Frank Portman, aka Dr Frank of the punk band The Mr T Experience, published his first YA novel this year. King Dork is made for YA Lit 2.0. The story itself generates a reading list, a discography, and a glossary. The book cried out for a soundtrack as well, and Dr Frank was kind enough to oblige.

Site: http://frankportman.com/

Blog: http://www.doktorfrank.com/

Myspace: http://myspace.com/doctorfrank

1. I noticed that, while most books have playlists of songs, King Dork has its own discography that includes entire albums. Why is this? Is it a reflection of the importance music has to you?

Music is certainly important to me, but the discography has more to do with the narrator than me. Like a lot of people, teenagers perhaps especially but not exclusively, Tom uses his knowledge and appreciation of various strains of rock music as a way distancing himself from the rest of the world, which he feels has rejected him. So he has the habit of alluding to albums by name without mentioning the artist. If you have to ask, he is implying, who recorded Tyranny and Mutation, we probably would have little to talk about anyway. But I knew that a lot of Tom's references would be obscure to many readers, even in our Google Age, so I though I'd give them a hand with it.

2. When you wrote King Dork, did you think about how you could “enhance” it, with the discography, the reading list, the glossary, etc., or was that suggested to you later? What made you decide to create these enhancements?

It may sound pretentious but it's true: the whole complex of Tom Henderson's character and his musical references grew organically. All I was thinking about while writing was "jeez, am I ever actually going to finish this thing?" I had no plans. However, as the story sort of "grew," and Tom started mentioning songs and bands and albums, I did start to make a Tom Henderson playlist on my iPod. I used to listen to it on random and at max volume while I was editing, and it really did help me get into the right frame of mind.

The same thing happened with the reading list. I re-read those books along with Tom. He is deliberately obscure about some of them, so I though it might be helpful to put more info on the web in the end.

The glossary was suggested by my editor, and I guess I was a bit influenced by the glossaries in the Louise Rennison books. Once I decided to include phonetic mispronunciations it all fell into place, and it was great fun writing it.

3. How do teens respond to these enhancements? When you do appearances & receive email or comments, do teens comment on your blog, your website, the discography & reading list, etc? ( I know the book hasn't been out long, so maybe you haven't had time to get a lot of feedback)

As you say, the book has only been out for a month. Still I think little extras are always fun and always appreciated. Especially if they're free. I did worry that there might be a chance that people would get fatigued after 300+ pages of Tom Henderson, but that hasn't been the case so far. The songs are the most easily accessible, I suppose, and a lot of people like them, both the recordings and the live versions I play at "appearances." Reading whole books requires more effort, of course, but I have received quite a few emails from kids who have taken Tom's advice and picked up Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. And that's all to the good.

4. How do you see teens using the discography? What effects do you hope it has on their reading experience? How do you think you would have responded as a teen if these kinds of materials have been available for your favorite book/author?

Well, I would have really loved it if Robert Cormier, Ray Bradbury, Daniel Pinkwater, Philip K. Dick, Ellen Raskin, or PG Wodehouse had each had a rock band and recorded songs and posted stuff about their books. Of course. When I discovered the PG Wodehouse cabaret/musical songs when I was a kid I was over the moon. How come they don't tell you about that on the book covers, I thought.

It is so much easier to augment a book these days, to append content. I'm surprised more people don't do more of it, because it's fun.

5. I noticed you’ve been keeping a blog for quite a while & seem to blog regularly. What inspires you to keep blogging? Has your blog changed since King Dork was published? Is using technology to promote your book different from using it to promote your music?

I started my blog in November of 2001 in order to participate in the cultural dialog about 9/11. My interest in it has ebbed and flowed since then. I always mention focus on what I'm doing at the time. In 2001 I was obsessing about the idea of being blown up by terrorists. A couple of years later I was recording an album and I wrote a studio journal on it, documenting how my obsessive-compulsive disorder expressed itself in the context of recording a rock and roll album.

Now with the book, I'm posting a lot about the book, naturally. I suppose it's promotion in a way, but I don't think of it that way, at least, not mainly. I think of it as fun. A lot of cool stuff is happening, and it's great that I get to share it with people. My favorite thing lately is that people started sending me photos of themselves reading the book. I started posting them on the blog, sparking more people to do it. Now I've got a great little collection going. I doubt it "moves any units," but it is fun and that's the main point for me.

6. Do you enjoy adding to your books (and your music) in this way, or would you rather concentrate on writing/playing? It seems like you have a lot of fun with it (I check out the myspace for YA lit/authors occasionally & have noticed your posts) but that it’s also time consuming.

LIke anything else, it's fun till it starts to seem like work. Then you tend to let it drop. That happens to me all the time. I'm having a great time now, and I'm keeping up with it pretty well. I have to admit, though, that every minute I spend blogging and being a media whore is a minute not spent on writing my second novel. At some point, I'll have to even out that ratio, or the novel may never get finished. I am not all that well-organized. Still, I managed to write one book in my spare time, so it is possible.

7. Finally, why bother with all this? Isn’t the book the most important thing?

It's fun to do; and it helps draw attention to the book. The book is important but there's not much point if no one reads it. There are so many books out there, and so much "content" to distract people, that sometimes you have to dance a bit to attract attention. But like I said before, it wouldn't be worth it (nor would it really work, I suspect) if it wasn't fun in the first place.

Frank Portman to Anita Beaman

May 10, 2006