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Do negative reviews stop people from reading your books? Over at her blog, novelist Shiloh Walker disputed that claim in a passionate essay.

Check it out: “That negative review isn’t going to kill your career. Will it stop a few people from buying your book? Possibly–because that book may not be right for them. And FYI, one of the rants lately was that negative reviews discouraged people from reading … readers aren’t discouraged by ‘bad’ reviews. And guess what–that negative review may be the very thing that entices another reader to buy your book.”

We were so inspired by her work that we checked negative reviews of ten authors at Amazon–counting the massive amount of one-star reviews received by bestselling authors. Twilight topped the list with 669 one-star reviews. Read this list before you complain about your next bad review.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

Kids’ Christmas Books: For the Naughty & Nice

Cedella Marley Inspires with “One Love”

Author Interview: Gary Paulsen

Review: Scat by Carl Hiaasen

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

The most coveted books that release this month:

Witch & Wizard: The Fire

by James Patterson and  Jill Dembowski

(Ages 11-15)

Big Nate and Friends

by Lincoln Peirce

(Ages 8-12)

Artemis the Loyal (Goddess Girls)

by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

(Ages 8-12)

Pretty Little Liars #10: Ruthless

by Sara Shepard

(Ages 14-17)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

Home for Christmas

by Jan Brett

(Ages 0-5)

Twihards around the world will watch The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 this weekend. In the latest installment of the blockbuster series, fans can expect to see a dramatic vampire wedding and eventful honeymoon.

We caught up with screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg to talk about writing scripts and the adaptation process. The highlights follow below…

Q: Describe the writing process when you are charged with adapting a book for a script versus writing an original script.
A: Each comes with its own challenges, but nothing is more difficult than starting with a blank page, as a writer does with an original project. I had the good fortune to start with an already fully fleshed out universe and mythology. But an adaptation comes with its own challenges: Honing a 500 page novel into a 110 page script. Externalizing very internal character arcs. Not pissing off the millions of fans around the world who don’t understand, or frankly care, that a book and a movie are very different animals, and that one can’t simply transfer the entire text into screenplay format and shoot it.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

David Baldacci, Stephenie Meyer and the originally self-published author Amanda Hocking have all joined the Kindle Million Club, selling more than one million copies of their books on the Amazon.com Kindle Store.

They join 11 other authors in the "Club" - Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Michael Connelly and Kathryn Stockett, as well as Suzanne Collins, John Locke, Janet Evanovich and George R R Martin.

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By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

Cedella Marley Inspires with “One Love”

Author Interview: Gary Paulsen

Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder

Review: Scat by Carl Hiaasen

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

The most coveted books that release this month:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever

by Jeff Kinney

(Ages 8-11)

Inheritance

by Christopher Paolini

(Young Adult)

Home for Christmas

by Jan Brett

(Ages 0-5)

Ivy an Bean: No News is Good News

by Annie Barrows

(Ages 6-9)

Red Sled

by Lita Judge

(Ages 0-5)

Steps and Stones: An Anh’s Anger Story

by Gail Silver

(Ages 4-10)

THE BEST SELLERS

As fangirls prepare to dress up in their Katniss Everdeen costumes for Halloween, a Hunger Games spoof will be published on November 15th.  The video embedded above features the book trailer for The Hunger But Mainly Death Games–what do you think?

Curious readers can access the first chapter on Scribd. Here’s more about the book: “[This is] the only book brave enough to suggest that The Hunger Games was way more about death than food. Or at least this is what Bratniss Everclean discovers, when she shortsightedly volunteers for a teenage death tournament. But she soon realizes there are fates worse than death…like having to kiss her fellow competitor and lifelong stalker, Pita Malarkey.”

On Amazon, “Bratniss Everclean” is listed as the author, but the cover image lists Aaron Geary and John Bailey Owen as the authors.  According to Amazon, Harvard Lampoon will publish another spoof  in 2012, The Hunger Pains.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Just in time for Halloween, novelist Anne Rice wrote a Facebook post critiquing Twilight–comparing Stephenie Meyer‘s vampire characters to Rice’s famous Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac.

Rice wrote: “Lestat and Louie feel sorry for vampires that sparkle in the sun. They would never hurt immortals who choose to spend eternity going to high school over and over again in a small town —- anymore than they would hurt the physically disabled or the mentally challenged. My vampires possess gravitas. They can afford to be merciful.”

What do you think–how do the two vampire books stack up? The post has already generated thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on Facebook. (Via)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A full theatrical trailer for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 has been unveiled.

The trailer has already received more than fifty-eight thousand “likes” on the movie’s official Facebook page, We’ve embedded the video above–what do you think?

The trailer has been released in bite-sized pieces. Back in June, the MTV Movie Awards featured a two-minute teaser trailer. Just last week, Entertainment Weekly released a sixteen-second snippet from the theatrical trailer. (via Shelf Awareness)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Yesterday novelist Lisa Yee warned her followers about an online fraud–somebody pretending to be her agent has been contacting writers about book deals.

Aspiring authors should beware. Here is the complete tweet: “Someone is impersonating my agent, Jodi Reamer & offering book deals. If the email addy doesn’t have Writers House in it it’s fake!”

You can read more about the real Jodi Reamer at Literary Rambles. Her all-star list of clients includes Stephenie Meyer, John Green and Lisa Yee.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

‘Spy Kids: All The Time In The World In 4D’ promises to be an interactive experience (since it’s in…aromascope! Viewers will get a card with eight numbers to scratch and sniff when those corresponding numbers appear on the... Read the rest of this post

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: April 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

Kids’ Earth Day Books: Green with Environmental Awareness

The 39 Clues Blog Tour: Access Granted, Peter Lerangis

How Picture Books Play a Role in a Child’s Development

Review: Scat by Carl Hiaasen

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

The 39 Clues, Book 11: Vespers Rising

by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, Jude Watson

(Ages 8-12)

Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 10: The Emperor of Nihon-ja

by John Flanagan

(Ages 9-12)

Big Nate Boredom Buster: Super Scribbles, Cool Comix, and Lots of Laughs

by Lincoln Peirce

(Ages 8-12)

The Loud Book!

by Deborah Underwood

(Ages 1-6)

Athena the Wise (Goddess Girls)

by Joan Holub

(Ages 8-12)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: March 25, 2010

May 2-8, 2011, is Children’s Book Week. Each year, during this week, The Children’s Book Council hosts the Children’s Choice Book Awards. These are the best awards because the children are given a voice! I highly recommend checking out the thirty books that have been nominated for the six categories: k-2nd, 3rd-4th, 5th-6th, Teens, and author of the year. Then, along with your kids or classroom, go and vote for their favorite(s)—you have until April 29. The winners will be announced on May 2 at the Children’s Choice Book Awards Gala.

This year’s Children’s Choice Book Award finalists are as follows:

Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year

Shark vs. Train

by Chris Barton (Author), Tom Lichtenheld (Illustrator)

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (April 1, 2010)

Publisher’s synopsis: Shark VS. Train! WHO WILL WIN?!

If you think Superman vs. Batman would be an exciting matchup, wait until you see Shark vs. Train. In this hilarious and wacky picture book, Shark and Train egg each other on for one competition after another, including burping, bowling, Ping Pong, piano playing, pie eating, and many more! Who do YOU think will win, Shark or Train?

Add this book to your collection: Shark vs. Train

How Rocket Learned to Read

by Tad Hills

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade; 1 edition (July 27, 2010)

Publisher’s synopsis: Learn to read with this New York Times-bestselling picture book, starring an irresistible dog named Rocket and his teacher, a little yellow bird. Follow along as Rocket masters the alphabet, sounds out words, and finally . . . learns to read all on his own!

With a story that makes reading fun—and wil

The 2011 finalists for the Children’s Choice Book Awards have been revealed. Kids can vote from March 14th to April 29th, and the winners will be announced live at the Children’s Choice Book Awards gala in May. Individual title nominees have been divided into four groups classified by different school grades.

In the Author of the Year category, teen fiction writers dominate. The nominees include Suzanne Collins for Mockingjay, Stephenie Meyer for The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner, Rick Riordan for The Lost Hero, Jeff Kinney for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, and Cassandra Clare for Clockwork Angel.

Children of all grades are encouraged to vote for the Illustrator of the Year award. Those nominated for in this category include Loren Long for President Barack Obama‘s Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, David Wiesner for Art & Max, Mo Willems for Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion, Robin Preiss Glasser for Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique, and Nancy Tillman for Wherever You Are: My Love Will Find You. Who do you want to win?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Beginning in April, Round Table Companies will offer comic book adaptations of best-selling nonfiction books.

Here’s more from the press release: “In partnership with Smarter Comics, Round Table Companies will release six comic books on April 16, 2011 in bookstores throughout the U.S. and Indigo bookstores in Canada, as well as in Hudson News stores on May 1, 2011. Additionally, readers can download a digital version of the books for free, online or on the SmarterComics Android applications from April 1 to July 1, 2011.”

The titles up for adaptation include The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, Overachievement by Dr. John Eliot, How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins, Mi Barrio by Robert Renteria, Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life by Larry Winget, and The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: February 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

How Picture Books Play a Role in a Child’s Development

Review: Scat by Carl Hiaasen

20 Sites to Improve Your Child’s Literacy

Superhero Books: Batman, Superman, Spider-Man

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

Lost and Found

by Shaun Tan

(Ages 8-12)

Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad

by Jacky Davis

(Ages 3-7)

The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight

by L. J. Smith

(Young Adult)

Fancy Nancy: Aspiring Artist

by Jane O’connor

(Ages 4-8)

Scorpia Rising: An Alex Rider Misson

by Anthony Horowitz

(Young Adult)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: February 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

Caldecott Winners, 2011

Winter Books: Snow, Hibernation, and More

Review: Sleepy Kittens (Despicable Me)

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

Best Kids’ Picture Books, 2010

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

Silverlicious

by Victoria Kann

(Ages 5-8)

When I Grow Up

by Al Yankovic

(Ages 4-8)

Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel

by James Patterson

(Young Adult)

Closer (Tunnels)

by Brian Williams

(Ages 12 and up)

I Broke My Trunk!

by Mo Willems

(Ages 4-8)

Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party

by Melanie Watt

(Ages 4-8)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has received nominations in seven out of nine categories for the Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. the Razzies). Here is a complete list of its nominations:

Worst Picture – producers Wyck Godfrey & Karen Rosenfelt for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Worst Prequel, Ripoff, or Sequel – the Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Worst Director – director David Slade for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Worst Screenplay – screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg & novel by Stephenie Meyer for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Worst Screen Couple – The Entire Cast of the Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Worst Actor – actor Taylor Lautner for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse/Valentine’s Day & actor Robert Pattinson for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse/Remember Me
Worst Actress – actress Kristen Stewart for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Last year the Twilight Saga: New Moon received three nominations, but no wins. Yesterday, it was revealed that four out of ten Best Picture Oscar nominees are book-based-movies.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

USA Today released its “Top 100 Books for 2010″ list this week, a bestseller list composed of 77 percent fiction. Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium series dominated the top three spots and George W. Bush‘s Decision Points occupied fourth place.

The newspaper also noted: “Stephenie Meyer‘s popularity began to cool off. She accounted for 4% of best sellers the list tracked, down from 11% in 2009. The vampire and paranormal craze among readers isn’t dead, but it’s fading, accounting for just 9% of best sellers, down from 17% in 2009.”

The article also noted that books with movie adaptations do particularly well. It’ll be interesting to see if adaptations (like Kathryn Stockett‘s The Help) will boost sales next year.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Wordle is a fun web tool that allows people to make artistic text collages or  “word clouds” from any text.

Here’s more from the site: “Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

This GalleyCat contributor took eBookNewser’s “Free eBook of the Day” (Rudyard Kipling‘s The Jungle Book) and created a word cloud–the image is embedded above. Other literary projects on Wordle include the U.S. Constitution, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In a fascinating casting choice, Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson will star in an upcoming adaptation–leaping from Stephenie Meyer to Don DeLillo in a single bound.

Critically-acclaimed director David Cronenberg will be adapting DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, and the cast is still being sorted out. The 2003 novel studying one eventful day in the life of a young New York City millionaire.

Here’s more from Deadline New York: “Marion Cotillard and Paul Giamatti are also reportedly doing the film, but those same reports had Colin Farrell poised to take the lead role … Pattinson is following a path based on strong filmmakers and tasteful source material. He took the role because he is a big fan of Cronenberg’s work and an admirer of DeLillo’s books.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Stephenie Meyer confirmed on Facebook that 9-year-old actress Mackenzie Foy (pictured) will play Renesmee Cullen in the forthcoming adaptation, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

The Hollywood Reporter has more: “Director Bill Condon is expected to use similar special effects as David Fincher in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to show Foy aging 17 years over the span of seven years.”

Condon recently posted this racy photo from the movie set. Below, a spoiler-filled description of Renesmee from the novel.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Meet Harper Perennial editor Stephanie Meyers. She has blond hair, an obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and reserves her editing pen for nonfiction books, not writing vampire novels. If you look closely, you will see that her name is only two letters off from the name of Twilight‘s famous author.

Meyers recently co-edited a book of essays entitled The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas with Robin Harvie and it features an essay by writer Andrew Shaffer (better known as Evil Wylie/Emperor Franzen).

However, if you want to find her on Google, you need to be very specific with your keywords. When asked if she would do an interview, the editor responded: “I’d love to talk to you about my name doppelganger situation—anything to reclaim a tiny piece of the Google search pie.” Our interview follows below…

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 2, 2010

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases, the bestsellers, and kids’ book events.

Fall Books for Kids: 2010

Interview with Lian Tanner, Author of The Keepers Trilogy

2010 Children’s Choice Book Awards Nominees

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

20 Sites to Improve Your Child’s Literacy

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth

by Jeff Kinney

(Ages 9-12)

Hero

by Mike Lupica

(Ages 9-12)

Pegasus

by Robin McKinley

(Young Adult)

Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)

by Anthony Horowitz

(Ages 12 and up)

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Fables to Read Together

by Mary Ann Hoberman

(Ages 4-8)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

Llama Llama Holiday Drama

by Anna Dewdney

(Ages 0-5)

Splinter, Sterling Publishing’s young-adult imprint, will launch with a three-part fantasy series by Colleen Houck.

Breaking the tradition of publishing one book per year, the Tiger Saga will be available in its entirety by the end of 2011. Splinter will release Tiger’s Curse on January 11th, Tiger’s Quest on June 11th, and Tiger’s Voyage on November 11th. The books will be published in both hardcover and eBook formats.

Houck wrote Tiger Saga while waiting for vampire novelist Stephenie Meyer to complete her Twilight Saga. Houck explained on her website: “I was a bit overdramatic, but I was in despair. I felt like I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and I desperately needed to park my car outside his house to see what he was doing. Then, like the little red hen, I decided that if nobody was going to write another series like that, I’d do it myself.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Plenty of celebrities–from Kristen Bell to Elizabeth Banks–have tweeted about Suzanne Collins‘ Hunger Games trilogy. But, not all of them have their very own talk show. That’s what sets Tyra Banks apart from all the rest. You can read Banks’ Twitter book review in the image embedded above: “Soooooo good!!!”

Shelf Life poked fun at the review: “That is especially impressive, since six o’s and three exclamation points is the highest possible score in Tyra’s rating system. (By comparison, she thought Twilight was ‘Soooo good!!’ and she broke with critical consensus by only giving the new Franzen a tepid ‘Soo good!’)”

Oprah Winfrey chose Jonathan Franzen‘s Freedom as this year’s book club pick. Could Banks review books in a post-Oprah world?  Some feel that with or without Oprah, publishing will go on.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.