Posts Tagged libraries

STEM Tuesday gift recommendation– Buy STEM/STEAM books for the holidays!

By on November 29, 2022   /   Giveaways, STEM Tuesday  

 

Happy Holidays!!

It’s that time of year where people scramble to find gifts. We, at STEM Tuesday, recommend you give the gift of CURIOSITY. DISCOVERY. ADVENTURE… Buy a STEM/STEAM book for someone! Not only will you be opening a child’s eyes to the wonder of the world around them, you’ll also be supporting a STEM author, too. 

But what topic? And where do I find a great book? While your first thought might be to look at award lists (which also start to come out this time of year),  we recommend that you look further than that. The award books are great, but there are also plenty of other STEM/STEAM books out there that don’t win awards. So look widely and take a gander at our monthly book lists. They are chock-full of great titles!

author christine Taylor-butler

Our own Christine Taylor-Butler did a post on where to find great STEM books and how to support STEM authors last year. Since it’s very pertinent to today, I’m re-posting it here. (Thanks, Christine!)

Over the past two years authors I interviewed for STEM Tuesday have taught me about spider silk made from genetically modified goats, women who were denied a spot in the astronaut program despite performing better than their male counterparts, and implicit bias in archeology that may skew what we know about ancient civilizations. One author/illustrator judged an MIT contest showcasing implausible scientific ideas. Another learned to dive with a photographer in order to better understand the nature of ocean conservation. And while the world knows about the women showcased in Hidden Figures, one author published a book about fifty additional African American women whose STEM contributions changed the world.

If I were to ask you to name the above authors, would you be able to do it without looking at my interviews? That’s my concern in a nutshell. A select few of these authors have been recognized with awards, but most have not. Nonfiction is a staple for helping young readers develop executive functioning and learn more about the world around them, but the authors are not often celebrated in proportion to their contributions to children’s literature. Even with awards, most authors are still struggling to become household names let alone achieve financial stability.

Writing STEM is hard. The research often rivals an academic research paper. Many of us write for magazines, textbooks, trade publishers and educational publishers. What is often true is that authors need to log a lot of hours in the library, speaking to experts and researching in the field to determine how to best present the subject matter in a way a student can understand. In a sense, we have to do a deep dive to understand the material before we can explain it coherently to someone else. Unique to children’s publishing there are additional rules to follow. There’s an art to working within those constraints. I’ve been asked to do planet books of 4,000 words for upper elementary students and recast those same facts for a beginner readers using only 300 words. It’s not just the word count but the choice of words. For instance, with younger students we have to be mindful about sentence length, how many multisyllabic words in a sentence, and words common for that reading level and Lexile range.

After the books are printed and in circulation, awards are tricky. For every author that receives recognition, there are many equally skilled authors that don’t. And remember, the industry celebrates winners, not runners up. A different committee, on a different day, might have picked a different book entirely from the same pile. I know, because I’ve been on a number of awards committees. There are epic battles and painstaking discussions before a consensus is reached.  I’ve also noticed that the attention paid to award winning fiction authors is sustained much longer than for nonfiction authors. Those awards often translate into more work for fiction authors and higher compensation but not necessarily for their nonfiction counterparts.

I’ve been luckier than most of my peers in this respect. I’ve published more than 90 books for children and have more under contract. So I wanted to raise my voice to challenge the readers of this blog to change the nature of the game. The industry pays attention to where the money is flowing. Publishing pays attention to social media chatter and reviews. You can help my STEM peers by doing the following.

Once a month:

  1. Check out a book (or two) from the library. If you need a place to start, we have great recommendations on our STEM Tuesday site. Books that are checked out stay in circulation longer.
  2. If you’re in a school district, consider adding a book to the school library or classroom. I know budgets are small, but even one book is a boon for that author.
  3. Write a review. It only takes five minutes. Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble.
  4. Give a shout out to an author whose work you admire. Try to pick someone who isn’t getting a lot of marketing support from publishers. The ones the awards committees didn’t announce. I’m all for boosting underdogs. That shout-out will make an author’s day.
  5. Buy a STEM book as a gift for the holidays! 

 

Win a FREE copy of the book of your choice from me, Jennifer Swanson.

It’s the holiday season so let’s do something positive to end 2022.

This month, instead of us telling you what we found fascinating…this time you tell us.

What nonfiction book have you loved?

What’s next on your wish list?

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below.

The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

 

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Jennifer Swanson, authorJennifer Swanson dreams of one day running away to the Museum of Science and Industry- then maybe she could look at all the exhibits and try out all the gadgets without competing for them with her kids. An author of fifty nonfiction science books for kids, Jennifer’s goal is to show kids that Science Rocks! She lives in sunny Florida with her husband and Great Pyrenees dog, Sasha. When not writing she’s on the hunt for fun science facts. www.jenniferswansonbooks.com

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Diversity in MG Lit #17 Equity for Black books and their creators

By on June 15, 2020   /   Articles, Diversity, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, independent bookstores, Op-Ed  
It’s my goal with these posts to shine a light on new diverse books for young readers at the middle grade level. It’s a regular feature on the Mixed Up Files Blog because the disparity in attention that diverse books receive is an ongoing problem. Recent events, however, call for a more systemic look at racism as it exists within the children’s book industry.
I have been writing for the last 25 years and have had published work for the last 11 years. In that time I’ve met people at all levels of the publishing and bookselling industries. Across the board I’ve found kind folks with good intentions. There has been an awareness of the inequalities in the industry as far back at the 1920s or 30s. Efforts have been made over the last hundred years, and yet time after time they have come woefully short of anything that looks like equality.
Rather than cast blame I’d like to look at the retail side of the equation and a handful of concrete ways all of us can make book sales grow, especially for POC authors & illustrators. It’s not the entire solution, but one sure way to make more money available for Black authors is to make books more available to Black families. Here are a half dozen steps you can take to do right by authors of color.
  1. Buy your books from Black-owned bookstores. Here’s a list of them by state. If there’s one near you, please become a regular customer. If not order from one once in a while and have them ship the books to you.
  2. Support Indie bookstores. Most new voices are first discovered and promoted by indie booksellers. Indie bookstores are a venue for book events for local authors not given a publisher-sponsored tour. And indie bookstores selling books at their cover price are the ones that give an author their full royalty. Those venues on line or elsewhere that offer discounts on books are giving the author less in royalty. Royalties are what make it possible for an author to continue writing.
  3. Donate to BINC. BINC is the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. They provide assistance to booksellers which helps them stay open in the face of difficulty. The assistance includes help with serious medical expenses, eviction prevention, funeral expenses, disaster assistance, domestic violence survival, utility shut-off prevention, and many other things. Donate here. Every little bit helps, especially now when so many book stores are struggling.
  4. Read books from Small Presses. Even the big publishers agree that the most daring and diverse books come out of small, independent, regional, and university presses. If you are a librarian, especially one on a book award committee, please give equal attention to the small press gems from Amistad, Just Us Books, Cinco Punto, Orca, Charlesbridge, Lee & Low, Enchanted Lion, Lerner, , and the many others listed here.
  5. Get involved in small business politics  If I could wave a magic wand I’d love to give every neighborhood and town it’s own vibrant independent bookstore. Sadly many people live in a book desert. If that’s your community, spend some time at your town’s council meetings. Ask the local small business association what you can do to bring a bookstore to town, The American Booksellers Association has a small business issues section that offers, state-by-state some suggestions for advocacy for bookstores. This kind of advocacy can be boring and feel far removed from the heat of the moment but if we want Black businesses to flourish in the future we have to lay the groundwork for it now.
  6. Use and promote your public library. Librarians are often at the forefront of advocating for diverse books. If your local library is not as inclusive as you’d like, The American Library Association has materials to help a library conduct a self audit and take steps to diversify the books on the shelf. If the books on your state reading lists and battle of the books lists are not reflecting Black lives, speak up. Librarians choose those lists; they need to hear from you. If they’ve consistently done a good job of serving the Black community—give them that feedback too. Help your library by using it regularly, requesting Black-authored books regularly, and supporting it with your votes when the library levy is on the ballot.
  7. Advocate for a full time teacher-librarian in every public, private, and charter school. Librarians pay a key role in introducing young readers to diverse voices. They also support diverse authors by buying their books. Show up at school board meetings. Pay attention to how school funding is allocated. Make sure there is always budget for diverse books and the librarians who support them.
  8. Most important of all–Vote. Vote in every election, especially the local ones. Be a well-informed voter, drawing your information from a variety of sources. Be a passionate voter, advocating for free access to the ballot box for all. Speak up when voting abuse happens. And always, always, keep in mind the readers you serve as a parent, teacher, librarian or bookseller. Serve not just your immediate interest but their long term benefit.
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Behind the Collection Development Curtain: De-mystifying Library Book Buying

By on January 24, 2020   /   Articles, For Writers  

The MG fiction section of the Ronald H. Roberts Temecula Public Library

Earlier this year, Publisher’s Weekly published the experience of an author who was frustrated in his attempts to get his local library to buy his book. The author, who published with an academic press, looked at the library as a way to sell a few extra copies. For writers of kidlit, libraries play a far more vital role in that they are one of the few ways to directly reach our audience.

So, how does your book get into libraries? Like so many things in publishing, the answer is subjective. It depends on the library. However, as is also the case in publishing, there are a few things that you can do to improve your chances.

Make sure that your book is available through our vendors. Like any government entity, libraries work with a list of approved vendors. The three major vendors for libraries are Brodart, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram. If your book is available through these three companies, it makes it a lot easier for your local library to purchase your title. There have been titles that authors have sent to me that would have been a great addition to the library’s collection, but because the book was only available through the author’s website or Amazon, I couldn’t purchase it.

Reviews, patron requests, and word-of-mouth help to guide purchasing decisions. LitReactor published a reaction piece to the Publisher’s Weekly article with great advice for authors about interacting with libraries. The main takeaway was that libraries don’t serve the interests of the collection development librarian — (if they did, my library would only have spooky middle-grade books). Libraries serve the interests of their community, which is where reviews come in handy. From professional journals like School Library Journal and Booklist to crowd sourced review sites like Goodreads, reviews tell librarians about the book and about the reactions we can expect from patrons. Many librarians also follow book blogs and BookTube to gauge patron interest. Some libraries even have policies that prohibit them from buying books that have not been reviewed by a professional source.

Word-of-mouth means that our patrons will hear about your book and request it. Patron requests help to drive purchasing decisions because if a book is requested, librarians know that at the very least, the requester will check out the book without staff having to hand-sell it to patrons. And don’t request your own book as a patron. In this case, you’re attempting to sell your book to your libraries. (After all, you’ve read your book, you’re probably not going to check it out to read it again.)

About Advanced Readers Copies and donated copies. Librarians love ARCs. They help us gauge how excited the publisher is about a book but sending librarians ARCs doesn’t guarantee that a librarian will read it. It definitely doesn’t guarantee that the book will be added to the collection. More often than not, ARCs end up as giveaways and prizes for our patrons. You would be better served getting those ARCs into the hands of reviewers.

Similarly, donated copies often meet the same fate or are sold in book sales. Even though the book may be free, there is still a cost to process it (all the stickers, labels, adding the book to the online catalog). Often, this type of processing is handled by the vendor, which goes back to my earlier point of making sure that your book is available through those vendors.

Some libraries offer local author collections, and donated copies will sometimes make their way into those collections if you are a local author or the book holds particular local interest.

A short note on formats and covers. Most libraries purchasing kidlit want to purchase hardcover copies because they’ll be able to be checked out more. They are more visible than paperbacks, which tend to either get destroyed after only a few checkouts or lost in the shelves. Also, a professional-looking cover is a big plus. Librarians must judge a book by its cover because we know that our patrons will too.

So, what’s the best way to get your book into libraries? Just like in publishing, the answer is research. Research the library’s collection development policy. Research the community. Find the best way to contact the collection development librarian with the pertinent information about your book, including a pitch, reviews, and the ISBN. If your book fits our community’s needs (and our budget), there’s a good chance we will buy it.

This article is reprinted from SCBWI ProInsider.

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