Twelve-year-old Brittany Rush is the toast of the commercial and print advertising scene. Ever since she was a gurgling baby and was discovered to become the face of Good Baby formula, she hasn’t known a life where her face hasn’t graced television screens, magazine pages, or massive displays in fast food restaurants. Other girls cower when she walks into auditions and her prestigious agent practically worships the ground she walks on. To Brittany, life is lights, makeup, and pretense. And she loves every minute of it. But when her mother, a journalist, is transferred to Hong Kong for a year, Brittany has no choice but to leave the world she loves. At least she’s content in the knowledge that it’s just a year. A year can’t change much, can’t alter her status and fame. Right? Wrong. Because when Brittany returns to New York, her agent tells her that everything has changed. Being thirteen is way different than being twelve, and Phoebe, a girl who previously couldn’t even remember her lines, is now booking jobs left and right. Brittany is left in the dust, relegated to “friend” status while Phoebe shines in the limelight. But Brittany soon has a plan to bring Phoebe down. But will her guilt–and a burgeoning interest in both Phoebe’s brother Liam and a new art class–get in the way of the career she yearns to regain?
Archives for March 2012
Let’s talk about stats, baby
I have been sitting on this topic for a long, long time, and after seeing it become an issue earlier today on Twitter, I thought there was no better time than now!
Stats: we’ve all got ’em. They tell us all kinds of useful things, like how many people subscribe to our blogs, how many hits our blog gets, how many page views we have, where our viewers are reading from, and so on. They’re like circulation numbers in print media: stats give a good idea on how much and how many things are going on on a blog. In addition to stats as useful numbers, there’s also commenting numbers that can provide some interesting information.
These numbers can be passed along to publishers in exchange for, say, receiving advanced copies of titles — those numbers can show your reach and your ability to spread the word about a title — and they can be used if you’re seeking out advertising and revenue for your blog. Stats are important because they help separate out and help file bloggers into different categories. Bloggers who get a lot of comments and a lot of hits appear to have bigger reaches in the blogging world, and they then are more entitled to receiving certain “high interest” galleys and receiving some of the perks and promotional opportunities that can come with working with publishers or publicity agencies. These are the bloggers making bigger impressions, and they’re the ones who’ll give the most exposure to the most people. It makes sense. Numbers can say a lot!
When bloggers approach publishers seeking ARCs, sometimes they will lay out their stats for the publisher, and sometimes they publisher will ask directly. There are some publishers on Netgalley who have in their requirements that bloggers wishing to receiving an egalley put their information right in their bios, so that the publisher can make an easier decision on whether the blogger’s numbers match what their ideal numbers are. If a blogger meets that number, they have a better chance at receiving one of the limited number of ARCs available (it’s not guaranteed, but it’s a plus point to them).
Bloggers work exceptionally hard to make sure they’re getting good numbers — they blog regularly, write features that garner traffic, spread the word about their posts in any social media outlet possible, teach themselves search engine optimization to ensure their posts are among the first results popping up when people Google a book. They check their stats daily, weekly, monthly, and they note trends they’re seeing and work to ensure it’s an upward, not downward, movement.
Honestly, it’s at times mind blowing to see how much work bloggers put into their blog — they’re impassioned, they’re loyal, they’re dedicated, and they’re always looking for the next opportunity. Those who work hard SEE the rewards, through not only stats, but also through commenting, through their posts being spread wide and far, through being asked to take part in a huge promotional push on a big title (which then helps their blog’s exposure, the stats, and so on and so forth). But my question is this, and it will continue to be this: what does it even mean? What value does it have? Is there a value at all?
There aren’t answers and there never will be. That right there is why stats, in my mind, are not at all a useful means of measuring a blogger’s worth.
Here’s a screen shot of our stats from the last month (February 20 – March 20), as provided by blogger. As you can see, we’ve had almost 500 hits today, and we’ve had over 22,000 hits in the last month. It’s pretty astounding, considering these numbers do not take into account our readers who subscribe via RSS (I’ll get there in a second). This is only people who go to stackedbooks.org.
And here’s a comparative screen grab of what Google Analytics says our stats are in the same time frame. We’ve had somewhere between 4,100 and 6,800 visitors, and we’ve had 11,300 page views. As you can see, our traffic patterns vary, depending on the day and depending on the content. I can tell you that the peaks are when we have guest posts and when we have posts that elicit conversation, and our valleys are when we post book reviews (the bread and butter of what we do garners the least amount of traffic – go figure!). We also know we get more hits on weekdays as opposed to weekends, and during holidays and during conference seasons (ALA, etc.) we have declines in our readership. The traffic pattern information is useful to us when we’re planning our posts, so that we don’t post something we want people to read when we know our readership will be lower.
One more statistical compilation to look at — this is what sitemeter (the little button at the very bottom of our blog and many other blogs) says about our blog. We have far fewer hits per day and week according to this site than we do account to either Blogger or Analytics’s numbers. It also has our overall page views much lower than the other two.
Now those numbers all show the information for how many people are going to our blog directly and interacting with it at stackedbooksblog’s worth on these numbers at all. As both Kimberly and Jen can attest to, this is probably the first time they’ve actually SEEN all of these numbers in one place. Same here. We have them but we never pay attention. We pay attention to writing strong reviews, interesting features, and doing so on a consistent schedule.
So, when we’re asked for our stats, we average out the numbers and get a good idea of what our page views are.
In theory.
We have never once been asked to provide our stats for anything. Never. Once.
I mentioned earlier that these numbers do not take into account readers who subscribe by RSS. But that’s a number that’s always changing and inconsistent, much like the stats listed above. We can, however, get a bit of an idea thanks to Feedburner and thanks to the stats feature in Google Reader (which only gives information about GoogleReader subscribers).
Here’s our Feedburner readout:
Here’s what Google Reader says for our feed:
These two numbers are reading our feeds by different addresses but I know that FeedReader shows our GoogleReader subscribers as much higher than GoogleReader shows our GoogleReader subscribers. But these are two wildly different numbers! And then there’s the complication of numbers of people who are “following,” rather than “subscribing” to our blog.
I’ve talked before about readership and about critical reviews and about different types of bloggers, and that conversation is worth thinking about when we look at stats. Different bloggers are going to garner different readerships and different stats. They reach different audiences and have different goals. I’ve believed for a long time this is something people were aware of, but I know the case is that that’s not true. There are bloggers who have astronomical stats because they’re promoting titles and they’re working as publicity for titles, rather than as reviewers for titles. Then there are bloggers who only review popular titles. Then there are bloggers who seek out lesser-known titles or bloggers who work primarily backlist titles. Their stats are going to be much different than those who are, say, doing cover reveals (and racking up hits that way) or those who are the first to review a very popular title (say Bitterblue). And that is okay. It is okay. Everyone reaches a different audience and everyone has different goals, and the entire beauty of the blogging world is that everyone can coexist like this.
One of the things we know about our readership is that the bulk are librarians or educators. It’s not our entire audience by any means, but a good chunk are. These are people who are gatekeepers to other readers. They spread information by word of mouth and, often, by opening their budget, too. We have readers who tell us they purchase books because we’ve given it a positive (or critical!) review. We know we have readers who look to us to find out what book they can next hand to a teen who loved x-titled book and needs something similar.
And that — that right there — is exactly why we do this.
We don’t do it for the stats, and we don’t do it to see our numbers explode. We don’t do it so we can get the next greatest promotion nor the next biggest title. We can get them from the library or purchase them ourselves when they’re available. Sure, being the first to review an exciting title is neat, but it’s never our goal here. That’s not to say the folks who do do those things are wrong. It’s just that their goals are much different than ours. And that. is. okay.
So why the long and detailed discussion of stats?
Stats tell us NOTHING.
They tell us absolutely NOTHING about a blog.
The truth of the matter is that while blogs certainly have a role in buzz marketing and in helping sell books and in putting books on people’s radars, we are only hitting certain audiences. Each blog hits different audiences and different readers, and those readers do different things with that information. They pass it along to colleagues or teens, they use it to buy books or avoid buying books, they use it to keep up-to-date on what’s coming out. But do we, as bloggers, know what they’re doing?
The answer is no. We don’t. We have ideas, and we can be told, but the truth is, unless we’re the ones buying a title, we don’t know how many titles we’re selling of certain books. We don’t know our true REACH. We never can and we probably never will.
All these stats do is give us a number. They give us something to look at and to pass along, something that can feel good or feel bad, depending on the day the blogger looks at it. But the truth is, these stats don’t tell us about content or quality of content. It just tells us something was looked at a lot or not looked at at all. It tells us when things are looked at more and when they’re looked at less. They’re a tool for the blogger to plan and think through what they’re doing. And if you take our numbers at their value, our biggest days come when we aren’t reviewing books, which is what we like doing most here. Which is what publishers provide ARCs for — the review. Our stats aren’t useful except to ourselves and whatever meaning we ascribe to it; they’re not useful for publishers because for them, it’s a raw number without meaning behind it.
Stats, as interesting as they are, really don’t tell us anything. They don’t tell us the true impact of what we’re doing. They don’t tell us whether what we said made someone buy a book. They don’t tell us how many people added a book to their GoodReads to-read shelf (sure you could extrapolate, but that’s giving yourself a lot of credit). They don’t tell us anything about ourselves except that we exist and, in some cases, we should be paid attention to. Because we ARE reaching someone. Just . . . we can’t know more than that.
Back to an earlier point: we have never been asked to provide our stats for anything, and I’ve laid them out right here for you to look at because as much as people are protective of their own, they’re also perversely interested in other people’s numbers. Publishers often talk about bloggers providing stats but they’ve not — as far as I know — given any indication of what good stats are. They haven’t laid out publicly what they’re looking for in terms of numbers or reach. At Kid Lit Con in 2010, there was a discussion about this very topic, and the response from the publishers was that they look at quality of work, they look at stats, and they look at comments. To which savvy bloggers cried precisely what I have said — numbers. mean. nothing. Reviews get the lowest views. Reviews get the fewest comments. But it doesn’t make the work any less valued or valuable or worthwhile.
There’s a lot of interest in comparing one another in the blogging world (and in the greater book world, too). But the truth is, comparing yourself to anyone else is pointless. Looking at your stats and seeing they’re better than or worse than ours says absolutely nothing about the quality of what you’re doing nor does it say anything about what your readers are taking away from your work.
What I’m Reading Now
The Traitor in the Tunnel by Y. S. Lee
Mary Quinn is back, this time posing as a maid at Buckingham Palace so she can investigate some petty thefts for Queen Victoria. What should be a small but delicate job turns into something much more serious when the Prince of Wales is involved in a scuffle with a Lascar and a friend of his ends up dead. The Lascar in question just may be Mary’s father, a man she has never met and presumed dead all her life. Everything I loved about the first two novels in this series reappears here: historical detail that doesn’t ever seem tedious, a plot that surprises me, and the ever-engaging Mary Quinn as protagonist. James Easton also returns. I’m excited about the fact that this case seems much more personal for Mary than the last two.
Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
I had heard the buzz about this book leading up to its publication, but what really made me want to read it was Lenore’s review. One of my favorite books of all time is Biting the Sun, a duology by Tanith Lee about a future society where death is impossible – once dead, people’s consciousnesses are simply removed from the shell and placed into a new body of their choosing. You can read all about my love for it here. Incarnate seems to have a similar conceit, so I’m interested to see how it compares.
Perception by Kim Harrington
Clarity was a surprise favorite of mine last summer, so I was eager to pick up its sequel, particularly since the weather in Texas has gotten warm enough for hammock reading. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just wrong to read this series unless you can do it outside in the sun. In this volume, Clare starts to receive some notes from a secret admirer that later take a decidedly sinister turn. The trademark snarky voice that I loved so much is back, making this a thoroughly enjoyable read.
The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
I wrote a little bit about this one in my Midwinter recap. I’m only a few pages in, but so far I’m really digging the budding mystery involving letters from a young woman who lived centuries ago and how it connects to the present-day murder that the protagonist has so far only alluded to. (Also, for the first fifty pages, I read “Adriane” as “Ariadne” and I kind of wish I hadn’t realized I was reading it wrong. Ariadne just seems so much more appropriate for this kind of story.)
The List by Siobhan Vivian
The Monday of Homecoming week at Mount Washington High School is when the annual list shows up. It’s written anonymously and has on it the names of two girls from each grade: one who is the prettiest and one who is the ugliest. For all eight girls, being put on the list changes their status at school, despite the fact none of them choose to be included. Suddenly, they’re all in the spotlight.
Siobhan Vivian’s The List is a story about the eight girls on this year’s list and what being put on that list does to them.
There are eight voices in this book and each of them is unique and fully developed. It’s in third person present tense, and it works — rather than being inside the heads of each of these girls first hand, we’re getting more objective understandings of each because we’re removed from them. Vivian excels in writing tight prose that elevates and rounds out the characters, but she does so without forcing the reader to believe one thing or another about them through the story; they’re dynamic.
When readers are dropped in the story, the characters are just learning they’ve been put on the list. That means the first interactions we have with the characters are emotional ones: Abby, prettiest freshman, is pleased to find herself on the list but immediately worries how her older sister Fern will react; Danielle, ugliest freshman, has just reunited with her football playing boyfriend Andrew after a summer apart and now being called out as not only the ugliest girl but as “Dan the Man” has her worried how much longer he’ll hang around; sophomore ugliest Candace is trying to make sense of going from being one of the prettiest to becoming one of the ugliest in just a year and keep her friends in line with their elaborate Homecoming plans; Lauren, the prettiest sophomore, is adjusting to being at a normal high school after spending her life as a homeschooler; Sarah, the ugliest junior, doesn’t care she’s made the list because appearances aren’t her thing at all; prettiest junior Bridget went through a dramatic physical transformation over the last summer due to a worsening eating disorder; senior ugliest, Jennifer, has made a school record in being the only girl to appear on the list four years running, though it’s not necessarily a badge of honor; and finally, Margo, prettiest senior, takes this as a sign she’ll follow in her sister’s footsteps and become Homecoming Queen but she’s quickly approached by the principal, as he’s suspicious that she knows the truth behind the list. He wants answers and he trusts her to deliver them.
As the week progresses, we learn these girls are a lot more complex than their labels suggest. I found myself invested in some girls more than others. I don’t find that to be the fault of the writing, but rather, the fact that some characters spoke to me more than others. In particular, I thought Sarah’s story was extremely compelling — she’s okay with being the ugly girl. More than okay, in fact, as she owns it and displays it. She chooses to go without showering as sort of a sign that the person or people behind this list were right. Sarah is the loud representation of everything that’s wrong with the list: she’s proving the point she can become what people want to believe if they go by appearance alone. Deep down, she’s a hurting girl and she’s complex, but that’s not what the people around her way to know her as. They only care that she’s unattractive. Her owning it is as much of a middle finger to the people around her as it is a defense mechanism for the pain she’s carrying.
On the opposite end, I also found myself quite invested in Bridget’s story, too. She’s gained her notoriety as the pretty girl through her eating disorder. For her, being on the list is almost confirmation of the way she’s treated herself, and it’s also almost motivating, since she doesn’t find herself stopping the behavior, either. Whereas the “fame” gives Sarah a way to rebel, it gives Bridget a sense of purpose. The other character I found myself drawn to was Danielle — her relationship with her boyfriend hurt to watch. Not because he didn’t treat her well, but because he becomes pressured by his teammates to reconsider his involvement with the girl deemed ugliest in the school. The list had power to not only impact the girls who made it, one way or another, but it impacted those who knew the girls, too.
The List explores the power of labeling, as well as the power of identifying with or rejecting them. Of course, the labeling is a small aspect of it, since the story is much more about appearance and the power beauty does or doesn’t have in defining people. Vivian does a good job of keeping the story very much high school. There are big issues here, but it never comes across as inauthentic. Because this story takes place over the course of Homecoming, the big event plays into the story and grounds it. It’s a time when emotions are already a little heightened, but the list only amplifies them. Also playing a role in the story is the fact the list is anonymous. There are plenty of ideas of who could be behind it, but there aren’t many strong leads, except for the fact whoever creates and distributes the list has — or has access to — an official school seal, which is placed on each of the copies.
For me, this is Vivian’s strongest book yet. It combines her ability to develop full characters with strong writing and an engaging premise. More than that, though, it not only tackles the complex issues of labeling and appearance well, but it also tackles a slew of other issues within each of the individuals without ever making them stereotypes nor flat, single-issue people. This book will appeal to fans of Vivian’s other books, and it’ll appeal to teen readers who like strong contemporary stories that are very much about high school life. While I don’t dismiss the fact there will be male readers who can enjoy this story, I definitely see this having higher appeal to female readers, and in part, that’s because the characters are relatable. I can see teen girls finding themselves in at least one, if not more, of these stories. This is the kind of book that’s made for a book discussion because there is a lot to dig into and talk about. The List is also partially inspired and in the spirit of the classic Cormier title, The Chocolate War, which gives it even more to dig into.
Previously:
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Same Difference
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl
Twitterview with Siobhan Vivian
Review copy received from the publisher. The List will be available April 1.
So You Want To Read YA?: Guest Post from Kathleen Peacock (author of Hemlock)
This week’s “So You Wanna Read YA?” post comes to us from Kathleen Peacock.
Kathleen spent most of her teen years writing short stories. She put her writing dreams on hold while attending college but rediscovered them when office life started leaving her with an allergy to cubicles. You can learn more about her on her website at www.kathleenpeacock.com or follow her on Twitter @kathleenpeacock.
Without further ado, let’s date some YA books, shall we?
Nickname: A_Great_Perhaps
Real Name: Looking for Alaska
Pick up line: “I’d finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be discovered.”
My perfect date: A small coffee shop filled with misunderstood people and corduroy.
My friends would describe me as: Shy and a little too earnest for my own good but my crooked grin and combination of innocence and smarts makes people fall hard and fast.
About Me: There’s no point in denying it: I’ve got a thing for manic pixie dream girls. If you’re misunderstood and angry yet adorable, let’s hang out. Self-destructive girls and thoughtful guys please do apply. And remember: a bazillion nerdfighters can’t be wrong.
I’m perfect for you if you like: That blond girl in Almost Famous, thoughtful, self-deprecating guys, getting your heart ripped out in the best possible way
Pick up line: “May the odds be ever in your favor!”
My perfect date: Hunting. I’ll shoot a squirrel. You cook it.
My friends would describe me as: I actually only have one friend. He’s short on words but good at setting snares.
About Me: I’m only here because the Capitol thought my life wasn’t hellish enough and signed me up for online dating.
I’m perfect for you if you like: Lots of action, Survivor, doomed romances with a body count, commentaries on reality TV, voyeurism, and consumerism
Pick up line: “Someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.”
My perfect date: Trying to track down an obscure band which may or may not exist. Or hooking up with punk rock angels. I’m not picky.
My friends would describe me as: My friends are a hypochondriac and a garden gnome. Both may or may not actually exist outside my mind. Either way, you don’t want to know how they’d describe me.
About Me: I’ll never make sense and you’ll love me that way.
I’m perfect for you if you like: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that claymation episode of Community, movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Stranger than Fiction, conversations that make no sense.
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