As we come closer to the end of our Kickstarter campaign (we’re past 25%! Let’s keep it rolling!), we’re thinking on how to make our site most useful for readers. Of course, we’ll have a catalog of books as we start to release them–we’ll even have a store for you to buy books from us directly. But there are other things we’d like to do with our website, to make it more useful and entertaining for our readers.
I (Stacy) had a great time at World Fantasy meeting new people and catching up with old friends, including such talented writers as Janni Lee Simner, Jay Lake, Malinda Lo, Garth Nix, and a huge number of others that I just don’t have the time to list here. It was especially fun to meet Garth Nix, who wrote one of my favorite fantasy series of all time, the Abhorsen trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen).
Now I’ve been spending the days since I returned from the trip catching up on my day job and some freelance work that I’ve been finishing up. That means that I haven’t had the time to move forward with some of the interviews and other content here that I’d like to do. These will be coming along in the next few weeks, though, so keep an eye out.
While we wait, let’s start an open thread. We’d like to know your thoughts. What would you like to see on this website? What kinds of tools and resources on multicultural literature would you like?
For teens and kids, what kind of content would keep you coming back to a publisher’s website–after all, book catalogs on websites don’t exactly draw the crowds. But we’ve seen some pretty cool social networking and ARC giveaways from other publishers, and we’re wondering if any of the existing ideas out there might be of interest to our young readers, or if you might have some ideas of what you’d want in a publisher’s website.
We can’t promise to implement all of the ideas right away, but we’d love your feedback.
Ideas we’ve come up with so far–besides the books, which are a given!
- Videos, including author interviews, book trailers (including book trailer
contests), reader responses, interviews with readers about what they’re reading lately - “Gossip” about authors and other popular culture (whose new book is coming out, what we’re excited about watching on TV–not limited to our own books). We don’t mean actual mean gossip–just newsy notes about what we’re excited about.
- Text interviews with authors, fun facts, top five/ten lists
- Short story contests, including short-shorts
Blog content categories will include:
- The history of children’s and YA literature–including seminal books and authors who paved the way for today
- Tips on writing and publishing
- Writing resources for young writers (this is NaNoWriMo!)
- Folk and fairy tales from around the world
- A deeper look at the cultures that inspire fantasy writers
And a question: We’ve been watching the growth of e-book readers with interest, but so far most of the interest seems to be among adult readers. We plan to offer all our novels in e-book formats as well, to assure ease of access for those who want them, but we’d love to hear from you, especially parents, about how widespread you see e-readers becoming for young readers.
That’s a hodge-podge, but go at it! Let us know what you’d like to see.
Tu Publishing's editorial director Stacy Whitman has worked as an editor at a trade magazine, at Houghton Mifflin's school division, and at Mirrorstone, an imprint of Wizards of the Coast, where she worked on children's and young adult fantasy. In her current day job, she is the publication manager for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series. She holds a master's degree in children's literature from Simmons College. 
Tor has done the best to keep me engaged through a combination of fresh material from fave authors on their site, free e-books and stories, and periodic emails that don’t seem too much like spam. It’s resulted in a couple of purchases from me so far.
I’ll have to ask CatGirl about her e-reader habits. She listens to a lot of audiobooks (including the Old Kingdom trilogy!) and I think she read Little Brother as an e-text.
I love the ideas you guys have come up with, especially text interviews with authors (how cool!), the hisory of YA lit, folk and fairy tales from around the world, really everything. Giveaways are a huge attraction factor too (maybe once a month, a contest sort of thing?).
I’m not a fan of e-readers. I think they are convenient and (in the long run) more affordable, but there’s something so wonderful about holding a book in your hands, curling up with a good book (I mean curling up with a machine? bleh). It’s good though that you guys offer e-book readers.
Can’t wait to see the books being offered and the new and improved site!
C