Should You Lock Up Your Daughters?

I began my quest to read one of each of the "big three" of wealthy-girl-gone-bad books after reading Naomi Wolf's article Young Adult Fiction: Wild Things in The New York Times last month. I have an authority problem (don't tell me you haven't noticed). So when Wolf had harsh things to say about these series, describing them as having "a value system in which meanness rules, parents check out, conformity is everything and stressed-out adult values are presumed to be meaningful to teenagers," I couldn't just take her word for it and jump on an anti-bad girl bandwagon. I had to see for myself.

I know that one is not a statistically significant number. But I am not a young woman and I just can't sacrifice any more of the precious time left to me reading this stuff. So just recognize that I'm generalizing on the basis of only one example per series.

Will These Books Turn Teenage Girls Into Slutty Shopaholics?

Personally, I can't believe readers take this stuff seriously. I don't care how young they are. And if they do take it seriously, I'd be more concerned about them becoming depressed than running wild in the streets. I thought these things were supposed to be chicklit. Perhaps I don't know what chicklit is. I thought it was light and fluffy. Fun. Humiliation isn't fun. Being ganged up on isn't fun. Binging and purging isn't fun. Having guys corner you in the women's room, pull your strapless evening gown down, and fondle your breasts is not fun.

Not that any of that has ever happened to me. I'm just guessing.

I've read that some adult women say they attended private schools in New York City and Gossip Girl, in particular, is true to their experience. Kudos for living through your adolesence, ladies. But if any of these stories reflect any kind of reality at all, it's a reality that pertains to a very limited portion of the population. The rich portion, of course. The majority of the kids who read these books aren't rich, and they know it. Most of them don't even know where to go to find the Prada that even middle schoolers shop for in these books. Most readers are going to know that this is not about them.

Nonetheless, I suppose you could say that reading books of this kind will make teenagers insensitive to the abuse portrayed or make them accepting of it as normal the way watching violent images on TV desensitizes younger children and encourages them to engage in violent behavior. I don't know if any studies have ever been done that show that reading has the same kind of impact as watching images. I think you have to do more processing when you read than when you watch an image. That extra processing may give your rational mind an opportunity to do some extra thinking and use some judgment that it doesn't get a chance to do when hit directly by an image.

Personally, I need to see some real evidence that these books are having a negative impact on kids before I can believe it. In the meantime, I think we should give teenagers some credit for being able to separate fact from not very good fiction.

However, after reading these things I have to say that if I were a wealthy New York City mother with kids who had unlimited access to money and little supervision, I'd be really worried.

Do These Books Exploit Teenagers As A Market?

None of these books are books in the traditional sense of the word. They do not communicate an author's vision. The ones I read were not even complete--they left storylines dangling to entice readers to buy another installment.

All three series were "packaged books" from Alloy Entertainment. Remember, Alloy
does market research before the books it sells to publishers are written. According to a recent New York Times article "In many cases, editors at Alloy...craft proposals for publishers and create plotlines and characters before handing them over to a writer (or a string of writers)." Cecily von Ziegesar came up with The Gossip Girl herself--while she was working for Alloy Entertainment. She wrote the first eight books, but according to the May issue of Vanity Fair, with the ninth book she began "to help plot and heavily revise" the books.

The books aren't books, they are marketed products.

Yes, marketing is part of the book business, and I've been moaning and groaning about it plenty here in recent months. But, traditionally, the marketing comes in after the book is written, when it needs to be sold. With these products, the marketing starts before conception.

Kids who read these books are buying into what the marketers are telling them they (the kids) want to read. The wonks at Alloy study the teen market and on the basis of their conclusions regarding what they've learned, they create a product to sell to that market. Then kids line up and buy (literally and metaphorically) what they're being sold.

The fact that those marketers are telling kids they want to read these dark, sad, cookie cutter stories of money, drinking, and sex is really creepy. The fact that kids line up and take it is even creepier.

I'm sure you're all delighted that I'm finally through with this project. Believe me, you're nowhere near as happy it's over as I am.

Perhaps This Is Why I Stink At Marketing

Yesterday I was supposed to remind everyone that we were only three weeks away from The Happy Kid! Giveaway. But I got so excited about doing an honest day's work that I forgot all about it. I am easily distracted.

The Book of Lost Girls

I have completed my mission to read one book from each of the three big wealthy-girl-gone-bad series. Today, class, we will discuss The Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar.

Basically, The Gossip Girl is the the story of Serena van der Woodsen (van der Woodsen--von Ziegesar?), a wild golden girl who returns to her upscale New York crowd from boarding school, after being kicked out because she was carousing in France when she was supposed to be starting a new semester. Her best friend turns on her because she doesn't want competition for her boyfriend. Or competition in general. Slowly but surely all kinds of gossip spreads about Serena and this leader of the pack finds herself an outcast.

That actually sounds interesting but not much really happens in this story beyond rich kids wandering around being miserable.

The book has a bizarre point of view/voice. While it uses a third person narrator, that narrator is the anonymous "The Gossip Girl" who interjects clever, though snide, comments every now and then. The Gossip Girl is presumably one of the nasty rich girls we're reading about. Though, since new characters were introduced right up until the last chapters of the book and this is a serial, maybe she hasn't turned up yet. At any rate, though she is a character telling the story, she is privy to every action and every thought of every other character in the book.

That isn't possible, and I don't think it would be acceptable in a lot of books. However, I will admit that I suffer from point-of-view anxiety and other readers might not notice.

The Gossip Girl doesn't use anywhere near as many product names in lieu of descriptions as The Clique and The A-List do. It more than makes up for it with increased amounts of sex, drinking, and drugs. These kids are major players in the drinking department. If it's true that the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence, they could be in for some serious problems in a few decades. Not only are they served alcohol in private homes (which we know happens all over--read a newspaper), but they can walk into any bar, lounge, or liquor store and buy booze. These under age characters can organize fundraisers for their underage friends where alcohol is served to them by waiters they've hired.

Don't any of these merchants worry about losing their liquor licenses?

I mentioned a while back that I was reading Daisy Miller. In Daisy Miller a kind, innocent girl is unaware of the constraints of the society she has entered. In The Gossip Girl, mean, experienced girls live in a society in which there are no constraints at all. For the most part, their parents only appear at social functions where their underage children are drinking with them, their staff serving champagne to their childen and their children's friends. No one is around to notice Blair binging and purging. No one is around to notice that Nate is baked most of the weekend. Evidently these kids had free-rein to plan that fundraiser.

All these characters are suffering. Perhaps that's the attraction for readers. Maybe girls read about the unhappy lives of rich, attractive teens and feel better about themselves.

Next post: Are wealthy-girls-gone-bad books a danger to your teens? Stay tuned for our I-Team's Special Report.

I Guess It Had To Happen

Little, Brown has withdrawn How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. I know someone who predicted this would happen by the end of the week.

From The New York Times: "In October of her freshman year at Harvard, she received a call from Ms. Walsh, also an agent at William Morris, who told her she was going to start shopping the manuscript around. "Two days later, she called to say Little, Brown wants to buy the book."

Ms. Viswanathan said at the time she could not quite believe all this was happening to her. "It was amazing," she said. "I thought everyone was just being nice to me."

Okay, I know she copied someone else's work. I know she deserves to have her book withdrawn. But I can't help myself. I feel badly for her.

School Visits

I had a speaking engagement at an elementary school in Massachusetts today. It was my only school engagement this school year.

I had a fantastic time. The kids were great. They either liked me or put up a good show. Doesn't matter to me. They made me happy. The teachers were great, too. One teacher came back to see me in the library while her kids were out to recess to say that her class would be writing alien stories that afternoon. If you'd been there, you'd know why that was good news.

Some interesting things about school appearances:

When I first started talking to groups of kids, I had to struggle to keep myself from directing all my comments to the adult teachers with them. I'm over that now. I'm there for the kids.

School appearances are a marketing opportunity for children's authors. Authors of adult books rarely make appearances at schools. We get to go into a school and talk to maybe a couple of hundred kids over the course of the school day as well as their teachers and the school librarian. Those are all people who may truly be interested in our books and who will remember our names when they appear on new books. Two hundred readers rarely, rarely, rarely show up at appearances for children's authors. On top of all that, we get paid for being there. Sweet.

Some children's authors get very put out if the teachers haven't exposed the kids to their books before the day of the appearance. That absolutely does not bother me. As I said above, school visits are marketing opportunities. I am there to sell myself and to make kids want to read my books. That's my job. I don't expect the teachers to do it for me.

In addition to selling myself, I want to have something meaningful and substantial to talk about with these kids. If I do, it won't matter that the kids haven't read my books yet. I started making school appearances while my own children (who I don't like to mention here, but I do have some)were still in grade school. They had a great deal on their plates at school, and I think all children do. They have a lot of material they have to cover, a lot they have to learn. Under no circumstances do I want to waste children's time. I am there to support their efforts to write, to give them some writing assistance they can use right away, maybe even that same day. I use my books to illustrate what I'm talking about, which is how I try to get the kids interested in them.

Eating in the cafeteria with kids is terrific. Yes, it's mind-bogglingly noisy. No, I probably couldn't stand it if I were there every day. But I'm not. When I was a teenager, I probably thought the school cafeteria was a hellhole, much like the gym. But as a writer, it's a place for me to do fieldwork.

Today I learned that fourth graders like to watch The Animal Planet. Who knew? And I met kids who were into forming their own little clubs around their interests. A nature club. An art club. A reading club.

Yeah, I know kids have done the club thing in the past. But I need to know that they're doing it now.

These kids were third and fourth graders. They were little (or big) dolls. I sat at a table in the cafeteria talking with these angelic faces. I watched this pretty little girl turn to the boy next to her and chat away, appearing to have no agenda. All she wanted was to say whatever she was saying. And I thought, "Damn. Are these kids going to turn into those horrible beasts in The Gossip Girl?"

Except for that moment, I had a really good time.

Just So We're All Clear About This

In an article entitled You, To, Can Right Like A Blogger in Wired News, Tony Long (who appears to be that publication's copy chief) says, "And very few blogs involve the kind of introspection that characterizes a serious journal. Most blogging is sheer exhibitionism, either the self-absorbed ramblings of an individual blogger or the corporate site that exists for the sole purpose of making money."

I guess my blog falls into "the self-absorbed ramblings of an individual blogger" category, because if my site exists for the purpose of making money, it's not doing a very good job.

Actually, sometime in the last couple of years I believe I did read an article that argued that Internet activity was improving kids' writing skills, simply because they have to write out their thoughts on IM and in e-mail (and probably LiveJournals, though the article might predate them) in such a way as to make themselves understood to friends, something they don't have to do as part of their regular carbon-based lives.

At the very least it must improve their typing skills.

Blog of a Bookslut gave us that link.

More Marketing Woes

Yesterday morning I woke up to find an e-mail from my contact person at the only Vermont bookstore where I'll be appearing next month in my feeble attempt to support my new book. The writer wanted to discuss marketing and asked if I had any ideas to help make the event a success.

This was a very legitimate request on his part, and I did have some ideas. But it takes me foreeeever to answer business eeeeeeeee-mails, she whined. I worked on it a long time. I could have used that time to work on the press release I started Monday to send to a couple of Vermont newspapers. I'd also started some work for one of the new books on Monday. I had to forget about that, too.

I got distracted in the middle of answering that e-mail while I tried to find some e-mail addresses for high school classmates. That was a black hole that just sucked up minutes of my life. Maybe close to half an hour. Or forty minutes.

About an hour into this thing, I got a call from the owner of the only Connecticut bookstore where I'll be appearing in my feeble attempt to support my new book. My new book that is coming out May 18th. (That's not just a shameless plug. It's pertinent to what's coming next.) The bookstore owner wanted to change the date of my appearance from June 3rd to July 1st.

Hey, I'm obliging. I've been reading Zen. I can float my boat on the ocean of life, moving with the waves and what have you. However, only two hours earlier I had mailed press packets to newspapers with the June date.

The date has been changed. I am sending follow up press releases to the newspapers. This is awkward, because in all likelihood most of those papers were going to blow me off, anyway. One in particular almost certainly will. So...what am I supposed to say in the correcting press release? That press release you paid no attention to in the first place needs a correction? And it's not because I made a mistake, by the way. The owner did it. Don't look at me.

And now that the date of the bookstore appearance is so far from the publication date, I think those papers will have even more reason not to give my book any coverage.

This is not the end of the world. Yesterday afternoon I received my copy of the completed contract for my two book deal, what I will call The Hannah and Brandon Stories for want of a better title right now. Even with as little media attention as I manage to get, I seem to sell enough books to keep a publisher interested. God knows how or why.

I've had some other good things happen these past few months, too. I'm not enjoying them as much as I should because I'm always in a snit over marketing. In June, after the dust has settled and I know what, if any, results I get from my marketing efforts, I'll give you a run-down. There's something for you to look forward to.

No matter how it goes, though, I don't plan to ever initiate a serious marketing effort like this again. And this is why: I can't control anyone else. I can't make publications cover my book. I can't make bookstore managers welcome me with open arms. I have very little influence on other people.

I can only influence and control myself. So with the next book, I will spend my time writing, reading, and studying. Those are the things I can make a difference with.

Yup. That's right. I'm about halfway through that Zen book.

Meg Cabot Has A Calling. Guess What It Is.

In a Guardian article, Meg Cabot talks about her new book Queen of Babble, which sounds a lot like a YA book for grown-ups. The Guardian article says it's her sixth adult novel, but during the interview Cabot started talking about her calling and how she doesn't know if adolescent girls think about it, so that's why she included her calling in the novel.

I suspect Queen of Babble will be a cross-over book. I have never read anything by Meg Cabot. Perhaps it is time I did.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Blog of a Bookslut, for this link.

My Only Viswanathan Link For Today

In I Coulda Been A Pretender at Slate, John Barlow talks about his experience working with 17th Street Productions (now owned by Alloy). Things didn't work out for him quite so well as they did for Kaavya Viswanathan.

Oh. Wait. Maybe in the long run they turned out better.

Barlow's Slate article is doubly interesting for us, here, because he writes for adults but was approached to write a kids' book.

Some Serious Detective Work

By now everyone who cares knows that Kaavya Viswanathan has apologized for plagiarizing two of Megan McCafferty's books. Some of us are still wondering, though, what part 7th Street Productions/Alloy Entertainment had in all this.

To get right to the point, I don't know. But I have managed to scrape up some info on this "book packager."

galley cat directed its readers to a really fascinating AP article from last July on Alloy Entertainment. Among the more interesting points:

"It[Alloy] has a staff in New York of about 10 editors who diligently research what's hot in the teen world - what girls are wearing, the music they like, the TV shows they Tivo."

"Staff members are in charge of everything about the book, from creating ideas to finding writers for the books, crafting proposals for publishers and creating the sleek cover art. The company then sells the book, but keeps all the other rights. As many as 50 are published each year and are well distributed among the major publishing houses."

"Lisi Harrison, author of "The Clique" series, was working at MTV when she was approached by Alloy to create books about wealthy, junior-high queen bees."

"Alloy partners with most of the major publishing houses."

Alloy also promotes its books through other businesses it owns, such as a clothing line.

How much say did Alloy have in the writing of Kaavya Viswanathan's book? Her agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, said in a New York Times article, "she put Ms. Viswanathan in touch with a book packaging company, 17th Street Productions (now Alloy Entertainment), but that the plot and writing of "Opal" were "1,000 percent hers.""

And, yet, the same article says Alloy "holds the copyright to "Opal" with Ms. Viswanathan."

Hmmm.

Again, I don't know what happened. But if I were Nancy Drew, who was also the product of a book packager, I'd be wonderin'. At the very least, if they were as involved with this book as they are with their others, how could they miss this much copied material?