Best practices for creating effective online components for your book titles that help maximize reader involvement, develop communities and boost sales.

By James Sturdivant

The “Harry Potter” site (Scholastic.com/HarryPotter) even offers a downloadable countdown clock that ticks off the seconds until the July release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

Devotees of Scholastic’s recently released “Main Street” book series can take a virtual tour of the books’ locale, Camden Falls, to meet characters, do scrapbooking and send e-postcards. Other Scholastic Web sites feature games, author interviews, polls and downloadable screen savers. Message boards for kids, parents and teachers abound.

“We really let the book lead the way,” points out Suzanne Murphy, vice president of marketing at Scholastic. “We spend a lot of time stylizing the Web areas to the look and feel of the books.”

Scholastic worked closely with “Main Street” author Ann M. Martin to create a site (Scholastic.com/MainStreet) rich with the character and community feel of the books, which follow the adventures of two orphans who move to a new town to live with their grandmother. Aimed at girls aged 8 to 12, the site was set up to provide “a place for girls to go in between books to live in the world of ‘Main Street’,” according to Murphy.

A key component of the site is its adaptability; as more books are released, new activities will be added to reflect the evolution of the characters and their experiences. This fall, the site’s focus will shift to the girls starting school, coinciding with both a plot line and real-life back-to-school time for readers; the same synergy is planned for the holiday season. The plot of a book to be released next year will feature a book club in which the main characters participate—and the Web site will feature a book club as well in which visitors can participate.

“We want to give kids a reason to come back by making it richer and richer as the series is published,” Murphy explains.