On libraries

Happy Friday, blog-readers!

Many of you probably already know that this is Library Card Sign-up Month. Many of you probably already have a library card, work at a library, or frequent a library.

Big confession time.

I've had a library card for most of my life. As a kid, I spent a ton of time in the library, both at school and at the public library. But around the time I got an income of my own, I stopped going to the library. It didn't seem convenient when I could just pop into a bookstore or order something online. The ease of buying cheap used books online made my habit even worse. I'd still buy the expensive hardcover when it was one of my favorite authors, but I never went to the library.

My husband and I have over a thousand books, which makes sense since he's a writer and I'm an editor. But we also live in a house that's less than a thousand square feet. You do the math. We have boxes and boxes and boxes of books stacked in the basement. We have books stuffed on top of books on the shelves upstairs. Our bedroom's bookshelf has books stacked three books deep. And our 2-year-old son seems to have inherited our problem--his books don't fit on his dedicated shelves.

Enter the library. We have a great library in our neighborhood of St. Paul. They have a children's storytime, lots of computers, friendly staff. I've had a library card here since we bought our house, but I hardly ever use it. Besides, though the library is great, the collection is fairly small. Easier to just order it online, right? Then I realized that I'd been missing the point. In the amount of time it takes to find a cheap used book online and buy it, I can request the same book at the library, have it delivered from another branch (if necessary), and walk through my cute neighborhood to pick it up. I was definitely patting myself on the back for that display of genius until I realized that everyone else already knew to do that.

So here's to library cards. For letting me try new authors and old favorites without committing to an investment of space and money. Let's face it--I'm still going to buy books. Obviously I'm going to continue to buy books. I work in publishing. I love books. But now I'll be able to justify my purchases even more and seek out even more new authors. Yay for library cards! I'm just sorry I'm so late to the party. Apparently I should behave more like my ten-year-old self more often.

Have a happy holiday weekend, and bring on autumn--I've got a ton of books waiting to be read.

more soon!
-Beth

Is That How You Spell Myers-Briggs?

Yesterday I spoke at the Southdale Public Library to a group of parents, kids, and teen library volunteers. I talked about my mysteries and scary stories, including Curtains! and The Book That Dripped Blood. We had a great discussion about monsters, poisons, and Agatha Christie – your basic library discussion when eager young readers are involved, right? Then, a mother of two young boys asked me, “Do you have to be a good speller to write books?” Hmm. I answered that no, you don’t. But -- and this is a big but -- anything you submit to a publisher should be as polished and professional looking as possible.

Weirdly enough, a few days earlier I had been working in my office at home and came across the results of an old Myers-Briggs test that I had taken. Remember, those? They helped you identify the way you processed information or related to those around you? I was labeled as an INFP: introverted, intuitive, feelings-centered, and flexible. In the M-B universe, there are 16 basic personality types. The INFPers, however, are the only ones pegged to make great editors. And that group consists of a mere 1% of the population. In other words, it’s not easy to find a good editor. The publishing industry has known that for years.

Good editors are not simply good spellers. They are good readers and listeners. They are sensitive to the way a character speaks, and how a scene is described. Like a skilled stand-up comedian, they have great timing. They know when and how events should occur on the page. I work with a terrific team of editors at Stone Arch. We have discussions on phrasing, pacing, shifts of tense, if a joke bombs on the page, when to introduce a villain in a story. Yeah, I know, it sounds geeky, but it’s lots of fun. For those of us in that 1% of the population, this is the stuff we dream about at night. We might not have nightmares about poisons or books that drip blood, but we can wake up in a sweat wondering if we used an adverb correctly. Or accurately. Or precisely.

Scare Me! . . . just a little

I visited a library in Southeast Minneapolis yesterday, and read from some of my books to a mixed crowd of mostly 1st through 3rd graders. Before I picked up the book titled “Cave of the Bookworms” from the Library of Doom series, I asked if anyone in the audience liked scary stories. Everyone raised a hand. So I started reading the creepy story that begins and ends with a young boy dreaming about monsters. The little kids’ eyes grew wide. Their jaws dropped. They stared at the illustrations I held out to them. They responded so enthusiastically that I read another book from the series at the end of the presentation. After the kids had left, an adult came up and said how amazed he was that “the little girls liked the story as much as the little boys.” Everyone likes to be scared, I said. Especially if you’re in a safe environment such as a library or a classroom -- or, like one first-grader yesterday, on your grandmother’s lap.

Real readers review

I forgot to mention last week that we'd found this. A bunch of our books were read and reviewed by sixth graders. (The other reviews are accessible on the same blog.) So cool--I absolutely love seeing what kids think about our books. We take feedback from kids really seriously, even when it's negative. After all, our books are for THEM, not for librarians or teachers. (Though I'd like to think the books are enjoyed by the adults who read them, too!) I'd love to hear more feedback from kids--if you know of any, please pass it along.

more soon!
Beth

Four Tennessee Librarians

We had a nice break from the norm yesterday when four librarians from Tennessee came to visit the Capstone Publishers Twin Cities office. Becky, Allison, Lynn, and Diane drove thirteen hours to Minnesota, and we took the opportunity to pick their brains about what librarians want in their libraries. It’s always great to hear from librarians about what’s working and what’s not.

Stone Arch Books staff met with the librarians for over an hour yesterday afternoon. We barraged them with questions, both about books we’ve already published and about books we dream about publishing. Afterward, we were all inspired, full of new ideas and with new thoughts about books we’re already working on.

We absolutely love feedback from librarians, teachers, and other educators (and from kids!). We’re especially interested in what we can do to make your job easier and in what fiction your library needs and can’t get enough of. If you have comments about our books, or questions about how we make decisions, or anything else, please contact us either by leaving a comment on this blog or by one of the methods on our website.

Thanks for visiting, Tennessee librarians! We can’t wait to see you again soon.

TLA: Flying Off the Shelves

We kept hearing throughout the Texas Library Association conference that our books fly off of library shelves, but we’d never seen it in action. Until, that is, the last day of the conference. It was the wildest, most fun day. That’s when – at the stroke of 11:00 AM – the Stone Arch Books booth began to give away books. No, not sell them at a discount, like most of the other publishers at the conference. Ours were free! But only if a person could get at them in time. The madness began several hours before 11, when librarians walked through our booth, checking out titles, examining the art and the back matter, and spotting the best books to fill their collections. Then, as soon as the clock struck 11, the booth looked like a Lord & Taylor white sale. Librarians everywhere. Books flying off the shelves. And the coolest part of this amazing bibliophilic chaos is that the librarians are not doing this for themselves. These books are for their kids. That’s one of the reasons I love this business. The adults I work with all have the same focus, the same passion, the same goal – we want kids to read and have fun reading! We know it will only enhance their lives. So the more books we can get in their hands, the better.


--Michael Dahl
Editorial Director, Stone Arch Books

Catch the Reading Bug!

In March in Minnesota, it doesn’t feel anything like summer, between the frigid temperatures and the piles of snow—although with Daylight Savings Time upon us and temperatures above 40 this week, we’re starting to believe summer will come eventually. Of course, once summer comes, we won’t be excited about the bugs. But right now, bugs sound pretty great.

We’re getting excited for summer with our new summer reading collection, the Bug Collection. Moths, beetles, mosquitoes, and more are the focus of these fun novels and graphic novels, all part of the summer reading program at public libraries this year.

For more information on the books, check out our website, and for more information on the summer reading program, head to http://www.cslpreads.org/ .

Calling All Kid Reviewers

A big part of my job at Stone Arch Books is to get reviews and awards for our books. We get excited about reviews that are in magazines, but we REALLY like hearing directly from kids. That’s why we need your help.

Have your students read any books from Stone Arch Books? We would love it if they would write about the books they’ve read. What was their favorite part of the story? Did they like the illustrations? Would they recommend this book to a friend? Why?

After they have written the reviews, they can either email them to me at k.monyhan@stonearchbooks.com or they can mail them to:

Krista Monyhan
Stone Arch Books
7825 Telegraph Rd.
Bloomington, MN 55438.

Once I get the reviews, I will post them on our website. (We won’t use the students’ names, but will identify their grade and city with their review.)

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I hope this will be a good way to get your students writing after they read books!


--Krista Monyhan
Sales and Marketing Coordinator, Stone Arch Books

Judge a book by its cover (copy)

If you don’t work in publishing, there are many mysteries about how books are made. Who picks the cover? Who decides on chapter titles? Who writes the stuff on the back of the book?

Here at Stone Arch Books, and at most publishing companies, the editor of each book writes its cover copy (the words on the back). It seems like a pretty easy job, but it’s actually harder than it sounds. It’s difficult to condense an entire book down to 50 – 100 words (that’s how long our back cover copy is here). The cover copy can’t give away what happens in a book, but it has to be exciting enough to make readers want to pick it up. It can’t tell too much, but it can’t tell too little, either! We are working on the cover copy for our Fall 2008 list now.

You can use cover copy for a fun project for a classroom, library, or book group. Ask each student to read a book (or even a chapter of a book). Then, without reading the book’s cover copy, ask them to write their own. Compare the student’s cover copy to the book’s. What are their differences? What are their similarities? Which one most makes the student want to read the book?

Easy searching for Stone Arch Books

Do you wish you could create a nice list of Stone Arch Book titles available in your library that is easily findable within your library automation system? After reading about how Martha made it easy for her students to find Stone Arch Book titles, you might want to try this out in your library! It’s easy to do with any automation system that has a visual search option. Create a new visual search button that launches a search for keyword “Stone Arch Books”.

Remember to add a snappy picture to the button to clearly identify the titles – you can use any of our specially designed button art! Choose the color scheme you like best, and the format that works with your library automation system. (To save the image, click on the link below, and then right click on the Stone Arch Books button. Choose "Save Image As" and save to your computer.)

White background button: JPG | BMP | PNG
Black background button: JPG | BMP | PNG

Here's an example of how it will look!


Not sure about how to create a new button and search in your library automation system? Overall, most systems work in the same way:

1) Select your searching setup function.
2) Select the visual search function.
3) Get to where you want to feature your new search button and add a new button.
4) Modify the settings of your new generic button:
a. The button should be visible.
b. Add text that describes the button (we suggest “Fiction from Stone Arch Books”).
c. Apply an image to the button – you can use one from our list above!
d. Set the button action to search and enter the search term as “Stone Arch Books” or a favorite series.
5) Remember to save your changes!

Let us know how this works in your libraries – leave a comment with any feedback or suggestions.


--Gail Lewis, MLIS
Manager of Technical Project / Product Management
Capstone Publishers