YA LGBT Books discussion
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Book of the month process - changes? Ideas?
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To recap - Rainbowheart said : Kaje wrote: "In addition to nominations, I'd like any comments or suggestions on making the Book of the Month more interesting - do people read it even if they don't comment? Is the nomination process interesti..."
Kaje, it depends what book is chosen. I get my books only from libraries or bookstores. I don't have a Kindle, and I don't read books on my laptop. So e-books are out. If the BOTM is only published in digital format, I can't participate. I think the nomination process is fine as it is, but I do think there should be a rule that people cannot nominate their own books. Sometimes it feels like the only reason a lot of people even join this group is for self promotion. That also might help cut down on the number of e-books that are nominated each month.
Kaje, I was also thinking, maybe it would be good to pose questions for people to answer, just to get the ball rolling? Favorite characters, favorite scenes, etc. Maybe people are reading but they don't know quite what to say about the book once they've finished.
Another good suggestion. Question - if the author is a group member do we like having them participate? Should a mod ask them questions too to get things rolling? Or does their presence inhibit the conversation?
With regard to the format of the books, I think it's important that where possible that all formats should be available, like Rainbowheart some people don't own e-readers and prefer to borrow books rather than buy - but on the other hand, it is easier for someone who isn't out or perhaps doesn't want their school friends/family etc seeing what they are reading, or perhaps lives in an area which isn't particularly LGBT friendly so don't have access to the books via libraries or bookshops and, if they did, wouldn't be comfortable or even perhaps safe to request them.A lot of small presses do have paperbacks available - though you'd probably have to buy them through the publisher online.
I am not bothered either way about authors nominating their own books, but what I would suggest is that perhaps we had more guided discussions, however, these shouldn't be lead by the author.
I would suggest if you are nominating a book you indicate whether you'd be willing to lead a discussion on it. It wouldn't have to be difficult, just perhaps a couple of questions for readers to answer about the book and how they found their reading experience.
That said, I wouldn't want this to be agreed then left to the moderating team to deal with, they have quite enough to do already!
The team appreciates that - it would be great to have someone willing to start the discussion off. Obviously not a requirement to nominate but a bonus, perhaps.
The bigger M/M group also changed from a book-of-the-month format to an author of the month.When they did that, it opened up more conversation as people who had read any book by the author joined in more. I don't know how well it would work in YA - it seems like we have fewer prolific authors with many works to discuss, but there are some. Any thoughts?
I prefer the idea of a book, not an author. Seems like the conversation would be a little scattered if we were all talking different books? As far as authors participating, have any of them done that yet? I did get a private message from an author, but I haven't seen him post here. I don't see a problem with it, although I agree maybe they shouldn't be in charge of leading the discussion.
We've had several comment - usually it is a bonus, but it does make criticism harder of course...
Oh, I thought of something else. I wonder if there might be too many nominations? Often I notice that a book wins with only 7 or 8 votes, and it's impossible to tell how many of those voters were actually serious about reading it. To get a busy discussion going, we might need to have at least 15-20 people. Otherwise, the votes are scattered almost evenly between all the nominations. Maybe 3 or 4 nominations would encourage a greater number of people to vote in the same direction?
Maybe, although I like the nomination process as a way to see what people are interested in. Perhaps if we don't have authors nominating their own books, that will reduce the numbers a bit. I'm a bit surprised so few people bother to vote, even if the odds are they won't read the book. But the adult group gets a similar small ratio of votes to members.
In my group authors can nominate their own book but not vote on it. The reason though is that we read and discuss 25% each week and the rule is only vote for something you want to read and discuss at the rate we are reading (no spoilers) that means no voting for something you have already read and something you have written would be out also. I created the group that way because it creates more discussion and is more like a classic book group that meets up once a week to discuss a section of the book, rather than just sharing your final review you can discuss what you think is going to happen in the next section or how you think characters will react to something that just happened, or if it is a mystery book we might discuss what we think is going on and share theories of how it will end etc... It really opens up a lot more discussion.
Another thing we do for the nomination process is I make the months suggestion thread every month and delete the thread after the poll is up to keep things nice and organized but I also created a "future group reads" thread that never gets deleted and you can discuss what you want to read next month and find something that will get more votes before the suggestion thread is opened. My group is a horror group so I might go into that thread and say, "I feel like a classic monster book what would you guys vote for?" Or "I'm in the mood for a Richard laymon novel, anyone have any of his on there tbr?" That way instead of me just picking a random monster or laymon novel that only I want to read and nominating it, I can find something that others will vote on also that is more likely to get enough votes for a decent discussion. I don't know how you do your voting but I also allow votes to be changed right up until the poll ends so if your book isn't going to win you can change it to another book that has more votes that you would be willing to read with the group even though it wasn't your first choice.
That 25% a week sounds cool for discussion (although it would drive me crazy as a reader. I'm not sure I can take a month to read a book.) But adding the speculation element is an interesting idea.We do allow votes to be changed, but I've kept the results secret. Perhaps people would prefer to see how the vote is going? I don't know if I can show results without showing individual votes but I'll check. Maybe it would generate interest to be able to see that.
The votes are currently anonymous and I'm not going to police who votes for what, so not letting authors nominate will be easier for this group.
We could think about a future group reads thread...
Thanks for the suggestions.
I can see why you would want individual votes to be anonymous in this group, but then again you don't want anyone voting that isn't going to participate in the group read so if they don't want people to know they voted for the book how are they going to read and discuss it? I wasn't sure about stretching a book out over an entire month when we started either but I am always reading two our three books at a time which is something else I never thought I would be able to do. The group reads are kind of like waiting for the next episode off a serial to come out, what a lot of people do is wait to start until there are only a couple days left and read 25% and then discuss over the weekend and start the second section right away. Then you only have to wait a week and do the same thing for the third and fourth sections. Then there are also the people who read the entire book in one sitting and just wait until the final week to discuss everything like they would in any other group. When I'm looking for ways to improve my group I usually check what other groups do so I just figured I would mention what we do as something to think about, not that I think you should necessarily do things the same. Just an idea.
I appreciate it. It's fun to hear what other people have come up with. And it might work here... At some point I'll probably come up with some ideas and poll to see what members think. And that's one to consider.
I admit I've only participated in one BotM. Mostly I see books picked that don't look like they'd be avl in the library, which is where I get almost all mine.Maybe alternate months - every other month e-books / vs / books that are likely to be avl in libraries?
And yes, encourage those who've nominated books to lead the discussion. Maybe we could have another thread and gather some universal questions so there would be a kind of template available to discussion leaders?
Also, strong contenders in previous polls should be automatically added to a future poll at some point, imo.
Authors could participate in a related thread, maybe, or maybe at the end of the month. But they should not vote in the poll, or participate in the early discussion, imo.
Reading 25% a week would drive me nuts, btw.
Good points, thanks. Maybe sometime we'll have a second-place books month...
For me, it comes down to interest. I've voted in most of the BotM polls, but what I would be interested in discussing has never been chosen. So I look at reviews/information about the chosen books, and they typically either don't interest me, or I'm not moved to discuss them after reading.And regarding the whole discussion of e-books vs. books likely available in libraries, I know that several more mainstream books have been nominated, but they rarely, if ever, win. But library stock varies so greatly, especially when it comes to LGBT books (and even more especially for LGBT YA), that I don't know how fruitful it would be to try and do that.
Yes, some libraries don't even have the big mainstream stuff. And when we did Educating Simon which was in both my local libraries, we didn't get a bigger discussion happening than some indy books, so I'm not sure it's the whole answer.
I'm sure it's not the whole answer - none of these books are likely to be readily found in libraries (which is of course generally a darn shame)... but I would participate if I could borrow the book to be discussed. Educating Simon is not in my library system at all.
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "I'm sure it's not the whole answer - none of these books are likely to be readily found in libraries (which is of course generally a darn shame)... but I would participate if I could borrow the boo..."Maybe we might read a classic alongside the new Book of the month - books like Rainbow Boys or Magic's Pawn which should be widely available...
Mine didn't have Educating Simon or Supermassive either, and I live in the heart of San Francisco itself! Many library systems won't stock small press books, period. I've asked, and the librarian at my branch told me there's only so much room available, so any book being considered for purchase has to be able to appeal to a large segment of the library population. They don't carry most small publishers, and there's no m/m romance on the shelves (in book form, not electronic form).
Wow. Here in Minneapolis we have a lot of YA LGBT on the shelf, although not so much of the small press stuff. No Supermassive, but things like Golden Boy or Freakboy or I am J. And there is some adult M/M although it's a quirky assortment (Some Charlie Cochrane, for example.)
Has this group ever considered a live-chat format for the monthly book discussion? I've seen some discussion groups use a scheduled g+ hangout, skype call, or similar in the middle of the month that gets recorded, followed by the forum discussion.I have no clue how that actually works since I've never been a part of one, but I think the live format might be more conducive to generating discussion topics and questions that could be answered on the forum.
Could we also look into using meta-media, like book-trailers and recorded author interviews on youtube to hype the BotM early in the month and generate early discussion based on the youtube videos?
Rez wrote: "Has this group ever considered a live-chat format for the monthly book discussion? I've seen some discussion groups use a scheduled g+ hangout, skype call, or similar in the middle of the month th..."It's a great thought, but I think perhaps ambitious for our group. I have seen a more modest live-chat type format done on Goodreads, which would be more anonymous, where a time was scheduled to chat together on a discussion thread in real time. Worth putting in the suggestion box. We did something like that a few times early on as author chats. John Goode was particularly fun to have around.
Kaje wrote: "Wow. Here in Minneapolis we have a lot of YA LGBT on the shelf, although not so much of the small press stuff. No Supermassive, but things like Golden Boy or..."Oh yeah, we do have Golden Boy, I Am J, and Freakboy. It's the small publishers that aren't commonly found on the shelves. I did see a few Dreamspinner and a couple Harmony Ink (which I was told were not on the approved list?) but mainly the books that get purchased are mainstream press. I think there is some adult m/m, but it's not so much the newer genre romance. Some romance presses get picked up more than others. Cleis Press (lesbian) is a popular one.
Of this month's we have Grasshopper Jungle, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, One Man Guy, and My Best Friend Maybe. But clearly that will vary. Still, there are some books most big library systems will have which we might consider doing periodically.
Same here! We have those four. Really hoping One Man Guy gets picked. I tried Grasshopper Jungle, but it was just too strange for me, lol.
Rez wrote: "Has this group ever considered a live-chat format for the monthly book discussion? I've seen some discussion groups use a scheduled g+ hangout, skype call, or similar in the middle of the month th..."We tried that in my group once and not a single person joined the chat except me, afterwords they said it was to hard to find a time that everyone could get on and discuss and it was easier to post your thoughts to a thread where you could get on with a minute or two and discuss rather than having to set time aside that everyone could have a full discussion. I would love to try out a chat discussion, it was my idea to do it in my group but you really need a large group with lots of people to make it work if this group isn't having a lot of group discussion to begin with it would probably make it harder for people.
We have one copy of Golden Boy, two of Freakboy (one of which is checked out) one of Grasshopper Jungle...none of the others mentioned... just a data point.
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "We have one copy of Golden Boy, two of Freakboy (one of which is checked out) one of Grasshopper Jungle...none of the others mentioned... just a data point."Yeah, I imagine both SanFran and Minneapolis are on the up side of the curve.
Justin wrote: "We tried that in my group once and not a single person joined the chat except me, afterwords they said it was to hard to find a time that everyone could get on and discuss..."That's my worry. Especially as the only moderator - when there were more of us, we could get a conversation going between us and then others might join in. Well, maybe we'll figure out a chance to do it once or twice, with the right motivation. Maybe with the Rainbow Awards YA winner or something.
BTW, unrelated to this, for anyone who loves covers, the Rainbow Award vote for covers is open to anyone http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawar... - you have to vote for at least 3, and as many as you like. Must post your email but it's kept confidential.
And there are several of the YA we have read in this group on the Honorable Mention (at least one first round score of 36) list so far.
YA LGBT Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Educating Simon (other topics)Rainbow Boys (other topics)
Magic's Pawn (other topics)
Golden Boy (other topics)
Freakboy (other topics)
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I moved this from the nominations thread so the books don't get lost.