How to use this Page

The Electric Company–a TV show that encourages children to read by focusing on reading readiness for K6-9–is making a comeback. Sesame Workshop will begin production of The Electric Company this month in New York City. (The original series ran on Public Television stations in the 1970s.)

Since so many children today watch TV–far too much TV–I think it’s a great idea to have another TV show that encourages them to read. I hope it works.

Thanks to Cynopsis Kids for the info.

IBBY SA has drawn up 100 Representative South African Books for Children and Young People

• The books are recognisably African in character.
• The authors and illustrators are South Africans, or non-South Africans living and working in South Africa.
• The books are in print.
• The books are mentioned in the list in the language in which they were originally written. Many titles have been translated into other South African languages.
• The books are intended for children and young people: we have not included titles that are geared to an adult market, even if popular among younger readers.

For the full list, click on the Title above.

email [email protected]
website www.ibbysa.org.za

To request a printable brochure, please email
[email protected]

The fourth Kids Lit Quiz will be held in SA this October. The quiz is a general knowledge literature quiz and started in New Zealand in 1991 - the brainchild of Wayne Mills, senior lcturer in children's education at the University of Auckland. In SA, children in grade 6 or 7 may enter, in teams of four. The aim is to reward good readers, just as good sportsmen or women are rewarded. Exclusive Books became the official sponsor of the quiz in 2007 and there are regional rounds in Johannesburg, PE, Pmb, Dbn and Cape Town between 4th and 11th October.

Students collaboratively answer 100 questions arranged in ten categories.
(The categories are unknown to contestants prior to the event). For more details contact Marj Brown at [email protected].

The winning SA team is invited to compete internationally in June of the following year. There are also cash prizes and book vouchers to be won.

Last year this time I decided I was finished with blogging. It was an interesting experiment but it was too much work and brought too few returns. So I quit.

Weeks later, a colleague sent me a quick email to say my blog was getting stale. He was looking forward to the next post, he said. I hadn’t promoted the thing (still learning how it works, no time) so I thought my blog was like performing to an empty room. I didn’t realize that over time, fans were filling up the seats.

My colleague was not even the reader I thought would be interested in my folktales and parenting adventures. But there he was, a single White man in his early twenties, newly graduated from varsity; neither a parent, creative writer, school teacher or librarian.

He liked my blog enough to give me a kick in the butt when he thought I was slacking on the job. So I took my chastised self back to the stage and started telling him more stories. I even began to enjoy the experience, once I got into the rhythm of it.

GETTING STARTED

The reason I’m telling this story is to make the point that writers and illustrators who are initially sceptical of blogging can make it work for them too. Also, you can get over the stumbling blocks and get to enjoy the experience. Some of the issues to keep in mind when starting a blog are:

1) Setting up a blog is not as hard as many people fear. Most blogging platforms provide step by step instructions as you register, write and publish your first post. You can explore the site later to learn what else you can do and add interesting features over time
2) Do short posts if you have time limitations. C. Hope Clark, American writer and publisher of Funds for Writers generally has about two paragraphs and a picture in each post.
3) To find something to blog about will require serious thought, so your parameters are clear. What are you willing to talk about regarding your life? What would get you into trouble with your employer/ publisher/ family/ friends? Keep in mind that whatever you write will be for public consumption, and thanks to Google cache, your posts will remain on the Internet even if you delete your blog.
4) Pace yourself and post once a week or so. Burnout is common among bloggers.

PROMOTING YOUR BLOG
1) Judge your blog traffic by the quality of your visitors (strong interest in subject), not the quantity.
2) Most blogging gurus suggest bloggers on same subject visit each other’s blogs and leave a comment. Do it judiciously and don’t waste your time cultivating people who won’t reciprocate.
3) Experts also advise bloggers to provide visitors with unique, practical resources they can use.
4) Writing about other people is an effective way to build community. It allows the people who you interview to bring their own community to your blog.
5) Publish short essays/articles to drive traffic to your blog. We’re not talking about complicated stuff here. Just a short piece – sometimes as short as 250 words - based on work/writing or life experiences and resources. Ezine Articles and similar portals accept such articles and serve as distribution points.
6) Invite friends and relatives to visit your blog. My personal choice was not to invite them at the beginning. I wanted to put my best foot forward, because they are the people who will potentially market the blog for me. If they like it, they’ll brag to colleagues and friends: “check out my cousin Damaria’s blog here. She’s very talented, don’t you think?”
7) Link your blog to aggregators, so people outside your network can see your posts. Local aggregators include Afrigator.co.za and Amatomu.co.za. Also check out Jacketflap.com. It has over a thousand writers, illustrators, agents, publishers and librarians.
STORY IDEAS
1. Post a picture/doodle a week.
2. Post a poem, a short short children’s story every other week.
3. Interview experts your readers would be interested in talking to. All you have to do is type up 5 burning questions and email them, clean up the copy and post it.
4. Link to interesting articles/resources you found on the web.
5. Find free articles on your subject, ready to be published at Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com).

THE BENEFITS
Here are some lessons I learnt after blogging for 18 months:
1) A blog is an online place for you to showcase your work. You can refer editors to your online portfolio/clips.
2) You can allow readers to subscribe, which in turn allows you to build a captive audience you’ll market your books to.
3) There is also a growing international trend for bloggers to collate some of their posts into non-fiction books. A good local example is Tertia Albertyn, the Cape Town based woman who started blogging about her infertility and in vitro fertilisation procedures. Her book, So Close, published by Oshun Books, was based on the blog.
4) It provides a platform for new writers to practise writing and to get feedback on their work.
5) You meet very interesting people.

RESOURCES
The many reasons people blog
http://quasifictionalviews.blogspot.com/2007/06/fine-art-of-blogging_14.html
Sample blogs in the children’s publishing field
www.jacketflap.com
Choose a platform
Platforms I’m familiar with are Blogger (www.blogger.com), Wordpress (www.wordpress.com ) and My Digital Life (www.mydigitallife.co.za; local, owned by my employer.)

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Damaria Senne is a journalist and author based in Johannesburg. She blogs about writing and parenting at http://damariasenne.blogspot.com. Read her business/technology articles on the telecommunications industry (Internet and cellphones) at www.itweb.co.za.

SCBWI had a stand at the Cape Town Book Fair where members of SCBWI displayed examples of their work.

LeAnne Hardy from Jo'burg was one writer who took advantage of the opportunity to display her books. Other authors included Wendy Hartman and Reviva Schermbrucker.

Illustrators also displayed their books as well as examples of their work. Gauteng illustrators whose work was on display included Joan Rankin and Yvette de Beer. Other illustrators who displayed their work included Marjorie van Heerden and Paddy Bouma.

The stand was very busy throughout the fair. Many people went through portfolios and looked at the books published by SCBWI members. They took down names of writers and illustrators whose work they could commission. A popular attraction were the beautiful posters for sale. These were done by renowned artists such as Piet Grobler and were snapped up by eager teachers and librarians.

The SCBWI stand was next to the IBBY stand which displayed some wonderful examples of South African books. A large number of exciting children's events were also organised.

All in all, children's books were prominent at the Cape Town Book Fair.

I’ve been following the Simon & Schuster boilerplate contract change with some interest. On one hand I’m surprised that no publishing company had yet to try this tactic given that Print On Demand technology has been heralded as the next new thing (to replace the need for big brick and mortar stores even) for years now. While I’ve never believed that POD kiosks would replace the bookstore experience, the availability of the technology merges nicely with Chris Anderson’s long tail theory. Books previously unavailable because they’d dropped below the minimum number to stay in print would be available for immediate print and delivery through the POD system. You many not sell a thousand or more books at one time, but you could sell a thousand different books to one or two people* (the same idea can be applied to ebooks, which take up a minute amount of space to store forever).

It makes sense then why a publisher would want to maintain control of a title long after it has ceased selling in the thousands. Publishers make most of their income from the backlist titles, and through POD and ebooks, that list can now stretch back forever—a backlist that could make them money for no cost to maintain. No more curriculum changes forced on teachers because they can’t get the right book or students forced to wait on ILL to get the book they need. No more crying because your favorite author’s backlist is unavailable due to being out of print.

The downside to this is, as the Authors Guild states, is “if you sign a contract with Simon & Schuster that includes this clause, they’ll say you’re wed to them. Your book will live and die with this particular conglomerate.” You’re not guaranteed that your book will receive any more advertising (something you might be able to do if you took the project to another publisher) or availability to brick and mortar stores down the road. This also means you would not be able to use an electronic file as a free book giveaway on your site like Michele Albert did to help stir the interest in her newest series or sell her other ebook title through a distributor for just $1.50.

Whether or not you believe that offering free books to your readership helps boost sales is not the issue though, the issue is whether or not this contract takes into account both the author and the publisher’s rights when it comes to the source material. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the Simon & Schuster debate: do you think (as they do) that the boilerplate change is being blown out of proportion, or do you find that it infringes on the author’s rights to shop their past material around elsewhere?

Do you think that this boilerplate change comes to early given that the use of POD technology is still not wide spread and there’s no guarantee that there won’t be something better that comes along later?

I know it is mean to make you think on a Friday, but I want to hear your thoughts. Has S&S gone too far or simply made an informed business decision given the changing landscape of book publishing?


*I’m pretty sure someone else said this—and said it better—but I can’t for the life of me remember who I’m paraphrasing. If you know the source, let me know so I can cite the correct source.