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Whew! What a weekend! September 28-29 was the sixth KidLitCon and what a whirlwind it was. Kidlit bloggers from all around the country flocked to NYC, my old stomping grounds, eager to share their love of children's books.

The fun began on Friday with visits to publishing houses to partake in previews of their spring lists. That morning I went to Holiday House, a delightful old-school publisher, and saw previews of so many enticing books my notebook quickly filled with my scribbles. The husband-wife team of Ted and Betsy Lewin made a special appearance, showing us their upcoming books. Betsy has a charming easy reader featuring a determined alligator called You Can Do It! and Ted's book Look! showcases amazing watercolors of African and rainforest animals he photographed over years of traveling.

After a quick lunch, I hightailed it downtown to Penguin's offices, where bloggers were treated to an informative session in which editorial members of the various imprints introduced a multitude of upcoming middle grade and YA novels.

I left Penguin bogged down with so many ARCs I could barely make it to the next venue--dinner at IchiUmi. Ensconced in our own private room, conference goers feasted on an endless buffet of Japanese food and compared notes. Then the supremely talented Grace Lin, herself a longtime blogger, gave an engaging talk about her artistic career. While she powerpointed away, her husband kept their adorable baby daughter entertained.

Saturday the conference shifted to the NYC's Public Library on 42nd Street. Of the many session being offered, I attended Shelia Ruth's "Who's in Charge" and Greg Pincus' "Avoiding the Echo Chamber: Bringing the World of Children's Literature to the World." Ruth, of Wands and Worlds fame, is an amazing multi-tasker who sure knows her social media. In her talk she explained the ins and outs of social networking. I learned scads of useful information. Did you know that the worst time to tweet is Fridays after 4? Now you'll never catch me tweeting during that dead zone.

Pincus, of Gotta Book, charmed the socks off his audience. The thrust of his presentation resonated--book lovers spend much of their time preaching to the choir. Pincus made the valid point that we also need to cast our net further afield. I, for one, will definitely be taking his advice. Just not this post.

After lunch, we regrouped in the auditorium and listened to a panel made up of some of the shining stars of the kidlitosphere discuss the burning question "How Nice Is Too Nice: Critical Book Reviewing in the Age of Twitter". While no consensus was reached, the panel (Elizabeth Bird, Liz Burns, Monica Edinger, Marjorie Ingall, Sheila Barry of Groundwood Books, and expertly moderated by Jennifer Hubert-Swan) suggested several useful rules, top among them: "The author shalt never upon pain of death contact the blogger."

Unfortunately, I missed the final session and the keynote speech by YA author Maureen Johnson due to a tummy bug. I bid adieu and took off to recuperate. In doing so I missed the event I most wanted to attend, Kidlit Drink Night at the Houndstooth Pub. Oh well, I'll just have to wait till next year's conference to raise an elbow with my fellow scribes. Cheers!

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My standards are pretty low when it comes to conferences.  Essentially if ursine consumption does not occur, I consider the day a success.  Fortunately there are other ways of defining success, and though I was the organizer and therefore not wholly without my own prejudices, everything went well.  Amazingly, surprisingly, some might say shockingly, well.

In truth, my personal insanity began on Friday.  Monica Edinger of Educating Alice went above and beyond the call of duty by pretty much single-handedly organizing a preconference wherein interested attendees could go to the publisher previews we New Yorkers are normally privy to.  Under her sure hand Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Harper Collins, Little, Brown, Macmillan, and Holiday House all conducted previews for the lucky attendees.  That left the dinner that night.  Traditionally (and this is only the 6th conference so traditions are sort of flexible on this point) there is a big dinner for the attendees.  Normally, when the conference is held at a hotel, this dinner is a standard hotel dinner after the con has occurred.  This time around we decided to make it a Friday dinner in the swank Japanese buffet restaurant IchiUmi.  Then Little, Brown and Co. gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  Would I like a special guest?  Someone like Grace Lin, one of the very few award winning authors out there who actually blogs?  Um. . . . yes, please?  The kicker is that she and her family came up for the SOLE REASON of speaking at our dinner.  Not only that, Little, Brown sponsored everyone’s dessert.  Them’s class.  All I had to do was make sure there was an AV set-up.

Fun Fact: If you want to have an event with an AV set-up ALWAYS choose a location that has a private room that doubles as a karaoke spot.  Seriously, it’s the way to go.  The staff will know how to connect the laptop and make the microphones work.  The more you know.

Ms. Lin arrived with husband, world’s most adorable baby, agent, editor, and marketing guru in tow.  How good was she?  Darling, I had STAFF members of the restaurant coming up to me afterwards desperate to buy her book Starry River of the Sky (which Bank Street Bookstore was kind enough to offer for sale).  The manager of the restaurant herself informed me that she wanted the name of that book and author and that if I ever wanted to do another event there they’d be happy to help me out.  So we made friends.  We also had a good room of folks who enjoyed the company and the food, which consisted of more edibles than I’ve ever been privy to in my entire life.  Buffets RULE!

That was Friday.  It was, all told, the pregame before the finals that would be the conference itself.

Now when you are organizing an event that will ultimately allow some 175 people to enter your doors, tough decisions need to be made.  Actually only one really tough decision is up to you: Do you feed them?  And when you have made your conference free the answer is a resounding “Nope”.  I wasn’t going to feed anyone.  Not even cheap bagels.  Not even tiny bottles of cold, clear water.  So would they hate me for it?  We’d see . . .

The doors opened to everyone at 10 but I was in the building by 7:30 a.m. to get everything set-up on time.  Volunteers who should be praised nigh unto the high hills were present and accounted for.  Programs were available (anyone who wants a PDF of the program may contact me and I’ll pass it along).  Swag was spread out, notebooks stacked, pens available.  Here were the awesome Chronicle bags they sent along:

Gorgeous.  And Mark Steensland was seven kinds of clever when he offered free notebooks that also happened to have his middle grade novel Behind the Bookcase on their covers.

We also set up an area for promotion:

And another area for people to trade galleys they’d received.  This cart was full, then looked like this, then was empty 3 seconds later.  I put out a second galley cart for the folks just to make them happy.  I mean, they loved these books!

Finally, every single computer in the six rooms that would be hosting the conference was set-up and prepped.  That’s right, folks.  I had to make sure the AV would work without a hitch in SIX friggin’ library rooms.

Small downside to being a mammoth marble structure – you are a mammoth marble structure.  Say what you will about the main branch of NYPL, it is impressive.  Massive and impressive.  And sad to say, sometimes incredibly difficult to navigate.  I had managed to get rooms on three different floors, one on the opposite side of the library in a hard-to-get-to location.  That means much of my time was spent herding attendees from one area to another.  Sure, they had maps in their programs, but trust me when I say that when you are standing on the second floor of a building that threatens to overwhelm you with its grandeur, teensy tiny maps don’t quite cut it.

One final problem: Here we had a blogger conference but the very auditorium, which would remain our base of operations, hadn’t any cell phone reception!  As Rocco Staino tweeted so eloquently, “I will be tweeting from #KidLitCon today that is If the walls of @NYPL will let me. The building is grand but also a #Bombshelter.”  Fortunately, it did have Wi-Fi and folks would definitely use it.  You can tell when you go online and see all the comments under our hashtag #kidlitcon12.

At any rate, I am pleased to report that at 10:30 on the nose everything began.  Our 175 attendees looked more like 150 which, let us face it, ain’t no small potatoes.  I had spent the better part of the previous day arranging everyone’s schedules and printing them out for them.  I was therefore eager to set them on my way.  So I gave an opening speech that delved a tiny bit on our history and scope.  Truth be told, they weren’t there to see me so I cut myself short, explained to them how the day was going to go, and then shooed them off to their various locations.

From 11:00-11:45 there were four parallel sessions:

#1 – In the Children’s Center on the friggin’ other end of the library (two full city blocks away) was Sheila Ruth (Wands and Worlds) presenting the talk Who’s In Charge? The description of the event described it as a presentation that, “will help anyone who is using social media for professional reasons to take charge and manage it in an effective way. Participants will learn to create a strategic plan by answering the questions what, where, when, and how, and learn about technology tools that can reduce the amount of time and effort needed for social media management.”

Sheila was in a room that had to do battle with the sounds of the Children’s Center across the wall, which she did admirably and very well.  She had no mic but commanded her audience.  Folks were quite pleased with the results.

#2 – In the South Court Classrooms A & B (which are easy to get to since they were directly above the auditorium) was the very Goddess of YA herself, Teri S. Lesesne. Her talk was Don’t be a Twitt! Building a PLN Using Social Networks.  Said her description, “Twitter and FaceBook and Pinterest and other social networks can be the place to begin developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN). How do we begin? What are the steps in bringing disparate people and sites into a cohesive whole? These and other questions will be tackled during the session.”  I sat in on Teri for a little while because I was beginning to get a bit tired and she was well and in her element.  I wish I’d seen more.

#3 – The lucky people presenting in the South Court Auditorium didn’t even have to move after the opening words.  Sheela Chari, Sayantani Dasgupta, and Michelle Schusterman (From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle Grade Authors) had an ambitious program called Community-Building On and Off the Blog: Secrets, Tips, and Cautionary Tales.  Essentially the three shared their success stories and cautionary tales for building and sustaining communities, based on what has worked on their blog for the past two years, including book, Skype and other giveaways, special interviews and industry spotlights, news bars, twitter chats, and real-life meet-ups. It was the Skype element that was a killer since they attempted to use it in the aforementioned bomb shelter that is the auditorium and were duly thwarted.  Fortunately they were well prepared for this eventuality and sallied on, undeterred.

#4 – Finally, the scariest room of all.  Room 207.  Not scary for the presenters so much (though it might have been a bit daunting to find) but scary for me.  This was a room straight out of a James Bond villain’s lair.  I had to make the AV work and it was hugely intimidating.  Therefore I would like to give copious thanks to Marcia Lerner.  While I left her in that room earlier that morning, she managed to single-handedly figure out how to make all the screens and computers work using my half-assed scribbled notes.  By the time Janna Morishima, Dorothy O’Brien and Alex Simmons came in to present their panel discussion Reviewing Comics and Graphic Novels for Kids (which was a HUGE hit) everything was humming along like a dream.  The three experts covered all the big GN questions like, “Can they be reviewed by the same criteria as traditional novels or collections? How should a reviewer treat ongoing storylines? How important are the visual elements, and how can one fairly compare graphic vs. traditional versions of the same book?”  According to my spies in the field, it was an unqualified success.

Then, from 12:00 – 12:45 you guessed it.  More simultaneous panels!

#1 – The aforementioned saving-Betsy’s-butt speaker Marcia Lerner  of The Diamond in the Window and her talk Inspiring Reader Response.  In essence it was a presentation that aimed to give bloggers tools to strengthen conversation with their readers.  One of our more popular sessions, I had to work double time to get everyone to Ms. Lerner’s room on time.

#2 – Meanwhile, back down in the South Court Auditorium we had Kelly Jensen & Nova Ren Suma (STACKED / Distraction 99)  and their talk Getting Series-ous: How Blog Series Can Engage, Inspire, and Grow Your Audience.  I was keen on this one since the description said that it was about developing a successful blog series and hopes to inspire others to explore series posts as a means of widening their own blog content. Said they, “The experiences of an author and a blogger will provide insight from two different sides of the kidlit blogosphere while also showcasing how authors and bloggers can work with and benefit one another through a blog series.”  A smart pairing.

#3 – In Classrooms A & B Jess Ferro (Alice in Baker Street) proved to have one of the few programs I had to turn people away from, so popular it was.  In Oh, You Mean the Caterpillar Guy?: Viewing Illustration as High Art and Using Visual Literacy Methods to Enhance Our Evaluation of It, Jess discussed “ways in which we can help view illustration in children’s books as high art.”  Such a good idea for a talk.

#4 – Finally, in the Children’s Center where he’d have room to speak at length, Greg Pincus (GottaBook) was one of the few bloggers I reached out to and actually asked to speak at KidLitCon.  He was my ringer.  I’ve seen Greg do his talks before and he’s always worth watching.  I was particularly taken with his discussion topic, Avoiding the Echo Chamber: Bringing the World of Children’s Literature to the World.  As he said in the talk’s description, “All of us in the blogosphere (and in the business of children’s books, whether as author or illustrator or as publisher or reviewer) can work to spread the joy of children’s literature wider.”  Great feedback on this talk.

At lunchtime, which happened from 1-2, I discovered that the ‘wichcraft sandwich area of the library had chocolate cupcakes.  I have NEVER seen a ‘wichcraft with chocolate cupcakes before.  Needless to say, that was lunch.

When everyone reconvened at 2:15 I had planned that we make everyone attend the obligatory talk How Nice is Too Nice?: Critical Book Reviewing in the Age of Twitter.  It was held in the South Court Auditorium and most glorious of all, I didn’t have to moderate it.  I spoke on it, but I didn’t moderate.  That honor fell to pro-moderator Jennifer Hubert-Swan (Reading Rants and another ringer) who perfectly bounced the conversation between author Maureen Johnson, myself, Liz Burns (A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy), Monica Edinger (Educating Alice), Sheila Barry (from Groundwood Books), and Marjorie Ingall (Tablet Magazine, amongst other cool things).

The conversation was hopping but I’ll rely on the attendees to say precisely why (I heard tappity tapping during our talk so someone somewhere was typing it up).  Suffice to say, there were some really good points made about who reviews are for, inappropriate times authors (or their families) would contact a blog reviewer, our role, the state of blog reviewing today, and how awesome bookshelves of doom is (shout outs were made to The Book Smugglers, Pink Me, and a couple other blogs unafraid to critique fairly).  It was a huge amount of fun.  I wish I sat in on panels more often.  We could have gone on for hours.

Then the last sessions began from 3:30 – 4:15:

#1 Also in the South Court Auditorium we had Karen Halpenny, VP of Women in Children’s Media, with what turned out to be the most highly attended session in the conference, if you don’t count the ones where there wasn’t any competition.  Her topic was The Changing Relationship Between Reader and Writer and to help her with this topic she brought in the authors Gayle Forman, Michael Northrop, Alyssa Sheinmel, and Adele Griffin.  It was just a really good second part to the panel discussion that had come before.

#2 – Meanwhile in Room 207 presenter and author/illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg (Mermaids on Parade) handled our up-and-coming author/illustrators with THUMBS UP! PLUMP UP YOUR PLATFORM and MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING.  The gist was to help folks, “Become your own best publicity director (even if you already have one).”  It’s always good to cater to the author/illustrators that show up for KidLitCon and have something for them too.

#3 – Finally, in Room 219 presenter Diane Estrella (That’s What I’m Here For…) packed the room with her hugely attended The Benefits of Blogging.  With this description it was perfect for many of our newbie attendees: “Whether you are a long time blogger or thinking about dipping your toe into the blogosphere for the first time, this presentation will provide advice for ways to get started along with how to grow the site you already have.”

Finally, the day ended with our Keynote Speech.  I know that in a lot of conferences you begin with the Keynote but it seemed to me necessary to reward the folks who had stayed the whole day.  Plus, you can kind of guarantee folks staying that way.  The speech was to be delivered by the illustrious YA author Maureen Johnson.  Deciding on her was a no-brainer.  I’d seen her give a talk at a Book Expo blogger con a few years ago (a con that maddeningly kept referring to itself as “the first” book blogger convention, consarn it).  She was witty, urbane, and it was clear as crystal that she’d fit the bill.  So I hired her and Penguin, her publisher, went above and beyond the call of duty sending every attendee a paperback edition of The Name of the Star.   Wow!

I stole that photo from Maureen’s Twitter feed.  This one too.  She tweeted that these were her notes for her program:

You understand now why I tapped her to be my speaker, yes?

Before she went on, Maureen pulled me aside.  She had a crazy notion.  What if her keynote was less podium talky talk and more of a conversation?  Say, with fellow YA author Robin Wasserman whom she had called half an hour ago and was on her way?  Suits me.  Part of the reason I like KidLitCon so much is that we’re an infinitely flexible group.  You want to do a conversation with a kind of devil’s advocate of a friend on a stage?  Dude, go for it.  So it was that Ms. Wasserman and Ms. Johnson took some seats and discussed not just blogging and reviewing but the publishing industry itself.  There was a lot of backing and forthing with the audience as well.  Sadly, I had to keep her time limited, and even then I gave her an extra 15 minutes when I saw how well it was going.

Due to the fact that when the library closes it CLOSES, we had our final remarks, I told everyone where to find KidLit Drink Night afterwards (one of my favorite locations for the event, The Houndstooth) and that was that!

Once I have gathered my thoughts and my brain cells into one spot, I will update the Kidlitosphere Central page to reflect all the attendees and their blogs (I’ve already started).  If you blogged about the day send me the link and I’ll add it to the page.

Big thanks to everyone who attended, everyone who helped, and just everyone in general.

Tweets about the conference are available here.

You can read Greg Holch’s recap of KidLit Drink Night afterwards here.

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Greeting and salutations to you all!

I know that some of you have been holding off on registering for KidLitCon 2012, the annual meeting of children’s and YA bloggers which is open to anyone (blogger or not) with an interest in the changing sphere of book discussions, online and off.  Though the Saturday conference (held on September 29th in the main branch of New York Public Library) is indeed free free free, perhaps you were waiting to hear what programs would be available at that time.

Well the wait is over!

For those of you who have signed up for the precon, information on the schedule for that day is waiting on the number of people who will be signing up.  Once we have a rough approximation in hand we will email you your directions for the day.

The real conference, however, will be held on Saturday.  On that day you will be privy to a wide range of experienced speakers covering topics pertaining to the field of children’s and YA literature.  That morning you will enter the library when it opens at 10:00 and proceed to the South Court Auditorium.  Volunteers will be posted at both entrances of the library to direct you to the auditorium.  There we will have our registration tables set up.

Once the opening remarks have been made attendees will be able to sit in one of several sessions throughout the day.  So that we are able to meet everyone’s needs we ask that once you have registered you fill out this form, indicating your preferences one to four, with your top choice being #1.  We will work to make sure that everyone attends as many preferred sessions as possible.  We ask that you be aware that due to space issues some rooms will be able to accommodate more attendees than others.

The schedule for the day is as follows:

10:00 – Registration (outside South Court Auditorium)

10:30 – Opening Remarks (South Court Auditorium)

11:00-11:45 Parallel Sessions #1 (four choices!)

1.
Location: Children’s Center
Presenter: Sheila Ruth (Wands and Worlds)
Title: Who’s In Charge?
Description: Having a social media presence has become an essential fact of life for many in the Kidlit space. Authors, bloggers, and publishers use social media for marketing, engaging with fans, and communicating with peers. Librarians use it to keep up with industry information & book news, and to communicate with patrons. But managing a professional social media presence can quickly become an overwhelming time suck, leading to burnout. This presentation will help anyone who is using social media for professional reasons to take charge and manage it in an effective way. Participants will learn to create a strategic plan by answering the questions what, where, when, and how, and learn about technology tools that can reduce the amount of time and effort needed for social media management.

2.
Location: Classrooms A & B
Presenter: Teri S. Lesesne (The Goddess of YA)
Title: Don’t be a Twitt! Building a PLN Using Social Networks
Description: Twitter and FaceBook and Pinterest and other social networks can be the place to begin developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN). How do we begin? What are the steps in bringing disparate people and sites into a cohesive whole? These and other questions will be tackled during the session.

3.
Location: South Court Auditorium
Presenters: Sheela Chari, Sayantani Dasgupta, and Michelle Schusterman (From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle Grade Authors)
Title: Community-Building On and Off the Blog: Secrets, Tips, and Cautionary Tales
Description: In cyberspace, as in real life, community is everything. Members from the popular middle grade blog, From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle Grade Authors, will share their success stories and cautionary tales for building and sustaining communities, based on what has worked on their blog for the past two years, including book, Skype and other giveaways, special interviews and industry spotlights, news bars, twitter chats, and real-life meet-ups. They will also discuss strategies to grow your community, with an eye to diversity, and create the right environment for sharing information, spreading ideas, and forging friendships beyond the blog. Audience participants should prepare for a lively discussion, a few rounds of KidLit Jeopardy (there will be prizes!), and most of all, to have some fun!

4.
Location: Room 207
Presenter(s): Daniela Bone / TBA
Title: Reviewing Comics and Graphic Novels for Kids
Description: Graphic novels and comics have become established forms of kidlit. No longer the “guilty pleasures” among books, they are now considered valuable in education, literacy, and fostering a love of reading. This panel will help reviewers approach the variety of comics collections and graphic novels published each year (including graphic novel versions of existing titles) by addressing questions such as: Can they be reviewed by the same criteria as traditional novels or collections? How should a reviewer treat ongoing storylines? How important are the visual elements, and how can one fairly compare graphic vs. traditional versions of the same book?

12:00 – 12:45 – Parallel Sessions #2 (four choices!)

1.
Location: Children’s Center
Presenter: Marcia Lerner (The Diamond in the Window)
Title: Inspiring Reader Response
Description: A presentation that aims to give bloggers tools to strengthen conversation with their readers. One of the great things about blogging is that it facilitates immediate response. The rewards of blogging come from a wide variety of readers—librarians, teachers, and parents—who offer their wisdom and expertise on a regular basis. Yet one of the frustrating things about blogging is that sometimes readers don’t respond, and it can end up feeling like you’re writing into a void. The most common recommendations for getting readers to comment are to use giveaways or to end posts with a question. In this talk Ms. Lerner discusses how to create emotional connections with posts and platforms that explicitly value readers’ input.  Attendees of this program will be encouraged to offer their own responses beforehand on what has and has not worked for their sites.

2.
Location: South Court Auditorium
Presenters: Kelly Jensen & Nova Ren Suma (STACKED / Distraction 99)
Title: Getting Series-ous: How Blog Series Can Engage, Inspire, and Grow Your Audience
Description: This program will discuss what goes into developing a successful blog series and hopes to inspire others to explore series posts as a means of widening their own blog content. The experiences of an author and a blogger will provide insight from two different sides of the kidlit blogosphere while also showcasing how authors and bloggers can work with and benefit one another through a blog series.

3.
Location: Classrooms A & B
Presenter:  Jess Ferro (Alice in Baker Street)
Title: Oh, You Mean the Caterpillar Guy?: Viewing Illustration as High Art and Using Visual Literacy Methods to Enhance Our Evaluation of It
Description: A presentation that discusses ways in which we can help view illustration in children’s books as high art, especially in reference to the work being done by institutions like the Eric Carle Museum and its curator Nick Clark. By thinking of illustration as “real art”, we can use methods from the visual literacy ideas of education, specifically the Whole Book Approach and Visual Thinking Strategies, to better evaluate and talk about picture books as bloggers and lovers of children’s books. Possible video appearances from illustration-based bloggers will briefly discuss how they approach the evaluation of illustration and their insights into the art of the picture book.

4.
Location: Room 207
Presenter: Greg Pincus (GottaBook)
Title: Avoiding the Echo Chamber: Bringing the World of Children’s Literature to the World
Description: Children’s literature bloggers find each other online… and speak to each other online. We meet offline, too. Nothing wrong with that. However, our connected world can become an echo chamber. All of us in the blogosphere (and in the business of children’s books, whether as author or illustrator or as publisher or reviewer) can work to spread the joy of children’s literature wider. Or put another way… if there are 100 million people on Twitter, we don’t need to talk to the 5,000 who already will buy books. We need to reach the parents, aunts, and uncles. And we can do this with a bit of social media know-how… and with a strategic vision that makes it more likely.

1:00 – 2:00 – Attendees will break for lunch (not provided)

2:15 – 3:00 – Plenary Session on Critical Reviewing and “Niceness”  (South Court Auditorium) (Speakers TBA)

3:30 – 4:15 – Parallel Sessions #3 (three choices!)

1.
Location: South Court Auditorium
Presenter: Karen Halpenny, VP of Women in Children’s Media
Title: The Changing Relationship Between Reader and Writer
Description: A discussion about the changing role of the reader and writer in the age of social media. This talk will examine the lives of authors in a world where their audience are capable of having  a much more direct connection to them…and vice versa. Topics will include feedback (quicker and sometimes much harsher), ways in which public vs private life is more difficult to determine, and new marketing paradigms based on author personalities. This talk will cover social media tools including (but not limited to) YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, live appearances, etc.  A panel will consist of about three authors (TBA), a marketing person and a moderator with a primary focus on tween/YA books.

2.
Room 207
Presenter: Melanie Hope Greenberg (Mermaid on Parade)
Title: THUMBS UP! PLUMP UP YOUR PLATFORM and MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING
Description: This workshop addresses the necessity of creatives to fine tune their marketing skills on all fronts: analog, digital and social networking. Become your own best publicity director (even if you already have one). Learn the points of access to reach out and let the world know about your published book. Online marketing will be covered with a special focus on Social Network Etiquette.

3.
Location: Room 219
Presenter: Diane Estrella (That’s What I’m Here For…)
Title: The Benefits of Blogging
Description: Whether you are a long time blogger or thinking about dipping your toe into the blogosphere for the first time, this presentation will provide advice for ways to get started along with how to grow the site you already have.

4:30 – 5:15 Plenary Session: Keynote Speech (South Court Auditorium) delivered by the illustrious YA author Maureen Johnson! Ms. Johnson is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include SUITE SCARLETT, SCARLETT FEVER, GIRL AT SEA, 13 LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPES, and THE KEY TO THE GOLDEN FIREBIRD. She lives in New York City, but travels to the UK regularly to soak up the drizzle and watch English TV.  And as luck would have it, she will be in town to speak to us at the end of the con.

5:15 – Closing Remarks (South Court Auditorium)

5:30 – Kidlit Drink Night!  Location TBA.

Please note that some locations may change before the day of the conference itself.

So what are you waiting for?  The time to register is nigh!  And for those of you interested in the preconference and dinner the night before, more information on that will be coming soon.

See you in a month!

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KidLitCon is in NYC this year, September 28 and 29. If you're a blogger who posts about children's books, come and join the fun. The conference will be held at the Public Library's main branch at 42nd Street. Saturday's events are free--that's right--free, so you can't beat the price.

Elizabeth Bird gives you all the details and a link to the registration form at A Fuse #8 Production.

Hope to see you in September!

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Well.  It’s finally happened.  We are ready to show you the wonders of New York City the only way we know how.  Yes folks, it is time to register for KidLitCon 2012!

The sixth annual KidLitCon will be held in the heart of New York City on September 28th and 29th, 2012 at the main branch of New York Public Library, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

Your host will be myself (Elizabeth Bird) along with Monica Edinger (Educating Alice) and Liz Burns (A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy) who are assisting me in a multitude of ways.

In the same vein as last year’s con we are expanding the conference into two days with a special “pre-conference” on Friday.  Friday events will include special visits to the publishers of New York City with blogger previews of their upcoming seasons.  Publishers will be assigned on a random basis to all attendees.  The final list of publishers is currently being hammered out.

Registration will max out at 175 attendees.

The Money:
Before September 21st:

• $130 Full Conference, including pre-con, Friday dinner, and Saturday con
• $35 Pre-Conference without dinner
• $100 Saturday Conference
• $55 Pre-Conference with dinner
• $50 Friday dinner (extra diner or only)

Please note that there will be no Saturday dinner.  However, we are working on a Kidlit Drink Night here in town for that very evening.  Information to come.

The last day to register is September 21st.

The Pre-con: Includes a dinner.
Conference Day: Lunch.

If space is still available, onsite registration will be possible for $80. Pre-con price remains the same.

Attendees looking to share hotels with other attendees may indicate this fact on the registration page.  We will attempt to link you with someone who may also wish to share a room.  You may find a list of Midtown Manhattan Hotels here.

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building is located between 40th and 42nd Street, directly facing 5th Avenue.  A map and directions to the library can be found here.

We hope to see you in September!

Register here.

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That’s right, folks!  We are now accepting proposals for presentations at KidLitCon 2012!

We are looking for 50 minute presentations, panels, and keynotes that will appeal to and edify Kidlitosphere bloggers. Our goal is to provide a balanced selection for a wide range of interests and include, but are not limited to, topics of diversity, reviewing critically, evaluating illustrations, social media, marketing, and technology, and industry relationships.

Proposals are due by August 15, 2012, so be sure to get your ideas in soon!

We’ll only be accepting proposals submitted in the form found here.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions at all you can email them to me at [email protected].

The 6th Annual KidLitCon will be happening September 28-29, 2012 in New York, NY.  Registration for the conference will open on Monday, July 30th.

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