MLA Session: MN Writes MN Reads: Tips for Connecting with Writers

I attended this session at MLA this year. It was the last session of the day and of the 2018 conference. My feet were tired, I was tired but I am so glad I went to this session! Ruth Dukelow, Sarah Hawkins, and Andrea McKennan perked me right up. Their session was informative and they had a lot of creative ideas for outreach and using the Pressbooks tool to create a perfectly formatted ebook.

MN Writes MN Reads works in three ways: Create, Share, Read. The creation of ebooks happens in Pressbooks which provides a template to upload a book and make it readable and look polished. There are a variety of export options for the formatted manuscript. Authors can stop right there and they will have a formatted ebook they can use however they choose. They can also go the next step which is to share the book on SELF-e in the statewide collection and possible national collection. Once it has been shared it becomes accessible on the Biblioboard platform for others to discover and read.

That was a quick and dirty review of working with MN Writes MN Reads. Ruth, Sarah, and Andrea shared their information on working with writers and how some libraries have promoted the program. Self-publishing is booming and this gives libraries an opportunity to be involved. They like MN Writes MN Reads because it gives them a way to connect with local authors, highlight their works, and give readers access to local content. It expands the role of libraries as places of content creators, not just consumers. It also gives libraries the ability to serve as archives of community history – content that may not be picked up by a publisher but is still relevant.

For writers, Pressbooks can be a stand alone tool but still may have value to them. Writers retain all rights to shared titles and most are selling the books elsewhere. They can include a link to purchase the book in print from within the Biblioboard platform.

Ruth, Sarah, and Andrea highlighted Lake Superior College’s resource guide to Pressbooks: http://lsc.lib.minnstate.edu/subjects/guide.php?subject=Pressbooks. The guide walks users through how to get started including a link to the Pressbooks User Guide, https://guide.pressbooks.com/. They also highlighted Two Harbors Public Library’s blog post, http://www.twoharborspubliclibrary.com/mn-writes-mn-reads/, as a way to promote the program to the library community.

Sarah talked about how at East Central Regional Library they will promote authors in their community by sending out a tweet with a direct link to an author’s book for their patrons to check out what they’re doing. If an author lists them as their library they get a notification. Other ways Sarah has promoted Pressbooks is by connecting with writing groups in their region. One of the groups she has worked with have one published book so far, Gateway to Imagination by Dale Kuzel. Sarah states that everyone in your library that is public service staff should at least be aware of Pressbooks and recommends library’s identify an expert on MN Writes MN Reads so staff know who they can refer questions to.

They gave a long list of project ideas for libraries including:

• Compilation of student work
• Anthologies by community groups
• Annual journals or other curated content
• National Novel Writing Month, https://nanowrimo.org/
• Conference proceedings
• Gifts
• Visual works – photos, scanned letters, drawing
• Family histories, diaries, letters
• Library history, local histories

Finally, Ruth talked about her experience creating and publishing her own book about letters from her grandmother to her aunt: Atwater Minnesota: 1934-1935 by Ruth Stafford. She talked about the process of collecting and uploading letters and photos. The letters show a unique view of a Minnesota family living through the Great Depression. Ruth organized her book into five parts to go through the five seasons. She mentioned the tool is flexible enough, you could keep organizing and reorganizing as much as you want. Editing the chapters is easy as well – copy/paste word files, then clean up and add photos. If you have experience in Wordpress it makes working in Pressbooks much easier. For someone with no experience at all, she suggested a Wordpress training course from Lynda.com. The cover generator helped make an eye-catching cover which is something that represents the book content and looks good. Ruth recommended trying the tool out for yourself to see how easy it is to create.