Booksellers Advised to Reach Out to Teens at Day of Education Session

As part of ABA's Day of Education at BEA, sponsored by the Ingram Content Group, a session entitled “The Digital Market and the YA Audience” addressed the reading habits of today's teens, and what bookstores can do to foster their interests. The panel, moderated by Kristen McLean, consultant to the ABC Children’s Group at ABA, included Jacob Lewis, founder and CEO of Figment.com, a reading and writing community for teens; Megan Dietche Goel, children's buyer for BookPeople, in Austin, Texas; and David Levithan, YA author and editorial director of Scholastic.

McLean began the session by explaining the results of the ABC/Bowker Pubtrak study, a thorough survey that asked 500 teens questions about how they read. By understanding the way they answered the questions, McLean said, it becomes easier for booksellers to provide what they want when it comes to reading.

According to the survey, reading books ranks third on the list of activities done “often” by teens, closely following sending and receiving text messages, and posting on Facebook or Myspace. The way they learn about the books they read are through conventional means – from their parents, teachers, and friends. The study's results showed that while teens are adapting to existing technology in some ways, the majority of conversations they have about books remains off the computer screens. One of the more sobering results of the survey indicated that while teens value what independent bookstores provide for free, ultimately, they are making their book purchases elsewhere, an important insight for booksellers.

When McLean raised the question, “Who are today's teens?” Levithan responded, “I think they're the same teens we were. What they want out of books, especially conversations about reading, is the same thing we wanted.” Dietche Goel added, “Our strength on the local level is being a part of that.”

When it comes to technology and teen reading, Lewis hoped to provide the takeaway: “Go where they live.” He pointed out that “author websites are antiquated. Not everyone can have their own unique page in the world.” Instead, there are places where kids already spend their time – online and offline – and that is where booksellers should focus their efforts. Figment has its own page on Facebook, with an ongoing dialogue that acts as an extension of the site. He stressed the importance of directly engaging with kids, and promoting discovery.

In regards to e-reading devices, Lewis found that “they didn't want it to actually mimic a book.” He said Figment has tried and failed to incorporate an animated e-reader into the site, with a page flip, so it resembles the familiar act of reading a book. “We were forced to tear it down, twice. Because that's not what they want.”

Dietche Goel added that teens seem to be intrigued by e-readers, but don't like that they can't share their books with their friends, or shape what they read around browsing in a bookstore. Dietche Goel said that teens value her store for its selection, conversation, and access, adding that using e-readers to select their next book is unsatisfying, and “they crave the one-on-one interactions with librarians and booksellers.”

Lewis said there seems to be a misconception of what technology allows us to do, and in the case of teenagers, instead of adopting every new technology for novelty's sake, “they want technology to work in a way that adds enrichment to their lives.” There are 35,000 kids who come to Figment.com to read and write, “in the same way kids have always read and written,” he said. What makes it amazing, he added, is the fact that they're able to connect at the same time, and aggregate and disseminate information about books, in a similar way that they would have conversations with their friends.

Platforms like these “can be easily replicated by bookstores,” said Levithan.

BookPeople is a prime example of a bookstore with a strong teen outreach program, since “teens value the conversations they have with us,” said Dietche Goel. The Austin Teen Book Festival, an annual event supported by the local public library, is another way to “capitalize on their energy and excitement,” she noted. BookPeople has a very visible presence at the event to talk and sell books to attendees.

Dietche Goel has been using the store's blog – which has a national audience – as a platform for teens to review books. It's important that they feel a sense of ownership, she said, and that they're able to socialize with peers. “When teens are into something, they're really into it. So it's great to be able to channel that energy.” Additionally, BookPeople is working on putting out a separate newsletter, written by teens, in which they will review upcoming YA titles and serve as “the local bigmouths,” as Dietch Goel put it. In recruiting interns to work on the newsletter, she had to form a waiting list to accommodate the amount of interest and will have a roster of teens to turn to. The idea behind this newsletter was to “turn marketing into a dialogue instead of a one-sided sales pitch,” and “replicate the interaction that teens crave,” she said.

All of the panelists acknowledged that today's teens are very good at juggling many different things at once – all while screening out noise and deciding what they like and don't like.

“Teens are readers who are looking to expand their world,” said Dietche Goel. “And it’s important that their local bookstores are there for them.”