STACKED

books

Links of Note

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Written by: Kelly on December 16, 2012.

I thought about skipping out on this week’s installment of links of note, but there was a lot of good stuff that I couldn’t. Rather, just due to everything going on in the world, due to being a little burnt out personally, I saved this post until today rather than running it on normal Saturdays. Apologies for anyone who was looking for it sooner. But without further ado:

  • So “Millennials” don’t like having their digital news flooded with ads, with pop ups, with videos and interactive content and instead would just like to read their news in columns? Color me shocked (see my sarcasm font here, please). 
  • Anna captures my heart with this post that breaks down the best of romance novels by their titles. There are charts! What words and professions were most popular in the titles? Check it out.
  • Julie offers up her perspective on how we should all be panicking about Common Core. She suggests maybe we shouldn’t and instead, we should think about how we can embrace it since it’s the reality of future education. This is, of course, in response to that insane Guardian article that people decided to panic about rather than think critically about. 
  • Though this isn’t exactly reading related, it resonated with me hard enough I want to share it: on being a late bloomer. I think about this a lot, about success and timing and goal setting, because when you start to put ages on when you want to achieve certain milestones, it always is more disappointing than it should be when you fail to meet your own (arbitrary) standards. Sometimes, the wait ends up paying off more. 
  • Many people have talked about what it means now that the New York Times has split up their best sellers list into new categories. I think this explanation is the best. While it sounds great, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be easier for YA or MG authors to shine on the list. 
  • I can’t wrap my head around this article. Lifestyle bloggers aren’t living their lives because they’re not blogging openly about their sex lives. I think the argument gets muddled — I think it’s really that these lifestyle bloggers don’t show off living their lives because of how pristine everything is packaged on their blogs, but that gets tangled in the bit about how they aren’t talking about sex. All I can think of is, sometimes there are limits to what you share openly and publicly, and that is okay. Begging that of bloggers is voyeurism, to be honest.
  • This is the best blogger post I’ve read in a while. Where is original content? Though I don’t read the blogs that tend to be big on promotional material, I think that what’s said here is important and true and I wish people would be more willing to write and demand original own content. Original content doesn’t need to be brilliant. Just…original! 
  • I stumbled upon this response to a guest post I wrote last month (the one about how you’re going to piss people off). I kind of love it — as someone who, despite feeling okay with pissing people off to do my job, still beats herself up about it, thinking about scoring response like they do in gymnastics makes sense. It eliminates the outliers and sets up a real statistical way of determining the strength or weakness of what you’re doing. I’m going to remember that. 
A bit of news for STACKED, too: we’re hosting a new series beginning this coming week. From the 19th through the end of the year, we’re doing a 13 Days of Class 2K13. We’ll have more information when it begins, but we have a ton of guest posts and Twitterviews with debut authors who are part of the Class 2K13. We will have our own posts, too, including our favorites of 2012 coming up soon, as well. 

Links of Note

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Written by: Kelly on June 16, 2012.

I wasn’t going to post a series of links for this week, but I had a few that came up that were too good not to pass along. Here’s your bi-weekly mix of the fun, interesting, and newsworthy book stuff from around the web. After linking all of these, I realized there’s probably a whole week’s worth of reading here, so grab a meal and a drink before diving in.

  • To honor the death of Ray Bradbury, Slate has a nice slide show of the cover art from Fahrenheit 451. I know. I had slide shows too, but this one is worth it, especially if you like cover designs. Oh, and then you can check out which of those covers of Bradbury’s book make ShortLists’s compilation of the 50 coolest book covers.
  • Remember a couple weeks ago I wondered whether the reissues of the Truman Capote books would get new covers? Turns out they are. Some of these are great and some, like the one for In Cold Blood, I don’t care for as much. It fits, but I prefer the original one (actually, both earlier ones — and hey, one of them made the ShortList compilation linked above, too). My favorite is the one to the left over there. It’s creepy as hell. 
  • Two things on digital books and digital reading. First, Craig Mod has a post about how book covers aren’t dead in the digital world, and he has some interesting ideas of how digital books can delight readers who like design in different ways. It’s a little lengthy, but the gist of it is: opportunity! There are new and neat things to be accomplished. The second post on this topic worth reading about got really overlooked because of another post I’ll share, but Jackie Parker has a great piece on enhanced ebooks and how they can be such a great treat for readers. See, John Green shared at BEA how enhanced books aren’t necessary because the story is enough. What he failed to mention or consider, though, is how sometimes the story is so good that readers just want more, and that’s why enhanced books are emerging.  
  • Guess what, bloggers? You have no obligation to “be nice.” You can be, of course, but there’s no obligation. A great post about what bloggers do over at Gossamer Obsessions. Biggest takeaway from that post is this: honesty trumps positivity. This post stemmed from the keynote given by Jennifer Weiner at BEA Blogger Con, which takes me here. . .
  • Let’s talk about BEA Blogger Con. First? From what I’ve read in the recaps, it sounds like Weiner did a pretty good job undermining the hard work of bloggers by proclaiming Oprah was like the first one because she became a reader-raver. That doesn’t sit with me, but since I didn’t get to hear the whole context of the speech or that comment, I’ll go ahead and link to a few of the awesome recaps of BEA Blogger Con. I have been a little disappointed with BEA Blogger Con for a while, and not necessarily because of what I’ve read here — I was invited to be on the critical reviews panel. Note that: I was invited by the organizers to be on the panel. When I said I could not make it but could I attend virtually, I was told nope, sorry, no way, despite there being a panel on using new tech in your blogs. What bothered me about this was how I was approached. I was asked to be on a panel — I didn’t apply, didn’t put my name in consideration, didn’t register for BEA Blogger Con — and then when I said I couldn’t make it and offered an alternative solution, I was simply shut out. From a professional standpoint, it seems sort of backward to invite someone before you know they’re attending (I didn’t ask for a stipend or financial assistance; I simply asked to Skype into the panel). And that’s all I’ve got to really say on the topic, but I’m saddened to see that the BEA Blogger Con wasn’t quite what it could have been. You know. A conference on blogging. 
  • I lied. I have more to add about the BEA Blogger Con, and it’s pretty well summarized in this post about the blogger-publisher relationship. Rather than offer up commentary on that post, I’d like to direct readers to this post. It’s stuff like that which makes all bloggers look pretty greedy and selfish and I ask this, and I ask it with sincerity: why is it every discussion about blogging somehow devolves into ARCs? It’s not currency. I mean that in both senses of the word. I’d like to add, too, in regards to the first post and the topic of the publisher-blogger relationship that there are so many other ways to “judge” a blog than on stats or on Klout (seriously, that was brought up).

  • You’re probably looking for something worth laughing about at this point, right? Here’s something: Courtney Summers has some tips for surviving the zombie apocalypse. I’m buying stock in toothbrush companies right now.  
  • Flavorwire has a list of 30 books you should read before you’re 30. I’ve read 13 of them, and a handful of them are books I’ve actively avoided for all my reading years. I suspect at age 30, I’ll fail this list at about the rate I’m failing it now at 27.
  • Over at io9, they’re celebrating (?) death week, and they offer up a list of a few children’s books that look death right in the eye. One of the books notably missing that I remember dealing with this topic and making me cry pretty hard as a kid was Bridge to Terabithia (that may be the only book as a kid I remember having such a reaction to). 
  • One of the best bloggers I’ve “met” this year has been Sarah over at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. Aside from being a great reviewer (I really love how thoughtful she is and how she presents her reviews), she writes some really intelligent posts on big topics. Her commentary on the notion of guilty pleasures and gendered language is worth reading. If her blog isn’t one you’re regularly reading, you should fix that.
  • Liz Burns wonders what impact will be had if YALSA chooses to go ahead with making a couple of their selection committee virtual. That’s one of the topics they want to bring up at Annual this coming week. The other noteworthy items on her blog post about the Board Docs worth paying attention to are the changes to the YALSA award list access (they have collected 16,000 email addresses, friends — that’s huge). For me, one of the items that caught my eye in the Board Doc was looking into finding a source of revenue for the YALSA blog and YALSA’s The Hub through advertisement. Here are my thoughts on that: if the organization is going to profit from the blog posts that members write and post, I will no longer be posting there. I do not pay to be a member of the organization and then write in order for them to earn more money, wherein I receive no benefits for doing so. I mean, I can’t even access the award lists anymore without having to log in a few different times and come across a number of error messages before ultimately just Googling the lists.
  • I’m posting this one for selfish reasons and legitimate reasons. Random House made this video about how a book goes from the hands of an author into the hands of a reader, and more than one person kindly forwarded it to me and said check out the screenshot of STACKED at 5:25. I like what they have to say about how bloggers can make the difference in a book’s success. Did you read that? I emphasized it to help. I wish they’d left out the qualifiers of “oddly enough,” but I think that they bring it up at all is pretty substantial, especially in light of a lot of what came out of Book Blogger Con and what’s come out lately in the blogging world. Also, our blog looks really great on screen! 
  • I haven’t read a Haruki Murakami book since college, which was when I really fell in love with him, but after checking out this bingo card, I’m ready to visit some of the novels of his I haven’t read. 

I like to think there is a little of something for everyone here this week!

Comments

  1. Given YALSA & money (and I understand that the organization needs money and doesn't run on rainbows and unicorn tears), I'm surprised that there aren't more labels for sale for such lists as BFYA/BBYA/PPYA. I include BBYA because some libraries would buy labels for BBYA books going back 10 odd years. I'm also surprised that the App was free.

    • I was really shocked the app was free, too. I haven't — and don't plan to — try it, but it kind of seemed like the sort of thing they could have made a profit from, even at a $1 price point.

  2. Great post. Yeah, the book blogger con was kind of a wash out. I mean, I get where they're coming from, and this was only their first attempt, but if I go next year (and it's a big if), I ay want to hit the UnCon instead.

    Thanks for the link!

    • It was their first year, but they had a pool of experience from the previous coordinators and previous attendees. They were "receptive" to input about how the con should go, but it doesn't sound like it went that way at all.

      I'd do the UnCon, too. It sounds like that went well and really was what most bloggers would want out of a blogger con.

  3. I'm continually dismayed at YALSA. They keep making it more difficult for me to WANT to be part of the organization. I find I get just as much support and advocacy (for free!) via other means.

    • Ditto. But as I learned, the only way you can apply for their grants (for your library) is by BEING A MEMBER. Which is a double whammy when you're paying for your membership outta you're own pocket in order to apply for money for your workplace.

  4. Awwww, thanks so much for your sweet words, Kelly. 🙂 That means so much.

    The links about the blogger-publisher relationship are super-interesting to me. I think that in all areas of blogging where products are involved, lots of weirdness happens in the space where the blogger-business intersect. Bloggers can develop an overly important sense of their own influence and the business side can see bloggers as "tools" for promotion. It's all just so icky to me.

  7. Amazing roundup, Kelly. I would be very out of it if not for link posts like yours (though you did totally eat up that last hour before bed… in a good way!).