSM review outlets shrinks, publishers are trying to reach out to bloggers, but they...
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- barbara fister
Good advice all round from Barbara Fister and others (Barbara, why haven't we reviewed your books? I loved the last one!). One reminder: LJ tries to review books before publication date, so if your book is already out then it's unlikely we'll consider it for review. We do have an online newsletter (free) BookSmack in which Angelina Benedetti (King County PL, WA) reviews YA titles in her column 35 Going on 13. You might try sending it to her. Francine Fialkoff, LJ
- Francine Fialkoff
Hey Francine Fialkoff, thanks so much for the help. My publisher sent LJ a review copy in June (or so I'm told). The official release date is October 5, though my library received a copy yesterday. I still haven't received my own author copies. I'll send one to Angelina Benedetti as soon as I have one to send.
- Jessy Randall
Thanks for posting, Francine! I love the internet/LSW
- s t e v e
I'm not bummed about not getting an LJ review (though pleased you liked it, Francine) - just pointing out that knowing people and getting reviews have no particular Boolean overlap. Probably as it should be - review editors being independent of the reporting etc. I review for a couple of genre publications and they're really particular about having no conflicts of interest, which can get tricky in a small world (knowing other writers, not reviewing anything published by one's publisher, etc.)
- barbara fister
Grew up in Louisville, KY. In college in downtown Chicago, going into my junior year. Flying to Brooklyn to hang out with my brother.
- Daniel Zarick
from iPhone
Just saw the intro from Ben so I'm a new follower. (c: My wife and I are in Salt Lake, or more specifically Sugar House. Just a couple streets away from the park.
- Tim Costantino
Don't you guys think that this information, altough not essential, should have its place in the bio? Think of geolocalized friendfeed, for instance. Quite not possible yet.
- Zackatoustra
I'm a software engineer / system administrator for Mozy. In general, I like to call myself a software toolsmith, eventually that means more active in free and open source development, perhaps writing a book, who knows?
- Travis B. Hartwell
Travis, yes, I know you read my posts. :-) Hopefully people do more than just that though - I would be really worried if that were the case!
- Jesse Stay
Marketing and advertising, mostly for small and medium businesses
- Dennis O'Neil
Software problem solver (meaning I support teams, most of the time devs, and help them do their work by handling network, infrastructure, build/release, whatver tasks. Currently Ops and Infrastructure person at Seesmic. Active in a couple open source projects and lurking in a lot more. Yep I read your blog.
- bear (aka Mike Taylor)
Bear, I've been following your work since before you joined Seesmic. Thanks for chiming in!
- Jesse Stay
Oddly, I just realized I'm not subscribed to you on FriendFeed. Not sure how that happened - just subscribed, and added you to my favorites. :-)
- Jesse Stay
Bear: Haven't you been involved with the Twisted project in the past? Your name sounds familiar. :) Perhaps we've met at PyCon?
- Travis B. Hartwell
Bear was the original developer of Twhirl before it was bought by Loic and Seesmic.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse - Marco is the original Twhirl dev - I did some command line tools for Twitter tho. Travis, yes while I was at OSAF I was active in the Twisted project. We met at PyCon in DC once.
- bear (aka Mike Taylor)
Bear, did you do anything with Twhirl before it was acquired? I swear you were involved somehow. Maybe not. Maybe my memories are after it was acquired.
- Jesse Stay
Media management and graphic design student obsessed with tech, Internet, branding, and design. Work as a "community manager" and social media director for my school's student communications office. Columbia College Chicago, if you are interested.
- Daniel Zarick
from iPhone
evidently i wasn't subscribed either - but with everyone else reading and commenting on your stuff it probably didn't matter. I was seeing it already :)
- bear (aka Mike Taylor)
I'm an independent social worker - you could call me a professional big brother.
- Kevin Nordmand
I work in Forticom as a creative. Company runs several social networking sites: odnoklassniki.ru nasza-klasa.pl one.lt one.lv (I am also LDS, that's wahat I "do" :))
- Mindaugas Kucinas
Online community manager for Public Library of Science; blogger at Scienceblogs.com; organizer of ScienceOnline conferences; series editor of The Open Laboratory; adjunct faculty at NC Wesleyan college (teach Biology to adults); external advisor for the BBC/PRI/Nova/SigmaXi science content online.
- Bora Zivkovic
Developing a new Twitter service "HQFollowBack".
- Wulffy
database stuff, mostly for email/marketing, blogging, social media stuff.
- anna sauce
IT Manager / Web Developer / Photographer
- Justin Korn
Network/Linux sysadmin. I keep things moving, and fix stuff when it breaks.
- Andy Bold
Teaching & consulting knowledge economy & information design ... writing about them
- Ozgur Uckan
In web biz since 1998, online editorial/community/marketing. Now fully dedicated to starting up a new web service.
- Majento
My bio here (as one wag saw fit to tweak me about!) includes most of what I do: teaching, writing, designing, etc. I guess my work falls into the "boutique" category--small collection of clients, very personal touch.
- Kathy Fitch
IT Manager (really IT Department) for a small company in Orem, UT
- Skyler Call
Retired now after a career in data processing for banks and insurance companies. First programming job was on the IBM 1401, language Autocoder, 8K of memory. I don't know what I would have done with out computers. Loved them then and still love them.
- Jack DeWitt Smith
Oh forgot to mention, of course I read your posts. I helped you coin Social Technology And You.
- Bryan Lee
from iPhone
I run the technology school at a local private college and teach there too, I blog, I write, I take pictures, I play bass guitar, I do computer security, tons of stuff. I also run an online comic book store.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Software (Web) Developer, I work for a chain of bookstores and a literature festival - though I do a lot more than that, as is the norm here.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
I manage a software development team at a big bank.
- Michael Hocter
I try to live with the fact that I'm your brother. It's a full-time job. :)
- Luke Stay
I'm a software developer (web, primarily - at least, these days) and blogger (TUAW and an upcoming new blog).
- Brett Kelly
from iPhone
Holden, I have a Mom and a Dad, too. Even a sister. :-)
- Jesse Stay
Software Architect, focusing on web software. Worked as an Architect for a large bank for four years and now work as an Architect in a small company here in Salt Lake.
- Tim Costantino
All sorts, currently a data monkey for the telecoms industry.
- Kol Tregaskes
I'm a Risk Analyst in a large financial services company's Compliance Management team.
- Alex Scoble
Jesse, was just looking at your site today. :) I've been a Program Manager for software development projects involving offshoring, a Product Manager for new software product startups, and now a writer for MakeUseOf.com. I'm based in Pune, India.
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
Alex, you do what most of my siblings, and Dad do. My sister's interning for KPMG right now, and my brother-in-law just started with another one of the big Accounting firm. My other brother-in-law worked for Fidelity for quite awhile, and my other BIL was a consultant for Monitor for quite awhile.
- Jesse Stay
I manage the websites and content for the X PRIZE Foundation on Drupal CMS as well as all 3rd party web services. For fun I write at Lifestream Blog and on a personal site.
- Mark Krynsky
Mark, that sounds like a fascinating job!
- Jesse Stay
Accountant.....used to work for a CPA firm.....now self-employed.....much better.....
- Bonnie Foster
Technology Consultant / Software Architect / DBA. My tool-belt is based on but not limited to .NET. I've been mostly working with securities trading, portfolio management, pension insurance systems and various EAI solutions..
- Tapio Kulmala
Web software developer for one of the world's largest language translation companies.
- Tony Ruscoe
developing web sites, databases, email servers, administrating unix/linux machines and having fun :)
- Mihai Secasiu
Manager, IT Integration and Project Management for Nelnet, Inc (NNI) - Nelnet Enrollment Solutions Division (2 companies - CUnet.com and Petersons.com). Also Innovating my new Social Media products for Higher Ed - internally funded innovation program) Founder, Social Media Club - Rochester, NY and VP of PR, Marketing for PMIRochester.org. Plus I like chocolate, cats and beaches! I blog at http://susanbeebe.com. Oh and I absolutely love FriendFeed, but you already knew that! :)
- Susan Beebe
Hi Jesse, I enjoy your feed. I am a sales and marketing guy and I am really passionate about how emerging media tools can fit into business' marketing efforts. I currently "embed" with companies to set up and utilize emerging media tools. So what does that make me? I got tired of trying to tell people how to use these tools and decided to find companies that already KNEW they had to be in that space, but they didn't know how to do it well.
- Tobin Truog
I'm an editor of a humanities journal. I love the diversity of expertise and interest on FF. :)
- Ayşe E.
MVB, my kids would really like you. :-)
- Jesse Stay
Independent Demonstrator for a Vinyl Lettering & Decor Company - Uppercase Living®
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
I wear many hats for a rather small data security company including marketeer, graphic designer, web developer, PR person and IT Guy - the company is http://www.deadondemand.com/
- Mike Bracco
Jesse I'm available for birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs...
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
These 100 bloggers serve as excellent reference resources for learning about everything from library technology to young adult fiction.
- Tasha Saecker
Thanks for this! You put into words what I've been pondering for some time. Now to send it on to my friendly library geeks at the library system. Our blogs are hosted locally but our wikis are not. Also off to backup my Delicious bookmarks! ;)
- Tasha Saecker
I'm trying to understand if people are giving up on Google Reader and moving to Twitter. I think this trend is happening for me, but wanted to know what other people think.
Nope. I still use Google Reader all the time. I don't see Twitter as a replacement for it anyway.
- Joey Gibson
I still use Google Reader all the time too. Blogging and tweeting are two different things. I get very different information from the two formats and enjoy them both.
- Tasha Saecker
from twhirl
RSS Readers and Twitter are both ways to filter the Internet, either you use a tool like Google reader & scan or you follow smart people & let them RT the good stuff. I'm getting better and now clicking more links from Twitter then from Google Reader. I'm just getting better stuff from Twitter. But I do have a lot of feeds and also follow a lot of people.
- Anurag Nigam
I ditched Google Reader a while back in favor of mashups using Yahoo Pipes and, for some feeds, Pingie.com. I find Pipes to be much more customizable and Pingie, because it works with SMS, is much more portable. Google Reader hasn't changed to keep up with my changing reading habits. Twitter, though, is altogether separate for me and I'm not sure how it could replace any RSS feeds.
- Ed Moltzen
Two different tools built for two very different purposes. I use both, though I have recently switched from gReader to Fever: http://feedafever.com.
- David Chartier
from iPhone
I've been having major problems with stats on my blogs and the library's Drupal website. Turns out that Yahoo and Google have changed something so that the hits we get from them are being counted as fewer. We had to try 4 different counters before we got back to the right numbers. It helped a lot that all of the stats fell at the same time, so I knew something was wrong.
- Tasha Saecker