It's SCBWI Western Washington Annual Conference Weekend!

Fresh from the ski slopes of beautiful British Columbia (welll, actually I didn't ski because I worked all week but at least I had a spectacular view of snowy mountain peaks from my desk), I am stopping at home for ninety minutes this Friday evening before heading to the conference kickoff KidLit Cocktail event.

I'm looking forward to learning from many wonderful writers, editors and agents; to sharing food and conversation from a lively, accomplished and very warm writing community; and to presenting my insights about School and Library Author/Illustrator Appearances at my session on Sunday. 

Full report next week :)

NAVIGATING THE BLOGOSPHERE PART II: YOU'RE READING PW, SLJ AND PUBLISHERS LUNCH, RIGHT?

Last week, I wrote about finding Kim Norman's blog (her interview should be up next week). Today, I'll share another journey. First, I want to recommend three key sites for those in search of a good weekly short-course on the state of the children's book publishing industry (versus sites about writing, agents, book reviews, submissions, etc.). If you haven't signed up already, take advantage of free online subscriptions to:

Publishers Weekly (esp. for their weekly newsletters and blogs, including Shelf Talker)

Publishers Lunch (there's a fee for premium subscriptions but here's the sign-up page for the free newsletter)

School Library Journal (you can select your "Extra Helping" specialty updates based on your interests)

So what's my web-travel story of the week?

While visiting Peter D. Sieruta's blog, Collecting Children's Books, I found a hilarious August 2008 post, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS," noting the numerous headless kids featured on recent book covers. While visiting PLA, I mentioned this to a few sales reps who (after rueful laughter) pointed out a problem with the many headless covers: It makes it very hard to tell these books apart--there's a certain sameness to the aesthetic. Then, at Shelf Talker, a PW blog (link, above), I discovered a couple of posts by Elizabeth Bluemle (co-owner of The Flying Pig bookstore, author of three children's books and incoming president of the Association of Booksellers for Children), which pointed out some interesting thoughts booksellers, authors, and publishing folks had about the aesthetic of book SPINES. If your book is in the production at this time and you're involved in the cover conversation, this cyber-journey would certainly be worth taking.

I'll close today by suggesting that you keep a log of interesting website and blog postings (and, by the way, has anybody invented a feature that can record/recount your web travels for you?).  Then, later on, you can connect-the-dots to research topics that may help as you work to publish and promote your own books. And, definitely check out the three sites above for some great starting points.

NAVIGATING THE BLOGOSPHERE: THREE QUESTIONS

Today's post will be brief as I am focusing much energy on preparing for my presentation at the SCBWI Western Washington Chapter's annual conference next weekend. My presentation is entitled "Making School & Library Appearances a Strong Part of Your Promotional Platform." Meanwhile, I have a question for you that came up when I contacted Kim Norman, author-illustrator and founder of the very useful blog Author Visits by State (my interview with Kim will be posted next week). Kim asked me how I'd found her site.

Here was my reply: I came by your site via a typically convoluted blog journey. I follow www.thestorysiren.com, and there I found a post about the Library-Loving-Blog-Challenge, which led me to http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/ for a list of participating authors. There, I spotted Michelle Knudsen and, being a fan of THE LIBRARY LION, I switched on over to her blog where I found you listed in the sidebar.

Trust me, I cannot always be this specific! However, my dialogue with Kim made me wonder about research and exploration via blog links. Which leads me to THREE QUESTIONS for readers here:

1. Can you retrace your steps to a favorite blog or website?

2. Can you describe the most common way(s) people find your blog or website on the Internet?

3. How did you find this blog?

I'd be grateful for your replies!

5 GOOD DATES FOR REMINDING THE WORLD ABOUT YOUR BOOK...

ALA School Library Month, April 2010
(Okay, this is right now, but click to download the pdf with 30 days of cool activities plus information on this year's spokesperson, Laurie Halse Anderson--and start thinking about next year!)

ALA National Library Week, April 11-17, 2010

CBC Children's Book Week, May 10-16, 2010

IRA International Literacy Day, September 8/9, 2010
YALSA Teen Read Week, October 17-23, 2010