How to use this Page

We want to take a minute to post about the Class of 2k7. If it weren't for them we certainly wouldn't be here, doing this insane thing as a group. It was their crazy idea that got this ball rolling.

Thanks guys!

We'll never know how much the "class" concept helped, but it's astounding what these authors accomplished last year. We should only be so lucky...

Sara Zarr was nominated for a National Book Award!

AND

Melissa Marr hit the NYTimes list!

And that's just a few!

But that brings us to the point of today's post... which is that some of the members of the Class of 2k7 might not be books you've heard about.

One thing we want to mention, going into 2k8, is that we're aware that we won't all debut on the NYTimes list. And of course we realize that all 28 of us also can't be nominated for the Newberry or the National Book Award.

This makes things tricky, because of course we'd all love to "win" and we all admire and respect each other, and feel that we all deserve to "win".

And it can be hard when someone shoots into the stratosphere, because success begets success. So if Class member X gets a Printz nod, they'll be much more likely to get MORE attention, and MORE awards. Leaving those of us with "quieter" books to pat each other on the back, and dream of the kids out there who love our poor awardless books.

With that in mind, we're all going to do our best to support each other. But as a few of our books take off (and we hope they will) we're going to do everything we can to share the glory around a little. To remember that although we might not all be famous, we're all authors, and classmates... and by the end of the year we really hope to be friends.

We thought it might be of interest to readers of this blog to imagine this odd aspect of the Class of 2k8. That by definition, some of us will sell more books, get better reviews. And so that means that, by definition, some of us will get less.

And now... today... before that happens, we want to say this out loud...

THESE BOOKS ARE ALL GREAT! Whether they make the front page or not... Read the rest of this post