Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  Here goes with some general bells and whistles you can offer:

  Sample chapters and excerpts: Let your writing speak for itself: Include excerpts or full chapters on your website. Make them viewable on the site or create read-only versions (PDFs or GIFs) that visitors can download and print if they want. End these teasers at cliffhanger moments so readers feel they must get the book to find out what happens next.

  Study guides: Also called discussion guides or curriculum guides, these four- to six-page documents are for teachers and other instructors. They’re for classroom use, providing background information for the story, researched facts about your topic, and discussion questions and activities that complement curriculum. You may include a creative writing activity, for example, or a mapping activity or a role-playing activity. Some books lend themselves to social studies, history, and even science lessons.

  Provide your study guide to teachers when you’re planning school visits. Encourage teachers to work one or more activities into their lesson plans before or after your visit to extend the lesson for the kids.

  Book club guides: Less intensive than study guides, book club guides offer discussion questions for teen book clubs. Keep the guides to a page or two so they don’t intimidate the kids. Write questions that encourage kids to apply the book’s themes to their own lives. The more fun you can make the questions, the better.

  School appearance packages: Put together a set of materials that teachers can download prior to your visit and gather those materials on the Appearances page of your website. You may include a flyer with your photo and bio, summaries and excerpts from your books, discussion guides, and so forth — anything to prepare the class for your visit, to get the students to interact with the book and/or its themes, and to help the teacher extend the lesson.

  Behind-the-scenes articles: Teens love seeing what went into creating the book in their hands. Did the characters have different names in early drafts? Where did you get your ideas? What’s the background of things you mentioned in the story? I have a section called “Behind-the-Books Blog Series” on my blog (it’s also accessible through the main menu of my website) that features the history of hot dogs, gummi bears, superheroes, and even my book jackets — all things that appear in or somehow relate to my novels. I talk up this feature with students during visits and encourage them to go to my blog for the quirky details. Behind-the-scenes articles are a fun and easy feature to add to your website or blog, and they don’t require maintenance. You write an article and post it, and then you’re done.

  Author Darcy Pattison talks book trailers

  In fall 2010, Naomi Bates, a Texas high school librarian, surveyed 100 librarians about their usage of book trailers in their school libraries. The results are astounding. The first question in the survey was “How effective are book trailers in presenting a book to students?” The poll shows that 66.3% of librarians said, “Very effective,” 33.7% said, “Somewhat effective,” and only 1% said, “Not effective.”

  Conclusion: If you’re interested in promoting a teen book, you need a book trailer. Bookstores and the trade market may not be very influenced by book trailers, but the school market definitely is. And school is where your audience lives.

  The biggest objection to book trailers is that this video advertisement takes away the role of the reader’s imagination. That is, the trailer uses certain images or actors to portray a synopsis of the story or an exciting scene, and that image imprints, replacing the reader’s imagination. That’s a valid objection: You have to walk a fine line between enticing a reader and respecting the reader’s imagination. But effective trailers manage to do both.

  How? Three options are available for creating a great book trailer:

  Movie trailer aesthetic: Book trailers that imitate movie trailers have been one of the Holy Grails of this growing field. These slick, high-dollar productions are usually created by the publisher and a few authors with big budgets. They are indeed lovely to look at, and if done well, the script pulls in readers. These are the most likely kinds of trailers to cross the line into imagining a story for a reader, but they can be very compelling. Aesthetics: Slick, professional production on all fronts.

  Slideshow aesthetics: On the opposite end of the budget scale is the slideshow book trailer. These are usually author created and feature a combination of static text and static images. These are likely to be a format that many authors choose because they don’t require a big layout of funds. The danger here is the risk of boring a reader; after all, silent movies went out in the 1920s. Aesthetics: Create the right mood with music, text, and images.

  YouTube aesthetics: As with any other video intended primarily for online sites such as YouTube, this kind of book trailer has a more informal aesthetic. YouTube thrives on humor, immediacy, and authenticity. Creativity matters more here than pristine audio or video. Short videos that allow for easy sharing, remixing, and as the basis for a spoof or parody are perfect for this irreverent media. Think flying squirrel, not story synopsis. Note: Instead of YouTube, many schools use TeacherTube.com or SchoolTube.com. Aesthetics: Creativity.

  Everything about book trailers — as with writing a great teen novel — demands creativity. Don’t usurp the reader’s role of imagining a story, but don’t bore him with static images, either. Find creative ways to stay within your budget and still pull in readers.

  Darcy Pattison is an award-winning children’s book author, writing teacher, and popular speaker on writing techniques. She runs a popular blog on writing and is widely known for her Novel Revision Retreat and her book The Book Trailer Manual. Visit www.darcypattison.com and www.thebooktrailermanual.com.

  Audio/video: Book trailers, interview videos, and audio clips are great additions to any site. These require more advanced technical knowledge, but you can find plenty of sources out there for learning it.

  Don’t limit yourself to these materials. Be creative. If your book features a journey, consider creating an interactive map for your website. If yours is an epic tale, consider a section on your site that has the community history or short stories about ancillary characters. Just be sure to lay out the site in an easy-to-navigate way. Your primary rule is “user-friendly,” with “teen friendly” being a close second.

  Garnering book reviews

  Book reviews are important marketing tools because positive reviews — especially starred reviews, a way some publications call out above-the-crust titles — can mean increased sales. Professional book-buyers such as teachers, librarians, and booksellers depend on reviews to tell them what a book is about and whether it will complement their collection or sell to their customers. Consumers look to reviews for their next purchases.

  Children’s book review sources have one of three primary audiences:

  Trade: Aimed at the publishing industry, including publishers, agents, authors, booksellers, wholesalers; Publishers Weekly is by far the most significant publishing industry trade publication

  Institutional: Aimed at the school and library market — meaning teachers, librarians, school and library wholesalers, school district review centers, library review centers, and state departments of education

  Consumer: Aimed at the general book-buying public; this includes national magazines and newspapers like the New York Times or Seventeen magazine, as well local publications

  Focus your book review efforts on the institutional and trade markets, where professional YA book-buyers look to stock their shelves for their teen readers, and on local and special interest consumer publications. Yes, the big consumer sources like the Los Angeles Times have humongous audiences, but their coverage of teen fiction is slim and focused on high-profile titles.

  Publishers usually take care of submitting review copies to key review publications. Ask your publisher’s marketing department which review sources they’ll be submitting your book to. Cros
s those off your list and start sending out to the others. It’s your job to blanket your hometown publications with review copies (local papers like to run news about local writers) because you’re in a better position to know those publications.

  To get your book reviewed, send your advance reading copies (ARCs) to reviewers several months prior to your publication date. Be sure to include a cover letter that clearly lists the book’s category and genre, audience age range, ISBN, price, publisher, and pub date. Reviewers usually want ARCs 3 to 6 months prior to publication; they’ll time their printing of the review to your pub month. Some reviews do appear after a book publishes, but you’ll lose your window with many publications if you wait to send them final bound books post-publication. Check each review publication’s website for its requirements. The publication may send you a copy of its review after it’s printed, but not always. Most publishers pay a review clipping service to collect reviews for them as they’re printed; in that case, copies of your reviews will eventually wend themselves through the review clipping service, to your editor or marketing staff’s offices, and into your mailbox. Or you can periodically do online searches. Many print reviews also appear online, as do exclusively online reviews like those on Teenreads.com. (More on specific reviewers in a moment.)

  Children’s books is the category for all books for young readers, including board books for toddlers, picture books, chapter books for beginning readers, and young adult literature — with the term young adult being a cumulative term for MG and YA.

  Established reviewers of MG/YA

  Here is a list of the established trade and institutional YA fiction review sources. For now at least, they’re all available both in print and online, with some offering their full content online and others requiring subscriptions for full access. Many offer e-newsletter updates, usually for free. After you subscribe to those, the newsletters show up in your inbox automatically. Each publication’s website gives a full rundown of its audience description, circulation data, and guidelines for submitting a book for review consideration. Definitely check their rules for what falls within the scope of their reviewing programs before you send an advance reading copy their way.

  ALAN Review: The ALAN Review is published three times a year (fall, winter, and spring) by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents for the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE). It offers articles about YA literature and its teaching, author profiles and interviews, publishing trend reports, and book reviews. Visit www.alan-ya.org.

  Booklist: This publication of the American Library Association (ALA) is aimed at librarians, and it’s a biggie. Booklist reviews thousands of new titles for children and adults every year. It offers a quarterly supplement called Book Links that brings further news about children’s books to classroom teachers and librarians, with each issue focusing on a theme and suggesting books that fall into those themes. Visit www.booklistonline.com.

  The Bulletin: Technically called The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, this monthly children’s book review journal serves school and public librarians. It reviews new books for children and young adults and offers the prestigious Bulletin Blue Ribbon Awards each year. Visit bccb.lis.illinois.edu.

  Horn Book: The Horn Book Magazine features bimonthly commentary, articles, book reviews of selected new titles, and other information related to children’s and young adult literature. Its sister publication, The Horn Book Guide, appears twice a year and contains only reviews — more than 2,000 in each issue. Visit www.hbook.com.

  Kirkus Reviews: A biweekly review publication for librarians, Kirkus reviews approximately 4,000 to 5,000 print books per year (including adult titles). Visit www.kirkusreviews.com.

  Multicultural Review: This quarterly journal and book review for educators and librarians focuses on race, ethnicity, spirituality, religion, disability, and language diversity. The journal reviews books and other media with multicultural themes and topics, and it offers articles on critical issues in multicultural literature and education. It’s the official publication of EMIERT, the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table of the American Library Association. Visit www.mcreview.com.

  Publishers Weekly: This is the primary trade journal for the publishing industry. PW provides news and articles on publishing trends and reviews of new books for adults and children. Twice a year (February and July), PW publishes a special edition highlighting the spring and fall seasons for children’s books. (Some publishers have a third selling season, offering a new list of books every spring, fall, and winter.) PW offers free e-newsletters, two of which are right up your alley: the more general PW Daily and the children’s book–focused Children’s Bookshelf. Visit www.publishersweekly.com.

  School Library Journal: SLJ is a primary reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for children and teens, with articles about timely topics of interest for school library media specialists. SLJ reviews thousands of new books for children and teens each year. It offers free e-newsletters, including SLJ Teen, for librarians, teachers, and consumers with teen-interest books and other media, and Curriculum Connections, which ties children’s and teen books into curriculum for classroom and library use. Visit www.schoollibraryjournal.com.

  VOYA: The bimonthly journal Voice of Youth Advocates offers reviews, articles, and editorials on YA literature to librarians, educators, and other professionals who work with young adults. At least one annotated booklist for teen readers appears in every VOYA issue, covering as many as 200 titles on each list. Visit www.voya.com.

  Be sure to target topically appropriate publications with your review copies. Locus Magazine, for example, serves sci-fi/fantasy readers — an audience just champing at the bit for the next great fantasy epic. Send them yours.

  If you get a review you don’t agree with, resist the urge to reply or to rant about it on your blog. No matter how justified you are, your protests will just come across as a case of sour grapes. If there’s a legitimate fact error, yes, you can politely point it out, but beyond that, take the high road. Everyone knows a review is subjective, and if it’s a vicious one (rare, but it does happen), folks can recognize that, too.

  Online bookseller reviews and marketing opportunities

  Authors are finding online booksellers to be increasingly powerful marketing outlets where they can have direct impact on book sales. There are a number of small online booksellers, but the two biggest in the U.S. are Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Virtual bookstores have gained significant stature in the publishing industry over the years, with readers often turning to their listings for their initial information on a title, editorial reviews, and in-the-trenches reader reviews.

  Online booksellers understand the connection between authors’ self-marketing efforts and book sales, so they provide many great marketing opportunities for authors. Here are some ways to maximize your marketing presence in online bookseller sites and potentially increase your book sales:

  Create an author page. Online booksellers usually offer author pages that allow you to share information about yourself and your books with readers. Amazon.com lets you create your author page through its Author Central. Customers access your author page by clicking on your name on your book’s detail page (product page). You can post your bio and author photo, gather your titles on one page in a visual bibliography, add video, photos, and blog entries, and even track your sales for that site.

  Write reviews. The most powerful (and easy) way to convert browsers to buyers is to have positive and useful reviews in your book’s comments section. Research shows that shoppers put a lot of stock in customer reviews, so ask your contacts (family, friends, fans, and fellow writers) to write customer reviews for your books. Aim for a minimum of four customer reviews for each book.

  Review your reviews. You should know what people are saying about your book in online bookseller sites — and you s
hould know how to manage those reviews to the extent that you can. When you see a review you like, you can raise its profile by clicking “Yes” in answer to the question “Was this review helpful to you?” and asking your contacts to do the same. Unflattering reviews will get buried at the bottom of the list. Shoppers can still read them, of course, but at least those reviews won’t be sitting at the top of the heap.

  Resist responding to negative comments; not everyone in the world will love your book, and responding to them only makes you look bad.

  Online booksellers also post editorial reviews from major review publications on a book’s detail page. This is a contracted arrangement between the bookseller and the review publication, and you have no control over which reviews appear there. Asking the bookseller to remove unflattering reviews won’t get you far; the booksellers are more dedicated to the integrity of their book review feature than in making a single author happy.

  Tag your book. At least one online bookseller, Amazon.com, lets you add tags to your book listing. Tags are keywords such as fantasy, magic, trolls, or teen fiction that relate to your book and help readers find that book through keyword searches. For example, if a reader types “teen fiction trolls” into the book search field, books with those tags will show up in the search results. Increase your book’s chances of landing on Amazon search results lists by adding tags to your book. Go to your book’s detail page and type “tt” to access the “Tag this product” feature. You must have a Real Name or Pen Name in Amazon to save your tags. Anyone can tag any book — and the more people who tag your book, the higher it ranks in search results (there are many factors in ranking; this is just one) — so ask your friends to tag your book, too, using the same tags you used.