Convergence: The International

Journal of Research into New Media

Technologies
http://con.sagepub.com/

Transmedia teens: Affect, immaterial labor, and user-generated content

Marianne Martens
Convergence 2011 17: 49
DOI: 10.1177/1354856510383363
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://con.sagepub.com/content/17/1/49

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media
Technologies can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://con.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://con.sagepub.com/content/17/1/49.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Feb 18, 2011

What is This?

Downloaded from con.sagepub.com at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013

Transmedia teens: Affect,

immaterial labor, and
user-generated content

Convergence: The International

Journal of Research into
New Media Technologies
17(1) 4968
The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354856510383363
con.sagepub.com

Marianne Martens
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA

Abstract
The internet offers teens (especially girls, who have embraced social aspects of the web) a voice in
the books they read, from reviewing, blogging, and creating fan sites, to actually collaborating on
books-in-progress such as The Amanda Project by writing portions of the book or suggesting
storylines. But while these new means of participation are seemingly empowering for teenage girls,
is this participation a form of empowerment, or is it merely a way for publishers to exploit teens
labor to create commodified cultural products which they in turn can sell back to the teens who
helped shape them? In an era of user-generated content, this article examines how teens affective
labor as peer-to-peer-marketers and content creators is changing the transmedia cultural products
created for them.
Keywords
affect, branding, convergence, labor, marketing, social media, transmedia, user-generated
content

Users of content and manufactured goods are increasingly involved in the production process, from
the Lolcats website (Lolcats, n.d.) where users upload images of cats and add their own intentionally misspelled captions, to Local Motors Rally Fighter car (Local Motors, n.d.) which was
designed completely by crowd-sourcing1 (Eyvazzadeh, 2009). Just as the foundations of book
publishing have been shaken by content moving from the codex to ebooks to transmedia (Jenkins,
2006), meaning content which exists simultaneously on multiple platforms, it is not surprising that
book publishers, too, are experimenting with user-generated content. Attracting and exploiting
such content within a social setting has particularly strong potential with teens, especially teenage
girls. According to Sady Doyle (2009), girls tend to share their interests socially, and a 2007 Pew
Internet and American Life Project study (Lenhart et al., 2007) shows that girls are more likely than

Corresponding author:
Marianne Martens, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, School of Communication and Information, 4 Huntington
Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Email: martens@rci.rutgers.edu

50

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

boys to be online content creators. As a result, girls have become extremely valuable to publishers
as both marketers and content creators, as exhibited in a range of online activity surrounding books
in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, and a recently launched series called The Amanda
Project (2009). While the web activity surrounding Twilight grew as the books increased in popularity, The Amanda Project was fully-conceived as a multi-platform, web-integrated transmedia
product from its beginning. In terms of affective labor, defined here as labor done freely and willingly that produces value for the user (Cote and Pybus, 2007; Jarrett, 2003; Terranova, 2000), girls
labor: (1) as book reviewers on social sites such as weRead.com and Amazon.com and as advancecopy reviewers evaluating books ahead of their publication (and consequently, as peer-to-peer
marketers) on publisher-owned teen sites; (2) as content creators on fan sites and anti-fan sites; and
(3) as content creators on publishers proprietary interactive websites. In this last example, the line
between readers and writers is blurred, and users affective labor results in user-generated content
ripe for exploitation by publishers based on their end-user license agreements (EULAS), which
govern activity on the sites and give owners the right to use work posted by teens.
While teens are arguably empowered by participating in cultural products produced for them
when they create content or review books on publishers sites, their participation commodifies
and brands them. Commodification of teens occurs when teens are targeted as both consumers
and creators of the cultural products created for them, and branding occurs when, as Alissa Quart
(2003) describes, teens create identities for themselves around the brands they consume, while
marketers attempt to align teens with the brands they are pitching. In the case of books for teens,
such branding results in what Robert McChesney (1999) calls hypercommercialism, which is
evident in examples from several recently published books such as: (1) product placement in
books such as Cathys Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman
(2008) or the books in the Gossip Girls series by Cecily von Ziegesar (e.g. 2002); (2) the milieu
of licensed merchandise based on books in Stephenie Meyers Twilight series (2005); and (3) The
Amanda Projects (2009) book-based website which features a shopping tab where readers can
buy Amanda-related merchandise, or follow links to the types of stores where the fictional
Amanda might shop.
Teens are commodified by their labor on the sites. Girls affective online labor fits into specific
categories of gendered labor: affective labor refers to those forms which manipulate a feeling of
ease, well being, satisfaction, excitement, or passion (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 108, in Cote and
Pybus, 2007: 90), and historically this labour has been unpaid and has been commonly regarded as
womens work (Cote and Pybus, 2007: 90). The participating girls work as publicists, marketers, and content creators and of course consumers all jobs that fit into traditionally female
categories of work, particularly within the fields of childrens publishing and librarianship where
jobs have historically been dominated by women.
First this article will examine how girls labor is changing how books are created for young
adults by reviewing the historical context in which American librarian-led programs have included
American teens in reviewing and selecting young adult (YA) books since the inception of the
genre. Through their work as book reviewers, awarders, and collection development specialists,
librarians have traditionally been responsible for serving as taste-making gatekeepers operating
between publishers and teens, and introducing teens to a range of books. Next, this article will
review how mergers and acquisitions of publishing companies during the 1980s and 1990s created
an economic need to publish transmedia products, which have potential to sell to the widest possible audience. This research will analyze how the combination of transmedia products and the rise
of the internet has resulted in an interest in creating multi-platform books, and has enabled a direct

Martens

51

communication between publishers and teen consumers which circumnavigates the gatekeepers of
YA literature. Finally the article will review what teens are creating on publishers proprietary
social sites, and how this participation serves: (1) as peer-to-peer marketing in which teens recommend books to other teens; (2) as a free source for consumer research about teens tastes and interests which publishers can use to create new products for this market; and (3) as a source for content
which can be mined and appropriated by publishers in new transmedia products.

Historical context: Librarian gatekeepers and teen participation in

YA literature
Carved out of a space between childrens literature and literature for adults, the genre of YA
literature is generally agreed to have been officially launched in America with the publication of
S.E. Hintons (1967) The Outsiders (Cart, 1996). Ten years before, in response to a burgeoning
population of teenage baby boomers an almost-adult population that valued agency the
American Library Association created the Young Adult Services Division in 1957, which later
became the Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA (Starr, n.d). A key mission of
YALSA was to produce booklists and guidelines to aid librarians serving this population, and one
such booklist was the Significant Adult Books for Teens and Interesting Books bibliography,
which began in 1952, and became the Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) list in 1954
(YALSA, n.d.). From its inception, this list included teens voices. The BBYA is an annual list of
the best books published for young adults, compiled by librarians who serve on the BBYA
committee, along with input from teens who participate in BBYA groups. Another library-based
opportunity for teens to participate is the YA Galley Program (YALSA, n.d.), in which participating libraries receive advance reading copies (ARCs) of forthcoming YA books from publishers.
Teens review the ARCs, and respond with feedback to the publishers. Teens at libraries participating in the YA Galley Program are also able to contribute to the Teens Top Ten list (YALSA, n.d),
which is an annual list of teens favorite titles. In addition to library-based opportunities for young
adults to participate in YA literature, the internet provides additional opportunities for participation, from review sites such as Amazon.com and weRead.com, to fan sites created by teens, and
most recently, participatory sections aimed at teens on publishers websites.

Librarians as gatekeeping arbiters of taste

YALSA and the BBYA arose out of a tradition of librarians serving as cultural arbiters of taste in
the field of books for the young. A look back to the earliest days of childrens literature at the turn
of the 20th century finds librarians serving as book reviewers. Anne Carroll Moore, the first
childrens librarian at The New York Public Library (NYPL), reviewed for The Horn Book, The
Bookman, and later had a column called The Three Owls in The New York Herald Tribune
(Miller, 1988). Another librarian, Ruth Hill Viguers (19031971), who worked for Moore at the
NYPL, wrote a review column of childrens literature for The Horn Book called Not Recommended (Riskind, 2003: 236) in which she criticized publishers for selling mediocre products to
the public. Librarians also served on the first book awards committees sponsored by The American
Library Association (ALA, n.d.). The Newbery Medal was first awarded in 1922 and the Caldecott
Medal in 1938 (ALSC, n.d.). Librarians activities as critics and awarders confirmed their roles as
arbiters of taste, capable of sorting the literary from the mediocre.

52

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Reflecting the protectionist tradition established by the early childrens librarians (who aimed to
improve childrens minds through books), literature for the young is mediated by multiple levels of
adult gatekeepers, from librarians, to educators, to parents. As Marc Aronson writes: YA literature
is the product of this difficult blend of adult judgment on behalf of teenagers and the preferences
teenagers manifest and the books they talk about, take out of the library, and even buy (Aronson,
1999). In order to sell more books, publishers sought to build relationships with these gatekeepers
(especially librarians and teachers). According to library marketing expert Mimi Kayden, starting
in the 1950s and 1960s, the librarians who worked with children were often actively involved in
reviewing books in trade journals, and most of them had personally read the books on their shelves
(Kayden, 2009). In addition, librarians were responsible for collection development, so economically it was important for YA publishers to focus their marketing strategies on young adult
librarians. Librarians represent an expert readership of YA literature, and prior to the internet,
publishers relationships with librarians, and to a lesser extent with teachers and parents, represented the primary method of disseminating books to teens. If publishers had a major author,
occasionally they would advertise in teen magazines, such as Seventeen, Mademoiselle or Boys
Life, but generally advertising in these magazines was considered too expensive for childrens
publishers. By the 1980s, publishers prepared biographical sheets for authors to mail to fans when
they got fan letters, and then authors started doing school visits. According to Kayden, school visits
were successful in making kids realize that all authors were not dead (Kayden, 2009). Yet despite
the access to authors provided by visits, publishers relationships with librarians always came first.
Figure 1, loosely modeled on Robert Darntons (1989) Communication Circuit represents this
traditional flow of information about YA books between publishers, the gatekeepers, and the teen
consumers. In contrast, Figure 2 demonstrates that the internet enables direct communication
between teens and publishers. The traditional gatekeepers are certainly still part of the model, but
their influence is reduced.
While there has been a history of teen participation in the books created for them, prior to the
internet such participation was predominantly via the library. Ironically, while the internet serves
as an intermediary between publishers and teens, it also provides disintermediation (Terranova,
2000: 34) by removing the adult gatekeepers. The direct communication between teens and
publishers allows publishers a view of the discourse between teens, and thereby an understanding
of teen taste, which in turn allows them to publish products that correspond to the discourse, all
without the intervention of the gatekeepers. On publishers teen-specific websites, viral marketing,
which Jarrett (2003) defines as marketing that is spread by users and not producers, serves as an
effective, and virtually free-of-charge, marketing campaign directed by teens for teens. As a result,
librarians role as arbiters of taste is diminished. Writing about book marketing, Squires (2008)
describes how publishers understand that books, as commodities infused with cultural capital, can
be used to translate Bourdieus cultural capital into economic capital, and naturally multinational corporations must focus on the economic capital that can be gained from the sale of transmedia properties. But what happens to this cultural capital when it is much easier for highly
commercial books with large marketing budgets and entertaining websites to reach teens than
it is for quieter works of literary fiction? Perhaps the concept of cultural capital in books needs
to be redefined. As Jack Zipes writes, for anything to become a phenomenon in Western society,
it must become conventional . . . it must conform to the standards of exception set by the mass
media and promoted by the culture industry in general (Zipes, 2001: 175). In theory, while having
their voices heard by publishers is empowering to teens, it is also disempowering, because teens are
not necessarily aware that the publishers proprietary sites are far from neutral, and that publishers

Martens

Figure 1. How information about YA books reached teens pre-internet

Figure 2. How information about books reaches teens in the era of the internet

53

54

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

are able to shape or censor content to best suit their marketing strategy. Teens have agency as
reviewers and creators on sites they create as long as their views suit the overall goals of the site.
The idea of a resistant audience, coming from a position of externality, a being-against (Bratich,
2008: 43), is simply not possible on publishers carefully controlled proprietary sites, as the sites
would remove subversive voices that interfere with their marketing plans.

Transnational conglomerates and the evolution of transmedia

In the early 1980s, mergers and acquisitions of small independent publishing houses resulted in
market domination by enormous transnational conglomerates. Andre Schiffrin, the former owner
of Pantheon Books, argues that consolidation of publishers left little room for books with new,
controversial ideas or challenging literary voices (2000: 7), and while Schiffrin was writing about
the market for adult books, the consolidations also shaped the types of books published for a teen
readership. These consolidations of the 1980s and 1990s increased the pressure to publish transmedia products, and as Dan Schiller (1999: 99) writes, the transnational corporations act as
vertically integrated megamedia that are perfectly positioned for cross-promotion and crossmedia program development, which are all about profit maximization (1999: 99). A successful
transmedia product can be sold on multiple platforms, all owned by the same transnational
corporation.
Even before J.K. Rowlings first Harry Potter title was published in the USA in 1998 (Harry
Potter and the Sorcerers Stone), publishers had changed, but so had the marketplace for books.
Patricia Lee Gauch (2003) reiterates Kaydens view that, until then, the primary market for
childrens books was the institutional market (i.e. schools and libraries), but by the early 1990s
most major publishers increasingly serve[d] the trade which consisted of bookstores and
bookselling interests from Barnes and Noble to Costco to the peripatetic Books Are Fun2 (Gauch,
2003: 133). A shift from the institutional market to large nationwide booksellers with centralized
buying meant that publishers were increasingly interested in publishing big names and big ideas,
with big authors and big illustrators illustrating (2003: 133) as those books were more likely to
guarantee sales, and therefore were considered less risky. As a result, Gauch (2003) argues, it was
no longer enough for an editor to advocate for a book he or she wanted to publish. If the sales and
marketing departments did not think a book would sell in the most profitable trade channels, that
book would not be published. Because conglomerate publishers must value lucrative transmedia
products, it becomes increasingly difficult for first-time authors, or literary authors whose work
does not fit into Zipes definition of a phenomenon, to find a space in the marketplace.

The internet effect: Extracting the gatekeepers

Marketing books directly to teens, an elusive and constantly changing audience, has always been
challenging, and prior to the internet it was considered more effective to market to the gatekeepers
who bought books for teens rather than to market to the teens themselves. But this has changed
with the social web and participatory online venues, from amateur fan sites to professional, corporate sites created by transnational conglomerates. The corporate-owned sites act as what Andrejevic (2008) calls digital enclosures, in this case, of fan labor, including fan-created, corporateowned, free-of-charge, marketing material. Andrejevic writes about the Television Without Pity
website (a site owned by Bravo Entertainment, a division of NBC), on which viewers post extensive commentary about their favorite television shows (which in turn helps writers and directors

Martens

55

create new programs), and his model translates easily to teens comments on publisher-owned
participatory websites which provide the same type of consumer feedback to publishers.
Most of the transnational publishing conglomerates including Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon
& Schuster, Scholastic, Penguin, and Macmillan have teen-specific sites, offering a range of ways
to participate, from sending postcards featuring book covers of forthcoming titles to up to 10
friends, to posting pictures, instant messaging friends, writing on message boards, answering surveys and taking quizzes. Random Houses Random Buzzers site allows members to earn Buzz
Bucks for their participation, which can then be used for merchandise on the site (Random House,
n.d.). While future research could confirm exactly how many Random Buzzers self-identify as
male compared to those who self-identify as female, a quick scan of user profiles on the Buzz
Boards indicates that nearly all members self-identify as female, confirming girls strong participation. Terranova (2000) refers to this unpaid labor in the digital economy as working for a social
factory (Terranova, 2000: 33) that employs NetSlaves, and while the Random House site may be
the only one that pays its workers, wages are meager. For example, users taking a quiz earn about
100 Buzz Bucks, and that currency can only be spent on the Random House site where books cost
between 15,000 and 35,000 Buzz Bucks (Random House, n.d.).

Labor and affective relationships

In addition to their work on publisher-owned sites, teens can develop affective relationships with
their favorite author, as the sites promise access to such authors. On the Twilight Saga website
owned by Little, Brown (an imprint of Hachette), Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series,
recently participated in a question and answer session with fans (Twilight Saga, n.d.) and on the
Sisterhood Central section of the Random Buzzers site (Random House, n.d.) participants are
able to do the same with Ann Brashares, author of the Traveling Pants series. In this way, participants can have a social relationship with their favorite authors, and build a connection with the
literary mode of production, as described by Pattee (2006). Examples of the type of discourse
between readers and YA authors is shown in Figure 3.
The idea that fans can have access to their favorite authors and write to them as they would to
their friends about clothing and body image, music, or the content of their books collapses the
barrier between celebrity author and reader, and builds an affective bond between them that
mimics friendship, expanding upon the relationship the readers already have with the books. Such
relationships serve to attract teens back to the site, and encourage further participation.
The publishers teen sites encourage users to participate by posting their own book-related usergenerated content, from fan-fiction, to songs, to artwork, and it is likely that most users are either
not paying attention to, or not concerned with, the terms of use, For example, on the Random
House site, such terms include the following rule:
By posting messages, sending e-mails, inputting data, answering questions, uploading data or files or
otherwise communicating with Random House through its Web site (a Communication), you are
granting Random House a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, unrestricted, worldwide license to
use, display, sublicense, adapt, transmit and copy such Communication. (Random House, n.d.)

This language permits Random House to use any content posted by users however it chooses.
HarperCollins, the publisher of The Amanda Project, has similar rights to user-generated content
posted on the site. While participation on these sites is arguably entertaining, the entertainment
comes at a price.

56

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Readers questions

Authors answers

Random Houses Sisterhood Central Interview with Ann Brashares, bestselling author of
the Sisterhood series (Random Buzzers, n.d.)
Describe your favorite pair of pants. What At the moment, my favorite pair of pants are bright red.
makes them your favorite?
They are cropped, slightly flared summer pants. Like a good
friend, they are flexible, forgiving, and boost my confidence
even on really off days . . . And these pants manage to make
me feel loved even through major body transitions
(like having a baby!).
As the mother of three young children, do Even though Im closer to the age of the mothers, I related
more to the daughters. I think thats because I wrote the
you find that you relate more to the
book from the girls points of view. Although I tried really
girls or their mothers?
hard to imagine how the mothers would feel, I didnt actually
spend my days thinking their thoughts the way I do when Im
writing in a characters point of view.
Questions posted for Stephenie Meyer on Little, Browns Twilight Saga website (Twilight
Saga, n.d.)
Hi Stephenie What is your favourite scene I cant really choose just one. I love so many things. Bellas
in New Moon the movie? Laure
and Edwards first conversation in the parking lot . . . the
painting . . . Jessicas monologue . . . the scenes in Jacobs
garage . . . the first time you see the werewolves!! . . . Jacob
in Bellas room (thanks, Chris!) . . . the underwater moment
. . . what you see while Thom Yorkes amazing song is
playing . . . everything in Italy . . . and I could go on. Its all
so good.
You have such a great taste in music.
What would be your ultimate karaoke
song? Justina

This one changes a lot. Today, Id want to sing along with

Metric, probably Sick Muse or Front Row.

Figure 3. Relationship-building on Random House and Little, Browns teen websites

The Twilight series provides a rich resource for studying user participation, not only because
of the enormous international success of the series, but also because its fans are enthusiastic
participants in online discourse about the series. Twi-hards (Twilight fans) publish their own
user-generated fan sites (and those who love to hate the series create anti-fan sites), write reviews
on weRead.com and Amazon.com, and participate in the Publishers Twilight Saga.com website
(2010). The Amanda Project website seeks to mine such participation by establishing a forum for
engagement on its site, encouraging users to participate in the book series by acting as
co-contributors of text and ideas for future books in the series. Yet while girls may choose to
participate out of a sense of empowerment and certainly the idea of being able to write reviews
of books you love (or hate) and to have a voice in creating a literary work is appealing in reality,
the participants are branded and commodified by these companies that produce products for their
consumption, from music, to movies, to books:

Martens

57

Teen girls have the power to shape the market because they dont have financial responsibilities, tend
to be passionate about their interests, and share those interests socially. If a girl likes something, shes
liable to recommend it to her friends; a shared enthusiasm for Edward [one of two romantic heroes from
Twilight], or the Jonas Brothers, or anything else, becomes part of their bond. Marketers prize teenage
girls, even as the media scoff at them. (Doyle, 2009, para. 14)

Teens review books on sites such as Amazon.com and weRead.com, and their affective labor as
reviewers serves as peer-to-peer marketing, much as one friend recommending a book to another.
As an extreme example of teens reviewing a bestselling novel, as of 30 June 2010 there were
25,004 reader reviews on weRead.com (weRead, n.d.) of Twilight, the first book in Meyers
Twilight Saga which represents a substantial amount of online discourse. On the same date,
Amazon.com featured 4,843 reviews of the same book. Both Amazon.com and weRead display
positive and negative reviews by readers, which indicates a free and open environment. In addition,
discussion also serves to attract readers to the site.
Teens also participate in literature created for them via fan sites on the internet. As of 1 July
2010, Stephenie Meyers webpage (Stephenie Meyer.com, n.d.) listed 377 Twilight-related fan
sites, from sites with names such as Obsessive Edward Cullen Disorder (Obsessive Edward
Cullen Disorder, n.d.) created by individuals using online software such as freewebs.com or
weebly.com, to Little, Browns proprietary site The Twilight Saga.com (The Twilight Saga.com,
n.d.) which duplicates much of the fans efforts on the web within a proprietary site. The internet
has created a whole new venue for reaching teens and, at the same time, a way to exploit their
affective labor. Already in 2005, writing about television audiences, Shawn Shimpach (2005)
describes John Wells, a former Senior Vice President for communication at CBS, as being aware of
fan sites on the internet and praising them for their market research value.

Conflating advertising and product in young adult titles

While product placement has long existed in movies (Reeses Pieces candy had a starring role in
the movie E.T.), television (Junior Mints were featured as central to the plot on an episode of
Seinfeld), and video games like Tony Hawks Pro Skater (2002) which, according to Quart (2003),
are saturated with advertising for a range of products, most adult gatekeepers object to the idea of
aggressive campaigns to deliberately place products in books, especially when those books are for
young readers. Publishing is still considered a site where culture and commerce converge
(Brown, 2006: 2), and because of the educational nature of reading and the structures of reviews
and awards bestowed on books by literary experts, books are perceived to be commodities of
higher cultural value than are other cultural commodities for teens such as video games or television programs. Despite this, in the case of the young adult titles described in the following, there
are many examples of books in which commerce is clearly valued over culture. Films are
increasingly packed with merchandise, as has happened with The Twilight Saga and Harry Potter
(which has achieved the nadir of licensing its own book-and-film-related theme park). From
product placement to branding, marketing defines the YA genre. Branded products are frequently
used in books for young adults to establish a cultural or socioeconomic setting. As Elizabeth Bullen
points out, branding is a language of American culture (2009: 499), and this is evidenced by
many examples from YA literature. In S.E. Hintons The Outsiders (1967), Hintons characters
consumed specific products including Corvairs and Mustangs, English Leather aftershave, Coke
and Pepsi, Kool cigarettes (Bullen, 2009: 499); in Cecily von Ziegesars Gossip Girls the use of

58

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

brand names as cultural referents is the most obvious example of von Ziegesars prose (Pattee,
2006: 166). Like teenage versions of the women in Candace Bushnells Sex and the City television
show (Bushnell and King, 1993), von Ziegesars teens wear the latest and most expensive brands,
from Columbia jackets, to Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Branding as lifestyle, from Twilight to The Amanda Project

Yet according to Naomi Klein (2009), it is no longer enough merely to brand. Klein writes:
The products that will flourish in the future will be the ones presented not as commodities but as
concepts: the brand as experience, as lifestyle (2009: 21), and in terms of books, this has already
happened with the Twilight Saga. In the case of Twilight, Meyer has created a material fantasy
world, which Twi-hards can step into. They can wear Bellas prom dress (which is part of a
Twilight-inspired clothing line at Hot Topic) or Edwards boxer shorts, purchase the Cullen family
jewels, smell like Bella with Twilight perfume, and even drive Edwards car, thanks to a partnership with Volvo. In the case of Twilight, relations of branding are shifting toward an affective
relationship between the books and those who consume them, linked by service performed by users
on a producers site. As such, branding is now tied to social identity (Hearn, 2008: 199), and this
identity is available for purchase. Hearn describes self-branding as the self-conscious construction of a meta-narrative and meta-image of self through the use of cultural meanings and images
drawn from the narrative and visual codes of the mainstream culture industries (Hearn, 2008:
198). According to Cote and Pybus (2007), this personal brand management has already been
mastered by teens who are comfortable creating digital identities for themselves in sites such as
MySpace, Facebook, and now on publishers social sites for teens.
Advertising serves to cut across class (hooks, 2000 in Bullen, 2009: 502) by constructing a
version of the world where everyone has equal access to everything as long as they can afford it,
and Berger writes that advertising works because its essential application is not to reality, but to
daydreams (Berger, 1972 in Bullen, 2009: 502). Most likely, a large population of girls reading
The Gossip Girls books realize that Jimmy Choo shoes are beyond their reach, yet the illusion of
access remains. A blatent example of product placement in books for teens occurred in Cathys
Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233, published by Running Press in 2008 (Stewart and Weisman,
2006). Prior to publication, Running Press signed a contract with Proctor and Gamble allowing
CoverGirl products to be written into the story. Subsequently, a description of a girl wearing lipgloss became: A girl and her CoverGirl Demure lip gloss (Deam, 2006). Consumer response
(likely from adult gatekeepers) to this in-product book placement was so strong that Running Press
decided to strip all references to specific cosmetic products from its paperback edition of the book.
In a series in which each title is written as a work-for-hire project by a range of authors,
thorough market research is far more important in creating the series than is literary authorship.
Companies such as Buzz Marketing Group (Wells, n.d.) help inform publishers about teen and
tween trends for a fee, but now the internet provides a far more cost-effective and direct mode
of communication with prospective readers. Pattee borrows the idea from Eagleton that, in the case
of Gossip Girls, the dominant mode of production (Pattee, 2006: 157) is creating, marketing, and
selling to teens which is separated from the literary mode of production (2006: 157), and in these
books, when weighing the values of literary quality versus marketable product, marketing wins.
While readers of the series feel a connection with Cecily von Ziegesar, the author whose name
appears on the cover of the books, in reality this connection is as fabricated as the characters in the
books, as the books are mass-produced by work-for-hire authors as were the Nancy Drew and

Martens

59

Bobbsey Twins series published by the Stratemeyer syndicate. Book packagers, such as Alloy,
creator of the Gossip Girls series, handle each step of book production, from writing (which is
generally by work-for-hire authors who do not get authorship credit), to editing and design, which
is done either by employees of Alloy or by their freelance editors and designers, and then nearlyfinished camera-ready text and art is sold to a publisher. The assumption of single authorship is an
illusion fostered by . . . Alloy to affect what Eagleton would call the social relationship of the
author to his or her readers (Pattee, 2006: 162). Publishers internet sites for teens also exploit this
social relationship, as shown in the examples of Stephenie Meyer and Ann Brashares. This relationship will be explored later in the context of The Amanda Project.

Teens affective literary labor as content creators, marketers, and

consumers
Just as Quart (2003) describes how marketers exploit different teenage communities of affect, the
biggest publishers have figured out that they can do the same with their teen websites. Rosen
(2002) wrote of emerging strategies for reaching teens: Random [House] relies on internet
marketing, reviews in teen magazines and postcards [which can be mailed to summer camps in the
case of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, 2001], as well, of course, the book
itself (Rosen, 2002: 85). According to Rosen, the goal of this marketing is to have teens engage in
peer-to-peer marketing with their online friends.
While all of these methods are still used by publishers marketing departments, the internet is
proving to be far more effective as a tool for producers of media to extract surplus labor and blur
boundaries between consumption and production. Writing about Second Life, Banks and
Humphreys (2008) write that the underlying assumption of these discourses is that players are in
some sense unaware that their participation is a productive practice from which economic value is
extracted (2008: 404), and publishers gamble that users are more focused on the entertaining aspects
of their websites, or on whatever social capital teens derive from participating, than they are on
paying attention to the fact that their participation results in economic value for the publishers.
Recently, publishers have begun to experiment more with new formats of transmedia
publishing. Scholastics The 39 Clues book series represents one of the first multi-platform transmedia books which consists of a book series, collector cards, and a website. Readers buy the books,
collect the cards, and then go on the affiliated website (Scholastic Media Room, n.d.) to unlock
book-related clues presented on the cards. In addition, readers can win prizes by playing games
on the website. According to Scholastic, this series is aimed at children aged 812, a group
conceivably still interested in collecting trading cards. Like The Gossip Girls, each of these books
is written by a different author. Rather than simply using the work-for-hire model, and to maximize
the series position in the marketplace, Rick Riordan, best-selling author of the Percy Jackson &
the Olympians series, wrote The Maze of Bones (2008), the first book in The 39 Clues series. Since
then, eight other books have been published and many of them have appeared on bestseller lists
from The New York Times, to Publishers Weekly, to USA Today (Scholastic Media Room, n.d.)
In addition to Riordan, other well-known authors have written books in The 39 Clues series, including Linda Sue Park, whose book A Single Shard (2001) won the Newbery Medal in 2002 (Association for Library Service to Children, n.d.), and best-selling author Patrick Carman, whose
Skeleton Creek (2009) series also represents a multi-platform project that pairs books with online
videos. The combination of an appealing storyline, well-known authors, a significant marketing
budget, and multiple levels of exposure, from books, to the website, to the cards, have all helped

60

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

launch The 39 Clues. In addition, the series has the benefit of appealing to multiple audiences:
readers and gamers, boys and girls. The final book in the series is scheduled for release in August
2010.
Like The 39 Clues, Harpers The Amanda Project is a multi-platform, transmedia book series
with an accompanying website, but unlike The 39 Clues, in this series readers are encouraged not
only to be consumers, but also producers of content. The first book, The Amanda Project: invisible
i, launches what is planned as an eight-book series about a high-school girl named Amanda who
has gone missing. Before she disappears, she leaves a series of clues for three previously unconnected students, Callie, Hal, and Nia, who become friends through their mutual quest. The Amanda
Project website provides some of the clues left by Amanda in the book, and asks readers to use the
clues to help find Amanda. In the case of The Amanda Project, which has been marketed to an older
audience than that of The 39 Clues and also an audience that is primarily female, users can play
games, shop, post, or chat. The paratext of the first book quite clearly targets girls, from the hot pink
cover with a long-haired girl in the center (Figure 4), to what resembles a female readers marginalia
of penciled doodles of birds, decorative scrolls, and flowers printed on the interior pages.
The first book is narrated primarily by Callie, who is on the fringe of belonging to a clique of
popular girls who call themselves the I-Girls, comprising Heidi, Kelli, Traci, and herself. Callie is
neither as pretty as the other girls in the group, nor as wealthy, but because of her relationship with
Heidi, she is included. The I-Girls identity is closely related to their clothing choices, and they
dress to avoid being what Callie calls a neutral (Kantor, 2009: 105) someone who is neither
among the most popular nor a fashion disaster (Kantor, 2009: 105). As with branding in books
described earlier, at Endeavor High, clothing determines status, and clothing brands are used as
social anchors to describe characters. Callie describes her boyfriend not by his height nor the color
of his eyes, but by the brands he wears: Lee had on this Abercrombie jacket he likes a lot that looks
really good on him . . . Sometimes I worried that, with his designer clothes and perfect body, Lees
totally out of my league and it was only a matter of time before he realized it (Kantor, 2009: 91).
Aside from her tenuous affiliation with the I-Girls, Callie is friends with Amanda and, in contrast to
the fashionably-branded I-Girls, Amanda is a non-conformist, described as wearing non-branded, vintage clothing. Amandas frequently changing and decidedly alternative styles range from American
pioneer girl: [Amanda] was wearing something in her hair that made it look as if shed grown a
waist-length ponytail overnight, and her dress, with its puffy sleeves and lace edging, definitely looked
like it was out of another century (Kantor, 2009: 60), to punk rocker: . . . her big eyes, heavily outlined in black to match the rest of her Patti Smith punk-rocker look . . . (2009: 85), to hippie: Amandas hair was long and straight, parted in the middle, and she was wearing a headband with a peace
symbol in the center of it around her forehead, and a long-fringed, beaded shirt (2009: 181).
The website design (see Figure 5) echoes elements of the book design, with a photograph that
features a girl with her face obscured on the front page. A YouTube video on the site with female
voiceovers interpellates prospective readers, encouraging them to read the books, learn more about
the characters on the website, and even write a story which, if it is good enough, will be published.
By participating on the site, teens can acquire cultural capital by posting smart, clever, or snarky
comments read by other members of The Amanda Project community. Readers can contribute their
own stories, plotlines, and artwork, and discuss (and create) potential fates for Amanda, and
HarperCollins plans to publish storylines contributed by readers (Deahl, 2009). Aside from
posting Amanda-related drawings and poems and posting answers to book-related clues on the site,
the site has a significant focus on consumption and branding. Users can enter the Amanda brand,
by participating in a competition to design an outfit for Amanda (see Figure 6) by using new

Martens

61

Figure 4. Front cover of the first book in The Amanda Project series: The Amanda Project: Invisible i. (Reproduced with kind permission of Fourth Story Media)

clothing from a vintage-inspired store called Modcloth, almost like dressing a virtual paper doll.
Crossing boundaries between fiction and reality, the image in Figure 6 was allegedly posted by a
character from the book, Cornelia, who is little sister to Hal, and the alleged creator of The Amanda
Project website.

62

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Figure 5. The Amanda Project website (The Amanda Project, n.d. Reproduced with kind permission of Fourth
Story Media)

As with the extensive Twilight licensing, this series offers an identity that is available for
purchase. Users can buy accessories inspired by Amanda, such as a wallet, headband,
eye-glasses, gloves, a scarf, and jewelry. There is a link to the Modcloth store (in case users want to
conform to Amandas non-conformist style) and an iMix playlist with the kind of music Amanda
might enjoy. A closer look at Figure 6 shows that Cornelia is a daring shopper, freely mixing
clothing from mass-market retailers like H&M with designer logos like Emilio Pucci, while at the
same time helping to market these brands to readers.
The hypercommercialism in and around the series is evident to at least one adult reviewer in Kirkus
Reviews: The ending has no resolutions for any of the story lines, which bodes well for the series but
not for frustrated readers who have sat through 300 pages to get there . . . A baldly predatory attempt to
get into teens wallets (Kirkus review at B&N.com, n.d.). According to the website, this series is aimed
at girls ages 13-and-up, and the terms of use for the Amanda Project are very clearly stated:
You continue to own all rights to the material which you upload yourself to TAP, provided that, by
uploading any content to TAP, you automatically grant us a perpetual license to use, redact, republish,
copy, perform, sublicense, and distribute your content, including any intellectual property contained

Martens

63

Figure 6. Amandas perfect outfit. (Reproduced with kind permission of Fourth Story Media)
therein, in any medium now known or hereinafter developed without payment or compensation to you
and without seeking any further approval from you. (The Amanda Project.com, n.d. Emphasis is mine)

In other words, HarperCollins is free to profit from books containing user-generated content that is
contributed by readers without offering them any compensation, and is able to extract economic value

64

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Users of site can participate in

the following:

What is involved:

Our Stories

Users can write their own explanations about what happened to

Amanda.

Clues

Users create and upload their own Amanda-style clues to which other
readers respond.

Zine (named after the high

school in the book)

Burning with something to say? Youve found the place to do it post

your short stories, music reviews, film commentaries, foodie rants,
advice to the lovelorn, poetry, and anything else you want to write OR
your artwork, photography, drawings, doodles, paintings right here in
the Endeavor High Zine! (The Amanda Project, n.d.).

Debate Club

Different discussion threads where users can start discussions or

participate in existing ones.

Gallery

Users can upload artwork and look at work by others.

Shop

Users can buy Amanda-related products or follow links to stores like

Modcloth.

Figure 7. An analysis of activity on The Amanda Project website

from teenage girls surplus labor in a way that is entertaining and seemingly empowering to the teen
contributor-readers, while at the same time commodifying these teens and the cultural products created
for them. Publishers direct communication with teens afforded by the internet is seductive and empowering to the teens. The online labor by the teens (primarily girls) is veiled in activities that are appealing, social, and fun. Examples of the types of participation users can engage in are shown in Figure 7.
In addition to the activities shown in Figure 7, readers can take quizzes (as on the Random
House site, demonstrating their expertise about the book, although unlike at Random House, here
participants do not earn anything), and enter contests. While arguably teens can find agency in
participating in various online book-related activities, when they enter publisher-owned sites, such
as The Amanda Project, such agency is limited, as any user-generated content posted in the site is
restricted to that which serves the best interest of the publisher. Rebellious voices such as those that
created the antifan site Twilight Sucks! (Twilight sucks, n.d.), which ridicules the Twilight Saga,
will not appear on a publishers site. Unlike books in The 39 Clues series, The Amanda Project
has (so far) not used best-selling authors, and instead is using work-for-hire authors as evidenced
by lack of copyright credit to the author. This decision may affect the eventual success of the series.

Conclusion
During approximately 40 years of YA literature, teen participation in the books created for them
has evolved from readers participating in physical, library-based programs mediated by gatekeeping arbiters of taste (such as YA librarians), to a virtual disintermediated discourse between teens
and publishers on the internet.

Martens

65

Arguably, the activities on sites such as The Amanda Project are carefully researched to appeal
to their target users, and as such are immensely entertaining. But as Geer (2007) writes: If we are
uneasy about the effects of corporate influence on childrens culture and the tone of current
scholarship on this subject generally ranges from uneasy to appalled we would do well, I think, to
resist the interpretive paradigms these corporations offer (2007: 194). Unfortunately, it is virtually
impossible to resist these paradigms, as producers of transmedia continue to blur the line between
product and advertising, creator and consumer, while these products become embedded in our lives
in new and unexpected ways. While teens can certainly enjoy participating on corporate-owned
websites, teens agency is not a consideration here, as the sites are censored and manipulated in
order to achieve the best possible marketing and branding. This raises the question of who is getting more value: teens who are using the sites, or publishers who are getting free consumer
research, peer-to-peer marketing, and user-generated content? Perhaps there could be a way to
bring back the idea of Ruth Hill Viguers Not Recommended list, possibly through
non-commercial, library-based programs with teen participation, to educate teens about the commercialization of certain books, and perhaps, with teens involvement, to expand the selection of
literature from the loud books fueled by marketing money and elaborate websites pushed by
publishers for their earning potential, to quieter books, giving a voice to other authors who are
currently finding it challenging to find a niche in the literary marketplace. Perhaps it is no coincidence that, after the 2010 Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) list was published on the Young
Adult Library Services Association site, a decision was made to change the BBYA list to a Best
Fiction for Young Adults list (YALSA, n.d.) which to many in the industry signals a reduced presence for the list, and a reduced role for those gatekeeping librarians dedicated to sorting the literary
from the mediocre.
Notes
1. The Local Motor scheme involved 2,000 community members in more than 100 countries who created
over 35,000 designs for the Rally Fighter car, which represents the first car completely designed by
crowd-sourced user-generated content.
2. Books Are Fun is a display marketer that sells highly-discounted books via sales representatives in corporations, schools, and other institutions.

References
ALA American Library Association (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.ala.org/
ALSC Association for Library Service to Children (n.d.) URL (accessed 1 July 2010): http://www.ala.org/
ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/
Amanda Project, The (2009). URL (accessed 28 September 2010): http://www.theamandaproject.com/
Amazon.com. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.amazon.com/
Andrejevic M (2008) Watching television without pity: The productivity of online fans. Television & New
Media 9(1): 2446.
Aronson M (1999) The YA phenomenon in America: Books that match teenage experience and inspire
discovery. Logos 10(2): 111117.
Banks J and Humphreys S (2008) The labour of user co-creators: Emergent social network markets? Convergence:
The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14(4): 401418.
Brashares A (2001) Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. New York: Dell.
Bratich J (2008) Activating the multitude: Audience powers and cultural studies. In: Goldstein P and Machor
JL (eds) New Directions in American Reception Study. New York: Oxford University Press, 3355.
Brown S (2006) Consuming Books: The Marketing and Consumption of Literature. London: Routledge.

66

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Bullen E (2009) Inside story: Product placement and adolescent consumer identity in young adult fiction.
Media, Culture & Society 31(3): 497507.
Bushnell C and King MP (1993) Sex and the City television series. Bushnell C (Writer) King MP (Writer &
Director). USA: HBO.
Carman P (2009) Skeleton Creek. New York: Scholastic Press.
Cart M (1996) From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature. New
York: HarperCollins.
Cote M and Pybus J (2007) Learning to immaterial labor 2.0: Myspace and Social Networks. Ephemera 7(1)
July: 88106. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/71/71cotepybus.pdf
Darnton R (1989) What is the history of books? In: Darnton R, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in
Cultural History. New York and London: WW Norton & Company, 107135.
Deahl R (2009) Amanda Project website goes live, August. Publishers Weekly. URL (accessed 28 February
2010): http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/401146-Amanda_Project_Web_Site_Goes_Live.php
Deam J (2006) Selling a book by its covergirl. DenverPost.com, September. In: Campaign for a Commercial
Free Childhood. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.commercialexploitation.org/news/
sellingbookbyitscovergirl.htm/
Doyle S (2009) Girls just wanna have fangs: The unwarranted backlash against fans of the worlds most
popular vampire-romance series. The American Prospect. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://
www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month11&year2009&base_namegirls_just_wanna_
have_fangs
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Motion picture. Spielberg S (Director), Kennedy K (Producer). USA:
Universal Pictures.
Eyvazzadeh D (2009) Crowd-sourced rally-racer rolls toward production. Wired Magazine. URL (accessed
1 July 2010): http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/crowd-sourced-rally-racer-rolls-toward-production/
Gauch PL (2003) The heart of book publishing: An editors line in the sand. Childrens Literature Association
Quarterly 28(3): 133136.
Geer J (2007) JM Barrie gets the Miramax treatment: Finding (and marketing) Neverland. Childrens
Literature Association Quarterly 32(3): 193212.
Harper Teen. (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.harperteen.com/
Hearn A (2008) Meat, mask, burden: Probing the contours of the branded self. Journal of Consumer Culture
8(2): 197217.
Hinton SE (1967) The Outsiders. New York: Puffin Books.
Jarrett K (2003) Labour of love: An archaeology of affect as power in e-commerce. Journal of Sociology
39(4): 335351.
Jenkins H (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University
Press.
Kantor M (2009) The Amanda Project: Invisible i. New York: HarperTeen.
Kayden M (2009) Personal communication by email exchange.
Kirkus Reviews B&N.com (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://search.barnesandnoble.com/
Invisible-I/Stella-Lennon/e/9780061742125#TABS
Klein N (2009) No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. (Tenth Anniversary Edition). New York: Picador.
Lenhart A, Madden M, Rankin Macgill A and Smith A (2007) Pew Internet & American Life Project: Teen Content
Creators. URL (accessed 19 February 2010): http://pewresearch.org/pubs/670/teen-content-creators
Local Motors (n.d.) URL (accessed 1 July 2010): http://www.local-motors.com/
Lolcats (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Macmillan (n.d.) Henry Holt Books for Young Readers: The In Group. URL (accessed 28 February 2010):
http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisherholtbyr&id377
McChesney R (1999) U.S. media at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In: McChesney R, Rich Media, Poor
Democracy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1575.

Martens

67

Meyer S (2005) Twilight. New York: Little, Brown.

Miller J (1998) Anne Carroll Moore: Our first supervisor of work with children. Anne Carroll Moore, URL
(consulted October 1, 2010): http://kids.nypl.org/parents/ocs_centennial_acm.cfm
Obsessive Edward Cullen Disorder (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.freewebs.com/
edwardcullencompletesme/
Park LS (2001) A Single Shard. New York: Clarion Books.
Pattee A (2006) Commodities in literature, literature as commodity: A close look at the Gossip Girl series.
Childrens Literature Association Quarterly 31(2): 154175.
Penguin (n.d.) Young Readers @ Penguin. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://us.penguingroup.com/
static/pages/yr/teens.html
Quart A (2003) Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. New York: Basic Books.
Random House (n.d.) Random buzz: Teens at Random. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.
randombuzzers.com/
Riordan R (2008) The Maze of Bones. New York: Scholastic.
Riskind M (2003) Viguers, Ruth Alfarata Hill (19031971). In: Miller ML (ed.) Pioneers and Leaders in
Library Service to Youth. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 235238.
Rosen J (2002) Tapping the teen market. Publishers Weekly 249(29): 84. URL (accessed 28 February 2010):
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/429826-Tapping_the_Teen_Market.php
Rowling JK (1998) Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. New York: Scholastic.
Schiffrin A (2000) The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took over Publishing and
Changed the Way We Read. London and New York: Verso.
Schiller D (1999) Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Boston: Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
Scholastic (n.d.) URL (accessed 30 June 2010): http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/news/press_
12182007_CP.htm
Scholastic Media Room (n.d.) URL (accessed 30 June 2010) http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/The39Clues
Scholastic push (n.d.) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.thisispush.com/
Seinfeld (1993) The junior mint (Television series episode). Robin A (writer) and Cherones T (director). USA:
NBC.
Shimpach S (2005) Working watching: The creative and cultural labor of the media audience. Social
Semiotics 15(3): 343360.
Simon & Schuster Teens (n.d.) Pulse It. URL (accessed 28 September 2010): http://teen.simonandschuster.
com/
Squires C (2007) Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Starr C (n.d.) Brief History of the Young Adult Services Division. URL (accessed 15 February 2010): http://
www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/aboutyalsa/briefhistory.cfm
Stephenie Meyer.com (n.d.) Official website. URL (accessed 27 September 2010): http://stepheniemeyer.
com/
Stewart S and Weisman J (2008) Cathys Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233. New York: Running Press.
Terranova T (2000) Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social Text 63(18): 3357.
The 39 Clues (2010) URL (accessed 30 June 2010): http://www.the39clues.com/
Tony Hawks ProSkater 4 (2002) Video/DVD. Neversoft (Producer).
Twilight Saga.com (2010). Official site. URL (accessed 27 September 2010): http://thetwilightsaga.com/
Twilight Sucks! (2009) URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.twilightsucks.com/about.html
Von Ziegesar C (2002) Gossip Girl #1: A novel. New York: Poppy.
Wells T (n.d.) Buzz Marketing Group. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://buzzmg.com/
WeRead.com (n.d.) URL (accessed 1 July 2010): http://weread.com/
YALSA (2010) Best fiction for young adults. URL (accessed 1 July 2010): http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/
yalsa/booklistsawards/bestficya/bfyahome.cfm

68

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1)

Zipes J (2001) Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Childrens Literature from Slovenly Peter to
Harry Potter. New York: Routledge.

Biography
Marianne Martens is a doctoral candidate in Library and Information Science at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. With a background in publishing, she is interested in literary prizes and reviews as the
intersection between publishing and librarianship for young adults, focusing on issues of commodification
of books for teens, consumption, teens participation in the creation of such literature via online review sites
(publisher-owned and independent), and fan sites, as well as issues of transnationalism.