Canada.com reports on Indigo bookstores’ technique of using a ten-member teen advisory panel to screen prerelease books. The teens are essential to deciding what is stocked on the shelves.
“Indigo’s junior advisory board, in its second year of operation, is what a focus group would look like on steroids. The kids have more influence, a greater hand in the business, and get more compensation for their time — in this case, a $1,000 gift card, an iPod Mini, a trip to Toronto and their own personalized section in Chapters and Indigo stores across the country.
A youth-oriented retail website is also in the works to help meet the needs of this growing audience.
This year, retail of kids books is up 37.6 per cent, with the biggest growth showing up in the nine- to 16-age segment.
Remove Harry Potter from the equation and sales in that category are still up an impressive 21 per cent.”
Whoa! That is impressive! I wonder how libraries are reacting to this boom in teen publishing. Are they boosting their purchases in that section? I know that for me there have been a lot more books for me to choose from, so I end up purchasing more for the teens. Teen advisory boards have been a part of teen services in public libraries for awhile, but again, I wonder how much of their advice is taken on purchasing questions rather than programming.