In the News This Week

To end each week on the SCBWI blog, I'll be sharing snippets of and links to some of the publishing-related news I've read during the week that I found interesting or helpful (or, perhaps, fun). (Articles discovered via Twitter, Facebook, newsletters, blogs and general Internet trolling.)

Below are my picks for this week. (Click the title to link the the articles.) If you're attending the BookExpo America, be sure to read Elizabeth Bluemle's great post on BEA planning and the PW piece on galleys to grab (then construct your strategy). I'm also excited about the iPad apps for writers rundown by the amazing Debbie Ridpath Ohi on her Inkygirl blog. (My iPad is set to be delivered next week--I'll give you a full report on using it for working and for reading. Yay!) And here's hoping Alice won't become a hip baby name thanks to Stephenie Meyer's series (see the NYT piece below). I'm not sure I want a bunch of little Alices running around.


ABC and ABA to Formalize Potential Merger Plan) (on the ALA site)
"The Association of Booksellers for Children and the American Booksellers Association moved another step closer to a possible merger this week with the release on Thursday of a letter of agreement..."

Facebook And Twitter Are On A Collision Course. And We’re In The Middle. (on Tech Crunch)
"In Jim Sheridan’s 2009 film Brothers, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire play two siblings that are opposites... In the tech world, Facebook is Sam, Twitter is Tommy, and Grace is all of us, the Internet users..."

Facebook Creates Community Pages for Stephen King, Kathryn Stockett, Random House, and Many Others (on GalleyCat)
"As part of a controversial expansion of Facebook, the social networking site has created "Community Pages" for many popular people and brands..."

Amazon to Drop Free Books from Kindle Bestseller List  (on PW)
"For some in publishing it may be a curiosity, for others a point of contention—Amazon’s practice of including free downloads in its list of most popular Kindle titles..."

2010 BEA Planning (for real) (by Elizabeth Bluemle on PW's Shelf Talker)
"Our April 1 column this year was a spoof of BEA programming—which caught a few of you by surprise when you sat down expecting to plan your trade show schedules. We cross our hearts that today’s post is the genuine article: a guide to children’s-book-related events and educational sessions at BookExpo America in New York City from Tuesday, May 25-Thursday, May 27..."

BEA 2010: Kids' Galleys to Grab (on PW)
"Favorite Authors, New Projects..."

ALSC announces 2010 election results (includes judges for Newberry, Caldecott and other awards)
"CHICAGO – Mary J. Fellows, manager, youth and family services, Upper Hudson Library System, Albany, N.Y., has been elected vice-president/president-elect of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA)..."

Self-Publishing Expo Back in October (on PW)
"The founders of the Self-Publishing Book Expo have announced plans to hold a second SPBE in October..."

Patterson, Brown Win Top Honors at Children's Choice Awards (on PW) 
"The Children’s Choice Book Awards, the only national award chosen by children, were presented by the Children’s Book Council in a ceremony on Tuesday night in New York City, hosted by Mo Willems. The winners were..."

iPad apps for writers: notetaking, writing, & brainstorming ideas (on Inkygirl)
"The following is a list of reviews I’ve posted so far on iPadGirl during my ongoing search for useful iPad apps for writers, starting with the most recently reviewed. Feel free to bookmark this page, because I’ll be keeping it updated as I review more iPad apps..."

A Name for Newborns Thanks to the Vampires (NY Times)
"For baseball fans, 2009 was the year of the Yankees. For job seekers, it was the year of the Great Recession. And for people who track baby names, it was the year of the vampire..."