Entries Tagged 'Events' ↓

Teen Dating Violence

Everyone deserves a healthy relationship safe from violence and fear. Protect your teens from an abusive situation by learning these warning signs.

YOUR TEEN MAY BE EXPERIENCING PATTERNS OF AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP IF:

Your Teen:
•Apologizes and/or makes excuses for his/her partner’s behaviour.
•Loses interest in activities that he/she used to enjoy.
•Stops seeing friends and family members and becomes more and more isolated.
•Casually mentions the partner’s violent behaviour, but laughs it off as a joke.
•Often has unexplained injuries or the explanations often don’t make sense.

The Partner:
•Calls your teen names and puts him/her down in front of others.
•Acts extremely jealous of others who pay attention to your teen.
•Thinks or tells your teen that you, the parent(s), don’t like them.
•Controls your teen’s behaviour, checking up constantly, calling or texting,
and demanding to know who he/she has been with.

You:
•See the partner violently lose their temper, striking or breaking objects.

BREAK THE SILENCE, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION. START THE CONVERSATION NOW.

It’s official. We have a cover.
Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Am so enamoured with this conference line-up I’m going to blog it!

Children’s Publishing Goes Digital

Presented by Publisher’s Launch Conference

The takeoff of tablets and the proliferation of smart phones are igniting opportunities for digital children’s books — interactive ebooks, apps, learning products and online communities — that are vastly different from both the maturing adult ebook market and traditional children’s board books and chapter books. A flood of new entrants is reinventing — and supplementing — children’s publishing, from classic illustrated story books through to middle grade and YA. Children’s Publishing Goes Digital looks closely at this disruption and how the marketplace for children’s content will change in the coming year, and what publishers need to know about this new continuum of content, games, animation and interactivity. This will be the first of a series of events created by Publishers Launch Conferences, in conjunction with Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners, to address digital publishing strategies for children’s book professionals.

To learn more from Publisher’s Launch Conference – Click Here!

To Register for the Children’s Publishing Goes Digital – Click Here!

Children’s Publishing Goes Digital Program

8:45-9:30 am: Traditionalists Gone Digital
Though there are many new players entering the digital children’s market, traditional publishers are also innovating in the digital realm. What routes are publishers taking to develop digital content, and to market this and traditional print, online? What have been the challenges and successes through the transition into digital, and what do publishers see as being the future of children’s content—games, animation, or ebooks? Representatives from Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Alloy take on these questions and more in this discussion of what it means to be a traditional children’s publisher moving into the digital world.
Speakers: Josh Bank, Alloy Entertainment
Jonathan Yaged, Macmillan

Corinne Helman, HarperCollins

9:30-10:00am: Sizing up the Children’s Market
Kelly Gallagher, VP of Publishing Services at RR Bowker, will present findings from a study PubTrack and its UK partner, BML, on the current children’s print and ebook market.

Speaker: Kelly Gallagher, RR Bowker

10:00-10:45am: New Players, New Partners
Digital media companies developing apps and ebooks for children are using their skills in animation and gaming – and often new sources of content –to move into the “space” in the children’s market that publishers used to have for themselves. Who are these new players, and what impact will their products have on the established children’s book market? What role do they see their products playing in the future of book-like content, and how do they see themselves interacting with traditional publishers? Insight into new players will come fast and furiously as five companies will have five minutes each to pitch their new initiatives.
Speakers: Rick Richter, Ruckus Media
TouchyBooks

Lisa Holton, Fourth Story Media

10:45-11:15 am: Break

11:15 -11:45 am: Nook and Children’s Interactive eBooks and apps
Kevin O’Connor and Wendy Bronfin talk about Nook Color and its work with children’s interactive ebooks and apps. They will be joined by a children’s author in conversation about developing children’s books and apps for the color tablet and what the technical implications are of developing an interactive product to make the most of the development costs.
Speakers: Kevin O’Connor

Wendy Bronfin

11:45 -12:15 pm: What Trends Are Emerging for Children – and their Parents?
Two futurists talk about their analyses of where the market is going, and what the biggest influences are on children, and their parents.
Speakers: Amy Henry, Youth Beat

Ira Mayer, EPM Communications

12:15 -1:30 pm: Lunch

1:30-2 pm: Russell Hampton

Russell Hampton, president of Disney Worldwide, presents on Disney’s approach to turning its popular franchises into Disney Digital Books.

2:00-2:45 pm: Education Meets Digital
With the interactive capabilities of ebooks and apps, how are publishers and developers creating new
opportunities for education? What new innovations are emerging in the edutainment market, and how
are they accommodating new technologies as they develop their products? What type of interaction is
most effective to capture and maintain the interest of their target audience, and how do new apps and
ebooks grow with their readers? Developers explore these questions as they talk about new systems
and products that are combining the classroom with technology.
Speakers: Emi Abramzon, Panarea

Neal Goff, Egremont Associates (Moderator)

2:45-3:15 pm: Break

3:15 – 3:50pm: Jennifer Perry: How to Reach and Teach Preschoolers with Digital Books
Jennifer Perry, VP Global Publishing at Sesame Workshop, will talk about her organization’s qualitative research efforts with parents and children exploring how children use apps. Perry will also share Sesame Workshop’s experience creating 150 ebooks and 25 apps, and discuss its global expansion in digital media and how they will make it work with its 140 publishing licensees.

Speaker: Jennifer Perry, Sesame Workshop

3:50-4:40 pm: Marketing to a Community
Online communities and media that have already captured the attention of young readers constitute an important resource that publishers must employ. What sites and communities are most beneficial to children’s content developers, and to what extent do publishers need to customize their campaigns based on the communities they target? What are the ways in which publishers are reaching out to these communities/websites to make their books more visible? Panelists from the media will talk with a marketing executive about their experiences developing an audience among young readers and how they are working with publishers to promote books and apps.

Speaker: Laura Dail, Literary Agent

4:40 -5:00 pm: Closing Remarks

The DBW Book Marketing Summit will include targeted “workshop” sessions on the following topics:

• Discoverability-SEO/SEM Essentials
• Capturing-and Dominating-Your Market with Content Marketing
• Best Practices in Audience Development
• Social Media Strategies: The Dynamics of Customer Engagement
• Analytics: You Can’t Grow What You Can’t Measure

I really want to get to this conference. These are things that writers, not just publishers, will also need to know if they want to survive as writers in the future.

As well as my 1) Jeni Mawter Facebook page and 2) @mawter Twitter accounts I have been busy building my social presence for Kiss Kill.

Now you can update on the:
3) Kiss Kill wall on Jeni Mawter’s Facebook page
4) Twitter page @kisskilldigital
5) Mat’s Blog whyidontgetgirls found at http://whyidontgetgirls.wordpress.com

Phew!

I’ve never been so social in my whole life.

This is a copy of an email sent to Sarah Bailey, the CEO of Really Blue Books (www.reallybluebooks.com) with a marketing update for Kiss Kill.

Without you Kiss Kill would not be published. It is something for which I will be eternally grateful.

As you may have noticed, I’m passionate about this story, and I am passionate about it finding its readers. I want them to experience and connect with the story. I want to create a buzz so they’ll share it with others.

To be honest, I’m only cc-ing you on some of the leads I’m following. Didn’t want to swamp your inbox! But here’s a snippet of marketing goings on:

I’m in the process of approaching boy’s schools in the Sydney region and asking for staff to review the book. Word-of-internet is the goal. If the educators get behind this, it should do really well. Fingers crossed.

My List of Potential Reviewers is growing.

Have started looking at organising a Blog tour. Apparently virtual book tours can be done through www.pumpupyourbook.com

A music student at the Australian Institute of Music, Emily Winter, has agreed to write some music for lyrics to ‘Thought I knew You’, which I then hope to put on YouTube.

A Sydney Uni student and actor, Adam Marks, is going to perform and film the monologue ‘How Do You Define a Man?’ also for YouTube. I’m hoping he’ll help promote to student networks.

I’ve joined a Narcissist Survivor’s Chat group and have started tweeting about NPD.

Have approached Sydney Writers’ Festival, Melbourne Writers’ Festival and Byron Bay Writers’ Festivals to speak next year.

I’ve approached Inside-A-Dog a web site for teens on reading.

I’ve informed staff at the Sydney Writer’s Centre, the NSW Writer’s Centre and Macquarie University where I work.

Exhausted yet? I’m not. This is all essential to marketing in today’s world! Will keep you posted…

Went to David Varela session on digital storytelling organised by the Australian Society of Authors last weekend. Amongst many things David has been involved in the transmedia productions of Perplex City, A Global Adventure, and Clockwork Watch.

According to David, writers should consider themselves as auteurs, not authors, with the skills and vision to inform the creative process of storytelling. Given the simple equation:
Story = Story + Audience
… it’s the close relationship with the audience/fans that will carry the story and give it power.

The audience likes to be part of the process and will pay for this privilege. They will buy ‘rewards’, listen to podcasts, run character websites, exchange puzzle cards, write a Letters page, publish their own story(s), compile wikis, write songs, participate in real life street theatre, twitter etc.

The challenge for the writer is to create enough intrigue to entice the reader to stay with your story.

Visuals such as artwork or supporting imagery help to ‘sell’ your story or project.

Here’s to my beautiful new picture book, illustrated by Sarah Rowan Dahl and published by Wombat Books.

What fun was had at the launch at the NSW Writer’s Centre! And thanks to the brave and generous, Michael Parker.

Received this email from The Central Coast. This is what makes the chaos of Book Week all worthwhile:

Hi Jeni,

I thought you might enjoy reading the school newsletter article written by some of the library monitors I took to the Book Week Luncheon a couple of weeks ago.

Jeni Mawter is a fantastic author and has great books to read which will take you to places you have never been. They will make you laugh and smile for a long time afterwards.
She has a beautiful personality and an endless imagination. Jeni Mawter looks just like your ordinary, everyday person, but she is the loveliest person I have met and I’m sure she inspired us all.
By Kim and Riley

How lovely is that!

DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery   by Toni Brisland (Sid Harta Publishers).

Launch ‘speech’ by Jeni Mawter 25 July 2010

First, there was Nancy Drew (1930), a young female amateur detective, then came George, or Georgina as we came to know her, from the Famous Five (1942), closely followed by Trixie Belden (1948) and now we have DemiChat, with her trusty sidekick, Lord Flannery.

When Toni first asked me to launch her novel DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery I was extremely surprised but very flattered. To take a great idea, then hold a published book in your hands is a quantum leap. Only another author can fully appreciate that journey. Today we have several authors in the room who have come to celebrate the success of DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery. When I first met Toni, I did for her what some of these authors had done for me – offered the hand of friendship,  welcomed her into a group of like-minded souls, and encouraged her to follow her dreams. Two such authors were Wendy Blaxland and  Susanne Gervay. Susanne and I were talking one day and lamenting the fact that our writing journey had been hard – not just hard, gruelling in fact. We decided that a handful of writers started their writing careers with an elevator ride to the penthouse of publishing success. For the rest of us, we had to take the back stairs – blindfolded – and shackled. I’m sure there’s been many times along the way when Toni questioned the sanity of her back stairs journey. Well today Toni, finally, the blindfold and shackles have come off.

As one author to another I salute tenacity, ingenuity and courage that has gone into the publication of this first book in what will hopefully be as successful a series as that of that Sir Arthur bloke’s.

Toni tells us that this book and its characters were inspired from her own life, with her blue-point Himalayan cat assuming the role of DemiChat, and her niece’s beagles going by the name of Lord Flannery, the name borrowed from Toni’s other cat. But after reading this Sherlock Holmes spoof I realised that Toni has actually based this character on herself. Like DemiChat, Toni used her feminine intuition and wit in order to solve the publication problems placed before her. Like DemiChat she has the devotion of a Lord Flannery in her husband, Richard, and the devotion of a Jake in her daughter Deen, and like DemiChat she has a great penchant for mystery, although to all the members of the Diorio family I’m not sure why Toni put the Italians as the baddies!

Toni will say that the message behind DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery is about teamwork but to me, there is a much more powerful message in this story. Unlike most heroes of today who use magical powers to solve their problems, Toni’s characters do not. Her characters use skills that all of today’s children can relate and aspire to, those of acute observation and logical reasoning. In much of children’s literature today the message is that you can easily ‘magic’ your way to a solution and this has been of growing concern to me. I’m delighted that Toni has gone against this trend – there’s not a vampire or werewolf in sight! This courage to go with her own conviction is yet another DemiChat characteristic.

At this point I must applaud the exquisite black and white film noir-ish illustrations of Peter “Zane” Haywood. I can see why Toni fell instantly in love with the illustration that was to become the cover, and why Peter was chosen by the publisher, Kerry Collison of Sid Harta Publications. They certainly add a depth and quirkiness to the book.

And finally, to Sid Harta Publications. “Publishing is a competitive and difficult business. More people are writing and there is less room among the big publishers for consideration of newcomers. Opportunities for good writers and many good books are lost because of this. So what can replace the big publisher’s power and influence in selection of writers and success on the book shop shelf? The small team – dedicated to encouraging and supporting the development of fine writing.’ Recognition must be given to this publishing house of vision, and congratulations for helping to produce a truly beautiful book.

Before I finish up I would like to give Toni a small gift to help her with her school book launch and for what I hope will be the start of many public speaking engagements. Firstly, a Lord Flannery hat. I would have loved to be giving you a DemiChat hat but as I’ve discovered, Deerstalkers are a bit thin on the ground. There is also the obligatory, detective disguise kit as well as some modern-day weaponry which is great for ‘boy appeal’.

With its mysterious kidnapping, a missing secret formula, and the most delightful animal Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson partnering, it is elementary, my dear Toni, that this book can’t go wrong. Now Toni, there’s a few people you’d like to address so I’ll ask you to pretend this is a Champs Elysees catwalk, that you are a former jewellery model, and please come over here and speak to your adoring audience.

Congratulations.