The awards ceremony was held in Nashville this evening, and I wasn’t able to attend, so waited patiently for the announcement to be posted online. The categories 7th Grade Revolution finaled in weren’t being announced at the ceremony, so I would have been awaiting the online announcement anyway. I felt a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass when my publisher contacted me with the results. Lewis Carroll said it best:

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

And the answer to the question about the pigs is YES, they do have wings and were flying around Nashville tonight because 7th Grade Revolution WON in the category of Best Use of Social Medial in Book Marketing. I don’t know about book marketing, but I do like the way Twitter, or as it is in the book QuackerMe, is used in the story. Without the use of social media, the book would have been significantly different. But I cannot claim all the credit for the award.

Without the use of social media in the Exploris Middle School classroom experience, first of all, I wouldn’t have had a book because I would never have heard about the exercise in the first place. But also, the teachers used Twitter in the guise of being reporters/the media to broadcast the events of the classroom to the world. I knew from the very beginning that had to be a part of the conclusion of the story … how social media is now the more immediate news source. So thank you, Karen Rectanus and Exploris Middle School for broadcasting the events via Twitter. It helped shape the book in many ways.

Here is just a part of what Digital Book World had to say about the awards this year:

“Digital Book World is honored to recognize best-in-class achievement across the wide world of publishing, and we’re thrilled to celebrate these distinguished award winners with the publishing and technology community,” said Digital Book World Executive Producer Bradley Metrock. “Congratulations to all of the award winners – we’re proud to showcase your work.”

Click the image below to go to the full article and winners list

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The image in this post didn’t make it into the final version of the book. The illustration is of Maddie Harper standing in front of her classmates trying to gain control so they can get the discussions started. In her hands is the rain stick — when shaken it rattles to let everyone know it’s time to be quiet and listen.

The rain stick is one of the items brought into the book from the Tweets from the Exploris Middle School @7thGradeRevolt account. Reading through the stream allowed the characters to come to life in my head and I used as much material from the Tweets as I could to give the book a solid background of real life. The scene from 7th Grade Revolution:

     Maddie Harper jumped to her feet and strode to the front. “Should we make a circle so we can all see each other?”
     Leave it to Maddie to take control. She wasn’t bad, not like some others, but always had to be in charge. Rhonda hauled her chair to the forming group.
     As the circle assembled, Maddie grabbed the rain stick and clutched it to her chest. “Um, where should we start?” Her eyes darted to the back where the teachers sat.
     Pfft. They weren’t gonna help.
     Unsure, Maddie let her arms droop when no one paid attention or stopped their conversations, which was kinda funny to see.
     She laid the stick across the table and clapped her hands.
     So much for the rain stick.

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When writing, authors need to be cautious about using brand name items or corporations in their work. Especially anything which has a registered trademark. When a trademark has been registered, the party who holds the registration gets to say how it can be used. Trademarks can extend from logos to words and can specify things from color to spacing, etc. For example, the following is in the Brand Guidelines for Twitter:

The Twitter marks include, but are not limited to, the Twitter name, Twitter logo, the term “Tweet” and any word, phrase, image, or other designation that identifies the source or origin of any Twitter product. Always capitalize the T in “Twitter,” as well as all noun and verb versions of “Tweet” and “Retweet.”

While I am currently able to use Twitter in a book, as long as I don’t disparage Twitter or cause harm to its brand recognition, I chose to create a social media platform for the book itself. Why wouldn’t I use Twitter? Two primary reasons. The first reason is that Twitter can change their brand policy at any time and they could choose to not allow the use of the word Twitter or Tweet without express permission from the company. The second reason is found in their Brand Guidelines: You must display the following statement in materials that display the Twitter trademarks: “TWITTER, TWEET, RETWEET and the Twitter logo are trademarks of Twitter, Inc. or its affiliates.”

So my agent, Italia Gandolfo, and I put our heads together to come up with a suitable replacement. After trying several other options, and getting discouraged because everything I thought of was already a social media platform, we came up with QuackerMe and it blossomed. The posts would be Quacks, reposting would be Honks, ducks would be given for praise, eggs would splat for dislike, and Italia is still lobbying to be able to tar and feather posts. By the time we were done talking about how the site would function, we both wanted someone to develop it. *sigh* Maybe one day I’ll be able to egg a post.

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