Web Site Serves Up New Writers

By Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2007

For new children’s and YA authors, it’s a lonely task trying to get their first books in front of librarians, teachers, and booksellers. That’s why 39 first-time novelists representing 24 publishers launched the Class of 2K7, a collaborative project to promote their books, all of which are scheduled for release this year.

“We decided early on we had a lot to offer, and if we came together we’d have a larger voice,” says Judy Gregerson of Everett, WA, a volunteer publicist for 2K7 and the author of the upcoming novel Bad Girls Club (Blooming Tree).

The Web site, whose name connotes the year 2007, offers a video of all the various books, which are aimed at kids age seven and up, and has multiple resources so librarians and other children’s literature fans can find information about release dates, plot synopses, author Web sites, interviews, and biographies. Visitors also can air their thoughts and questions on a forum linked to a 2K7 blog. A MySpace page and zine is in the works, and the group’s first book, Story of a Girl (Little, Brown), by Sara Zarr was released January 1.

Schools and booksellers looking for author visits can check out tour dates and the availability of authors by region. The Web site gives librarians “a chance to have 39 authors in one place,” Gregerson says. “You go to the Web site and say 'this [book] works for me,’ 'this is appropriate for me.’ It gives them a one-stop shop.”