http://con.sagepub.com/TechnologiesJournal of Research into New Media Convergence: The Internationalhttp://con.sagepub.com/content/17/1/49The online version of this article can be found at:DOI: 10.1177/1354856510383363 2011 17: 49 ConvergenceMarianne MartensTransmedia teens: Affect, immaterial labor, and user-generated contentPublished by:http://www.sagepublications.com can be found at: TechnologiesConvergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Additional services and information for http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://con.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://con.sagepub.com/content/17/1/49.refs.html Citations: What is This?- Feb 18, 2011 Version of Record>> at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from at UNIV OF VIRGINIA on November 1, 2013 con.sagepub.com Downloaded from Transmedia teens: Affect,immaterial labor, anduser-generated contentMarianne MartensRutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USAAbstractThe internet offers teens (especially girls, who have embraced social aspects of the web) a voice inthe books they read, from reviewing, blogging, and creating fan sites, to actually collaborating onbooks-in-progresssuchasTheAmandaProjectbywritingportionsofthebookorsuggestingstorylines. But while these new means of participation are seemingly empowering for teenage girls,is this participation a form of empowerment, or is it merely a way for publishers to exploit teenslabor to create commodified cultural products which they in turn can sell back to the teens whohelped shape them? In an era of user-generated content, this article examines how teens affectivelabor as peer-to-peer-marketers and content creators is changing the transmedia cultural productscreated for them.Keywordsaffect, branding, convergence, labor, marketing, social media, transmedia, user-generatedcontentUsers of content and manufactured goods are increasingly involved in the production process, fromtheLolcatswebsite(Lolcats, n.d.)whereusersuploadimagesofcatsandaddtheirowninten-tionally misspelled captions, to Local Motors Rally Fighter car (Local Motors, n.d.) which wasdesignedcompletelybycrowd-sourcing1(Eyvazzadeh, 2009). Just asthefoundationsof bookpublishing have been shaken by content moving fromthe codex to ebooks to transmedia (Jenkins,2006), meaning content which exists simultaneously on multiple platforms, it is not surprising thatbookpublishers, too, areexperimentingwithuser-generatedcontent. Attractingandexploitingsuch content within a social setting has particularly strong potential with teens, especially teenagegirls. According to Sady Doyle (2009), girls tend to share their interests socially, and a 2007 PewInternet and American Life Project study (Lenhart et al., 2007) shows that girls are more likely thanCorresponding author:Marianne Martens, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, School of Communication and Information, 4 HuntingtonStreet, New Brunswick, NJ 08901Email: martens@rci.rutgers.eduConvergence: TheInternationalJournal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)4968 TheAuthor(s)2011Reprintsand permission:sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/1354856510383363con.sagepub.comboys to be online content creators. As a result, girls have become extremely valuable to publishersas both marketers and content creators, as exhibited in a range of online activity surrounding booksintheTwilight SagabyStephenieMeyer, andarecentlylaunchedseries calledTheAmandaProject (2009). While the web activity surrounding Twilight grew as the books increased in popu-larity, TheAmandaProjectwasfully-conceivedasamulti-platform, web-integratedtransmediaproduct from its beginning. In terms of affective labor, defined here as labor done freely and will-ingly that produces value for the user (Cote and Pybus, 2007; Jarrett, 2003; Terranova, 2000), girlslabor: (1) as book reviewers on social sites such as weRead.com and Amazon.com and as advance-copyreviewersevaluatingbooksaheadof their publication(andconsequently, aspeer-to-peermarketers) on publisher-owned teen sites; (2) as content creators on fan sites and anti-fan sites; and(3) as content creators on publishers proprietary interactive websites. In this last example, the linebetween readers and writers is blurred, and users affective labor results in user-generated contentripeforexploitationbypublishersbasedontheirend-userlicenseagreements(EULAS), whichgovernactivityonthesitesandgiveownerstherighttouseworkpostedbyteens.While teens are arguably empowered by participating in cultural products produced for themwhentheycreatecontentorreviewbooksonpublisherssites,theirparticipationcommodifiesandbrandsthem.Commodificationofteensoccurswhenteensaretargetedasbothconsumersand creators of the cultural products created for them, and branding occurs when, as Alissa Quart(2003)describes,teenscreateidentitiesforthemselvesaroundthebrandstheyconsume,whilemarketers attempt to align teens with the brands they are pitching. In the case of books for teens,suchbrandingresultsinwhatRobertMcChesney(1999)callshypercommercialism,whichisevident inexamplesfromseveral recentlypublishedbookssuchas: (1)product placement inbooks such as Cathys Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman(2008) or the books in the Gossip Girls series by Cecily von Ziegesar (e.g. 2002); (2) the milieuof licensed merchandise based on books in Stephenie Meyers Twilight series (2005); and (3) TheAmanda Projects (2009) book-based website which features a shopping tab where readers canbuyAmanda-relatedmerchandise, or followlinks tothetypes of stores wherethefictionalAmandamightshop.Teens are commodified by their labor on the sites. Girls affective online labor fits into specificcategories of gendered labor: affective labor refers to those forms which manipulate a feeling ofease, wellbeing, satisfaction, excitement, orpassion(HardtandNegri, 2004:108, inCote andPybus, 2007: 90), and historically this labour has been unpaid and has been commonly regarded aswomenswork(Cote andPybus, 2007:90). Theparticipatinggirlsworkaspublicists, mar-keters, and content creators and of course consumers all jobs that fit into traditionally femalecategories of work, particularly within the fields of childrens publishing and librarianship wherejobshavehistoricallybeendominatedbywomen.Firstthisarticlewillexaminehowgirlslaborischanginghowbooksarecreatedforyoungadults by reviewing the historical context in which American librarian-led programs have includedAmericanteensinreviewingandselectingyoungadult (YA) bookssincetheinceptionof thegenre.Throughtheirworkasbookreviewers, awarders, andcollectiondevelopmentspecialists,librarianshavetraditionallybeenresponsibleforservingastaste-makinggatekeepersoperatingbetweenpublishersandteens, andintroducingteenstoarangeofbooks. Next, thisarticlewillreview how mergers and acquisitions of publishing companies during the 1980s and 1990s createdan economicneed to publish transmediaproducts, which havepotential to sell to the widestpos-sible audience. This research will analyze how the combination of transmedia products and the riseof the internet has resulted in an interest in creating multi-platform books, and has enabled a direct50 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)communication between publishers and teen consumers which circumnavigates the gatekeepers ofYAliterature. Finallythearticlewill reviewwhat teensarecreatingonpublishersproprietarysocial sites, and how this participation serves: (1) as peer-to-peer marketing in which teens recom-mend books to other teens; (2) as a free source for consumer research about teens tastes and inter-ests which publishers can use to create new products for this market; and (3) as a source for contentwhichcanbeminedandappropriatedbypublishersinnewtransmediaproducts.Historical context: Librarian gatekeepers and teen participation inYA literatureCarvedout of aspacebetweenchildrensliteratureandliteraturefor adults, thegenreof YAliteratureisgenerallyagreedtohavebeenofficiallylaunchedin AmericawiththepublicationofS.E.Hintons(1967)TheOutsiders(Cart,1996).Tenyearsbefore,inresponsetoaburgeoningpopulationof teenagebabyboomers analmost-adult populationthat valuedagencytheAmericanLibraryAssociationcreatedtheYoungAdult ServicesDivisionin1957, whichlaterbecame the Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA (Starr, n.d). A key mission ofYALSA was to produce booklists and guidelines to aid librarians serving this population, and onesuchbooklist wastheSignificant Adult BooksforTeensandInterestingBooksbibliography,whichbeganin1952, andbecametheBest Books for YoungAdults (BBYA) list in1954(YALSA, n.d.). From its inception, this list included teens voices. The BBYA is an annual list ofthe best books publishedfor youngadults, compiledbylibrarians whoserve onthe BBYAcommittee,alongwithinputfromteenswhoparticipateinBBYAgroups.Anotherlibrary-basedopportunityforteensto participateistheYAGalleyProgram(YALSA,n.d.),in whichpartici-pating libraries receive advance reading copies (ARCs) of forthcoming YA books from publishers.Teens review the ARCs, and respond with feedback to the publishers. Teens at libraries participat-ing in the YA Galley Program are also able to contribute to the Teens Top Ten list (YALSA, n.d),which is an annual list of teens favorite titles. In addition to library-based opportunities for youngadultstoparticipateinYAliterature,theinternetprovidesadditionalopportunitiesforparticipa-tion,fromreviewsitessuchasAmazon.comandweRead.com,tofansitescreatedbyteens,andmostrecently,participatorysectionsaimedatteensonpublisherswebsites.Librarians as gatekeeping arbiters of tasteYALSA and the BBYA arose out of a tradition of librarians serving as cultural arbiters of taste inthe field of books for the young. A look back to the earliest days of childrens literature at the turnof the20thcenturyfinds librarians servingas bookreviewers. AnneCarroll Moore, thefirstchildrenslibrarianatTheNewYorkPublicLibrary(NYPL),reviewedforTheHornBook,TheBookman, andlater hadacolumncalledTheThreeOwls inTheNewYorkHeraldTribune(Miller,1988).Anotherlibrarian,RuthHillViguers(19031971),whoworkedforMooreattheNYPL, wroteareviewcolumnofchildrensliteratureforTheHornBookcalledNot Recom-mended (Riskind, 2003: 236) in whichshe criticized publishers for sellingmediocre products tothe public. Librarians also served on the first book awards committees sponsored by The AmericanLibrary Association (ALA, n.d.). The Newbery Medal was first awarded in 1922 and the CaldecottMedal in 1938 (ALSC, n.d.). Librarians activities as critics and awarders confirmed their roles asarbitersoftaste,capableofsortingtheliteraryfromthemediocre.Martens 51Reflecting the protectionist tradition established by the early childrens librarians (who aimed toimprove childrens minds through books), literature for the young is mediated by multiple levels ofadult gatekeepers, from librarians, to educators, to parents. As Marc Aronson writes: YA literatureis the product of this difficult blend of adult judgment on behalf of teenagers and the preferencesteenagers manifest and the books they talk about, take out of the library, and even buy (Aronson,1999). In order to sell more books, publishers sought to build relationships with these gatekeepers(especially librarians and teachers). According to library marketing expert Mimi Kayden, startingin the 1950s and 1960s, the librarians who worked with children were often actively involved inreviewing books in trade journals, and most of them had personally read the books on their shelves(Kayden,2009).Inaddition,librarianswereresponsibleforcollectiondevelopment,soeconom-icallyit was important for YApublishers tofocus their marketingstrategies onyoungadultlibrarians. Librariansrepresent anexpert readershipofYAliterature, andpriortotheinternet,publishersrelationshipswithlibrarians, andtoalesserextentwithteachersandparents, repre-sentedtheprimarymethodofdisseminatingbookstoteens. Ifpublishershadamajorauthor,occasionallytheywouldadvertiseinteenmagazines,suchasSeventeen,MademoiselleorBoysLife, but generallyadvertisinginthesemagazineswasconsideredtooexpensiveforchildrenspublishers. By the 1980s, publishers prepared biographical sheets for authors to mail to fans whenthey got fan letters, and then authors started doing school visits. According to Kayden, school visitswere successful in making kids realize that all authors were not dead (Kayden, 2009). Yet despitethe access to authors provided by visits, publishers relationships with librarians always came first.Figure 1,loosely modeledon RobertDarntons(1989) CommunicationCircuit representsthistraditional flow of information about YA books between publishers, the gatekeepers, and the teenconsumers. Incontrast, Figure2demonstrates that theinternet enables direct communicationbetween teens and publishers. The traditional gatekeepers are certainly still part of the model, buttheirinfluenceisreduced.While therehas been a history of teen participation in the books createdforthem, prior to theinternet such participation was predominantly via the library. Ironically, while the internet servesasanintermediarybetweenpublishersandteens, italsoprovidesdisintermediation(Terranova,2000: 34) byremovingthe adult gatekeepers. The direct communicationbetweenteens andpublishers allows publishers a view of the discourse between teens, and thereby an understandingofteentaste,whichinturnallowsthemtopublishproductsthatcorrespondtothediscourse,allwithout the intervention of the gatekeepers. On publishers teen-specific websites, viral marketing,whichJarrett(2003)definesasmarketingthatisspreadbyusersandnotproducers,servesasaneffective, and virtually free-of-charge, marketing campaign directed by teens for teens. As a result,librariansroleasarbitersoftasteisdiminished. Writingaboutbookmarketing, Squires(2008)describes how publishers understand that books, as commodities infused with cultural capital, canbeusedtotranslateBourdieusculturalcapitalintoeconomiccapital,andnaturallymultina-tionalcorporationsmust focusontheeconomiccapitalthatcanbegainedfrom thesaleof trans-mediaproperties. But what happenstothiscultural capitalwhenit ismucheasierforhighlycommercial bookswithlargemarketingbudgetsandentertainingwebsitestoreachteensthanitisforquieterworksofliteraryfiction?Perhapstheconceptofculturalcapitalinbooksneedsto be redefined. As Jack Zipes writes, for anything to become a phenomenon in Western society,itmustbecomeconventional . . . itmustconformtothestandardsofexceptionsetbythemassmedia and promoted by the culture industry in general (Zipes, 2001: 175). In theory, while havingtheir voices heard by publishers is empowering to teens, it is also disempowering, because teens arenot necessarily aware that the publishers proprietary sites are far from neutral, and that publishers52 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)Figure 2. How information about books reaches teens in the era of the internetFigure 1. How information about YA books reached teens pre-internetMartens 53areabletoshapeorcensorcontent tobest suit theirmarketingstrategy. Teenshaveagencyasreviewers and creators on sites they create as long as their views suit the overall goals of the site.The idea of a resistant audience, coming from a position of externality, a being-against (Bratich,2008: 43), is simply notpossible on publishers carefully controlledproprietary sites,as the siteswouldremovesubversivevoicesthatinterferewiththeirmarketingplans.Transnational conglomerates and the evolution of transmediaIntheearly1980s,mergersandacquisitionsofsmallindependentpublishinghousesresultedinmarket dominationby enormoustransnationalconglomerates.AndreSchiffrin,the formerownerofPantheonBooks,arguesthatconsolidationofpublishersleftlittleroomforbookswithnew,controversial ideas or challenging literary voices (2000: 7), and while Schiffrin was writing aboutthe market for adult books, the consolidations also shaped the types of books published for a teenreadership.Theseconsolidationsofthe1980sand1990sincreasedthepressuretopublishtrans-media products, andas DanSchiller (1999: 99) writes, the transnational corporations act asverticallyintegratedmegamediathat areperfectlypositionedforcross-promotionandcross-media program development, which are all about profit maximization (1999: 99). A successfultransmedia product canbe soldonmultiple platforms, all ownedbythe same transnationalcorporation.EvenbeforeJ.K.RowlingsfirstHarryPottertitlewaspublishedintheUSAin1998(HarryPotterandtheSorcerersStone),publishershadchanged,butsohadthemarketplaceforbooks.Patricia Lee Gauch(2003) reiterates Kaydens viewthat, until then, the primarymarket forchildrens books was the institutional market (i.e. schools and libraries), but by the early 1990s most major publishers increasinglyserve[d] thetrade whichconsistedof bookstores andbookselling interests from Barnes and Noble to Costco to the peripatetic Books Are Fun2(Gauch,2003: 133). A shift from the institutional market to large nationwide booksellers with centralizedbuying meant that publishers were increasingly interested in publishing big names and big ideas,withbigauthorsandbigillustratorsillustrating(2003:133)asthosebooksweremorelikelytoguarantee sales, and therefore were considered less risky. As a result, Gauch (2003) argues, it wasno longer enough for an editor to advocate for a book he or she wanted to publish. If the sales andmarketing departments did not think a book would sell in the most profitable trade channels, thatbookwouldnotbepublished.Becauseconglomeratepublishersmustvaluelucrativetransmediaproducts, itbecomesincreasinglydifficultforfirst-timeauthors, orliteraryauthorswhoseworkdoesnotfitintoZipesdefinitionofaphenomenon,tofindaspaceinthemarketplace.The internet effect: Extracting the gatekeepersMarketing books directly to teens, an elusive and constantly changing audience, has always beenchallenging, and prior to the internet it was considered more effective to market to the gatekeeperswhoboughtbooksforteensratherthantomarkettotheteensthemselves.Butthishaschangedwiththesocialwebandparticipatoryonlinevenues,fromamateurfansitestoprofessional,cor-porate sites created by transnational conglomerates. The corporate-owned sites act as what Andre-jevic(2008)callsdigitalenclosures, inthiscase, offanlabor, includingfan-created, corporate-owned, free-of-charge, marketingmaterial. AndrejevicwritesabouttheTelevisionWithoutPitywebsite (a site owned by Bravo Entertainment, a division of NBC), on which viewers post exten-sivecommentaryabouttheirfavoritetelevisionshows(whichinturnhelpswritersanddirectors54 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)createnewprograms), andhismodel translateseasilytoteens commentsonpublisher-ownedparticipatorywebsiteswhichprovidethesametypeofconsumerfeedbacktopublishers.Most of the transnational publishing conglomerates including Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon& Schuster, Scholastic, Penguin, and Macmillan have teen-specific sites, offering a range of waystoparticipate, fromsendingpostcardsfeaturingbookcoversof forthcomingtitlestoupto10friends, to posting pictures, instant messaging friends, writing on message boards, answering sur-veys and taking quizzes. Random Houses Random Buzzers site allows members to earn BuzzBucks for their participation, which can then be used for merchandise on the site (Random House,n.d.).WhilefutureresearchcouldconfirmexactlyhowmanyRandomBuzzersself-identifyasmalecomparedtothosewhoself-identifyasfemale, aquickscanofuserprofilesontheBuzzBoards indicates that nearly all members self-identify as female, confirminggirls strong partic-ipation. Terranova (2000) refers to this unpaid labor in the digital economy as working for a socialfactory (Terranova, 2000: 33) that employs NetSlaves, and while the Random House site may bethe only one that pays its workers, wages are meager. For example, users taking a quiz earn about100 Buzz Bucks, and that currency can only be spent on the Random House site where books costbetween15,000and35,000BuzzBucks(RandomHouse,n.d.).Labor and affective relationshipsIn addition to their work on publisher-owned sites, teens can develop affective relationships withtheirfavoriteauthor, asthesitespromiseaccesstosuchauthors. OntheTwilight Sagawebsiteowned by Little, Brown (an imprint of Hachette), Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series,recentlyparticipatedinaquestionandanswersessionwithfans(TwilightSaga,n.d.)andontheSisterhoodCentralsectionoftheRandomBuzzerssite(RandomHouse, n.d.)participantsareabletodothesamewithAnnBrashares,authoroftheTravelingPantsseries.Inthisway,parti-cipants can have a social relationship with their favoriteauthors, and build a connection with theliterarymodeofproduction, asdescribedbyPattee(2006). ExamplesofthetypeofdiscoursebetweenreadersandYAauthorsisshowninFigure3.The idea that fans can have access to their favorite authors and write to them as they would totheir friends about clothing and body image, music, or the content of their books collapses thebarrier betweencelebrityauthor andreader, andbuilds anaffectivebondbetweenthemthatmimics friendship, expanding upon the relationship the readers already have with the books. Suchrelationshipsservetoattractteensbacktothesite,andencouragefurtherparticipation.The publishers teen sites encourage users to participate by posting their own book-related user-generated content, from fan-fiction, to songs, to artwork, and it is likely that most users are eithernotpayingattentionto,ornotconcernedwith,thetermsofuse,Forexample,ontheRandomHousesite,suchtermsincludethefollowingrule:By posting messages,sending e-mails,inputting data, answeringquestions,uploading dataor files orotherwisecommunicatingwithRandomHousethroughitsWebsite(aCommunication), youaregrantingRandomHouseaperpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, unrestricted, worldwidelicensetouse,display,sublicense,adapt,transmitandcopysuchCommunication.(RandomHouse,n.d.)ThislanguagepermitsRandomHousetouseanycontent postedbyusershoweverit chooses.HarperCollins,thepublisherofTheAmandaProject, hassimilar rightsto user-generatedcontentpostedonthesite. Whileparticipationonthesesitesisarguablyentertaining, theentertainmentcomesataprice.Martens 55TheTwilightseriesprovidesarichresourceforstudyinguserparticipation,notonlybecauseof theenormous international success of theseries, but alsobecauseits fans areenthusiasticparticipantsinonlinediscourseabout theseries. Twi-hards (Twilight fans)publishtheir ownuser-generated fan sites (and those who love to hate the series create anti-fan sites), write reviewsonweRead.comandAmazon.com,andparticipateinthePublishersTwilightSaga.comwebsite(2010). The Amanda Project website seeks to mine such participation by establishing a forum forengagement on its site, encouraging users to participate in the book series by acting asco-contributorsoftext andideasfor futurebooksintheseries. Yet whilegirlsmaychoosetoparticipate out of a sense of empowerment and certainly the idea of being able to write reviewsof books you love (or hate) and to have a voice in creating a literary work is appealing in reality,the participants are branded and commodified by these companies that produce products for theirconsumption,frommusic,tomovies,tobooks:Readers questions Authors answersRandom Houses Sisterhood Central Interview with Ann Brashares, bestselling author ofthe Sisterhoodseries (Random Buzzers, n.d.)Describe your favorite pair of pants. Whatmakes them your favorite?At the moment, my favorite pair of pants are bright red.They are cropped, slightly flared summer pants. Like a goodfriend, they are flexible, forgiving, and boost my confidenceeven on really off days. . . And these pants manage to makeme feel loved even through major body transitions(like having a baby!).As the mother of three young children, doyou find that you relate more to thegirls or their mothers?Even though Im closer to the age of the mothers, I relatedmore to the daughters. I think thats because I wrote thebook from the girls points of view. Although I tried reallyhard to imagine how the mothers would feel, I didnt actuallyspend my days thinking their thoughts the way I do when Imwriting in a characters point of view.Questions posted for Stephenie Meyer on Little, Browns Twilight Saga website (TwilightSaga, n.d.)Hi Stephenie What is your favourite scenein New Moon the movie? LaureI cant really choose just one. I love so many things. Bellasand Edwards first conversation in the parking lot . . . thepainting . . . Jessicas monologue. . . the scenes in Jacobsgarage. . . the first time you see the werewolves!! . . . Jacobin Bellas room (thanks, Chris!). . . the underwater moment. . . what you see while Thom Yorkes amazing song isplaying . . . everything in Italy . . . and I could go on. Its allso good.You have such a great taste in music.What would be your ultimate karaokesong? JustinaThis one changes a lot. Today, Id want to sing along withMetric, probably Sick Muse or Front Row.Figure 3. Relationship-building on Random House and Little, Browns teen websites56 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)Teen girls have the power to shape the market because they dont have financial responsibilities, tendto be passionate about their interests, and share those interests socially. If a girl likes something, shesliable to recommend it to her friends; a shared enthusiasm for Edward [one of two romantic heroes fromTwilight], or the Jonas Brothers, or anything else, becomes part of their bond. Marketers prize teenagegirls,evenasthemediascoffatthem.(Doyle,2009,para.14)TeensreviewbooksonsitessuchasAmazon.comandweRead.com,andtheiraffectivelaborasreviewers serves as peer-to-peer marketing, much as one friend recommending a book to another.Asanextremeexampleofteensreviewingabestsellingnovel, asof30June2010therewere25,004reader reviews onweRead.com(weRead, n.d.) of Twilight, thefirst bookinMeyersTwilight Sagawhichrepresentsasubstantial amount ofonlinediscourse. Onthesamedate,Amazon.comfeatured4,843reviewsofthesamebook.BothAmazon.comandweReaddisplaypositive and negative reviews by readers, which indicates a free and open environment. In addition,discussionalsoservestoattractreaderstothesite.Teensalsoparticipateinliteraturecreatedforthemviafansitesontheinternet.Asof1July2010, StephenieMeyerswebpage(StephenieMeyer.com, n.d.)listed377Twilight-relatedfansites, fromsites withnames suchas ObsessiveEdwardCullenDisorder (ObsessiveEdwardCullenDisorder, n.d.) createdbyindividuals usingonlinesoftwaresuchas freewebs.comorweebly.com,toLittle,BrownsproprietarysiteTheTwilightSaga.com(TheTwilightSaga.com,n.d.) which duplicates much of the fans efforts on the web within a proprietary site. The internethascreatedawholenewvenueforreachingteensand, atthesametime, awaytoexploittheiraffectivelabor. Alreadyin2005, writingabout televisionaudiences, ShawnShimpach(2005)describes John Wells, a former Senior Vice President for communication at CBS, as being aware offansitesontheinternetandpraisingthemfortheirmarketresearchvalue.Conflating advertising and product in young adult titlesWhile product placement has long existed in movies (Reeses Pieces candy had a starring role inthemovieE.T.), television(JuniorMintswerefeaturedascentral totheplot onanepisodeofSeinfeld), and video games like Tony Hawks Pro Skater (2002) which, according to Quart (2003),are saturated with advertising for a range of products, most adult gatekeepers object to the idea ofaggressive campaigns to deliberately place products in books, especially when those books are foryoung readers. Publishingis still considered a site where culture and commerce converge(Brown,2006:2),andbecauseoftheeducationalnatureofreadingandthestructuresofreviewsandawardsbestowedonbooksbyliteraryexperts, booksareperceivedtobecommoditiesofhigherculturalvaluethanareotherculturalcommoditiesforteenssuchasvideogamesortele-vision programs. Despite this, in the case of the young adult titles described in the following, thereare many examples of books in which commerce is clearly valued over culture. Films areincreasingly packed with merchandise, as has happened with The Twilight Saga and Harry Potter(whichhasachievedthenadiroflicensingitsownbook-and-film-relatedthemepark). Fromproduct placement to branding, marketing defines the YA genre. Branded products are frequentlyused in books for young adults to establish a cultural or socioeconomic setting. As Elizabeth Bullenpointsout, brandingisalanguageofAmericanculture(2009: 499), andthisisevidencedbymanyexamplesfromYAliterature. InS.E. HintonsTheOutsiders(1967), Hintonscharactersconsumed specific products including Corvairsand Mustangs, EnglishLeather aftershave, Cokeand Pepsi, Kool cigarettes (Bullen, 2009: 499); in Cecily von Ziegesars Gossip Girls the use ofMartens 57brandnamesasculturalreferentsisthemostobviousexampleofvonZiegesarsprose(Pattee,2006: 166). Like teenage versions of the women in Candace Bushnells Sex and the City televisionshow (Bushnell and King, 1993), von Ziegesars teens wear the latest and most expensive brands,fromColumbiajackets,toManoloBlahnikshoes.Branding as lifestyle, from Twilight to The Amanda ProjectYet accordingtoNaomi Klein(2009), it is nolonger enoughmerelytobrand. Kleinwrites:The products that will flourish in the future will be the ones presented not as commodities but asconcepts: the brand as experience, as lifestyle (2009: 21), and in terms of books, this has alreadyhappenedwiththeTwilightSaga. InthecaseofTwilight, Meyerhascreatedamaterialfantasyworld, whichTwi-hards canstepinto. Theycanwear Bellas promdress (whichispart of aTwilight-inspired clothing line at Hot Topic) or Edwards boxer shorts, purchase the Cullen familyjewels, smell like Bella with Twilight perfume, and even drive Edwards car, thanks to a partner-shipwithVolvo. InthecaseofTwilight, relationsofbrandingareshiftingtowardanaffectiverelationship between the books and those who consume them, linked by service performed by userson a producers site. As such, branding is now tied to social identity (Hearn, 2008: 199), and thisidentity is available for purchase. Hearn describes self-branding as the self-conscious construc-tionof ameta-narrativeand meta-imageof selfthrough theuseof culturalmeaningsand imagesdrawnfromthenarrativeandvisual codesofthemainstreamcultureindustries(Hearn, 2008:198). AccordingtoCote andPybus(2007), thispersonalbrandmanagementhasalreadybeenmasteredbyteenswhoarecomfortablecreatingdigitalidentitiesforthemselvesinsitessuchasMySpace,Facebook,andnowonpublisherssocialsitesforteens.Advertisingservestocutacrossclass(hooks,2000inBullen,2009:502)byconstructingaversion of the world where everyone has equal access to everything as long as they can afford it,and Berger writes that advertising works because its essential application is not to reality, but todaydreams(Berger,1972inBullen,2009:502).Mostlikely,alargepopulationofgirlsreadingThe Gossip Girls books realize that Jimmy Choo shoes are beyond their reach, yet the illusion ofaccessremains.AblatentexampleofproductplacementinbooksforteensoccurredinCathysBook: If Found Call (650) 266-8233, published by Running Press in 2008 (Stewart and Weisman,2006). Priortopublication, RunningPresssignedacontractwithProctorandGambleallowingCoverGirl products to be written into the story. Subsequently, a descriptionof a girl wearinglip-gloss became: A girl and her CoverGirl Demure lip gloss (Deam, 2006). Consumer response(likely from adult gatekeepers) to this in-product book placement was so strong that Running Pressdecided to strip all references to specific cosmetic products from its paperback edition of the book.Inaseries inwhicheachtitleis writtenas awork-for-hireproject byarangeof authors,thoroughmarketresearchisfarmoreimportantincreatingtheseriesthanisliteraryauthorship.CompaniessuchasBuzzMarketingGroup(Wells, n.d.)helpinformpublishersabout teenandtweentrendsforafee, butnowtheinternet providesafarmorecost-effectiveanddirectmodeof communication with prospective readers. Pattee borrows the idea from Eagleton that, in the caseof Gossip Girls, the dominant mode of production (Pattee, 2006: 157) is creating, marketing, andselling to teens which is separated from the literary mode of production (2006: 157), and in thesebooks,whenweighingthevaluesofliteraryqualityversusmarketableproduct,marketingwins.WhilereadersoftheseriesfeelaconnectionwithCecilyvonZiegesar,theauthorwhosenameappears on the cover of the books, in reality this connection is as fabricated as the characters in thebooks, asthebooksaremass-producedbywork-for-hireauthorsasweretheNancyDrewand58 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)BobbseyTwinsseriespublishedbytheStratemeyer syndicate. Bookpackagers, suchasAlloy,creatoroftheGossipGirlsseries, handleeachstepofbookproduction, fromwriting(whichisgenerally by work-for-hire authors who do not get authorship credit), to editing and design, whichis done either by employees of Alloy or by their freelance editors and designers, and then nearly-finished camera-ready text and art is sold to a publisher. The assumption of single authorship is anillusion fostered by. . . Alloy to affect what Eagleton would call the social relationship of theauthor to his or her readers (Pattee, 2006: 162). Publishers internet sites for teens also exploit thissocial relationship, as shown in the examples of Stephenie Meyer and Ann Brashares. This rela-tionshipwillbeexploredlaterinthecontextofTheAmandaProject.Teens affective literary labor as content creators, marketers, andconsumersJust as Quart (2003) describes how marketers exploit different teenage communities of affect, thebiggest publishershavefiguredout that theycandothesamewiththeir teenwebsites. Rosen(2002) wrote of emergingstrategies for reaching teens: Random[House] relies oninternetmarketing, reviews in teen magazines and postcards [which can be mailed to summer camps in thecase of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, 2001], as well, of course, the bookitself (Rosen, 2002: 85). According to Rosen, the goal of this marketing is to have teens engage inpeer-to-peermarketingwiththeironlinefriends.Whileallofthesemethodsarestill usedbypublishersmarketingdepartments,theinternetisproving to be far more effective as a tool for producers of media to extract surplus labor and blurboundaries between consumption and production. Writing about Second Life, Banks andHumphreys (2008) write that the underlying assumption of these discourses is that players are insome sense unaware that their participation is a productive practice from which economic value isextracted (2008: 404), and publishers gamble that users are more focused on the entertaining aspectsoftheirwebsites,oronwhateversocialcapitalteensderivefromparticipating,thantheyareonpaying attention to the fact that their participation results in economic value for the publishers.Recently, publishers have begun to experiment more with newformats of transmediapublishing. Scholastics The 39 Clues book series represents one of the first multi-platform trans-media books which consists of a book series, collector cards, and a website. Readers buy the books,collectthecards,andthengoontheaffiliatedwebsite(ScholasticMediaRoom,n.d.)tounlockbook-relatedcluespresentedonthecards.Inaddition,readerscanwinprizesbyplayinggamesonthewebsite. AccordingtoScholastic, this series is aimedat childrenaged812, agroupconceivably still interested in collecting trading cards. Like The Gossip Girls, each of these booksis written by a different author. Rather than simply using the work-for-hire model, and to maximizetheseriesposition in themarketplace,RickRiordan,best-sellingauthorof thePercyJackson&the Olympians series, wrote The Maze of Bones (2008), the first book in The 39 Clues series. Sincethen,eightotherbookshavebeenpublishedandmanyofthemhaveappearedonbestsellerlistsfromTheNewYorkTimes,toPublishersWeekly,toUSAToday(ScholasticMediaRoom,n.d.)In addition to Riordan, other well-known authors have written books in The 39 Clues series, includ-ing Linda Sue Park, whose book A Single Shard (2001) won the Newbery Medal in 2002 (Asso-ciationfor LibraryServicetoChildren, n.d.), andbest-sellingauthor PatrickCarman, whoseSkeleton Creek (2009) series also represents a multi-platform project that pairs books with onlinevideos.Thecombinationofanappealingstoryline, well-knownauthors, asignificantmarketingbudget, and multiple levels of exposure, from books, to the website,to thecards, haveall helpedMartens 59launchThe39Clues. Inaddition, theserieshasthebenefitofappealingtomultipleaudiences:readers and gamers, boys and girls. The final book in the series is scheduled for release in August2010.LikeThe39Clues,HarpersTheAmandaProjectisamulti-platform,transmediabookserieswith an accompanying website, but unlike The 39 Clues, in this series readers are encouraged notonly to be consumers, but also producers of content. The first book, The Amanda Project: invisiblei,launcheswhatisplannedasaneight-bookseriesaboutahigh-schoolgirlnamedAmandawhohasgonemissing.Beforeshedisappears,sheleavesaseriesofcluesforthreepreviouslyuncon-nected students, Callie, Hal, and Nia, who become friends through their mutual quest. The AmandaProject website provides some of the clues left by Amanda in the book, and asks readers to use theclues to help find Amanda. In the case of The Amanda Project, which has been marketed to an olderaudiencethanthatofThe39Cluesandalsoanaudiencethatisprimarilyfemale,userscanplaygames, shop, post, or chat. The paratext of the first book quite clearly targets girls, fromthe hot pinkcover with a long-haired girl in the center (Figure 4), to what resembles a female readers marginaliaof penciled doodles of birds, decorative scrolls, and flowers printed on the interior pages.The first book is narratedprimarilyby Callie, who ison the fringeof belongingto a cliqueofpopular girls who call themselves the I-Girls, comprising Heidi, Kelli, Traci, and herself. Callie isneither as pretty as the other girls in the group, nor as wealthy, but because of her relationship withHeidi,sheisincluded.TheI-Girlsidentityiscloselyrelatedtotheirclothingchoices,andtheydresstoavoidbeingwhatCalliecallsaneutral(Kantor,2009:105)someonewhoisneitheramongthemostpopularnorafashiondisaster(Kantor,2009:105).Aswithbrandinginbooksdescribedearlier,atEndeavorHigh,clothingdeterminesstatus,andclothingbrandsareusedassocial anchors to describe characters. Callie describes her boyfriend not by his height nor the colorof his eyes, but by the brands he wears: Lee had on this Abercrombie jacket he likes a lot that looksreally good on him. . . Sometimes I worried that, with his designer clothes and perfect body, Leestotally out of my league and it was only a matter of time before he realized it (Kantor, 2009: 91).Aside from her tenuous affiliation with the I-Girls, Callie is friends with Amanda and, in contrast tothe fashionably-branded I-Girls, Amanda is a non-conformist, described as wearing non-branded, vin-tage clothing. Amandas frequently changing and decidedly alternative styles range from Americanpioneergirl:[Amanda]waswearingsomethinginherhairthatmadeitlookasifshedgrownawaist-length ponytail overnight, and her dress, with its puffy sleeves and lace edging, definitely lookedlike it was out of another century (Kantor, 2009: 60), to punk rocker: . . . her big eyes, heavily out-lined in black to match the rest of her Patti Smith punk-rocker look. . . (2009: 85), to hippie: Aman-das hair was long and straight, parted in the middle, and she was wearing a headband with a peacesymbol in the center of it around her forehead, and a long-fringed, beaded shirt (2009: 181).The website design (see Figure 5) echoes elements of the book design, with a photograph thatfeatures a girl with her face obscured on the front page. A YouTube video on the site with femalevoiceovers interpellates prospective readers, encouraging them to read the books, learn more aboutthe characters on the website, and even write a story which, if it is good enough, will be published.Byparticipatingon thesite,teenscanacquire culturalcapitalbyposting smart,clever, or snarkycomments read by other members of The Amanda Project community. Readers can contribute theirownstories, plotlines, andartwork, anddiscuss(andcreate) potential fatesfor Amanda, andHarperCollins plans topublishstorylines contributedbyreaders (Deahl, 2009). Aside fromposting Amanda-related drawings and poems and posting answers to book-related clues on the site,the site has a significant focus on consumption and branding. Users can enter the Amanda brand,byparticipatinginacompetitiontodesignanoutfit for Amanda(seeFigure6) byusingnew60 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)clothing from a vintage-inspired store called Modcloth, almost like dressing a virtual paper doll.Crossing boundaries between fiction and reality, the image in Figure 6 was allegedly posted by acharacter from the book, Cornelia, who is little sister to Hal, and the alleged creator of The AmandaProjectwebsite.Figure 4. Front cover of the first book in The Amanda Project series: The AmandaProject: Invisible i. (Repro-duced with kind permission of Fourth Story Media)Martens 61As withtheextensiveTwilight licensing, this series offers anidentitythat is availableforpurchase. Users can buy accessories inspired by Amanda, such as a wallet, headband,eye-glasses, gloves, a scarf, and jewelry. There is a link to the Modcloth store (in case users want toconform to Amandas non-conformist style) and an iMix playlist with the kind of music Amandamightenjoy. AcloserlookatFigure6showsthatCorneliaisadaringshopper, freelymixingclothing from mass-market retailers like H&M with designer logos like Emilio Pucci, while at thesametimehelpingtomarketthesebrandstoreaders.The hypercommercialismin and around the series is evident to at least one adult reviewer in KirkusReviews: The ending has no resolutions for any of the story lines, which bodes well for the series butnot for frustratedreaders whohave sat through300pages toget there. . .Abaldlypredatoryattempt toget intoteens wallets (Kirkus reviewat B&N.com, n.d.). Accordingtothe website, this series is aimedat girls ages 13-and-up, and the terms of use for the Amanda Project are very clearly stated:YoucontinuetoownallrightstothematerialwhichyouuploadyourselftoTAP,providedthat,byuploading any content to TAP, you automatically grant us a perpetual license to use, redact, republish,copy,perform,sublicense,anddistributeyourcontent,includinganyintellectualpropertycontainedFigure 5. The Amanda Project website (The Amanda Project, n.d. Reproduced with kind permission of FourthStory Media)62 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)therein, in any medium now known or hereinafter developed without payment or compensation to youand without seeking any further approval from you. (The Amanda Project.com, n.d. Emphasis is mine)Inotherwords,HarperCollinsisfreetoprofitfrombooks containing user-generatedcontent thatiscontributed by readers without offering them any compensation, and is able to extract economic valueFigure 6. Amandas perfect outfit. (Reproduced with kind permissionof Fourth Story Media)Martens 63from teenage girls surplus labor in a way that is entertaining and seemingly empowering to the teencontributor-readers, while at the same time commodifying these teens and the cultural products createdfor them. Publishers direct communication with teens afforded bythe internet is seductive andempow-ering to the teens. The online labor by the teens (primarily girls) is veiled in activities that are appeal-ing, social, and fun. Examples of the types of participation users can engage in are shown in Figure 7.InadditiontotheactivitiesshowninFigure7, readerscantakequizzes(asontheRandomHouse site, demonstrating their expertise about the book, although unlike at Random House, hereparticipantsdonotearnanything), andentercontests. Whilearguablyteenscanfindagencyinparticipating in various online book-related activities, when they enter publisher-owned sites, suchas The Amanda Project, such agency is limited, as any user-generated content posted in the site isrestricted to that which serves the best interest of the publisher. Rebellious voices such as those thatcreatedtheantifansiteTwilightSucks!(Twilightsucks,n.d.),whichridiculestheTwilightSaga,willnotappearonapublisherssite.UnlikebooksinThe39Cluesseries, TheAmandaProjecthas (so far) not used best-selling authors, and instead is using work-for-hire authors as evidencedby lack of copyright credit to the author. This decision may affect the eventual success of the series.ConclusionDuringapproximately40yearsofYAliterature,teenparticipationinthebookscreatedforthemhas evolved from readers participating in physical, library-based programs mediated by gatekeep-ing arbiters of taste (such as YA librarians), to a virtual disintermediated discourse between teensandpublishersontheinternet.Users of site can participate inthe following: What is involved:Our Stories Users can write their own explanations about what happened toAmanda.Clues Users create and upload their own Amanda-style clues to which otherreaders respond.Zine (named after the highschool in the book)Burning with something to say? Youve found the place to do it postyour short stories, music reviews, film commentaries,foodie rants,advice to the lovelorn, poetry, and anything else you want to write ORyour artwork, photography, drawings, doodles, paintings right here inthe Endeavor High Zine! (The Amanda Project, n.d.).Debate Club Different discussion threads where users can start discussions orparticipate in existing ones.Gallery Users can upload artwork and look at work by others.Shop Users can buy Amanda-relatedproducts or follow links to stores likeModcloth.Figure 7. An analysis of activity on The AmandaProject website64 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)Arguably, the activities on sites such as The Amanda Project are carefully researched to appealto their target users, and as such are immensely entertaining. But as Geer (2007) writes: If we areuneasyabout theeffectsofcorporateinfluenceonchildrenscultureandthetoneofcurrentscholarship on this subject generally ranges from uneasy to appalled we would do well, I think, toresist the interpretive paradigms these corporations offer (2007: 194). Unfortunately, it is virtuallyimpossible to resist these paradigms, as producers of transmedia continue to blur the line betweenproduct and advertising, creator and consumer, while these products become embedded in our livesinnewandunexpectedways.Whileteenscancertainlyenjoyparticipatingoncorporate-ownedwebsites,teensagencyisnotaconsiderationhere,asthesitesarecensoredandmanipulatedinorder to achieve the best possible marketing and branding. This raises the question of who is get-tingmorevalue: teens whoareusingthesites, or publishers whoaregettingfreeconsumerresearch, peer-to-peermarketing, anduser-generatedcontent?Perhapstherecouldbeawaytobring back the idea of Ruth Hill Viguers Not Recommended list, possibly throughnon-commercial,library-based programs with teen participation, to educate teens about the com-mercializationof certainbooks,and perhaps,with teensinvolvement, to expand the selection ofliteraturefromtheloudbooksfueledbymarketingmoneyandelaboratewebsitespushedbypublishersfortheirearningpotential,toquieterbooks,givingavoicetootherauthorswhoarecurrently finding it challenging to find a niche in the literary marketplace. Perhaps it is no coin-cidence that, after the 2010 Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) list was published on the YoungAdult Library Services Association site, a decision was made to change the BBYA list to a BestFiction for Young Adults list (YALSA, n.d.) which to many in the industry signals a reduced pres-ence for the list, and a reduced role for those gatekeeping librarians dedicated to sorting the literaryfrom the mediocre.Notes1. TheLocalMotorschemeinvolved2,000communitymembersinmorethan100countrieswhocreatedover 35,000designs for theRallyFighter car, whichrepresents thefirst car completelydesignedbycrowd-sourceduser-generatedcontent.2. Books Are Fun is a display marketer that sells highly-discounted books via sales representatives in corpo-rations,schools,andotherinstitutions.ReferencesALAAmericanLibraryAssociation(n.d.)URL(accessed28February2010):http://www.ala.org/ALSC Association for Library Service to Children (n.d.) 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URL (accessed 1 July 2010): http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/bestficya/bfyahome.cfmMartens 67ZipesJ(2001)SticksandStones:TheTroublesomeSuccessofChildrensLiteraturefromSlovenlyPetertoHarryPotter.NewYork:Routledge.BiographyMarianne Martens is a doctoral candidate in Library and Information Science at Rutgers, The State Univer-sityofNewJersey.Withabackgroundinpublishing,sheisinterestedinliteraryprizesandreviewsastheintersectionbetweenpublishingandlibrarianshipforyoungadults, focusingonissuesofcommodificationof books for teens, consumption, teens participation in the creation of such literature via online review sites(publisher-ownedandindependent),andfansites,aswellasissuesoftransnationalism.68 Convergence: TheInternational Journal ofResearchintoNewMediaTechnologies17(1)