Fusenews: Shop Talk

• In the world of blog conferences there is a phenomenon not much remarked upon. Bloggers go to the conferences, become disheartened for one reason or another, and quit blogging abruptly. Mind you, this tends to happen more often at big conferences like BlogHer and the like.  So I’m gonna get all braggy here and claim that The Kidlitosphere Conference, in contrast, tends to inspire folks who had never blogged before to start.  But I can understand why some people quit, particularly if it comes to checking their user stats. I tell you, I’ve been a much happier blogger since I was unable to see my user stats on a regular basis.  I once did a post on my old blog (about whether or not anyone should join SCBWI) and in one day hit 850 unique visitors.  It blew my little mind.  Felt like I was on a roller coaster and, to be frank, it frightened me to think about it. No more! Now I could get 10,000 visitors and I wouldn’t even know it.  And that, strangely enough, is a comfort. Thanks to Liz Burns for the link.

• For those of you wondering, last night’s Kidlit Drink Night went swimmingly.  There was cake.  There was pie (a creamless Boston Cream Pie in honor of the Boston contingent).  In terms of foreign stats we had Canadians: 1.  Irish: 2.  Londoners: 1.  Londoners won the farthest traveled award (but the Irish certainly ran a close second).  All in all, a rousing success. 

• Speaking of Liz, she has a post up discussing the blog-based Cybil Awards for books, and why they are so interesting.  "Kelly, Anne, and the others involved with the Cybils are (and have been) transparent about the process. The "about us" section of the website goes into more detail about the Cybils and how it is run. Who is involved? Team Cybils 09, complete with names and blogs, are all on one of the sidebars at the Cybils website. In addition, each category organizer is right now introducing themselves on the Cybils blog, such as Liz Jones, Graphic Novels organizer."  I can’t highlight enough how important transparency is when one is determining quality.  The great thing about the Cybils is how upfront they’ve been from day one about who is choosing and why.  Liz goes on to explain how you can get involved and when you can start nominating titles (October 1st!!).  Very exciting.

• Embarrassed about your To Be Read Pile?  Now you don’t have to be.  Greg at The Happy Accident has been collecting pictures of To Be Read Piles and the results are impressive.  I’m particularly fond of Biblio File and the wall o’ books.

• In defense of Wikipedia.  Non-fiction picture book author Marc Tyler Nobleman is tackling that most deadly of debates: Whether or not Wikipedia can be considered a reliable source of information.  In Wikipediagilisticexpialidocious, Part One he cites studies that find Wikipedia as accurate as the Britannica Encyclopedia and in Part Two he considers other details.

• Here’s something you don’t see every day: Someone managing to mention the live action cinematic version of The Cat in the Hat without giving it so much as a dollop of criticism.  The Tribune Review offers the strangest piece on picture book to film adaptations, going so far as to call that atrocious Jim Carrey Grinch @mitaliperkins for the link.

• Jen Robinson has a post up right now called Popularity in Blogging and Book Awards that I think is necessary reading at the moment.  Recently there has been a fair amount of talk about popularity and how it reflects upon the community.  Jen transitions the talk into The Cybils (a theme today) and much like Liz does, explains the process so that there won’t be any confusion.  Here’s my favorite part: "We wouldn’t, for example, put an author on a panel where that person has an eligible title. Tanita Davis won’t be judging in Young Adult Fiction. Sara Lewis Holmes won’t be judging in Middle Grade Fiction. And so on."  Makes sense to me. 

• Daily Image:

This one’s so far into the Animals Who Should Have Their Own Picture Books category that it’s practically Animals Inspired By Picture Books instead.  I mean, seriously. 

You can see the other shots here of the leopard/rat interactions (I assure you that they don’t involve one eating another) here.  Thanks to Jennifer Schultz and Cute Overload for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews