Do you have a vision for the future of children’s literature? Who will be the drivers of change?
The other night, a good friend, Margot Lindgren, who maintains a fabulous book review blog for children’s literature, posted a review of a new book by Matt Ralphs. Although I’m not a Teacher Librarian in a primary school, Margot’s style in writing reviews makes me return to her blog to read her viewpoint – she is forthright, eloquent and sincere in her love of children’s books. I always learn a great deal from reading her reviews.
So this particular review struck a chord with me – a strong female protagonist in a story written by a young, male author and in a genre that is very popular with readers in my high school library. I took to twitter and posted the following comment with a mention to the author and included a link to Margot’s review and it wasn’t long before the author replied…
#tlchat Interesting review of @MattRalphs2 ‘s Firegirl by my favourite children’s lit reviewer https://t.co/Ak6UgjwrBc
— Deborah Hogg (@DebHoggoz) November 8, 2015
@DebHoggoz Thank you for sharing this, Deborah. What a lovely review and exciting to think that people in Australia are reading my book!
— Matt Ralphs (@MattRalphs2) November 8, 2015
So here we were – promoting this author’s book – no publisher in sight, no marketing department… just the author and his readers sharing our response to his book… and this is certainly no longer an unusual interchange! My point here is that social media… connectivity… is a driver of change in the world of publishing. Authors have a whole new virtual world that is open to them to engage with their readers – and not just on Twitter!
Enter the ‘hybrid author’. The author “who prefers a diverse approach to getting her[his] work out there, which means utilizing both the traditional system of publishing and also acting as an author-publisher in order to retain control and self-publish her[his] own work.” (Writer’s Digest, 2013) So in addition to the traditional means of publishing the work of authors, the Internet provides the author with choices. These choices have also affected the very nature of authorship because anyone can self-publish – anyone can find an audience – anyone can write a book and find their readers online.
The effect of connectivity and self publishing doesn’t come without its challenges, certainly, but as a driver of change? The possibilities are endless. Back in 2012, I had a group of high school girls who were significant self publishers on Wattpad. One girl in particular had over a thousand followers and her collection of stories stretched to many hundreds of hours of writing… none of which was acknowledged at school! Writers will find a way… and have lots of choices in this modern, connected world.
As a Teacher Librarian who has a Twitter profile, it has fascinated me to find myself with followers who include a wide range of authors, from all sorts of genres and age groups. I have no idea how they find me – other than if they investigate the #tlchat #AussieEd #dlchat or #oztls hashtags, but it hints of the modern author’s use of connectivity to get their name out into the world of book consumers and hopefully encourage a few purchases along the way. Children’s literature is morphing and changing… interaction between author and reader is adapting and changing… genres are expanding, platforms are multi-modal… there are so many opportunities for change.
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