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Odds & Ends on the Web: June 2nd Edition

6/2/2012

20 Comments

 
Odds & Ends on the Web
If you were busy this week and haven't come across any information about An Unconventional Blog Tour organized by Kelly at Stacked, make sure to check it out now. This is the biggest feature of the week, in our opinion. A lot of excellent advice from seasoned bloggers. Among other things, The Book Smugglers talk about how to maintain your independence and integrity while having a working relationship with publishers and writers. And Sarah from Clear Eyes, Full Shelves encourages to find your blogging voice instead of doing what everyone else does. 

Pub(lishing) Crawl, as always, has some interesting insider info to offer. Last week they talked about book packaging as a way for young authors to get published. (In case you have never heard of book packaging, it is a process of writing books, when a firm comes up with an idea, plot outline, even marketing campaign for a book and then hires a writer to produce the requested product).

Ya Book covers
Although the author of this post says that book packaging is not so secret any more, you rarely hear authors admitting the fact that their books were pretty much plotted for them, at least you don't hear them admitting it as easily as James Patterson does, who puts his name without reservation next to his ghostwriters' names on the dozens of books he produces each year. You hardly ever hear Lauren Kate mention that Fallen was developed with the help of a packaging agency Tinderbox. Or, it is news to us that Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes is a product of book packaging. In any case, book packaging is a fascinating topic to research. Articles about it are often laced with controversy. You probably remember James Frey and his fiction factory that produced I Am Number Four.  This article is a funny account of one unsuccessful attempt to become a writer of a packaged book. And this story is dedicated to Lauren Oliver's own book packaging agency. It is especially interesting that packaged YA books are almost universally well advertised and well sold, and almost as universally poorly written.

A post in Guardian titled Terrifying French Children's Books has a potential to be interesting, but if you read the comments, it is quite clear that the author of the post both has little comprehension of French language and misrepresents the books' plots. Kinda like a kids' version of that WSJ article decrying darkness of YA, written with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever?

After reading these posts by Steph Su and Nafiza addressed to self-published authors who try to promote their works by pitching them via emails to various bloggers, we couldn't resist pointing out that there are no bloggers named Jatiana and Hannery writing for The Readventurer.

And, in conclusion, here is a link to the Armchair Audies 2012 Audie Awards Ballot, where our proud participation and prediction is recorded.

Have a great weekend!


20 Comments
Flannery (The Readventurer) link
6/2/2012 05:19:22 am

I just wanted to point out that we got one today to Flannery, Jaliana, and Calie. Until this point, I thought there was no possible way anyone could mistake Catie's name but I'm glad I was wrong. It provided me some entertainment this morning:)

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Catie (The Readventurer) link
6/2/2012 06:58:30 am

And here I was smugly sitting atop my tower, watching your names get butchered. I bet in another dimension there's an amazing book blog called The Readventurer (pronounced with the past tense version of read) and written by Hannery, Jatiana, and Calie.

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Maja link
6/2/2012 06:41:32 am

Some of those review requests are really ridiculous. I rarely even read them anymore, which is all kinds of rude, I suppose, but I just don't care. When they get your names wrong, at least it means they bothered to include your names! Most don't. But the thing I hate the most are sentences like: 'I've seen what you read, my book is written for you, you WILL LOVE it.' So pushy.

I really liked The Book Smugglers post - reviewing honestly can be hard sometimes, especially when the author is a friend. For example, I don't think I could ever write a negative review for one of Ann's books (not that she ever gave me reason to), but I wouldn't lie, either. I just wouldn't review at all.

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
6/2/2012 10:39:10 am

Same here, Maja, if I have a personal relationship with a writer, I wouldn't be able to be as blunt in my reviews as I normally am. If I don't like a book written by a friend, I probably wouldn't say anything at all.

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Heidi link
6/2/2012 07:48:48 am

That's part of why I have a fairly strict review policy written out, I feel it gives me complete licence to ignore such requests guilt free. If they're not going to take the time to read/get my name right, I'm not going to either. :P

Very interesting articles about book packaging, I was familiar with the existence, but hadn't read much about its presence in YA.

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
6/2/2012 08:54:07 am

IMO, this review request attempts from self-pubbers are 99.99% futile. We hardly ever care to read self-pubs, and then the majority of the requests are of a crazy variety, so there is always a tendency to just trash those emails.

I wonder if there are many bloggers out there who actually do read self-pubbed works...

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Kelly link
6/2/2012 10:21:29 am

There are entire blogs devoted to self-pubbed reading only, believe it or not. I don't read any of them, but they are out there.

And I agree: most of those requests are futile. They're so poorly written (the pitches, that is).

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
6/2/2012 10:41:26 am

These are some generous reader-bloggers, considering how low the percentage of good self-pubs.

Heidi link
6/3/2012 01:56:46 am

I will read self-published titles, but ONLY if I've seen good things about it from other reviewers I trust first. Which means I rely on other people to take that chance before I am willing to. I have enjoyed the few I've read, but agree, most are futile requests.

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VeganYANerds link
6/2/2012 11:17:48 am

I have been enjoying what I've seen of the Unconventional Blog tour, I'll have to go back and find any posts that I've missed.

I was about to say that I've never heard of book packaging but I think I have and I am not surprised that Fallen falls into that category but I am surprised about Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Thanks for the links, I'm off to read 'em now

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Phoebe link
6/2/2012 01:15:34 pm

As I've gotten to know more writers as colleagues, I've been shocked to find out how many titles that do not appear to be packaged actually are. I won't name names, but I've even seen authors spinning book origin stories ("I came up with this idea while watching my kids at the park" or whatever) on their blogs on titles that were, in fact, packaged.

It's weird. Full of secrets, this publishing world is.

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
6/3/2012 01:22:54 am

I know of some as well that I didn't mention here, which are kept a huge secret. When you do find out about it though, you connect the dots pretty quickly. Such books are always formulaic and hit the areas that are deemed popular at the moment. I have no respect for such books, there is no artistry in them.

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Phoebe North link
6/3/2012 01:25:56 am

I suspect we're talking about some of the same titles--though there's at least one which genuinely surprised me when I found out about it. I think some are fairly closely guarded secrets, because there's a certain stigma attached to packaged books.

Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
6/3/2012 01:32:05 am

This stigma, though, I don't quite understand. You know how much I like old L.J. Smith's books, which are supposedly packaged too. And I think everybody knew about Gossip Girls, and those books sold like hot cakes... The audience to which such books would appeal, IMO, wouldn't be bothered by the idea of packaging. Or so I speculate.

Phoebe North link
6/3/2012 01:35:09 am

ITA. These are usually fun, fast-paced commercial titles and I really don't think the readership needs some myth of authorial inspiration to enjoy most of these books.

Jasprit link
6/2/2012 09:58:10 pm

what annoys me the most about some review requests is when they ask you to request something that you don't even read, I've mentioned it so many times that thats why my review policy is there in the first place! Like Maja I don't bother responding sometimes! Some great tidbits and links for this week and stuff I wasn't even aware of. Can't wait to check them out! :)

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Chachic link
6/3/2012 04:09:41 pm

Hi Hannery, Jatiana, and Calie! :)

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Calie (The Readventurer) - past tense link
6/4/2012 04:47:50 am

Hi Chachic!

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Jordyn link
7/14/2012 08:13:23 am

13LBE was a packaged book? I DID NOT KNOW THAT. I wonder if any other of MJ's books are... or if they all are. 13LBE definitely wasn't my favorite of hers (though I liked its sequel quite a bit better), and I had no idea that book packaging went so far as to outline the entire book/series.

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
7/14/2012 09:11:48 am

As far as I know, not all of them are. You can tell by the copyright page. 13LBE is copyrighted to Alloy and MJ, the sequel to MJ only. Some of her books are "produced by Alloy" also, whatever that means.

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