Export test

In an effort to export my livejournal blog over to Tokyopop, I'm posting this phrase: f5304fcb062e17e4fe64525c228b670f. Why Tokyopop, the leaders of the "Manga Revolutions"? In part because, I suppose, it's there and asking me to put a blog on my profile, and as long as I blog one place, I might as well have that same blog pop up pretty much everywhere. (This blog exports automatically to my facebook account as well. If only I could get it to export to MySpace...)

The other part is that I pretty much love Tokyopop as a publisher. They're doing great things in Original English Language Manga, bringing new authors like Amy Kim Ganter (whose fabulous Reman Mythology is currently not posted at her Web site, but her blog is) into the printed world. There are a lot of other manga publishers I like. (HarperCollins is putting out Mark Crilley's new series! And I got to review it for School Library Journal! It was entirely too tempting to squee like a fan girl--Mark Crilley is not only a great writer, but also, by all reports from my old coworkers who know him first hand, a pretty great guy.) Tokyopop, however, seems to be the dominating force in American Manga right now, and the put out a great free comic preview, which helps me keep up with what's going on in the industry without having to read the first volume of everything. I used to attempt that when I worked at the bookstore in West Bloomfield, MI, but that was back before the Manga Explosion, or right on the edge of it, so I actually had a hope and a prayer of keeping up.

At any rate, that's my manga post of the day, again, with the purpose of getting the crossposting to work.

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If anyone knows how to get this journal to export to either MySpace of Friendster--could you let me know?

Also, I'm always looking for manga recommendations that I might not hear about in Tokyopop's news. Not working at a bookstore has dropped me out of the loop a little, so any help I can get is much appreciated.

Shanna Swendson's innovative marketing

shanna_s recently posted about a new contest over on her blog--something she's calling a blog campaign. Here are the basics:

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If you want to participate and want to interview me, have me write a guest blog, interview a character, have a character do a guest blog, or otherwise come up with an entry that requires my input, please e-mail your requests to me at shanna@shannaswendson.com. Put something specific in your subject line so I can recognize it right away. My spam filter sometimes goes hypervigilant, and when I skim through the spam folder I look for subject lines that look real. If I don't recognize your name and the subject is blank or something generic like "hello," the message may get deleted. I will work on these throughout the next couple of months and send them all back just before it's time to start posting. Deadline to send me questions or other requests is April 23, but I will be dealing with these in the order I receive them, so if you wait until the last minute and I get crazy, there's always a chance that I'll spend less time and effort on yours. If there's a question I don't want to answer or don't feel comfortable dealing with, I'll let you know and give you a chance to come up with something else.

Remember that you don't have to use me. To be eligible for prizes, you just have to mention the book name and my name (and it would be nice to mention the first two books, for new readers to find). These should all be posted the week of April 30-May 7. Our goal is to get enough awareness and sell enough books that first couple of weeks that my publisher gets excited (going into a second printing really fast would be cool, too).

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This seems like brilliant viral marketing to me, and I'm eager to see how it works.

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As a note, I am officially caught up with livejournal. I may now go about my day.