This past weekend was the 7th annual KidLitCon, hosted by the Kidlitosphere, and it was held down in not-so-sunny-in-recent-weeks Austin, Texas. As you may or may not know, Kimberly and myself were part of the planning committee for the event this year, and we took on the tasks of finding locations for the events we had in mind. I think we were successful, since I believe the entirety of the conference was a success. I am glad I went, and I thought I’d recap what I did, as well as what I learned, in hopes of passing along some insight to others who may benefit.
Thursday
Because Austin is one of my favorite places and a former home of mine, I wanted to go down early and get some me-time in before the event. Leila, of Bookshelves of Doom, was one of my roommates, and she, too, came down early. We figured out our flights landed within minutes of one another, so we met up at the airport, took the bus downtown, and then we spent the afternoon with one another.
The first thing we did was grab a late lunch/early dinner at El Sol y La Luna. We stuffed ourselves on Mexican food and then headed on a nice walk down to Book People, where I proceeded to spend more money in a bookstore than I have in a very long time. I convinced Leila to spend some too, and then we hit up Amy’s for my favorite ice cream in the world. But by that point, both of us were ridiculously tired and a little cranky (early morning flights!) and we headed back to the hotel.
We spent the evening talking, which was so, so great. We hit on everything from work to blogging and books.
Friday
Since the first events weren’t until mid-day, Leila and I took the opportunity to go grab breakfast in the morning together. We’d found a place that looked good, but it actually didn’t exist anymore. So I suggested we see if The Driskill had a place to eat — and it did. It’s quite possible I had the best pecan waffle I’ve ever had. Bonus points to it being shaped like Texas.
The pre-con for KidLitCon was taking place at 1 at my old stomping grounds, the iSchool at the University of Texas. The event was open to all, and it was meant to let us get to know other bloggers, authors, and fans of kidlit.
Leila and I got there early, and shortly after, we met author Nikki Loftin. As more people began to show up, I helped get some things set up in the lounge where our meeting was. We’d devised part of the precon to be a chance to swap books and ARCs we’d had, and thanks to the generosity of Bloomsbury and First Second, we also had a couple of boxes of books and ARCs to bring ourselves. Local attendees kept bringing more and more books, and we kept going and seeing what was put out.
In short, book fans in the same room as books equals a lot of talk about books.
The precon was laid back, and it was a nice, low-pressure chance for those of us who knew one another to catch up, as well as a chance to meet new people without feeling overwhelmed.
After the event, we had a reservation at a local Mexican restaurant, where we all dined on plenty of chips, salsa, margaritas, and then delicious dinners. I got the chance to sit with Kimberly and her boyfriend/sometimes guest contributor to STACKED, Matthew, and we caught up with one another.
While a number of KidLitCon folks ended up going to the bar at our hotel after dinner, Leila and I both ended up back in our hotel room, spending hours and hours laying in bed talking. A mixture of exhaustion and needing introvert downtime made this a decision that I can’t say I necessarily regret. When Pam came back from the bar, we talked a little more, as well. Though not too much since we had to save some energy for the event.
Saturday
KidLitCon 2013!
It felt like we’d been planning this event forever, but in truth, it all sort of came together pretty quickly. We rented space and catering from St. David’s Episcopal Church and I cannot possibly say enough nice things about the venue, the ease of which it was to work with them, the food, and the support we had for our entire event from start to finish. If you’re ever in Austin and in need of a space, I would recommend them without a second of hesitation.
If I had to give three words that summed up the biggest themes talked about during the event, they would be diversity, authenticity, and burnout. Every session I went to — as well as the one I presented — covered these topics, and I’m going to try to hit upon them in each short writeup, though it’d be impossible not to see the threads coming together.
Our program opened with a wonderful keynote from well-known kid lit enthusiast, supporter, and author Cynthia Leitich Smith.
Her talk focused on blogging and how she’s come to help build and support the kid lit community through her own blogging, as well as through the sharing and uplifting of other bloggers, both those who are authors and those who aren’t. She talked about the value of having a mission and philosophy behind your blogging, stating that hers was to put something positive in the world, as well as to reject the notion that people like her — a Native woman, a person who adds to the diversity of the world — could and would do much more than be a single thing.
Some of her advice for bloggers who are feeling burned out or are looking for a means of expanding what it is they do include:
- Considering your audience: what are their interests and their expectations? What is it they’re taking away from visiting your blog specifically? How does this tie into what your mission and philosophy are?
- Maintaining your content flow: you can pre-format things sometimes, and you can try to schedule your content strategically.
- Take breaks and plan for them to avoid burnout. As she said, it’s better to be regular than frequent sometimes.
- Use your platform: Highlight and talk about the things that matter to you as a blogger. You have the opportunity to talk about diversity and whatever it means to you. So do it. Your readers come to your blog for a reason — let this be something they take away.
- Diversity matters and it’s not one thing. Diversity means so many things. Think about what it means to you as a blogger and as a reader and talk about it when it’s done well as well as when it’s not done well.
- Changing your blogging from posting about books when you finish reading them to perhaps talking about them in the middle of your reading. You think about and engage with materials differently then while still talking about them.
- Develop new features, which can be on anything from what you’re passionate about outside of yourself to personal posts.
- Perhaps you can stop writing reviews at all. If you don’t love them — and we all know and all agree that book reviews receive the least traffic, least engagement, least sharing, and can be at times the least satisfying thing to write — then don’t do them. It takes the pressure off you as a blogger.
- Give yourself the permission to say no. One of the points that came up that made me feel a little like a jerk was that we at STACKED have a no response policy. It’s in our review policy itself. If we’re pitched or approached about something and we’re not interested, we don’t respond. It takes the pressure off our inboxes and our time that we could be blogging or reading that would be spent sending responses.
- Make it easy to share things. If you want people to share your work, make it easy to do so. I know I am not good at commenting on blogs, but I read a lot, and my sense of appreciation for what people are writing comes through tweeting it out or including it in a link roundup.
- Do more lists and roundups by topic for new readers, as well as old ones. Share your old content in new ways. Sometimes you don’t have to have a brand new post every day, but instead, you can present your older material in a way that’s fresh and innovative.
- 1.1% of books featured Latino/as. They make up 24% of the population.
- 2.5% of books feature black people (African American or otherwise). They are 14% of the population.
- 1.8% of books feature Asians. They make up 4.6% of the population.
- .6% of books feature Native Americans. They make up .9% of the population.
- .6% of books feature LGBTQ people. They make up 10% of the population.
- Develop booklists and highlight the issues of diversity that matter to you.
- Think about your site organization and highlight those things which you want to highlight.
- Consider the keywords to and within your blog.
- Conduct interviews and ask the hard questions — the more we press, the more we learn.
- Pay attention to where you shine your spotlight. You can talk about the tiniest things within a book and that becomes a means of talking diversity. No matter how small it seems, it does matter when you speak up for it. So do it. Pulling out small things is rewarding and it’s what makes blogging itself fun and worthwhile.
- Leila at Bookshelves of Doom
- Ana and Thea at The Book Smugglers
- Liz at Tea Cozy
- Catie, Flannery, and Tatiana at The Readventurer
- Sarah and Laura at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves
- Karyn and Sarah at the Printz blog
- Beth at Beth Reads
- Maureen at By Singing Light
- If you tell a boy the book is a “girl book,” you are the one instilling the false notion of “boy books” and “girl books.”
- Books do not have a gender. They exist for readers to find. And that’s it.
- Perhaps the biggest point is one that Matthew made: if you have a boy who doesn’t want to read a “girly” book, you have a conversation about why there is no such thing as a “girly” book and that there is nothing wrong with reading what interests you, period.
- There are no gatekeepers to blogging. You can gain so much from it. And those who find it valuable and find passion in blogging will and do prosper. You are wholly responsible for your own reputation — and that is empowering.
- Legitimacy is a constant concern, but if you do the work right, you’re legitimate. And most of legitimacy comes simply through being authentic.
- Book blogging isn’t dying, but it might be changing. That doesn’t mean blogging will disappear, but the means through which people share and engage may continue growing and evolving. This isn’t a bad thing — it only enriches the field more.