This week on Twitter, users tagged questions and comments to publishers with the hashtag #dearpublisher, leading to the kinds of interesting conversations Twitter was made for. (To learn more about how the hashtag was started by @jennIRL and @HarperPerennial, read this article at FuturEbook.)
By far the most re-tweeted post was by @katrinalantznov, who wrote: "#dearpublisher Combine ebooks with hardcovers, but please don't stop printing books ever. The book is not dead. It just had babies." Good to know, as Annick expands its ebook program. (We definitely have no plans to stop printing books!)
Here are a few other noteworthy tweets, along with our responses:
@asthasr: "#dearpublisher, If your author has a web page or blog (or active Twitter), add that to the author bio. We like their writing. Give us more."
Happy to oblige! We include our authors' websites in their bios and/or on their book's copyright page. We also have an author page for each of our authors and illustrators on the Annick Press website, and we list their websites and other online presences. (This blog also has links to Annick contributors' websites and blogs in the right-hand frame, so feel free to explore!)
@CheekyReads: "#dearpublisher Please indicate on covers if book is part of series & what # it is. On inside, please list series in order."
Our latest series, Single Voice, isn't sequential, so we don't have numbers on the covers. However, we do have a list of the other books in the series inside each book.
@tehawesomersace: "#dearpublisher People of color don't all live in the ghetto or have abusive parents or wish they were white. Why can't we be vampires?"
Good point! You might like The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor, which features a First Nations vampire. (Click here for the book trailer, and here for a clip of Drew reading from the book.)
@brokeandbookish:
"#dearpublisher #dearblogger Don't ignore me bc I'm a "new" blog. I've been talking, reviewing, & recommending books since the dawn of time :)"
"#dearpublisher I'm more likely to pick up a book because of a blogger I respect or from friends in a Goodreads group."
We try to work closely with book bloggers for that very reason: people who are enthusiastic about books and read a lot of them are exactly who we'd love to have recommend our books to others! When bloggers approach me for review copies (or when I pitch books to them), I look at their blog's content rather than its age: are the reviews well written and insightful? Based on the blogger's tastes and what genres they review, will they like our books? Are they active in the book blogging community (including Goodreads and Twitter)?
@Irisheyz77: "#dearpublisher please encourage your authors to comment/email bloggers when they like a review. It gives us the warm fuzzies."
We do send our authors links to blog reviews, but from now on, we'll encourage them to comment, too!
If you'd like to ask Annick any questions directly, you can always comment on this blog, send us a message on Twitter (@AnnickPress), or contact us through our fan page on Facebook. (And if you're looking for submission guidelines, here they are: www.annickpress.com/guidelines.html.) Hope to hear from you!
