Fourth Story Media

Shelli (@srjohannes) from Market My Words has a two-part interview (part one, part two) with FSM’s Creative Development & Marketing Director Ariel Aberg-Riger about marketing The Amanda Project. It’s quite long (but chock full)! A small taste:

What are the top 3 reasons The Amanda Project interactive model works for readers?

1. Most importantly, it’s an amazing, well-written story. We have fantastic, bestselling YA authors like Melissa Kantor and Laurie Stolarz working collaboratively to create a rich narrative core and to build Amanda’s world. It’s only with such a strong base that we are able to extend the story and invite our readers in to collaborate and interact as well. If they weren’t hooked in the first place, they wouldn’t care!
2. It’s a structured creative environment. We find that although the sky really is the limit in terms of what you can invent and who you can be on The Amanda Project, our readers and writers create most readily when we actually impose certain constraints. For example, every Friday we publish a new story on the site, and each week’s story ends with a call to action that asks a very specific question (e.g. Have you ever lied to make people like you? Is this Amanda’s purple ink?) which we find both lowers the barrier to entry for participation (aka the blank page effect), as well as creates a much more cohesive direction for the continuation of the story.
3. It’s universal. The Amanda Project deals with issues all teen girls (and anyone, really) can relate to – identity, friendship, difficult decisions, loyalties, secrets, the drama of high school life – so it’s easy to lose yourself in the character you create, and really immerse yourself in Amanda’s world.

Daily Grommet gives a great endorsement of The Amanda Project as a “treat” for those “tough-to-shop-for teen girls in your life” (and for grown-ups with a fondness for YA)!

Remember how nutty everyone got over the Da Vinci Code? Staring at The Last Supper, looking for clues… well, Invisible I, the first novel in a new series called The Amanda Project, is a little bit like that, but its target audience is teen girls. It is a story of a mysterious “new girl” at Endeavor High who touches the lives of the main characters, and just as quickly disappears, leaving everyone — including the reader — compelled to figure it all out. Even more importantly, it’s a totally interactive experience. Beyond reading the book, your teen can use a cell phone camera to crack a code in the book, visit the website, and contribute her own stories and ideas to the online community.

Author Melissa Kantor creates a vivid and authentic reality, with text messages and passed notes baked right into the story, as well as moments of gritty realism (an alcoholic parent) all tastefully and carefully handled.

The next book in the series, Signal from Afar, is due out in June, which makes it a great time to join in the fun.

Read the full post here!

Bookselling This Week talked to FSM CEO Lisa Holton about the launch of the first book in The Amanda Project- Invisible I.

“First and foremost, the book is a great read and a fun handsell…It’s a perfect choice for Teen Book Clubs, Mother/Daughter Book Clubs, or for avid readers who love to write as well,” said Holton. “And if you look in the back of the book, you’ll find the work of Lisa Strumm — a 17-year-old girl whose writing on the website was chosen for the first book.” (For her piece, Strumm, who lives in Plano, Texas, received an honorarium of a $100 gift certificate to her local indie bookstore, Legacy Books.)

To booksellers, Holton said, “Encourage your customers to write on the site, and perhaps they will be chosen for book two!”

Read the full piece here!

Teen Lab is a research program that gets kids to talk about their end-user experiences with technology. Recently they asked Quinn to talk about social networks.

Her rundown:

• Webkinz: Old news. Used to play “a while ago” but has since moved on.
• Club Penguin: Used to have a paid membership but no longer. Now just uses it to chat with friends.
• Polyvore: (A scrapbooking-esque site where you can pull pictures off the web and turn them into “sets” that users then comment on and favorite.) Loves it. Found out about it from her mom 8 months ago.
• Teen Second Life Quinn defines it as a cross between Club Penguin and Sims 2.) Still figuring it out, but liking it so far.

I downloaded the Polyvore clip tool to try it out. Images are super easy to pull, but on some there’s a lot of distortion when you add them to your set.