Words At Large

The people behind Spinebreakers are also keen to include content from the ‘community’ of teenagers who visit the site, though that appears to be still in the early stages.

“We knew that we as an industry were failing to reach teenagers via traditional methods of marketing,” Anna Rafferty, director of digital marketing for Penguin U.K., explained in an email. “We believe that there are some teens who want more - they want the niche experience of an enthusiast - they want a book community online for themselves and their peers.”

To that end, Spinebreakers has a bit of a rock n roll edge to it, as you might expect of a site called, well, Spinebreakers. There are cheeky profiles of the teenaged editors, for instance. It is, though, quite professionally executed, thanks to a group of professionals in journalism and web design, which offers guidance.

Beyond being a cool website, the very existence of Spinebreakers amounts to a recognition that the way younger people use media is different.

In my job as a technology columnist and as the host of Spark on CBC Radio, I’ve heard many times about the way the culture of media is changing. It’s partly that young people want to have a participatory role in the culture around them, whether that’s commenting on videos uploaded to YouTube or writing alternative endings to books.

Beyond that, the so-called “Generation M,” people who have grown up in a world of Internet culture, multitasking and multiple points of view, may also want to see that reflected in book culture. So, yes, they want the book, but perhaps they also want the drawings and the alternate endings and the interviews to create a more dispersed and multi-layered experience.

Spinebreakers is also an example of the way advertising is changing in a digital environment more generally. The holy grail for marketers has long been a community of loyal users of a product or service who can create word-of-mouth buzz. The kind of participatory online communities that ‘Web 2.0’ allows for are perfect for that.

Consider, for instance, how effective a social networking site such as MySpace has been in creating communities of music fans, linked through their interest in particular bands. Of course, for this kind of ‘soft’ marketing to work, it needs to be authentic. People in digital marketing will often point out that if you respect your customer and community, they’ll spread the word better than an ad ever could. It’s not a matter of making people think you care about the community of their opinions and points of view, it’s a matter or, well, actually caring.

Although Spinebreakers as a project features only Penguin U.K. books, there isn’t a ‘hard sell’ around the books.

According to Rafferty, the publisher pitches books to the teens every month: “Editorial representatives get to present titles to the editors in the same way that we would to magazine editors or even book buyers, and the teens decide what they're interested in. We want this to be a credible community, not just a Penguin mouthpiece, so it's essential to hand over control in this way.”

Ideally, a true community of book lovers would include more than just Penguin books, but Spinebreakers certainly offers more opportunity for engagement and critique than many older readers had as teenagers.

Personally, as a teenager I would have loved the opportunity to explore books in a community like this, just as long as I could still have the private experience of exploring a book in my mind. Flashlight and book under the covers, anyone?

Spark airs on CBC Radio One on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. (12 NT) and Saturdays at 4 p.m. (4:30 NT).