YABC: An Introduction & A Contest!

Chances are, if you frequent this blog, you're a book lover! One of my favorite things is to connect with other book lovers and share reviews and recommendations on the books I love. My favorite site for this is Young Adult Books Central (YABC). Not only is this a fabulous site for readers, it's a site that offers a lot of fabulous things to authors too! So, I thought I'd take a day to introduce you, my fellow book lovers, to YABC by interviewing M.G., the girl who runs it. Make sure you check the end of the interview for a FUN!! contest. :)


1. How long has YABC been around?


YABooksCentral.com has been around since 1998, back during the Dawn of the Internet. It was founded by Kimberly Pauley (the author of the Sucks to Be Me Series) as a basic stopover for people looking for information on young adult books. It was originally part of the same network that is now About.com. Since then, YABC has evolved into one of the largest book review sites targeted towards teen and tween books. Readers from all around the globe, of any age, come to YABC to share their thoughts about their favorite (or not so favorite) books.

2. What is your philosophy?

At YABC, we believe every book is someone's favorite book. We do not discourage readers from any book--we strive to pair the right books with the right readers, sort of like an online librarian. This means we do not allow trolling on our site. NO trashing a book or author. NO writing reviews for shock value. NO defamation. If there is something a reviewer doesn't like about a book, we expect them to be able to explain why in a clear and helpful manner.

3. How does your review system work? (Official reviewers and those who sign up to use the site)

We have about 20 Official Team Reviewers here at YABC. We review anything from picture books on up to young adult. But anyone can post a review on YABC! That's what makes us different from other book review sites. Each book is given an "editor" rating, which is the rating our Team Reviewers give the book, and there is also a "user" rating, which tallies all the ratings submitted by our readers. It's important to us to have as many reviews and ratings as possible for each book from a wide variety of readers, because we realize everyone has different tastes! We wouldn't want to discourage a teen from picking up a potential favorite book solely because one of our Team Reviewers didn't care for it.

4. What demographic of readers frequent the site?

Even though we're a site targeted to teen and tween readers, we have visitors of all ages! We have entire classrooms visit our site during school to post reviews of books they have read in class, which I think is so cool. Book reports have come a long way since my day! We also have librarians who direct kids to YABC if they want to learn more about specific titles and read reviews. Parents love our Kids Books Central section (KidsBooksCentral.com), which focuses on the 0-12 age group. Authors and publishers sign up to submit author bios and books into our database, then they direct their readers to YABC to post reviews. Book bloggers share their reviews on YABC, just like they do Good Reads and Amazon, because they know their review will reach a targeted teen audience. We have members from all across the globe. So really, we're a community of all ages and demographics. Any book lover is welcome!

5. Care to share how many unique users hits you get a month?


YABC receives an average of 60,000 visits a month, spanning across our YA Books Central section, our Kids Books Central section, our blog, and our network of author bios, interviews, book excerpts, and reading guides. We also have supplemental interaction on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Young-Adult-Books-Central-YABC/49509922115) and Twitter (@yabookscentral).

6. How do you work with authors? Giveaways? Cover reveals? Book trailers?

We do it all! We not only have a passion for getting kids excited about books, but we also have a passion for supporting authors. We host giveaways for free each month on YABC's main site. Prizes come from publishers, publicists, and authors. All you have to do is contact me at mandy@yabookscentral.com for availability, and we'll set you up!

We also host giveaways on our YABC blog as well as posting cover reveals, author interviews, exclusive excerpts and other tidbits, book trailers, and more. You can also find a weekly post showcasing the new releases for that week. The blog is a great way to keep up-to-date with what's going on at YABC.

We also offer extremely affordable rates for advertising on YABC. We work with a lot of authors directly, helping them get the word out about their books to a targeted teen audience. We offer banners, skyscrapers, square ads, featured trailer slots, and more. And we're always happy to tailor to specific advertising needs, even if that means designing the ads for you.

7. Can you explain the process of adding someone to your friends list in 5 easy steps?


Sure! Just this year we added a new feature to YABC -- The YABC Community. Now readers can interact with authors, publishers, and of course other readers in our new social network dedicated solely to Children's book lovers.

1) Head on over to our YABC Community page.
2) Sign in. If you aren't a member yet, create an account with us. It's super fast and totally free. (And we won't send you spammy emails or notifications!) To make it even easier and faster, you can sign up through your Facebook account. Zip bam boom!

3) On the Community Home Feed page, use the Advanced Search to search for your friends. Our lovely CJ Redwine is already a member!

4) Click on your friend's name in the search results to be taken to their profile page.

5) Click on "Add as Friend" under their name. A notification box will pop up, letting you send a message to your friend along with your friend request, or you can leave that section blank. Hit "Add Friend" and you're good to go!

8. What makes YABC stand out from other review sites?


What makes YABC unique is that we pool together reviews from as many readers as we can. We want to hear from teens, tweens, parents, grandparents, librarians, teachers, authors, book bloggers -- anyone who has an opinion on Children's literature. We value reader feedback more than a single review from Kirkus or Publisher's Weekly because kids aren't interested in those reviews. They're interested in what their peers think, what their librarians think, what other readers with similar tastes think.

You can think of us as the GoodReads dedicated solely to Children's literature. And the best part? No trolling. No defamation. If a teen asks his librarian which book he should read next, she doesn't hold up a title and tell him all the ways it sucked pickled eggs. She directs him to the books she thinks he would really enjoy. That's what we do at YABC. Because reading is fun. The reading community is fun. And we just want to enjoy it.

We hope you choose to come and enjoy it with us!
 
 

Contest!!

 

Is there a book you've been dying to read but haven't yet found the time or money to purchase? (If you're anything like me, the list is LONG.) I'm going to be giving one lucky person the book of his or her choice! How do you enter? Simple!

 

Add me as a friend on YABC.

 

That's it! You have until Friday, November 11, 2011 at 8 p.m. Central Time. I will enter every person on my YABC friend's list into a drawing. The winner gets to pick any single title book ($20 max list price), and I'll have it shipped!

 

Want extra entries? Tweet a link or post a link to this contest on FB. Let me know in the comments trail that you did, and I'll give you an extra entry!

 

See you at YABC! :)