Kate Hart

Citing Sources: A Quick and Graphic Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:30:00 +0000

~ ~ Don't forget to check out the other posts in Stacked's "Unconventional Blog Tour"! ~ ~

Academia has lots and lots and lots of systems in place for assuring that credit is always given where credit is due. If you're writing a paper, there are particular ways to cite internet sources-- even tweets and Facebook posts.

But what about on the internet? We know we're supposed to cite sources, but a standardized system hasn't developed, and in the meantime, you could face a lawsuit if you steal someone else's work, even by accident.

Does that mean you can't ever elaborate on someone else's ideas or repeat a little of what someone else said? Of course not. Just use some common sense and always err on the side of caution.

*click to expand

As always, a couple of notes:

- Because of space/design limitations, I didn't include an important guideline: Never repost someone's article in its entirety. If you find yourself quoting more than a paragraph of a long post, or a few lines of a short one, contact the author for their preferences. When in doubt: less is more. (By the way, this also goes for infographics. Copying a whole post full of charts with a tiny link to the source at the end is uncool.)

- Remember that in addition to credits, citations are there to help others track down information they need. My English professor BFF suggested that links are like page numbers in academic citations. Taking two extra minutes to include them might save someone hours of searching, not to mention the help it will be if you need to retrace your steps someday.

- Media and academic sites have their own in-house rules, and so should you. Check out some examples, and consider whether yours fit within the general guidelines required of university students. Set a good example, and consider explaining your policy so that others will consider their own.

- I realize the hilarity of creating this infographic using pictures to which I don't own the copyright. I've used public domain images whenever possible, but sometimes it's hard to determine the real "owner" of an image, or whether it was a publicly-released promo photos, or whether it's a maniuplation and if so, who owns *that* incarnation...

It's a slippery subject, but in general, the reason the internet has images at all is because of "fair use." If I were making a profit on this project, JKR and Warner Brothers would sue the pants of me, but they *probably* won't because this is an educational project producing no profit and not causing them harm.

However. If I pretended to own them, or that JKR was behind this project, then goodbye pants, hello courtroom.

- Finally, if you're wondering what my qualifications are, I have a BA in History and Spanish and a smattering of grad classes. But I'm not trying to present myself as the ultimate authority on this topic (and feel free to make suggestions or corrections in the comments). In the end, no matter what your schooling, you should be fine if you just follow Wil Wheaton's law: Don't be a ... um, jerk.

Head over to Stacked for more posts about blogging ethics and best practices!

Credits:
- Most of the character pictures: Harry Potter wiki.
- Free hugs
- Dementor costume
- Hot Neville
- Weasley is our king
- Hermione
- Moody
- JKR quote
- Ford Anglia
- paper background
- fonts: Academy Engraved LET; Century Schoolbook; Arial

Dear JKR, I think Hermione would be on board with this project. Please don't sue the pants off me.

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: June 1, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:57:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING
(I tried to put all the tweets in one image but it made them harder to read -- sorry! next week I'll go back to the old way.)

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: May 25, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

TERRIBLE SEQUELS

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Follow Up on YA Covers

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Sun, 20 May 2012 21:18:00 +0000

Wow. So. Thank you all for the unbelievable response to last week's post about YA covers. I keep seeing it pop up in unexpected places and from unexpected people. (The bump from Nerdfighteria was especially exciting-- y'all definitely DFTBA.) I'm really glad conversations are getting started on such an important topic, and I'd like to clarify a few questions I've seen online.

First, a paraphrase of a response I posted to a discussion thread on Metafilter: Last year's original goal was honestly just to show that there really is a wide variety of covers-- and a wide variety of YA, period. It wasn't meant to be terribly scientific.

I knew POC representation was a problem, though, and as I got into the numbers, I was floored by how big a problem it is. So I charted it too, trying to be as accurate as possible without making the project a full-time job. These are not professionally researched and produced. Please take their findings with a grain of salt.

But Kate, your math is messed up.

I really, really meant my bad math skill disclaimers. It was not false modesty or self-deprecating humor. For instance, the logical way to do this year's charts would have been to divide by total number of models, not covers, so that the percentages added up to 100... but that didn't occur to me until this weekend. (By that method, all the numbers are the same except that 86% of models were white, rather than 90%. Not a huge change.)

But regardless, even with a huge margin of error-- even if I somehow missed 50 POCs within this sample -- the numbers would still be dismal. I'm fairly confident I missed several, but not that many.

But the discrepancy isn't that big. The US is 90% white.

No it's not. Specifically, the 2010 census said only 58% of people ages 3-21 are white.

But I'm not arguing that covers have to correlate exactly with population to meet someone's idea of "fair." I am saying that kids of color deserve to see themselves represented in and on books, and 8 or 9 a year isn't cutting it. If for some reason you disagree with that, then we have a fundamental difference of opinion that I can't address here. But you'd probably benefit from the starter list mentioned below.

I'm white and I don't know what to do about this.

Me too, and me neither, at least until I did some research. A few suggestions:

- Do an honest assessment of the books you've read. Any POC characters? Authors? (So that no one thinks I'm being sanctimonious: I did this recently-- months after I put up last year's charts-- and was embarrassed by what I found.)

- Learn more. Seek out books with POC authors and characters; read the writing advice given freely on blogs. I've assembled a starter list of resources and hope y'all will add suggestions in the comments, either here or there.

- Spread the word. Make sure other readers, regardless of age or ethnicity, are getting their hands on these books. Show booksellers, libraries, and publishers that demand exists. Jody Hedlund has a great list of ways to support authors you love, beyond buying the book.

Is that enough? No. But it's a start.

I want to see a breakdown of character race/ethnicity.

I neglected to link this post from Mitali Perkins, which shows exactly that for 2010. Tiana Smith also has an interesting breakdown of 50 bestselling YA heroines.

I want to see a breakdown of authors by race/ethnicity.

I.... have no idea how to get you that information, but perhaps someone will link it in the comments.

Why didn't you include my book?

I promise, it wasn't an intentional exclusion. I had to draw a line somewhere, so I decided to use the Goodreads list since 975 titles seemed like a reasonable representation of what was getting noticed.

But you didn't include all 975.

Some of them weren't really 2011 releases; some of them weren't US releases, and some of them, I probably just missed. If I skipped you, I really am sorry.

Your self-published/indie list is woefully incomplete.

I know. I didn't want to leave non-"traditionally" published books completely out, but I lacked the time, energy, and ambition to take on a truly comprehensive survey, so I left my results at the 200+ mentioned on the Goodreads list.

By their nature, non-traditional books are harder to track down-- NK Jemison pointed out an entire market I didn't realize even existed. I would ~*LOVE*~ for someone to take on an analysis of self-published, indie, middle grade, adult, romance, sci fi, even a more scientific analysis of YA covers. The more data, the better.

Latin@ is not a word.

Yes it is.

But I like fancy dresses / closely cropped shots / underwater pictures / etc!

I do too, sometimes! I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with most cover techniques, but I charted them because I knew people were interested (and because it highlights the inequality issue). For more, the lovely and talented Kelly Jensen has a short round up of this week's cover posts; Stacked also has lots of great articles in their archives, and the fabulous Capillya has an entire site looking at cover design.

How long did those charts take you?

An embarrassingly long time.

What program did you use to make them?

I counted covers manually and put their stats in Excel, then generated the charts as Excel objects and imported them to Photoshop as png files.

And finally...

There have been lots of great comments and discussions on the covers post, but I wanted to highlight one issue I hadn't considered: a reader pointed out that the problem sometimes starts with a lack of diversity in stock photography.

Also, as a sub-note to my disclaimer that authors don't have a lot of control over their covers: John Green admits he "actively dislikes" some of his covers, though he doesn't say which one.

----

Thank you all for being so respectful and calm and generally rad. Putting up these posts is nerve wracking for me and I appreciate everyone's willingness to approach the topic as a discussion, not an argument. You guys win the internet.

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: May 18, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Uncovering YA Covers: 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:26:00 +0000

edited 5/20: These charts are not professionally researched or produced. Please take their findings with a grain of salt. Thanks.

Last year, I started a series of infographics about YA book covers, mostly as a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the Wall Street Journal's "Darkness in YA" controversy. But the further I got into compiling statistics, the more alarmed I became at the covers' monochrome approach to models. All total, I found 224 white girls-- and only nine of any other race or ethnicity.

Nine. As compared to at least 30 white girls in fancy dresses.

So this year, I decided to widen my search. Starting with The Elevensies and this Goodreads list of 2011 YA releases, I looked at 900+ covers, focusing only on US releases within the 2011 calendar year.* Originally, I planned to count every self-published, indie, Big 6, or other book on the list... but somewhere in the 600s I started losing my mind and decided to keep stats only on presses whose acquisitions are announced in Publisher's Marketplace. This still left me with 624 "traditionally published" books to count.

As you can see, last year's finding that YA covers are no more "dark" than they are "light" still stands.

And while it's not an exact count, this chart gives you a general idea of how self-published covers compare in hue.

But the color diversity ends there.

I had hoped that without "gatekeepers," self-publishing and indie presses would make up some of the ground in minority representation. Instead, out of the 200+ non-PW titles I surveyed, not a single one appears to portray a person of color.

Now, I realize this chart is not representative of all self-published and indie titles. A real assessment of self-published titles should start with Amazon (if anyone cares to take that on, I'm glad to spread the word of your results!). It's likely the chart says more about Goodreads voters*** than it does about representation-- but that possibility doesn't cheer me up much either.

So how are the gatekeepers doing?

Better... but not great.

Last year's counting was overly complicated; this year, I counted each model individually-- for example, a cover with two white girls and one latina would be counted three times overall, but my divisor of 624 remained the same. There's certainly a margin of error present in my perceptions, my questionable eyesight, and the sheer overwhelming mess of a 900+ line spreadsheet, but still.** Even if you can think of two or three examples I missed (and I hope you can!), this is just dismal.

Of the groups represented enough to show up in a pie slice, black characters/models are not only fewest in number, they're barely even on their own covers.

Latin@ and Asian characters/models do slightly better-- not much increase in numbers, but at least they're allowed to look at the camera.

It probably goes without saying that MENA, Native American, Indian, and other races/ethnicities fare the worst.

You might notice I haven't mentioned disability. That's because any visual representation = 0. Not even a token wheelchair.

There is one obvious LGBTQ cover included (on both the Asian and Latin@ charts); for more statistics, check out Malinda Lo's charts from September.

-----

I don't think the representation failings of modern publishing are the fault of any one person or group. Authors, agents, editors, marketing, designers, book buyers, stores, libraries, teachers, students, and readers all bear some responsibility, but I present these charts with the intention of furthering a collective discussion, not to lay blame.

Thankfully, there are lots and lots of extant posts for you to read and consider regarding the causes of these trends. It seems like I link one every single week in the YA Highway round up; if you're not a follower, here are a few from the past couple of months:

Ellen Oh: "Why The Pretty White Girl YA Book Cover Trend Needs To Stop"
Stephanie Kuehn: "Thoughts on Trayvon Martin: Continuing the Discussion on Race and YA Covers"
LibraryFanGirl: "The Whitewashing of YA Literature"
Adios Barbie: "Why Are We Still Whitewashing?"
Geekquality: "Hollywood Whitewashing (Yes, It Really Hurts)"
Malinda Lo: "Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover"
Sharon G. Flake at the NYT: "There Need to Be More Nonwhite Protagonists"
Rachel Stark: "Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death?"

That should get you started.

Also: I said this last year in the small print, but some readers missed it, so this year I'm saying it big and bold: I am a big 'ole hypocrite straight white middle class girl who's written two unpublished books about straight white middle class girls. But they aren't the only books I'll ever write (and I haven't finished a third since last year's post). In the meantime, I am trying to be an ally in the best way I know how. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

-----

So! As a community, we suck at race and ethnicity. How are we doing in terms of gender? Well, if you're looking at sheer numbers, then ladies, we are doing awesome.

I mean, sure, 20% of our models appear to be missing a limb or part of a head, but at least a couple of guys get the axe treatment too.

And only 15.5% are turned away from the camera... which is up 5.5 from last year, but that's not a big deal...

And there's nothing inherently wrong with 14% of the ladies wearing a fancy dress...

Unless you compare that 14% to the aforementioned 3% or so that makes up the entirety of our POCs, in which case it's a little alarming.

But hey! Only about 6.6% of our girls appear to be dead this year! Which is... still more than our POC representation! But only 1% are actively drowning! So... that's... kind of a win?

Honestly, I really don't think there's anything inherently wrong with girls in dresses or artfully cropped shots or even otherwordly underwater pictures.

But the dead girl thing. That really wears on me.

-----

I haven't updated last year's "girliness" charts because I think between the color breakdown above and the object breakdown below, you can draw your own conclusions. But I will make a few observations:

Filigree. It's so hot right now.
Flowers. Only half as hot as filigree.
It turns out there's only one "l" in filigree but the object chart crashes my computer every time I open it so I'm not going to edit the image. Please forgive me, grammar gods.
Trees, water, hearts, moons, snow, sparkles, blood, necklaces, the ocean, birds, fire, grass, stars, leaves, reflections, clouds, and hands are the other most popular cover images. I thought butterflies and masks would figure much higher. (Also, I did some dumb things like counting trees and branches separately. Same with swords, blades, and daggers. Your mathematical mileage may vary.)

The discussion in last year's comments was pretty thorough, and I'm not sure there's much more to add here (though feel free to weigh in, provided it's done respectfully-- my troll tolerance is non-existent). Relevant links are also welcome.

Thanks for reading, and if you write a response or related post, link it below or submit it for Friday's round up!

edited 5/20: If you are commenting on this post, please read my follow up first. It addresses some FAQs and provides more information.

-----

* This meant several of The Elevensies were excluded, as their release dates were actually late December 2010.

** Obviously compiling charts such as these puts me in the uncomfortable position of judging who looks "black/asian/latin@ enough" to "count." As such, I've taken book blurbs and plot descriptions into account in an effort to make sure my own perceptions and prejudices are balanced as much as possible.

*** I am one of those voters, as are pretty much all my friends. Nobody get your panties in a twist.
**** I know authors don't have much say in their covers. Where possible, I've purposely used books that belong to friends or that I've recommended, because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm picking on their title or cover.

***** An analysis of character, author, and publishing professional race/ethnicities would be a really helpful corollary to these charts, but short of finding a job that pays me to read and track all these books, it's just not in the cards (honestly, I don't think even these charts are in the cards for next year, unfortunately-- my family wants me to pay attention to them or something? I don't even know.)

Let me know if you want to be my wealthy benefactor, however. I am ALL ABOUT IT.

Field Trip Failday

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

(Fail Trip Friday?)

Sorry there's no round up today -- I took a short Twitter hiatus this week and have real life stuff to do this weekend and blah blah blah, you know how it goes. The lovely Kristin Otts is covering the main post at YA Highway, and next week I will be back in the swing of things.

Have a great weekend!

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: May 4, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:01:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

ASK AGENT

I tried to organize these by Q&A as much as possible for you.

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: April 27, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: April 20, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:08:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: April 13, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Road Trip Wednesday: A Thousand Words

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:27:00 +0000

For this week's Road Trip Wednesday, YA Highway is sharing another round of "inspiration images." I'm relieved to report that although I am still working on the book I was still working on last time, I'm also toying with a few others, after about a year of having no new ideas at all.

Thanks to the wonders of Pinterest, visually organizing ideas is a lot easier-- I've linked each board so that you can click through for credits and more pictures.

Fantasy temporarily titled The Avians

Refuge (western with witches thing)

After the Fall (contemporary)

Untitled road trip WIP (contemporary)

Random post-apocalyptic SNI that appeared in my head last night. Because that's just what YA needs, another end of the world story, amirite?

What do your current projects look like? Link your own post in the comments at YA Highway!

Field Trip Friday: April 6, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway,
this week brought to you by the lovely and talented Amanda Hannah!

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Road Trip Wednesday: A-Myra-Zing

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:30:00 +0000

The first time I "met" Myra, she was talking about Edward on a Stick.

I don't remember exactly what Edward on a Stick was up to, but I do remember that the post was quickly followed with a second post: "I Feel Badly About Edward On a Stick."* This immediately told me several things:

1) Myra is not afraid to stand up and claim the things she enjoys.
2) She's hilarious.
3) She worries about hurting people's feelings... even the feelings of fictional people.
4) She may be slightly insane, in the very best of ways.

So naturally, I began to blog and Twitter-stalk her.

I discovered that she is also a lovely, caring, genuinely kind person. She posted a thank you to her husband that even the Shark couldn't resist; she wrote an inspiring post about the ways depression makes writing from the gut extra difficult; she helped organize a massive fundraiser, and took time out during deadlines to help me organize something similar.

She gave me advice during querying, and notes during revisions, and at some point she called me a double rainbow, although I'm not really sure why, and I know any time I want to yell THIS IS THE SKIN OF A KILLER MYRA, she will respond, AS IF YOU COULD OUTRUN ME. Or something like that.

Also we accidentally named characters after each others' sons, which is weird and somewhat creepy, but also speaks to our great cosmic connection.

Myra and I have never met in person, but I count her as a dear friend, and I count myself lucky to do so. One of these days I'm going to head east on I-40 and show up on her doorstep. We will probably create mayhem in the Music City and have to call our agents for bail money or something.

But at least we're mature enough not to drag Edward on a Stick into our shenanigans.

Clearly.

Mature enough.

.....

You can follow more Myra love at these other lovely blogs:

YA Books Central Blog

Harmony's Radiant Reads

And find her books here:

To pre-order Timepiece: Amazon Books A Million IndieBound Barnes & Noble

To order Hourglass: Amazon Books A Million IndieBound Barnes & Noble

And because I am awesome at multi-tasking, this is also an installment of YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday: Write a post about someone you love and link it in the comments, then hop from blog to blog and see what other Road Trippers are saying! (Someone cleverly linked the two topics.)

(It was me.)

*Mysteriously, both have disappeared from her archives, but because nothing ever dies on the internet, I happen to have found photographic evidence in my own semi-embarrassing post about New Moon excitement. Look, we all have our sparkly skeletons, okay?

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: March 30, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway,
this week brought to you by the lovely and talented Amy Lukavics!

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Road Trip Wednesday: The Problem Is Brown and White

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:12:00 +0000

~*~ Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. ~*~

It seems appropriate that the best books I read during March Madness were sports-related. What's weird is that they were strikingly similar, yet nothing alike. In Matt de la Peña's Mexican WhiteBoy, two boys are forging a friendship over a sport; in Tim Tharp's Knights of the Hill Country, the main character is forging an identity separate from the one his teammate and best friend wants him to have.

MWB follows Danny and Uno as they bond over baseball and trying to find their places between Latino, black, and white cultures. They're both somewhat estranged from their fathers-- Danny believes his has moved back to Mexico, and wants to fit in better with his paternal family as a way to draw his father home; Uno lives with his Mexican mother and fields weekly visits from his African-American father, whose life may or may not have been turned from crime to spirituality.

Knights follows Hampton, a lower-middle class white kid whose father is long gone. His mother's quick succession of boyfriends has meant little but annoyance, until she begins dating Tommy Don,* a former-football player whose return to Kennisaw has old rumors circulating again.

Both books are extremely heavy on dialect. It might be distracting for some readers, but I can read Spanish, and I'm fluent in Okie, so I fell right into both.

What distracted me personally was the biggest difference between these two books. It's not baseball vs football, or urban San Diego vs rural Oklahoma, or third person vs first.

It's the fact that Mexican WhiteBoy is being banned in Arizona. But the banning of Knights of the Hill Country is highly unlikely.

(And this is the part where spoilers start, for those who haven't read these books.)

Debbie Reese has done an admirable job of following the shut down of Mexican-American Studies programs in Tucson, and I will link you to her chronological list of links rather than recap. I'm not interested in debating the ethics or legality of the school district's actions, though my opinion is probably pretty obvious in the following statement:

Knights will never get banned, because it's about white kids.

Never mind that in Knights, Hampton's eyes are opened to prejudice, racism, the dangers of letting kids have access to guns, and possibly even some liberal politics, while in WMB, the main characters find a way to succeed-- to do that "lifting themselves up by the bootstraps" that everyone is so fond of suggesting. Never mind that Hampton ultimately wants to work in forest conservation, whereas Danny looks to be a baseball superstar. Never mind that Danny and Uno are basically the model American dream of succeeding against all odds, whereas Hampton is questioning the status quo.

Doesn't matter. Mexican WhiteBoy. The problem's right there in the title.

I think it's pretty obvious where the real problem lies.

----

Head over to YA Highway and leave a link to your own Road Trip Wednesday post. It's a great way to make friends and learn about new titles.

----

* okay, this part was really, really weird for me. My maternal family centered around a small town in Oklahoma for the past sixty or so years. Tommy Don is a guy who moved to Santa Fe to be a painter, then moves back to care for his ailing father. I have a great uncle, Tommy Dale, who's a painter. That moved to Santa Fe. And came back to Oklahoma. To care for his ailing mother. Yeah.

Real Tom and fictional Tom are pretty different, personality-wise, and their reasons for being gossip about town are very different, but ... yeah. I had some personal issues imaging that character and they had nothing to do with Thorpe... unless he knows my family, which is entirely possible.

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: March 23, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

BOLOGNA BOOK FAIR

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

POT LIT

YA Deals 2011-2012, Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Last day! Part one covered deals by the money; part two covered deals by the size, and today, we're looking at trends-- but first, I forgot to include these two charts in the financial post. They're pretty self-explanatory.

So trends! Well...

Paranormal is definitely moving away from vampires and werewolves. The only vampire deal I saw was for an existing series, and I only saw two werewolf and two angel blurbs, of which one each was new.

There were several folklore tales, a few ghosts and demons, and one dragon. Otherwise, it appears that "psychic" is the new "vampire" (ignoring the fact that our friend to the left is a psychic vampire to being with.)

Nonfiction: Most of the nonfiction deals were for memoirs (and several of those account for the adults moving to YA).

Historical: Nobody writes about the 70s. Hasn't anyone seen "Dazed and Confused"? "That 70s Show"?

These pictures are kind of random, except for Shakespeare, Poe, Houdini, Shelley, and Jack the Ripper.

"Retellings" fell all over the genre map.

And finally...

Only 3.5 celebrities got YA deals in this time period. (I'm counting one listing as a 1/2 because the blurb made him sound internet famous, but it was no one I'd ever heard of.)

This is a good reminder to be wary of infographics: from looking at this chart, you might infer that being a celebrity makes getting a deal more difficult, or that celeb deals are tiny. However, none of them listed a price tag, which means you can probably use your imagination and/or logic to figure out the rest.

Check back next month when we'll be looking at covers, minority representation, and how many floating/dead/girls in ballgowns we can count. If you have suggestions for other publishing-related charts, please leave them in the comments, and thanks for reading!

Same disclaimers apply:

I took "math for liberal arts major" in college...
All figures were taken from Publisher's Marketplace deal reporting. I didn't download any statistics from their website- I counted the deals (not individual books) manually and assigned my own categories when necessary. Special thanks to Phoebe North and Kristin Halbrook for helping me categorize titles; a few errors are likely and are totally mine.
These charts are not a full representation of YA publishing, because some agents and editors choose not to list deals in Publisher's Marketplace, nor have I included any foreign sales.
Dystopian includes apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic.
These books sold in the past year, but your local bookstore shelves won't reflect these numbers until at least winter 2012, at the earliest. See Carrie Ryan's post for more information on YA deal time frames.

YA Deals 2011-2012, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:27:00 +0000

Yesterday it occurred to me that I have been missing a golden opportunity. For over a YEAR, I could have been signing my name as Kate cHart. cHART? CHart?

Okay, maybe not that great an idea. But anyway! Yesterday we looked at YA deals by the dollars; today we're looking at their size, as in single book versus trilogy. Not much has changed in the overall numbers compared to last year:

But who's getting those multiple book deals has shifted.

It's really confusing visually to compare that chart with last year's, so I calculated the differences below. Most notably, paranormal is moving to single book deals, probably because of the trilogy fatigue we've seen discussed around the web; dystopian seems to be following suit.

However, sci fi is killing it, and contemporary is moving from single titles to multiple book deals-- I didn't keep stats, but they seemed to be mostly for unrelated and/or companion books, or for established series.

Here's a better look at how each type of sale broke down along genre lines. Note that those four+ deals in paranormal were all for established series and/or Amanda Hocking. (That claim is based purely on my memory of scanning 400+ deal blurbs, but I'm 95% sure it's true.)

I have one more chart post for tomorrow, where I'll show you the trends I noticed in historicals, retellings, paranormal, and more. Suggestions for other charts? Leave them in the comments!

eta: Don't miss parts one and three!

Same disclaimers as yesterday:

Math. I hates it. It hates me. Please exercise caution when trusting my computational abilities..
All figures were taken from Publisher's Marketplace deal reporting. I didn't download any statistics from their website- I counted the deals (not individual books) manually and assigned my own categories when necessary. Special thanks to Phoebe North and Kristin Halbrook for helping me categorize titles; a few errors are likely and are totally mine.
These charts are not a full representation of YA publishing, because some agents and editors choose not to list deals in Publisher's Marketplace, nor have I included any foreign sales.
Dystopian includes apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic.
These books sold in the past year, but your local bookstore shelves won't reflect these numbers until at least winter 2012, at the earliest. See Carrie Ryan's post for more information on YA deal time frames.

YA Deals 2011-2012, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:43:00 +0000

The sun is shining, birds are singing, and flowers are blooming, so it must be time for...

INFOGRAPHICS!

(You thought I was going to say March Madness, didn't you? It is also time for that. But not in this post.)

So has anything changed? Last year, contemporary was making a stronger showing than expected, but paranormal was still stomping the competition in big deals. This year?

Contemporary is still making a respectable showing, but science fiction is coming on strong. Combined with dystopian and steampunk, it just about overtakes paranormal in second place.

How big are these deals? Well, as you can see, the vast majority of dollar figures aren't reported.

Per Publisher's Marketplace:
"nice" = $1-49K
"very nice" = $50-99K
"good" = $100-250K
"significant" = $251-499
"major" = $500,000

* "six-figure" deals were counted as "good" for these charts.

From the numbers we do have, we see:

Well look at that. Contemporary and paranormal are neck-in-neck for big deals, with science fiction not far behind.

---

Last year, I combined genres that didn't make a big showing, to keep the graphs simple. Specifically, that meant fantasy was counted with paranormal; steampunk was part of sci fi, and "other" included historical, thriller, and etc.

This year, however, steampunk was a decent chunk of the market, even though we keep hearing it's dead. Historical was more prevalent, and thriller/suspense/mystery were minor buzz words. So for comparison's sake, I've made charts using last year's divisions, and made the newly-emerging genres a different shade of last year's color.

You can see that even with the combined categories, sci fi took a big bite out of paranormal's share of the big deals. Big dystopian deals also fell. The unexpected gain, however, was contemporary, which more than doubled its piece of the six-figure signings.

Finally, you can see that debut authors are holding steady at less than a quarter of reported deals.

Tomorrow: We'll look at single vs. multi-book deals, and break those down by genre. Next month, covers!

eta: Parts two and three are up!

Margin of Error Disclaimers:

The other day, my six-year-old corrected my addition. So these numbers should certainly be taken with a grain of salt.
All figures were taken from Publisher's Marketplace deal reporting. I didn't download any statistics from their website- I counted the deals (not individual books) manually and assigned my own categories when necessary. Special thanks to Phoebe North and Kristin Halbrook for helping me categorize titles; a few errors are likely and are totally mine.
These charts are not a full representation of YA publishing, because some agents and editors choose not to list deals in Publisher's Marketplace, nor have I included any foreign sales.
Dystopian includes apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic.
"Debuts" includes deals specifically marked at such, plus any I recognized personally as first deals.
"Other" includes deals with unclear or non-existent blurbs. I did try to work some Google-fu on the confusing ones.
These books sold in the past year, but your local bookstore shelves won't reflect these numbers until at least winter 2012, at the earliest. See Carrie Ryan's post for more information on YA deal time frames.

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: March 16, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:27:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

(For longer discussions about FSoG, legality, ethics, and etc.,
check out Melissa Marr and Jennifer Weiner's twitter feeds from the past week.)

OTHERWISE AMUSING

REAL LIFE HANDMAID'S TALE

FAKE PINTEREST

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: March 9, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway,
this week brought to you by the lovely and talented Stephanie Kuehn because

I have a date with Radiohead this evening. (!!!!)

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

JONATHAN FRANZEN HATES

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: March 2, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:58:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: February 24, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway

PUBLISHING

also pretty funny, if you follow self-publishing kerfuffles: Fake J.A. Konrath

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

BAND PLUS KIDS BOOK

Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version: February 17, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kate Hart) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

A companion to the round up at YA Highway, this week posted courtesy of the fabulous Kaitlin Ward!

PUBLISHING

WRITING AND READING

OTHERWISE AMUSING

GRAMMYS