In the News This Week

Fridays on the SCBWI blog, I share snippets of and links to some of the publishing/media-related news I've read during the last week that I found interesting, helpful, and/or fun. Click titles to get to the full articles.

Among this week's baker's dozen: PW reports on new imprints for Penguin and Candlewick, ebooks in college classrooms (and how that's going), ALA and BEA together under one roof (maybe), generous J.K., generous illustrators, YouTube tips and Trailie awards, Kindles in Best Buy, SLJ reports on sextortion, Roald Dahl's dark days, and Justin Beiber--King of Twitter.

Penguin Adds Poptropica Imprint (PW)

No man may be an island, as John Donne so eloquently wrote, but in the virtual world of Poptropica kids between the ages of 6 and 14 can visit lots of islands and hang out with literary friends. They can stop at Big Nate Island (based on Lincoln Peirce’s cartoon strip, now a bestselling book series) or navigate to Mythology and soon to Wimpy Kid. And with the launch of a Poptropica imprint from Penguin next fall, they’ll also be able to read island-related books.

Candlewick Partners with Toon Books (PW)

On October 1, Candlewick Press will launch a Toon Books imprint, a partnership with the already existing Toon Books, a press founded by New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly in spring 2008 with the mission of getting kids to read using comics.

Reed in Talks with ALA About Running Trade Shows  (PW)

Reed Exhibitions, parent company of BookExpo America, is in discussion with the American Library Association about taking over the organization’s two main meetings--the June annual convention and the January midwinter meeting. The process is far enough along that Reed has talked to a number of the major trade houses about the prospect and about the idea of combining BEA with the ALA annual meeting. The two shows typically run about a month apart; next year ALA is set for June 23-28 in New Orleans while BEA is scheduled for May 24-26 in New York City. Although the New York houses appear cool to the idea, there is not sufficient opposition to stop the process from moving forward. If a deal is reached, Reed is believed to favor locating BEA and the ALA annual meeting in 2012 in Chicago, creating in effect two shows under one roof. It wasn't clear if the shows would move around the country. The midwinter meeting, which will be held in San Diego in January, would continue. No sale of the ALA shows is contemplated.

J.K. Rowling Donates £10 Million for Multiple Sclerosis Research (GalleyCat)
Novelist J.K. Rowling (pictured) has given £10 million to the University of Edinburgh to build a multiple sclerosis (MS) research facility. The new building will be named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, honoring the memory of Rowling's mother, who died at 45-years-old from MS.

How To Use YouTube Annotations To Maximize Your Subscribers, Views & Overall YouTube Success (Social Times)
View Comments YouTube Annotations are one of the most invaluable tools offered by the video site and, interestingly enough, are also one of the most overlooked by online video content creators. If you aren’t using Annotations in your YouTube videos you are missing out on some great opportunities for maximizing your subscribers, your views, and the overall success of your YouTube videos and channel. Read on to learn how to use YouTube Annotations to maximize your YouTube success.

13 Children's Book Illustrators Auction Original Art To Support Dave Eggers 826 Reading Program (Photos) (HuffPo)
"Eyewitness Reports" is a charity auction of 37 pieces of original art by some of the best children's book artists today. The auction proceeds will benefit 826LA, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit writing and tutoring center fronted by a fully-functioning convenience store for time travelers.

E-books fail the classroom test (Financial Times)
Business schools pride themselves on being ahead of the curve when it comes to management theory and innovation. But their record is considerably less impressive when it comes to the implementation of cutting-edge technology such as e-book readers, Apple’s iPad and social networking, where students continue to outpace their tutors.

Notre Dame Students Respond to the iClassroom (Techland)
It's two weeks into Notre Dame's foray into their iPad-piloted class, and students and professors claim that the new interface is easier and better to use. The project management class led by Professor Corey Angst is part of the university's eReader study and Notre Dame's first paperless class. All materials for the 40 students are available on the iPad.

Best Buy to Sell Kindle In Stores, Enhance E-Reader Displays (PW) 

Best Buy announced yesterday that it would begin selling Amazon's Kindle in stores.  This means that Kindle shoppers have several places to go and handle a Kindle before buying, including Target and Staples in addition to Best Buy.  The retailer doesn’t cite an exact date for when the Kindle will be for sale in stores, saying only it will arrive “later in the season.”

Sextortion Threatens Teens, Adults (SLJ)
Teens who send digital nude images of themselves generate concern among educators and parents alike. But criminals who threaten to expose those very images to a wider audience are an even stronger reason adults need to be well-educated on Internet safety--and pass that information on to their kids as cases of sextortion, or sexual extortion, are reportedly rising across the country.

Roald Dahl's darkest hour (Telegraph)
The year 1960 began calmly enough for Roald Dahl, but it would prove to be tumultuous in many ways. Kiss Kiss, his fourth collection of short stories, was published in the United States in March and stormed into The New York Times bestseller lists. As Dahl boarded the boat back from New York to England in early April with his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, he was pleasantly surprised to find that many of his fellow passengers were reading his book. Nor had this escaped the notice of two other passengers in the publishing business who were also making the crossing on the Queen Mary – the London literary agent Laurence Pollinger and the publisher Charles Pick.

SLJ's Trailie Awards Asks Readers to Vote for Their Favorite Book Trailer (SLJ)
Got a favorite book trailer that promotes reading? School Library Journal wants to know. Starting September 27, we're asking readers to vote for their favorite trailer as part of our first annual Trailie Awards, which seeks to recognize the important role that video plays in bringing readers and books together--and the wonderful people who create these digital ads for books.

3% of all Twitter traffic Justin Bieber-relatedTwitter has Bieber fever. A designer named Dustin Curtis chatted with an employee at the social media networking site and Twittered Monday: "At any moment, Justin Bieber uses 3% of our infrastructure. Racks of servers are dedicated to him."