Summer Scares 2021 Programming Guide Available Now!

The wait is over and the program is about to kick into high gear. Today, we announce the Summer Scares 2021 Programming Guide. 

Quick reminder, Summer Scares is a reading program that provides professionally vetted Horror titles for all ages that libraries can use with confidence in their Summer Reading Plans in particular and all year long in general. It is brought to you by the Horror Writers Association, Book Riot, Booklist and United for Libraries with promotional assists from The Ladies of the Fright Podcast and The Springfield-Greene County Library whose staff have put together the programming guide. Speaking of the guide....

Click here or on the cover of this PDF above. This guide is completely free. 100%. Always. You can access the guide and other marketing materials and information about Summer Scares on the resource page. You can also access the archive there and use last year's guide. Since we use backlist [but not too old] titles, previous guides are just as useful as this year's. 

Each book gets its own page in the guide. I have included a screen shot of the page for Kathe Koja's The Cipher below as an example of what has been created for each book.

In particular, I am a big fan of the "Booktalk This Book" section because it means you don't have to have read the book to hand-sell it to readers.

Get people excited about Horror RIGHT NOW as we are approaching the "Halfway to Halloween" point [April 30]. Between this year and last year's guides and the read-alikes for each title, you can fill an entire display for all ages of readers in minutes.

You can even use our art. Click here to download the logo. Or print out the PDF and use the cover on your display. 

Stay tuned for more Summer Scares information coming soon. Sign up for the 5th Annual HWA Librarians' Day to see the debut of three pre-taped panels with our Summer Scares 2021 authors. Those will also be put up on the HWA's YouTube page for free on 5/23 after StokerCon ends. Libraries can use these recorded panels to show to their patrons if they would like. They would be especially useful paired with a book discussion of the books and a virtual appearance by one of our authors.

This guide and Horror in general, is a great tool all year long.

And please remember, as I always say.... Your Horror readers are not monsters; they just like to read about them. Not get out there and start the haunting.