How to use this Page

We've had a number of people ask why we need to raise so much money and I certainly appreciate and understand the question. It's certainly a reasonable one to ask!

Let me start by giving you some history and an understanding of how the site works. I apologize in advance for a looooooong post.

Once upon a time, I used to be a web development manager for a large corporation. I started YABC while I was still working and it was basically a hobby for me. It was a way for me to keep in touch with the stuff that interested me while I was (selling my soul) working a regular job. So, from 1998 to basically 2004, that's how things went. The site cost me quite a bit to run every year, but I wasn't concerned about it because I made a lot of money (that's the good side of having a corporate job) and it was fun and it made me feel connected to the things I loved. As a web development manager, I also had lots of friends that could help with coding the website and I also did a large portion of it myself. The site as it exists today was mostly coded in the first couple of years it existed.

Then I took the big leap and quit my corporate job to write full time, effectively cutting our income in half. We also moved to another state (and then moved again AND had a baby). I was able to spend more time on YABC before I sold my first book, but now the cost of the site was a factor. Still, I loved doing it and wanted to keep it going. I was lucky to add on a number of volunteers, some of whom are still with the site. All of YABC's volunteers are unpaid.

As the site has grown, so have the costs. Last year expenses were almost $4,000.00 (after I implemented many cost-saving measures) and while I'm (yay!) finally making some income as a writer, reports of us all being millionaires are complete fantasies (I wish!). At this point, after discussing it with my husband, we came to the conclusion that either we had to get the website profitable enough we could hire some people to help run it/maintain it or I needed to give it up to concentrate on my writing. I'd looked into possibly selling the site as-is for someone else to run but couldn't find anyone who would do so in the manner in which it was intended.

There are also so many things I've wanted to do with the site for years but couldn't do because of the associated costs. Tons of improvements and upgrades, the ability to pay reviewers, etc. etc. We also need to incorporate the site, which costs a few thousand dollars.

So, now you can see why making the site profitable is important to me. One of the issues was that I had never tried to make any income off of the site. Sure, I'd added the Buy from Amazon links and had put up Google Adsense ads, but those pull in very little income (not even enough to cover just the hosting costs alone). I'd never bothered with search engine optimization or advertising, and had allowed the site to just kind of grow organically by word of mouth. That just doesn't cut it anymore.

Nor does the site itself, anymore. YABC was around before blogs were. It isn't a blog, though this blog is part of it. There's a LOT more to it than free blog software can handle. There are literally thousands upon thousands of lines of code (currently in ColdFusion) and thousands of lines of data in a database (SQL Server). As an example, if you wanted to re-create the website in just plain HTML, you'd need to code over 30,000 pages of stuff and each time you made a change to one page, you'd need to ripple it back to change other affected pages. There's an entire administrative site that visitors don't see, but the volunteers use on a daily basis to maintain the site. When I put the site together way back in the late 90's, it was fairly cutting edge. Now? It's woefully out-of-date. It needs a major overhaul. And even if I personally wanted to tackle it? I can't. My skills are so far out of date that they might as well be non-existent (and often feel that way).

We've gotten in two

As part of our fund raising efforts, YABC will be hosting some auctions where the proceeds will go towards the rebuilding fund. I'll be auctioning off a manuscript critique and possibly some other things as well. If you have anything you would like to donate (really, pretty much anything at all -- books, services, other stuff), please contact me at [email protected]. Every bit helps!

Thank you!

You may have noticed the changes we've been making to the site -- well, we've got a lot more planned. But we need your help. We've received the bids back on what it will take to bring the site into the future and serve you better. YABC needs to raise $10,000.

We've started a campaign and every contribution, no matter how small, will help immensely.

Readers, we've given away thousands of books since 1998 and we plan on continuing to give you more (and more, if we can get the site changes implemented). Authors and Publishers, we've promoted you and your books tirelessly, and have even more promotional options planned.

But we really need your help.

Thank you for your patronage all these years and I hope you'll see fit to contribute even just a bit towards our goal.

Please support us by donating here.

We're starting up a special newsletter that's intended for Authors Only interested in receiving special advertising discounts and offers and tips & hints on how to promote yourself and your book (not just on the YABC site, but everywhere on the web). Please pass on to authors -- new, old, pubbed, pre-pubbed, famous, not-famous...we'll have something for everyone. And it'll only be sent out once a month, generally, so you're not going to be deluged with e-mails. :-)

Our hosting company is experiencing some kind of technical difficulty on the server and the site has been up and down starting early this afternoon. We apologize for the problem and hope that it will be fixed very soon.

If you haven't already responded to the YABC survey, a winner will be drawn at the end of the month! Please feel free to pass it on -- your comments ARE being heard and YOU are shaping the future of the site!

Okay, remember that contest I had for a new YABC logo? Well, we've chosen one...and the winner is...

Please see http://community.livejournal.com/kickstart_tu for all the details!

There's an auction going on to support Tu Publishing and help raise the necessary funds. I've posted two auctions: one is for a 10 page critique and the other is for a full year of advertising on www.yabookscentral.com. Bidding starts at just $20!

Support a new multicultural press & then advertise for a year!

Okay, I really do think it is time for a brand spankin' new logo for Young Adult (& Kids!) Books Central. So it's time for a contest, people.

WHAT: you design a new logo for the site and submit it to me at [email protected] in either .gif, .jpg, or .tif format or what the heck, .psd is fine too.

HOW: Any way you want. Any colors. Any look. Anything! You can create it on the computer or you can draw it and scan it in.

WHO: Open to anyone in the U.S. or Canada (or anyone who has someone they know in the US that can accept the prize for them).

WHEN: Submissions are due by December 31, 2009.

WHY: The prize? A big old box of books. Yep, an entire BOX of books. (What's in the box, you ask? Um, honestly, I've already sealed it up and I don't remember. But the box weighs 12.5 pounds and is packed full of YA and MG books. Approximate value I would guess to be around $150 dollars.) Plus credit to you on the website for designing the logo, plus if I have bookmarks or anything made with it, you'll get some of those too.

Now for the fine print...if less than 5 submissions are received, I'll cancel the contest (but I know you guys can do better than that). If enough submissions are received, I'll likely add some additional prizes for 2nd and 3rd places. The grand prize winner will be chosen from all eligible submissions. Most likely, depending upon number of entries, the YABC staff will choose their top picks and then put it to the vote.

If you have questions, post 'em here! Good luck! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

For those of you who might have missed the original announcement, the end of September 2009 also saw the end of the YABC Prize Bucket and the 15 book reviews = a free book giveaway. I still hate to do it, but there you go.

I do have some good news -- there were quite a few people who had hit 14 reviews, just one short of the 15 requirement at the end of the month. I've emailed them and let them know I'm also giving them a free book in this last round of prizes (though I'll be filling their requests after those of the ones who hit the 15).

Thank you so much to everyone who has participate on the website over the years. Can you believe we've been around for over 10 years now? Wow! I hope to continue seeing all of your great reader reviews in the years to come. You've always got something interesting to say.

Please also make sure you enter the monthly giveaways (they're continuing on!). This month includes a special Cirque du Freak giveaway and a Beautiful Creatures giveaway and a Diary of a Wimpy Kid giveaway as well (I'm about to post that one, so stay tuned).

Now for the extra special good news...

Remember I mentioned that I'd still have a bunch o' books left over after I gave away the final Prize Bucket prizes? I still want to give them away, but I'm planning on doing it in one fell swoop (or possibly two or three or maybe even five, depending on how many books are left). And I want to give it to a teacher for a classroom library. You can either enter for yourself OR enter for your teacher. Here's what you have to do:

1. E-mail me at [email protected] with the subject line: Kick Start a Teacher's Library!
2. Tell me your name and age and (if entering for someone else) your teacher's name and age.
3. Tell me what age range they teach (elementary, middle, high school).
4. Now, tell me why they (or you) deserve to get a big old box full of books

Hey! Just noticed we're up to 246 followers here on the YABC blog! You know what that means! Four more followers and another giveaway! What'll I be giving away this time...hmmmm....you'll just have to wait and see!

I'm also up to 191 followers over on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KimberlyRPauley -- Nine more followers there and I'll be giving away a signed hardback of Sucks to Be Me or a t-shirt. :-)

Boy, I'm in a giving mood, eh?

And some of you are as well -- Tu Publishing's pledge drive is up to $740 dollars, but she's got a long way to go to get to $10,000. My challenge is still in effect -- donate $50 or more and I'll send you a signed copy of my book plus some other goodies. Remember: you will need to email me at [email protected] to let me know that you saw this here & send me your address! Only one person has claimed the book so far, though it looks like more have donated and quite a few have clicked through.

And lastly in the giveaway-ish kind of news, I've extended the Book Trailer Envy contest over at my website www.kimberlypauley.com to the end of September since some people asked for additional time to get their video submissions in order. Check it out and get your submissions in -- you could win an AWESOME prize pack. And hey, every entry gets you somethin' (just for submitting one you're gonna get some kind of prize).

In other news, check out this great interview with Paula Chase Hyman over at The Reading and Writing Sistaz. I think it highlights why we need more multicultural books!

Okay, so, in my continuing efforts to make maintaining the YABC site more manageable (so I don't have to shut it down), I have made the following changes today:

1) Reader reviews now go live on the site as soon as they are submitted.
2) I've added a "Report this review for inappropriate content" link on every review.

What does this mean? Well, it means that reviews immeditely show up on the site without being looked at by anyone on the admin staff. This is good in that it cuts down A LOT on our workload and in that you can see your review immediately. It's bad in that there are always some people who find it funny to submit either junk or profanity-laced reviews. *sigh* But, at least that percentage of people is fairly low. Most YABC site visitors are AWESOME. And I'm relying on you to help me keep the site junk & profanity free. If you see a "bad" review, please click the link to report it. Simple as that.

I'll get an email with the URL of the "bad" review in it and I can then either delete it or edit it as the case may be. I'm hoping this will take up less time than looking at each review that comes in. It's not perfect, but hey, we're all volunteers and we don't get paid. :-)

In other news -- remember that this is the last month for the Prize Bucket!!! Get your reviews in and earn those books! I wanna get rid of 'em!!

Okay! Lots of news to post today!

First off, one of the lovely YABC reviewers, Julie Prince, is officially going "infrequent." While we'll definitely miss seeing her around on a regular basis, a big congrats should go out to her on her brand new baby boy! Julie will still be contributing reviews every now and then as she has time, so keep an eye out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And please welcome Kristin Alvarado and Melanie Foust as the brand spankin' new Interview Mavens! You might recognize Melanie's name as the runner up Teen Demi-Goddess. She's going to be providing the teen perspective with upcoming interviews and Kristin, a former librarian, will be providing the adult side of things.

Kristin and Melanie can be contacted via [email protected] and will be both conducting new interviews AND posting the backlog of interviews that I discovered in my e-mail. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lastly, it was a tight race, but the official YABC Tween Demi-Goddess is...Maya McQueen! Stay tuned for more on Maya soon (I'm waiting on her official bio now). Her new email address will be [email protected] ! Congrats, Maya!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll be making site updates to go along with all of these (and other) changes. Check out the About This Site page for all current reviewer/staff info.

Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs is a fun and colorful tale that is filled with illustrations that capture the seventeenth century Holland with glimpses of some of Rembrandt’s paintings. Check out more of my review at YA Books Central.

Hey! Woot! We've been nominated for Best Kidlit Blog as part of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! We need to send off our top 5 posts as a representative sample of the blog. Do you guys have any favorite posts you'd like to recommend? Would love to hear!

• A Cat in the Hat temporary tattoo


• Garfield: The Movie Audio Book on CD


• A Series of Unfortunate Events Read with Caution pin


• An assortment of bookmarks


• See You Down the Road by Kim Ablon Whitney, signed


• Choices by Katrina L. Burchett


• ARC of No Girls Allowed


• A YABC magnet

Isn't that coolness? I await your email with further instructions (i.e. your address and name), O Empress.

==================

Important Site News -- PLEASE READ

And now for the not so good news (for you at least, it's good news for me). After much deliberation and a long conversation with my hubby last night, I have decided that I can no longer do the 15 reviews = a free book giveaway. There are many, many reasons for this (the expense and the time being the biggest) and while I hate that I can't do it anymore, I just can't. I have turned over and over in my mind trying to think of some way to continue to support it, but there's just no way unless someone else wanted to take it over (and honestly, I don't see anyone wanting to pick up over $1,500 in postal fees every year). So, after September, that giveaway will no longer be available on the YABC site. It has had a good, long run (over 10 years) but the time, as Marvin K. Mooney knows, has come and it is time for it to Go.

I'm also going to be shutting down the forum & forum giveaway (it's been dying a slow death lately anyway as I haven't been able to devote any time to it). The monthly publisher-sponsored giveaways WILL continue and I will continue to do follower giveaways (blog and Twitter both) as well as periodic special giveaways.

I will be adding a BUNCH more books to the Prize Bucket. I have a big stack of pending review books and I will be first offering the YABC reviewers a "last chance" at them. Whatever they don't want will be going into the Prize Bucket. After September and the final mailings I will take all the Prize Bucket books that are left and do a big giveaway for a school or classroom library (so teachers & librarians, start thinking now).

Thank you to everyone who has participated in the 15 reviews giveaway over the years. I hope that you will continue to visit the site (heck, there are still great giveaways going on every month not to mention all the great reviews). You will still be able to submit reviews, they just won't count towards anything (other than helping other people find a great book!).

Here's a picture of the mailing that's about to go out (and thank you muchly to @bookgoil on Twitter for coming by and helping me get it together -- am very glad I met you at ALA and even more glad you live nearby!). The one half-empty bag will be full by the time I get it ready to go. I'm not sure how many packages / books this mailing is total, but it's a fairly large one!

Candor is a gripping tale that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Read more of my review at YA books central.

Hi All!
I'm looking for a new YABC volunteer staffer. I need someone to:

a) Post interviews submitted by authors via the "Build an Interview" option and
b) Interview authors (generally via email) and post them
c) Post notifications of new interviews posted on the YABC Blog (i.e. right here) ;-)

This is a non-paying (heck, all positions here are non-paying, but figured I'd state it for the record) position. No set hours required but if you can do a couple a week, that would be great. There's currently a backlog of interviews to be posted, but once those are finished, you could really just pick your own hours every month. You can also pick your own title (suggestions would be: The Interview Maven, The Queen (or King) of Questions), etc. Other reviewers would still be free to conduct interviews (we all do, periodically), but you would be the primary contact.

If you are interested, please email me at [email protected] with your name, your age, why you would like to volunteer for this position and any other questions or comments you might have. Thanks!

Powerful and gripping, Gringolandia brings to life the horrors of what some political prisoners went through in Chile.

Okay! Since Blogger added some nifty new features (okay, not new exactly since they've been around a while but new to YABC since I'm just now using them), I've deleted the old list of Author Blogs and replaced it with a new list of Author Blogs (see sidebar) that includes a snippet from the blog if possible. I've also added a new list called "Cool Book Blogs" and here's where I need your help. Do you have a book related blog? Or are there some cool ones you read every day? Let me know what they are by posting them here in a comment and I (or [hint, hint] one of the other reviewers here at YABC will add them to our list). There are so many awesome blogs out there now!

Authors, if you're blog is not listed and you'd like it to be, you can also post it here for someone to add. Or, if you're already listed but the link is incorrect, let us know. :-)

I am happy to (finally) announce the semi-finalists for the YABC Teen Reviewer spot! (Yes, I know it has been forever and a day). They are...

Melanie Foust and Noel Furniss!

Thank you to everyone who submitted an application. We (all the YABC reviewers) had a very tough time narrowing it down and, in fact, couldn't get it down to just one person. So, I've asked Melanie and Noel to each submit a new review for you -- the YABC site visitors -- to vote from. I'll be posting more soon regarding that, so please keep an eye out (we'll need your votes!!)

I'm also still accepting applications for the YABC Tween Reviewer, so if you are between the ages of 9 and 13, get your application in!!

Welcome to Kim Bacciella to YABC as a new reviewer!

Kim Baccellia - [email protected] (MG, YA, emphasis on paranormal, urban fantasies, historicals, graphic novels, fantasies, and edgy contemporary) *I also love good multicultural stories.

Kim Baccellia loves reading. Her grandfather used to always tease her to be careful as reading too much would sure lead to other things! Kim is the author of the crossover multicultural fantasy EARRINGS OF IXTUMEA. Her YA paranormal CROSSED OUT is coming later this year. She's also shopping around an upper MG fantasy. She keeps a blog at http://kbaccellia.livejournal.com

She's a former first grade teacher who now volunteers at son's school and library. Kim also loves to quilt, practice yoga, do genealogy, and watch chick flicks. And she can't wait to see NEW MOON later this Fall as she admits to be a big Jacob fan!

All reviewer bios can be found at http://www.yabookscentral.com/cfusion/index.cfm?fuseAction=home.about at any time :-)

After hearing from some people, I've decided to also add a TWEEN Demi-God or Demi-Goddess to the YABC website. This reviewer would need to be between 9 and 13 years of age and would be reviewing age-appropriate books. Given that they are younger, they would need to have parental approval and supervision. Interested? This is another semi-permanent position (i.e. yours until you get too old for it (13) or decide you don't want to do it anymore). You would need to submit at least one review to the site a month, but can (of course!) do more. You can receive as many free books as you do reviews. :-) You can be a girl or a boy, but your parent must also give me their approval in writing (email is fine). You would also have the opportunity to interview authors via email.

If you want to apply, email me at [email protected] with:

Your Name
Your Age
Why you want to be the Tween Demi-God or Demi-Goddess
Why you think you would be the best candidate for the job
How many reviews you'd like to do a month
What type of books do you like to read
And a sample review (any book)

Thanks! And good luck!

Okay, yes, I'm *finally* in the process of picking the next semi-permanent teen-demigoddess (i.e. position is yours until you turn 18 OR you decide to quit). More soon on that! Just wanted to at least post an update that it was finally happening!

In other news...hit 100 followers on Twitter and will be giving something away. Up to 170 something here on the blog (that's the Google followers, not the RSS followers, which is a lot more, but I have no way of knowing who those people are). Remember, when we hit 200 there will be another giveaway there too!

Will also be adding a TON of new books to the Prize Bucket very soon. I'm paring down my to-be-reviewed stack to one bookshelf and the rest are going into the Bucket or to another reviewer!

If you happen to be on Twitter, I've finally broken down and started an account. I feel like a bit of a twit, but there you go. You can follow me at: http://twitter.com/kimberlyrpauley

I'll probably be posting YABCish stuff there, as well as my own stuff. Maybe I'll even have a follower contest. Lots of authors seem to do that. 'S fun, yeah?