YRC 38: TOP 11 — Things About The Janus E-store

We at YRC are proud to present to you readers, our Janus E-store.
Recently launched, it is where you can purchase both electronic and hard copies of works written by our Young Authors over the years.
That means you can check out a variety of stories written by under-18s, and maybe get inspired to write your own book (or try out for the next Young Author Awards).
We give you eleven (yes, eleven!) things to know about our Janus E-store, which may be synonymous to eleven reasons why you should check it out and support our Young Authors.
(P.S. You can also purchase previous issues of YRC on the Janus E-store!)

1) Number of Books
Just visit the e-store’s homepage and look at the right column. There are currently 93 titles on the market and ready for purchase, including four genre-specific anthologies (Asian Tales, Tales of Magic & Fantasy, Tales of Mind & Machine, and Tales To Warm Your Heart). This number will increase as we slowly add new titles to the e-store.
Most of the Young Authors featured have been through the Young Author Scheme, others having been finalists of previous Young Author Awards. All have interesting stories to share, so please do visit the Janus E-store to give them your support. Prices start from $0.99 for e-book to $6.99 for paperback.

2) Most Popular Genre
Lovers of tear-jerkers and heart-movers, rejoice. The most popular genre on the Janus E-store (and among our Young Authors) is the ‘Heartwarmers’ genre, the genre that encompasses love stories, tales of friendship, and bittersweet tragedies.
The Young Author Scheme looks at seven genres, with ‘Heartwarmers’ being one of them. The other six are (not in order of popularity) ‘Mystery & Adventure’, ‘Ghosts & Ghouls’, ‘Aliens & Angels’, ‘Asian Tales’, ‘Animal Tales’, and ‘Magic & Fantasy’.
Here are some titles from the ‘Heartwarmers’ department to get you started — The Life In The Old Castle by Gwyneth Low, The Band of Brothers by Muhammad Hasanuddin Bin Mohammad Hanafiah, Through The Stormy Winds by Kimberly Foo, and The Right Thing by Tan Ren Ying.

3) Oldest Story
Our oldest stories on the Janus E-store can be found in our four anthologies (refer to the first point). These stories were written in the late 2000s (most from 2007), and the authors who brought them to life are now either in their late teens or early twenties.
Storyland Adventure is one of our oldest stories on the Janus E-store. It is a twisted fairytale written by Kenrick Lam when he was a primary school student in 2007. Following the trend of modified classics, Storyland Adventure follows the bumbling Mr. Readalot as he travels through the land of fairytales to fight evil and set things right. Storyland Adventure was titled A Jump Into Storyland in the anthology Tales of Magic & Fantasy.
Now 21, Kenrick is pursuing law in a local university. All the best, Kenrick!

4) Oldest Author/s
Our oldest authors on the Janus E-Store can be found in our four anthologies. Let’s point you to one of these authors — Nurul Iiman Binte Said, who wrote The Letter when she was a Primary 5 student in Ang Mo Kio Primary School in 2007. You may have come across Nurul’s story in Issue 7. Nurul was also Featured Author for Issue 12.
This heartwarmer, inspired by the tsunami in 2004, is about a young girl who visited her pen-pal in Indonesia after receiving a letter of distress from her. The Letter was titled Pen-pal in Peril in the anthology Asian Tales.
Nurul, 20, is currently doing her polytechnic studies; she took up a course in communications to pursue journalism. Good on you, Nurul!

5) Youngest Author/s
The Young Authors who came in after our Young Author Awards this year are among our youngest authors on the Janus E-store. Most of them are either in Primary 5 or Primary 6.
Dylan Gan Shi Han from Meridian Primary School is one of them; he was in Primary 4 when he joined the Junior Young Author Scheme (JYAS) at his school in 2015. The story he wrote under the Scheme, entitled Back In Time, made him a finalist at the Young Author Awards 2015/2016. He is currently in Primary 5.
Dylan’s story Back In Time is a time-travelling adventure about a young boy who gets flung back in time and finds himself caught up in a medieval war.

6) Longest Story
In 2015, one of the longest stories we have ever seen made its way on the list of finalists during the Young Author Awards. Entitled Jack & Jill, it was a tri-collaborative mystery tale penned by a trio of primary school students from Catholic High.
These students were Russell Ng, Caleb Loh (who has another mystery story on the Janus E-store — Detective Addison and the Smuggler’s Murder), and Rafael Soh.
The number of pages in Jack & Jill? Approximately 280. That is an estimated 84,000 words.
This story, coupled with loads of online research on military history, was about a group of detectives working together to solve a mystery. While facing many red herrings and attempts on their lives, the detectives had to work together despite their different backgrounds.
However, while Jack & Jill is the longest story on the Janus E-store, it is not the only story spanning at least a hundred pages. Way back in 2007, Jennifer Yip wrote her dystopian novel Above Ground, Under Ground, which had 68,000 words over 140 pages.

7) Book Trailers
Some of our Young Authors submitted their personally made book trailers to help promote their stories. Book trailers are little digital videos, posted with the purpose of promoting their respective titles. In short, they are the book versions of movie trailers — moving images, music, voice-overs, cliff-hangers, similar packaging.
The Young Authors were free to do whatever they liked with their videos, so we got an interesting variety from those who submitted. Some did a vlog about their book, while others read out excerpts. There were a few who turned to visual effects and animation for their trailers.
You can click on an author’s page on the Janus E-store to see their book trailer; take a look at the book trailers for Julianna Blas’s Waiting For Arthur, Zjayanhi Johan-Kang’s The Dragon Apocalypse, and Nicholas Tan’s Doodle.
(Note: Some of the authors do not have book trailers. So if you see an author’s page with no book trailer, it is perfectly fine.)

8) Exploring Our Roots
One of the books to look out for on our Janus E-store is our book project for the Singapore Memory Project, Heritage Journeys: No Place Like Serangoon Gardens.
Launched in 2015 at the Young Author Awards 2014/2015, the book comprised six Young Authors who banded together to record the sights and sounds of Serangoon Gardens, past and present.
These Young Authors were Sophie Tan (Artificial Fire), Wong Zi Ling (The Prophecy), Ron Yap (Marilette), Athena Tan (a former YRC contributor), Eliora Joseph (The Mystery of the Glowing Skulls and Safe And Sound), and Lee Tat Wei (Chains of Fate), some of whose works can be found on the Janus E-store.
If you are looking for something more personal, look inside the photo-story of Izzati, an endearing young woman diagnosed with a chronic bone condition. She shares her life experiences through her love for photography in Izzati: My Amazing Journey, which was launched in 2014 at the Young Author Awards 2013/2014.
If you want to write a book like No Place Like Serangoon Gardens or Izzati: My Amazing Journey, check out Point 9 to see how!

9) LEARN Programmes
The LEARN Programmes are an exclusive item on the Janus E-store; they are like the Young Author Scheme, but covering more than just fiction. These are special writing courses for aspiring authors, whether they are under or way over the age of 18. There are currently four courses (with more to be added in the future), so feel free to take your pick if you want to take that book-writing plunge.
These four courses are: Wicked Witty Women! (women from all walks of life are welcome to write and share!), Young Author Club (to kickstart your junior writing ventures), Amazing Journeys (express your wanderlust through words, visit other countries, and share your experiences!), and Heritage Journeys (No Place Like Serangoon Gardens was just the beginning; how will you tell your tale of life in Singapore?).

10) Going International
In 2013, we travelled to Manila, Philippines to conduct our first Young Author Scheme overseas. The course was well-received and we got a full class of expressive youngsters brimming with story ideas.
This was an optimistic sign of fulfilling one of our big dreams — to bring our courses overseas and help children all over the world express themselves through creative writing.
Five of these YAS students became finalists in the Young Author Awards 2013/2014. And out of those five, one moved on to win Second Place — Julianna Blas, with her moving war story Waiting For Arthur. The other four finalists were Teresa Iyog, Vito Martin, Marco Ayala, and Sijbren Kramer.
You can find three titles written by our friends from the Philippines on the Janus E-store — Waiting For Arthur, A Snow Leopard’s Journey (by Teresa Iyog), and The Archangels (by Vito Martin). Sijbren Kramer’s The Sleepwalker can be found in Issues 34 and 35 of YRC.

11) User-Friendly Buying
Buying a title on the Janus E-store is simple, thanks to the wonders of cyber service. Not only can you click and drop titles into your shopping cart, you can also opt for delivery (at an affordable extra charge) or pick-up from our office in Waterloo Centre.
Also, you can purchase titles as gifts for your loved ones — very apt for the holiday season, and a good opportunity to give something nice to your reader friends!
Not only that, if you do not feel satisfied with your purchase, you can always cancel your order. Plus, keep your eyes peeled for coupons and discounts you can use to save on purchases.
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Check out the Janus E-store at http://www.catherinekhoo.sg/estore and show your support! You can also visit Bookmate and Google Books; our Young Authors’ stories are also there.