From the Newsarama coverage of the lovely Cecil Castellucci, Jim Rugg and DC's Shelly Bond (Minx's founding editor) at a recent Comic Con panel on The Plain Janes and the Minx line, moderated by Gayley Carillo, DC Comics’ Director of Marketing:

Carillo added that the DC sales force is working with book chains to be sure that the Minx books will be placed where the target audience will find them, whether that is in the Young Adult section or the Graphic Novel section, or both. Everybody involved wants to be sure that the books are not lost in the shuffle.

You do not want these books only in the Graphic Novel section of any big bookstore. They will be lost - I guarantee it. Have you see these sections? They are usually three or four shelves (maybe) of very skinny books lined up in alphabetical order by title or author (depending on what the employee was thinking the day they were shelved.) There is often a display shelf up top but it has either all manga or all superhero - again, depending on the employee who deals with the section. A small narrow book is going to be lost. Plus, the only people who go to the GN section are already GN fans - they are looking for something specific, like a new title in their favorite manga series. What DC really needs to get is YA readers who don't know about graphic novels - you want these books in the YA section, I promise. Odds are the manga fans are already surfing comics' sites anyway to keep up on new releases; they already know that The Plain Janes is coming.

The panelists hope that the books will get into librarians’ and teachers’ hands. This is a new demographic for DC, and they are going to ALA shows where the reception to Plain Janes was “wonderful.” They said that there is a need for a forum to create a dialogue about how to create a stronger connection with educators in general.

Umm, maybe I'm going to sound crazy here but have they thought about the internet? Just off the top of my head, have they considered sending ARCs to Fuse #8 (librarian in NYC), Bookshelves of Doom (librarian in Maine), Big A Little A (Lang prof and editor of the monthly online children's book journal, The Edge of the Forest, Kids Lit, the blog for the Green Lake Library, A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy (Liz is another librarian), Planet Esme (do I even have to explain who this is?) and I don't know - maybe Little Willow - who actually works at a bookstore!

My point, and yes - I know I'm being catty - is that if you want to reach the librarians or the bookstores then really, invest a bit of time in the kidlitosphere. We're talking tens of thousands of readers a month for these blogs alone (hell, I get thousands of readers a month just here at Chasing Ray and Bookslut - well Bookslut is freaking stratospheric but everyone already knew that), and if DC wants to get the word out then it wouldn't hurt if they went to the folks who will be ordering and shelving and recommending.

I'm just saying, we're here and getting to know us might be a good idea. (After all - we already know who Cecil is; half the battle is won for DC before they even start!) I really want this line to succeed; I love comics and I love my local comic shop (which is on the other side of the country but still). I want the Minx line to fly off the shelves and into the hearts and minds of teen girls everywhere and I really really hope that DC sells it the best way they can.