Kid Boss on Amazon Rapids

Amazon Education released a new reading app today with short stories for kids ages 7-12. It's called Amazon Rapids. One of its goals is to provide another, more familiar venue to get kids reading. I think it's a great idea. That's why when they asked me to write stories for it, I happily said "yes." If you decide to subscribe to it or do the free trial, check out my Kid Boss stories. It might just get your kids reading, and hopefully laughing too.

P.S.
They should also have another story series of mine on the app before too long.

How to Open Doors to Learning

I love libraries. Before I could read my mom would often take me to our local public library. I would check out my favorite picture books, which usually consisted of various Curious George books. I would take them home, turn the pages, look at the pictures and pretend I could read the words. It established in me a love of books and a desire to read. It also made the library a comfortable place for me to visit.

As I grew older, libraries became a place of learning for me. I wasn't one who would spend hours holed up in the library reading book after book. But if wanted to learn something new, the library was often the first resource I would turn to. I still remember when I was a teenager and first learning how to snow ski. I went to the library to check out a book on skiing and read about the finer points of the snowplow technique, followed by the parallel ski. Anything I wanted to learn about I could find in the library.

Today, the Internet often becomes the first place that people turn to gain new knowledge. That's okay. But we shouldn't let our children grow up thinking that the worldwide web is the only viable resource beyond their textbooks for research and gaining knowledge. Until the day when all the vast physical collections within libraries become digitized, our children need to learn to feel at home within the walls of their local library and practice the valuable skill of cracking open a physical book. Frequent visits to the library with our children will make that happen. Those frequent library visits will also instill within our children a life-long love of reading.

But don't forget that today's libraries aren't just about physical books and references. The ever-growing digital collections that many libraries work to build provide even greater and easier access to extensive reservoirs of knowledge, opening the doors of learning wider than ever before.

Top Reasons for Ebooks vs Printed Books

Tablets, eReaders and smartphones continue to drive the popularity of eBooks. Still, not everyone has moved to the digital age and some don't plan to anytime soon? Where do you stand on the ebook vs printed book debate? What factors motivate you one direction or the other? Share your opinions by taking a minute to take the quick polls below.

Do you read or plan to read...

What factors motivate you to read ebooks over printed books:

 
 Answer the following polls if you read or plan to read both printed and digital content:

What factors motivate you to read printed books over ebooks:

For which of the following would you most likely rely on an ebook:

For which of the following would you most likely rely on printed books

Top 5 Ways to Get Children to Read - #5

Accept that Everything is Reading

It’s debatable where this concept really ranks. Some might say it’s actually the number one way to get children to read. But the truth is that one of the most powerful ways to get children to read is for parents, teachers, librarians, caregivers and others concerned with helping children become readers is for us adults to simply accept the idea that everything is reading, and then encourage that reading in children.

For parents, this requires making a wide selection of books available and accessible to children, including classics, adventures, mysteries, biographies, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, sports books, humor, non-fiction, encyclopedias, and yes – even graphic novels and comics. But the idea of Everything is Reading is not limited to just traditional books or ebooks. It includes newspapers, magazines, websites, do-it-yourself manuals, even the back of cereal boxes and more.

The idea is to encourage reading of any type. That encouragement and acceptance can help kids to keep reading and might eventually lead them to gain interest in reading a wider variety of other types of reading material. The more a child reads, the more the child develops their reading ability and the better chance they have to succeed in school and life in general. To get them to read, be okay with what they’re already reading or want to read.

For more on the concept that “Everything is Reading”, read my interview with elementary school librarian and SLJ 100 Scope Notes blogger, Travis Jonker.

# 1 Way to Get Children to Read
# 2 Way to Get Children to Read
# 3 Way to Get Children to Read
# 4 Way to Get Children to Read

eBooks and eReaders in the School Library

Booktalk Interview with Travis Jonker – Part 3
Part 3 of an interview I conducted with Travis Jonker, an elementary school librarian in Michigan, founder and blogger of 100 Scope Notes, reviewer and  blogger for School Library Journal, former judge for CYBILS Awards, and member of the 2014 Caldecott committee.

You mentioned earlier the effect that has come from changes in technology and the rise of eBooks. Tell me other ways that has impacted school libraries.
Travis: Last year I wrote a grant in our school district to purchase eReaders. When it came through, we started a program where students could check out the eReaders and take them home like a normal book. It has been hugely popular. We keep trying to add more to keep up with demand. Whether you’re a school library or public library, there’s no denying that eBooks are going to be hugely important.  They’re growing so fast that I think now is the time for libraries to give it a shot.

What were some of your goals with the eReader program?
Travis: One of our goals when we started was to give all our students access to eReaders, especially kids that wouldn’t have access to that sort of thing at home. We felt that a lot of the features of eReaders would be good for students. They can take notes. They can change the fonts. A lot of times the eReader will even speak the words. There are a lot of features, especially for reluctant readers, that might engage the students a little bit more.

With the introduction of your eReader program, did you see a rise in reading with more students reading than before?
Travis: Definitely. We had students who hadn’t had the highest interest in reading before, but were very interested in checking out an eBook and reading it on an eReader device. It’s hard to know whether they were interested in trying something new or if they were interested in some of the eReader features that could make reading a better experience for them. But we had interest from kids who read all the time and from kids who weren’t really readers and hadn’t been checking out books very much. We have a waiting list for all five our eReaders that will take us all the way to the end of the school year. As soon as one comes in it goes out to another student.

What advice do you have for other schools that might want to kick off their own eReader or eBook program?
Travis: A big part is analyzing what you want out of the program. One thing to think about is what you want out of the experience. Do you want it to be mainly for reading? Do you want something where students will have more capabilities, such as from a tablet like an iPad, a Kindle Fire or something like that? That’s the first step. Once you settle on that, based on what your students need, you move forward from there.

I know cost is always a big issue for schools. Do you have advice for how schools deal with that as they look at launching their own eReader program?
Travis: That’s tricky. Our grant came from a local education foundation in our school district. But there are definitely other sources out there. FableVision Learning has an email subscription list that will send you different grants that are available. But in a lot of cases, school libraries are already portioning some of their budgets for digital spending, like databases or online subscriptions. So if a grant won’t work for them, they might need to look at using some of their digital funds for eBooks or eReaders. Or they might want to use a little bit of the money they would normally use on print and put it toward digital. I think more and more school librarians will have to put a little bit more money into the digital side of things.

Any other advice in terms of eBooks and eReaders?
Travis: That’s another situation where I think it’s just good to just jump in and try it. It is growing so quickly. Librarians definitely need to stay current and that’s a good way to stay current.

(Note: Travis recently wrote an article for School Library Journal about his school’s experience with its eReader program, which provides advice and guidance for other schools. You can read the article Travis's Excellent eReader Adventure at www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/08/information-technology/traviss-excellent-adventure-or-how-to-launch-a-thriving-ereader-program-in-a-rapidly-changing-world/)

Value of Publishing Options

One of the discussion forums I’m on asks why authors would continue to try to go the traditional publishing route now that there are e-books and self publishing? First off, self-publishing has always been an option. The difference today is that e-books provide an easier, much more pervasive vehicle for self-publishing than what print-only offered in the past. So one of the questions that really needs to be asked is what value does traditional publishing provide over self-publishing?

Some of the values that self-publishing delivers, includes:

• No barriers to entry (This is also a negative, since it opens the floodgates to low quality stories)
• Faster time to market
• More control
• Higher royalty percentage (However, this doesn’t necessarily promise higher actual revenue)

Some of the values that traditional publishing delivers, includes:

• Built-in distribution sales channel and marketing for both print and electronic versions
• Team of seasoned experts that contribute to all aspects of the book publishing journey, such as story editors, line editors, cover artists, layout designers, PR people, salespeople, production team, and more.
• Inherent stamp of approval for major book chains and distribution channel in terms of book quality
• Inherent stamp of approval for readers in general (While this might eventually become less of a factor as ebooks evolve, with some exceptions I believe for the present most readers will choose traditionally published books over self-published)
• Higher chance of success (While I don’t have numbers to back this up, I would predict that on average traditionally published books have a higher per-book sell-through rate than self-published books. Please feel free to provide numbers that confirm or dispute this)

Of course there are cons to both options too. Self-publishing typically requires an upfront investment by the author as well as increased marketing effort by the author. Even though traditional publishing is requiring more from its authors in terms of marketing, it’s hasn’t yet reach the level required by the self-publisher for success. Traditional publishing also has cons, the foremost of these being that it has a very high barrier to entry. Some feel that barrier is too high. For me there is actually value in that barrier and it’s worth it to me to spend years and significant effort breaking through it. I also place significant value on having a team of experts backing me up. I look at that as a key ingredient to my long-term success as an author.

So, the question really comes down to, what do you want as an author? If you’re a great marketer yourself, if you don’t think you need the expertise that publishers provide or you just simply want to have a book published, then self-publishing might be your best publication path. If you want a team of experts to contribute to your success and you’re willing to put the effort in to join their team, traditional publishing might be the best route.

While to some, this post might seem like a contradiction to my post of the other day, it’s really not. Both publishing routes deliver a set of values, but the importance of each those values will change based on individual author perspective and as the publishing landscape continues to evolve and change in the wake of the digital revolution.

Also, I know that the above is just a short list of the values that both routes offer. Feel free to add to the list in your comments below.

Author Platform: Friend or Foe?

Over the past few weeks I’ve read a number of articles that talk about the importance of author platforms for increasing book sales. One of the main concepts of the author platform is to create an instant audience for your books through those who follow you via social media, whether it’s your web site, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever. Consulting editor, Alan Rinzler has a great article on The “New Author” Platform – What You Need to Know . Along those same lines, children’s author and SCBWI regional adviser, Kathleen Temean has some great ideas on her blog post today on how to drive traffic to your web site. Additionally, well-known blogger and literary agent, Rachelle Gardner talks in her blog today about why author platforms are so important to agents and publishers.

These are just a few examples of great articles on the how-to’s and importance of the author platform, and I will definitely continually refer to them as try to build up my own platform. But as I read these and so many other articles like them, it makes me wonder if publishers and agents are slowly putting themselves out of business with the increasing emphasis that they place on authors creating their own audience and promoting themselves. It’s obvious that the days are long gone when an author could sit in seclusion, cranking out new books and then passing them off to their agent or publisher to market and sell. But if more and more of the marketing and promotion responsibility falls to the author, what role does that leave for the publisher and agent?

I have long been an advocate of going the traditional publishing route versus the self-publishing route. One of the main reasons for that has been that I’m not an expert in book distribution, promotion and sales. While I enjoy speaking at conferences and doing school visits, I want to be a full time author, not a full time marketer. But if traditional publishing continues down its current path, that might be exactly what I need to do to be a successful author.

Of course, another important role for the traditional publisher and agent is to be the gatekeeper, to make sure only the highest quality books make it to market. But with the exponential rise of epublishing, are they really needed as gatekeepers anymore? Word of mouth and social interchanges of discerning readers have the ability to determine which books are worth reading or not. In many ways, traditional publishers and agents are being seen by many authors as road blocks to publication rather than vehicles to publication.

It reminds me of an interchange I had with an author friend about a year ago, in which I was suggesting that she steer clear of the self-publishing route and go with a traditional publisher. She basically said, “Been there, done that. It was a financial fiasco.” She then told me that due to the publisher’s standard royalty rate that she didn’t make nearly as much money as she thought she could. Inwardly I thought, well that’s just the way it is; the publisher gets their cut, the distributor gets their cut, and retail gets their cut. That’s life. But then she told me about her author platform of more than 30,000 dedicated followers who would instantly buy her new book whether or not it came from a traditional publisher. She built up her author platform so well that she really didn’t need any more of what the publisher had to offer her.

Along similar lines, an article two days ago in the New York Times talks about how Amazon’s vision of end-to-end publishing services has publishers running scared because it leaves them completely out of the publishing loop. For authors that have built up a popular marketing platform, Amazon offers a compelling and more profitable option than the traditional route.

Although, I’m still an avid proponent of the role that traditional publishers and agents can play in regard to author success, as the ebook industry evolves and as publishers and agents shift more and more of what used to be their responsibility to the author I have to wonder what role they will leave for themselves, if any.

What are your thoughts about the growing emphasis on the author platform and self-promotion?

How do you see that increased emphasis affecting the role of publishers and agents?

Ebooks vs Printed Books Part 3

To gather more insight into the ebook versus printed book debate, take a moment to participate in the poll below:

Note: I apologize but there is an error on the 4th line of the first poll question. It should just say "Read or plan to predominately read ebooks". Unfortunately, blogger doesn't give me a good way to fix this without starting over.

Do you...

Indicate any of the following factors that would motivate you to read ebooks over printed books:

Indicate any of the following factors that would motivate you to read printed books over ebooks:

If you read or plan to read both printed content and digital content, indicate for which of the following areas you would most likely use an ebook reader:

If you read or plan to read both printed content and digital content, indicate for which of the following areas you would most likely read printed content:

Ebooks vs Printed Books Part 2

As I’ve gathered information on what motivates people towards printed books instead of ebooks, I’ve found that many of the motivators are intangible or emotional in nature that will probably make it difficult for ebooks to completely overcome print books. I’ve summarized below the different responses that I have received on my blog as well as on the different social networks I participate in.

Here you go:

• Some people love the feel, texture, weight and smell of printed books
• Some people like being able to see the attractive cover of a book while it’s on their nightstand, table, or bookshelf
• Some people have an emotional, nostalgic feeling toward printed books
• Printed books do not require batteries
• Printed books can be read on an airplane during the entire flight, and don’t need to be turned off like ebook readers during take-off and landings
• ebooks are yet one more electronic appliance that requires a charger that people don’t want to have to deal with.
• Printed books are more convenient than ebooks for some people
• More printed books are available from more libraries than ebooks
• Printed books are easier on the eyes than some ebook readers for some people, especially for long periods of time
• Printed books are easier to read outside in bright daylight than some ebook readers
• Some printed books are less expensive than ebooks
• Some people don’t like having to learn how to use a new gadget just to read a book
• Printed books can easily be loaned to or from friends
• Used printed books can often be bought for less than ebooks
• The probability of malfunction, breakage, or loss of an ebook reader can make them much more expensive than print books
• It’s more enjoyable to curl up with a good book on a cushy chair or sofa, an experience that would not be as emotionally satisfying with an ebook reader
• Physically turning or flipping through the pages of a printed book is more satisfying than scrolling the screen of an ebook reader
• Being able to see the physical representation of pages read is more satisfying
• Printed books promote shared reading and the close, emotional bond that can be created between parent and child sitting together to read a book
• Printed books are more accessible and easier to make available to small children
• Ebooks cannot replicate the emotional feeling and entertainment value that comes from turning the pages of a printed picture book or early reader that is being read aloud to a child
• With printed books you don’t have the worry that you have with the potential for your ebook reader to crash, causing your entire library to disappear until you can buy a new reader and hopefully recover all your lost ebooks
• With printed books you don’t have the worry that your ebook vendor might accidentally (or even purposefully) remove from your reader ebooks that you have purchased
• Some people don’t want to trust their entire library of books to a digital network or storage
• Some people simply love being surrounded by lots of real books or looking at bookshelves full of past books they’ve enjoyed reading
• It’s easier for some people to make notes in, mark, or underline text in printed books
• Ebooks cannot adequately measure up to a beautifully illustrated printed children's book
• Referring back to previous pages of text with illustrations in printed books is easier for some people
• People using large font sizes on ebooks have to turn the page more frequently than they do for large type printed books
• For some people the simplicity of the traditional printed book is much more beautiful and emotionally appealing

Did I miss anything else?

Ebooks vs Printed Books Part 1

On my last post I asked for feedback on what motivates people towards ebooks or printed books. I learned a lot from the numerous responses received here and on the different social networks I participate in. I’ve summarized below some of the motivations towards ebooks.

Here's why some people might choose an ebook over a printed book:

- Ebooks save space and don’t require shelf space
- Ebooks are quickly and easily accessible
- Ebooks have the potential to stay in print longer
- Ebooks can be less expensive than print books.
- You can borrow some ebooks from the library with some ebook readers
- Some ebook readers are smaller than some printed books making them easier to carry
- You can store hundreds of ebooks on a single reader, making it easier to bring a large number of books with you
- Ebooks are more environmentally friendly
- You can increase the font size of ebooks making them easier to read with some readers
- Music, audio books, and games can be used on some ebook readers
- Ebooks are easier to read on a crowded commute than print books
- It’s easy to mark your place on ebooks
- Ebooks are more convenient
- Ebook readers have built in dictionaries that make it easy to look up unknown words.
- School textbooks in ebook format would eliminate the need for students to heft so many books in their backpacks
- Ebooks makes it easier to bring more books with you when traveling
- For some people, some ebook readers are less tiring on the eyes than reading printed books
- Easier on the hand, arm, and shoulder muscles to hold than a printed book.
- In other countries (or even rural areas), ebooks in your native language can be more accessible than printed books in your native language
- Using an ebook reader can make it easier to multi-task, such as checking e-mail, making notes, looking up information, and doing research.
- Some ebook readers are easier to read in the dark
- Ebooks are easier to read while lying on your back in bed
- Ebooks are cool!

In my upcoming blogs, I’ll summarize the motivations for printed books, as well as the motivations against ebooks and printed books.

e-Reader Influencers?

I have never used an e-reader before and I’m not sure I ever will. I like holding a book in my hands when I read. But at the gym the other morning I saw a woman reading with an e-reader while she used the elliptical machine. I thought, now that’s a great use for an e-reader. You don’t have to mess with the pages flipping over on their own or keeping them flat. If you want, you can magnify the size of the letters to make it easier to read. I could see myself using an e-reader in that situation.

Another situation where I could see myself using an e-reader was if I was commuting by train or bus to work. When I was in D.C. last summer I saw a number of commuters on the metro reading with their e-readers. Reading from the bulky pages of a book can be a little difficult when standing on a crowded train. An e-reader minimizes that difficulty.

Still, I’m not certain that I’ll ever embrace e-readers, but I can see their value. In the coming days, I plan to post a survey on my blog that asks people about their tendencies toward e-readers vs paper books, and what types of things might or might not influence them toward or away from e-readers.  To do that, I need a list a potential motivations or questions to ask about. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them in the comments below