I just finished reading the article about the Twilight book series on our syllabus. I have to make a few things clear, first. I am very irritable when it comes to these books, primarily because of the hype. A lot of the time when things hype-up and I was not a part of them from the beginning, I never want to be. Not to mention they cast the two actors that make me cringe to play the lead roles! I also am not a big romance fan. I hate to sound so cynical but I really can not help how I feel!Reading the article though has really made me appreciate Stephenie Meyer. She was once just a stay at home mom, and now she is probably a millionaire. What I really liked about the article was reading how in-touch Meyer is with her fan base. The article reads "She set up StephenieMeyer.com, a more personal site that revealed aspects of her life, including pictures and stories about her family and her Mormon upbringing. More important, she directly engaged with her readers. When fans posted messages, Meyer's response was personal. She'd write back or blog about it" (Carpenter, 2008. LATimes). This quote shows how engaged she is with her readers and fans, and I think that is great. Perhaps if I were teaching this novel or teaching a novel with an author who was this engaged, I would encourage my students to write to her/him, or maybe write one whole e-mail as a class. It would be really neat to have them contact them or be contacted back. Or at the very least, have the students check out that author's blog.
I think that it is key to identify with your readers. I think a lot of authors go unnoticed for the most part because of the fact that they don't have a personal website, or that they don't even respond to their fans. I know that Stephenie Meyer probably has a million fans or more now, but I still think it is great that she talks to her fans and responds to them. I have been on her personal website and it is refreshing. I have to admit I read the books and have all the movies on DVD, but I don't think it's because of the hype. I definitely got into it before it blew up into this huge phenomenon. It's a good book, but I think the older you get, the less you enjoy it. It does talk about normal teenage occurrences like falling in love, getting your heart broken, trying to fit in and so forth, so I think it is good to read, but I've read better Vampire books.
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