Virtual epitexts in the dissemination of children’s books: Toward an analytical model for author websites

Abstract

Summary: Author websites form a corpus of epitexts (Lluch et al., 2015) that in the context of the knowledge society need to be studied to identify how authors present and disseminate their books and promote reading on the social web. The aim of the research is to identify the key aspects for an analytical model for the websites of authors of children’s books. To this end, from within the portal Picturebook Makers, we selected the websites of three authors: Oliver Jeffers, Isol and Manuel Marsol. We analysed these websites using a selection of three of parameters. The results show that this virtual public epitext is in some cases an adaptation of analogue models of dissemination, while in others, such as the site of Jeffers, it leans toward a transmedia discourse in which the book-trailer is an essential tool for promoting the work. Keywords: Virtual Public Epitext, author websites, picture book, book-trailer, transmedia