• Does social media sell books? Here’s an interesting piece from Gillian Flynn’s agent. As you probably know, Gone Girl has done pretty darn well and Flynn’s not really all that active on social media. Neither is Suzanne Collins, who has had no problem selling her books. I think there’s something particularly fascinating in the notion of the fact Flynn’s not doing the social media selling herself but that her books have garnered a ton of social media attention anyway. Likewise, maybe it’s worth noting that the authors cited as examples in this piece are ones who likely had huge publicity and marketing bucks behind their titles and they didn’t need to do a whole lot of the work themselves. 

• This piece over at YALSA’s blog about how awards and selection lists are valuable for collection development and reader’s advisory is pretty great. Here’s a nice look at the insider aspects of being on a committee for YALSA’s awards and selection lists, too. 

• Probably not news to anyone who reads this, but in the event you somehow missed it, the 15th anniversary editions of Harry Potter are getting new covers. I love this art. 

• It was really neat seeing my post included in this roundup of posts about introversion over at Library Journal/School Library Journal’s The Digital Shift. I also wanted to include this blog post written by Lahey herself about the sort of blowback she received after her piece went up. This topic continues to inspire blog posts everywhere I look (including a couple of interesting posts at Lifehacker — one which talks about how to use your introversion for your power and another ill-informed piece about how to “overcome” your introversion to succeed. I’m not linking them since you can find them easily enough if you want to).

• The 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death came and went on February 11. Here’s a piece with some current writers reflecting on Plath’s life and legacy in memory.

• Sort-of related to the piece above about Gillian Flynn and social media is this really thought-provoking piece about book discoverability. Is it even an issue? Do people care? Or is this something that marketing is concerned about but that the average reader (and non-reader) even care about? I agree with the notion that choosing what to read isn’t necessarily linear (maybe there is for some people, but from what I’ve heard, most people are mood readers). Best line in the piece is this one: “Nothing will ever replace building authentic, two-way relationships with customers and readers.” Same with librarians. That’s the game of reader’s advisory, isn’t it? 

• I feel like I’ve linked to some manifestation of this same thing multiple times, but I still like it when I read it. Your brain on books — ten ways reading changes how our minds work. 

• What authors get big paychecks for speaking? Here’s a guide. In the event you either have that kind of cash lying around OR you want to make sure you don’t approach the wrong people with your tiny budget. 

• I’m the furthest thing from a fashion person. I just don’t care. If it fits, it’s not uncomfortable, and it looks good enough, then I am satisfied. That said, I kind of am in love with this blog of fashion inspired by fiction.

• If you haven’t been reading YA Highway lately, make sure you go check out their series of interviews with black YA authors. So far, they’ve talked with Justina Ireland and Brandy Colbert.  

• Guys. Snoop Dog, errr, Snoop Lion is reading something that might surprise you. In the best possible way. 

• Even though these aren’t book related, I’m sharing a couple of other links that have really got me thinking lately. I should note that I binge watched all of season one of Girls last weekend after deciding I can’t get enough out of reading about Lena Dunham. I know a lot of people have been turned off from watching the show because of her, but I think it’s a really smart show and I love the things she’s making people talk about (even if they don’t want to). There’s this great post about how seeing Lena Dunham made this comedian better like her own body. Further, this piece about how a “non-hot” girl managed to still have a relationship with a supposed “hot dude,” even though she shouldn’t have, if society’s beliefs were the right ones. Also, how not to be a dick to your fat friends. Speaking of fat, how about this great post about how to exercise out of self love and not for fat shaming? I do get down on myself a LOT and have recently because my workouts have been…fewer and farther between. It’s easy to get mad about it, rather than to look at it as a positive thing to do because I like and enjoy doing it. Sometimes it means waiting till my head is entirely in the game. 

• Sort of going hand in hand with that are the stories of the bookless libraries popping up. First, it was Bexar (pronounced “Bear” for anyone who hasn’t spent time in Texas) County declaring their brilliant idea for an all-digital library to reach their county/rural residents. Then it was a school in Philadelphia which is going to whittle their 47,000 some collection down to a mere 1,000 books. Why is no one calling shenanigans on either of these? Come on. The first is the grand idea of a judge — A JUDGE, not a LIBRARIAN or EDUCATOR with actual experience and knowledge about literacy — and the second is the grand scheme of an administrator in a library where there is no librarian (she’s retired!). Do we not see the problem here? Going bookless is a privilege, and even if the grand idea is access, how does giving access help literacy? It doesn’t. It’s simply ACCESS. Yes, these get me incredibly riled up because it undermines all of the work people with actual skills and knowledge in this arena have in favor of something that’s “sexy” and “cutting edge.” We’re doing the future huge disservices when we do this. But maybe I shouldn’t say “we,” because in every instance, it’s someone who is not an expert in literacy pushing for this. In light of all these (crazy) stories is the opening of the Antelope Lending Library in Iowa City. Take a step back and just think about these stories in conjunction with one another. Oh, also, this PEW study said that 80% of Americans say borrowing books is a very important service of libraries.

• And then this about what and how libraries are purchasing materials for their collections. Of note is the line that libraries do a LOUSY job with self-published materials (no kidding? We don’t have review sources for them, for one) and that all of those surveyed are in larger libraries or systems with central purchasing. 

• This is my dream reading and writing space. But I think rural Canada might be pushing it for me.

• Remember the big plagiarism story last year in the YA blogging community? One of the ladies who was plagiarized has blogged again, talking about how that incident impacted her ability to write and keep her own voice. It’s thought provoking, for sure. 

• Earlier this week, I talked about how critical reviews are a means of reader advocacy. It was sparked when Sarah asked about resources for those interested in writing critical reviews. Sarah’s since rounded up her resources in one place — so if you’ve ever wondered about writing critical reviews, here’s a great place to find some answers (and not just because she links to me).

• Only 7% of frequent book buyers find their titles online. This is a really interesting piece on online book discovery and how it’s broken. I think the simple answer is that it’s not quite human. There is some fodder in the piece about online book reviews worth thinking about. 

• Speaking of book reviews, now you can use them to ruin a book, if you want to. A fascinating piece — though not entirely surprising given what’s gone down in the blogosphere — about how fans can “swarm” a book on Amazon (and other outlets). 

• A couple of weeks ago, I started ranting to Liz about the believability factors in YA books — especially those which aren’t realistic. And while obviously fantasy/scifi books have no obligation to be realistic, there are things I wonder about. We then got on to talking about how female leads deal with things like their periods. So then she blogged about this, and the response has been fantastic. Let’s talk about that time of the month and books that bring it up when necessary. 

• Sarah at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves wrote a great piece about difficult to like characters. I’m a huge fan of seeing both Courtney Summers’s girls (though I liked Sloane) and Simmone Howell’s Riley Rose on this list. 

• Maggie Stiefvater wrote a blog post this week about the use of rape in books to create a tragic backstory. It’s a worthwhile read, but I do take a few issues with it. First, not knowing the books, it’s impossible to know whether part of the commentary in the books is that this sort of abuse and violence towards women is sickening and disgusting. Likewise, she points out something about rape being the worst thing that can happen to a woman but not a man (she words it better than I’m paraphrasing) but I think in light of current politics, her comments here actually make me more curious about how the rape is being used in these books because it may in fact be commentary on that very thing. Either way, this is a must-read piece. 

• More on ereading. Do boys gravitate toward ebooks more than girls? Or should I say, do they SAY they’d be more inclined to read ebooks than girls would say they’re inclined to? Publishers Weekly also talks about how the children’s ebook market is open territory. 

• Lenore Appelhans shares her top ten books featuring flashbacks for The Guardian. 

• Who doesn’t love a good James Frey article? Here’s more about his fiction factory.

• The Edgar Award Nominees are fascinating this year, especially for YA. I don’t think I’d consider the Wein a mystery, but there it is. This is discussed quite a bit over at Mark & Sarah Flowers’s blog, Crossreferencing, which is well worth reading.  

• Does YA Lit rely on sexist and misogynistic language too much? A thoughtful post over at crunchings and munchings. My thoughts: sometimes — and I think especially in the case of the McCafferty book discussed — it’s meant to be there AS a discussion point. But maybe I’m a bit privileged knowing that because I’ve read everything McCafferty’s written and get what she’s doing with her writing (which isn’t to say that this blog post is wrong, but rather, I don’t know if that’s the strongest example). 

• One of my all-time favorite library stories is this one: a branch of the NYPL lends out their American Girls doll. As a kid who grew up envious of my friends who had them (we couldn’t afford one!), this is the kind of thing I would have loved. And it’s so, so nice to see a librarian getting recognition for doing something so simple and yet so community-minded. Huge kudos to her and to the NYT for writing this up. 

• Does anyone else read My Milk Toof? I know I‘ve reviewed the book here before, but this week’s entry was so cute (and reading related) that I can’t NOT share it. 

via postsecret

• I’ve been thinking a lot about how we reward reading lately, and these two blog posts have resonated with me. First, a culture of reading without pizza or prizes. This school has been working toward removing prizes associated with reading, and I love the idea. Reading should be reading for the sake of enjoyment, not some trinket at the end. Why is this important? Well, the second article on this made me pause: the kid who wants a book buck for his achievement. We should celebrate reading, sure, but the physical prizes associated with it bother me.

• I love this honest and brave post by Courtney Summers about being unapologetic in regards to writing unlikable female protagonists. A lot of what she talks about ties back to what I was thinking about in the post I wrote last month about being a woman and speaking your mind and it gave me a lot of pause for thought about the sorts of girls being portrayed in fiction and thus given to our readers. It should be a huge range of voices, a huge range of likability, and it shouldn’t be cookie-cutter. 

• Speaking of being unapologetic, this post on xojane about Lena Dunham and her body confidence is out of this world good. Feel what you want to about Dunham, but her confidence in herself and in her body is absolutely admirable. 

• Jennifer Laughran has a great post about boy books and girl books and the gendering of things that don’t have genders. 

• Earlier this month in my AudioSynced post, I asked people to share with me how they get their audiobooks in. Abby passed along this post from Allison at Reading Everywhere about how she gets in eaudiobooks. I never thought to combine something like Tetris (a mindless game) with listening to audiobooks but I can see something like this working for me. 

• Are we tired of the “new adult” discussion yet? Whatever the case is, I like Amy’s take on it over at YA Subscription. It’s the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of fiction, if you will. Angela over at Adult Books for Teens on the SLJ Blogs has a great reading list of titles — genre ones, too — that would fit this interest. 

• Where is the romance in the first kiss? That’s what Adele over at Persnickety Snark wants to know. 

• Flavorwire offers up 20 books every woman in her 20s should read. These are a little bit meatier than the books on a lot of other 20 books for 20-something lists. I’ve only read a couple of these, and I just returned the Portable Dorothy Parker to my workplace (unread). Intentions are good things though.

• This is lengthy but interesting: an ethnography of readers and reading.

• We’ve all read the books that were noted as the “best of” last year. But what were the best selling titles? PW has that for you.

• This set of stories got me going this week. Douglas County Libraries in Colorado signed an agreement with Smashwords, which allows writers to self-publish and sell their work. This agreement would allow for DCL to lend 10,000 of Smashwords’s titles to readers and the contract was in very good terms for both sides. Cheap for a ton of material for DCL and good money and distribution for Smashwords. Here’s the story about the agreement. While it sounds good in theory, I couldn’t help but wonder what the collection policy would be — how would the library know what it was getting? “Best selling” in the self-publishing world is not as reliable a measure as it is in the traditional print world, due to a number of factors. So then this article about how they were selecting titles popped up, explaining it. And it kind of made me dislike the whole thing even more. They’re judging by covers? By some math equation developed through Smashwords. This is problematic because the responsibility of collection management has shifted from the librarians to instead, a mathematical equation developed by Smashwords. So then I want to know how the librarians even know what they’re getting? How do they do reader’s advisory on these things? What if they get crummy products? I guess they will know when the ball drops. 

• I love what Abby’s library is doing for reader’s advisory. Yes, I purposefully put this link right after the DCL/Smashwords piece. 

• I’ve started getting angsty about all of the 2013 books you NEED to read lists already popping up, but this one over at The Millions was a worthwhile read. Related to this is that I am definitely going to be ordering the newly covered edition of Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s because it is gorgeous. 

• My friend Sarah is part of this year’s Printz committee (and no, she has not said a single word about what she’s reading nor what she’s thought about the reading, no matter how much I’ve pleaded with her). She wrote a great blog post this week about what it feels like to serve on the Printz and about how she’s going to celebrate it being finished. Knowing how I felt after three months of doing Cybils stuff, I applaud her so much for getting through a year of insane reading for this committee. 

• This is an excellent piece about slut shaming, sex, and the way that technology has made both of these of huge concern for teens. As I was reading this, I kept thinking about Going Underground by Susan Vaught, Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman, and the upcoming Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown and how they’re all tapping into a huge and scary part of being a teen in today’s world. 

• So, this library got rid of all their books and it is apparently “thriving.” Note that the story discusses how these students now have to depend on their local libraries for books, that they still prefer print to digital reading and oh yes, they’re looking for a new librarian for a recent vacancy now. I think it’s important to incorporate digital initiatives into libraries but NOT NOT NOT at the expense of books. Why does it have to be one or the other? There is room for both. The parallels between this story and the one about Douglas County Libraries/Smashwords rub me as devaluing the human elements of librarianship. 

I’ve been asked by a number of people for an update about the book I’m writing for VOYA. After spending significant time angsting about how I was ever going to do it (which is part of my process, as I’ve come to understand), I’ve really put fingers to keys in the last couple of months. I’m nearing 100 pages of content and I have a long way to go. It took me a while to think of a way to tie together everything I wanted to bring into it, but the more I read and the more I think about what it is I really want to say, the clearer it becomes. So where it took me a long time to get going, I’m still considering it progress since I did a lot of reading of books, blog posts, and journal articles to think through the sticking points. I’m really excited about how it’s playing out. But ask me again in a month and I’m sure I’ll have a different answer.

Another update: we’re bringing back So You Want to Read YA? in March. Last week, I got in touch with a wealth of people, ranging from bloggers to librarians to teachers to authors to editors and more, and the response was amazing. We’ll have 20 guest posts starting the first Monday in March. I know I am beyond excited to see what it is everyone thinks are the essentials for a new (or seasoned!) YA reader.