NetGalley loves librarians!

A special note to all the wonderful librarians using NetGalley…This week we’re celebrating our love of librarians with a special giveaway!

 

REFER-A-FRIEND CONTEST, librarian-style!

The contest is easy, the rewards delicious. Check your email inbox for an email from me about this contest. Just forward that email to a librarian friend and tell them why you think they should join NetGalley. Make sure to CC me when you email your friend, so that I can tell if your friend registers for NetGalley. If they do, then you’ll be entered into our giveaway drawing, for a chance to win the books featured in our Food & Cooking Titles newsletter.

WIN THIS YUMMY BUNDLE OF BOOKS:

• Mother’s Best: Comfort Food that Takes You Home Again by Lisa Schroeder and Danielle Centoni. Read more 
• How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking by Michael Psilakis. Read more
• Absolutely Chocolate: Irresistible Excuses to Indulge by Editors of Fine Cooking Magazine. Read more
• Cake Keeper Cakes: 100 Simple Recipes for Extraordinary Bundt Cakes, Pound Cakes, Snacking Cakes, and Other Good-to-the-last-Crumb Treats by Lauren Chattman. Read more
• DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel. Read more

Feel free to send the email to all your librarian friends at other branches or other libraries – each one who joins NetGalley is another chance for you to win. And don’t worry, we respect your privacy. We will not contact any of your friends unless they choose to join (and even then, it’ll just be our friendly Welcome email).

One more thing…

We want to make it easy for you to get invites, and some publishers using NetGalley want to reach out to librarians specifically. So please update your profile and choose an Association (ex: American Library Association) so that publishers can find you that way and you won’t miss out!

Speaking of ALA: Look for me at THE GREAT ALA MIDWINTER KIDS/YA LIT TWEET-UP on January 16 in Boston! More details here: http://alakidyalittweetup.eventbrite.com/

I hope you’ll forward the email to your librarian friends & ask them to join NetGalley (just don’t forget to CC me on the email!). And if you somehow didn’t get my email, let me know: lindsey [dot] rudnickas [at] netgalley [dot] com.

I’ll announce the winner at the end of this week. Thanks again for using NetGalley!

All best,

Lindsey, your friendly Digital Concierge at NetGalley

PS: Special thanks to The Taunton Press and Little, Brown and Co. for providing the giveaway books!

#FollowReader: Poetry in Digital Age (Summary + Transcript)

Last Friday’s (November 6, 2009) #FollowReader was really fun and interesting. Dominique Raccah and Guy LeCharles Gonzales were our special guests and the topic was poetry in the Digital Age.

Dominique recently publicly launched the new online poetry site, PoetrySpeaks.com. It’s an incredibly cool venture, offering something for everyone: poets, readers, and publishers alike.

We began the discussion with a simple question, “Is poetry experiencing a renaissance?” As always with #FollowReader chats, the answers were varied, and sometimes polarizing, but for the most part, there seemed to be more of us in agreement that the Internet and digital publishing options present a real opportunity for poetry to become a much more vital part of everyone’s daily lives.

Some of the many interesting tweets are featured below, but I highly encourage you all to check out the transcript of the entire chat (click here), as the conversations were quite thought-provoking, and a lot of great information was shared including a LOT of great suggestions from #followreaders about their favorite poets and poems.

On whether or not poetry is undergoing a renaissance:

do you believe poetry is enjoying a renaissance? Great question! Yes, I do. In fact, suspect all arts r enjoying new audiences  Posted by draccah

Poetry renaissance? Not yet, but I think people are more receptive to poetry than they have been in a while. Posted by glecharles

On PoetrySpeaks.com:

I’m hoping to create a space where everyone is included and I think the traditional poets will buy into it  book publishers have 2 change. At 1 point I said to someone: we’re all start-ups now; just some of us don’t know it yet Posted by draccah

I love that @poetryspeaks makes room for ‘print’, audio and vis. Room for poems anyway they’re made & experienced. Posted by TomThompsonOn what the Internet and digital tools means to poetry and poets:

The internet brings over-gentrification of many mediums. I don’t like to see it happening to poetry. Not to be pretentious.Posted by PagestoPixels

poetry seems ideal for transmedia – poem, to performance, to film/animation/to audio/music. Posted by KatMeyer

On poetry’s “marketing problem”:

Who cares what “the traditional poetry world” thinks? They haven’t done the best job of making poetry relevant.Posted by glecharles

Re: bad poetry marketing. Lib budgets 4 poetry are pretty much nonexistent. Need ‘em back on shelves!Posted by hmccormack

I’d love to buy more poetry for the library, but it doesn’t circulate.Posted by lbgilbert

RT @draccah: there r real problems w poetry books (why sales r small): People r intimidated by poetry; dont know how 2 read itby lindseylochner

@draccah I think when someone reads a poem they can understand, it helps them imagine there might be others. #followreaderPosted by littlefluffycat

The Invasion of the Bookish Apps

Lately there’s been a lot of hubbub surrounding the emergence of  “book as app.”

Sure it sounds exciting, but is the book app here to stay, or merely the current IT GIRL in publishing’s endless search for the next big thing? What can an app do that a book can’t? Is an app inherently better than other ways of experiencing book content?

Well, that depends. The short answer might be: maybe and sometimes, and if the two companies profiled below are any indication of what book apps can be, then I’d be willing to wager that the book as app is here to stay.

the VOOK
Yey! Another silly name for a digital publishing offering! Though, in all fairness, the Vook was the Vook before the nook was the nook.  Anyway, what exactly is a vook?

In the words of Vook’s VP of Marketing and Brand Director, Matthew Cavnar, “A vook is a new innovation that blends a book with videos into one complete story. Vooks are currently available in a browser based version and as an application for your iPhone or iPod touch.”

(Editor’s Note: So, it’s acutally not just an iphone app, as it’s also available via the world wide web – and this blows my whole “books as apps” approach to this article, but whatever. It’s still an app, too.)

Vook launched its first titles with Simon and Schuster and recently released Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! with Harper Studio. Relationships with other publishers are underway.  Beyond the very cool multimedia features of vooks, a notably appealing feature of currently available vooks are their price tags. HarperStudio has priced both browser based and iphone app versions of the Crush It! vook at $11.99.

Simon and Schuster has priced each of their five currently available vooks (three lifestyle titles, as well as Promises by romance author Jude Deveraux, and the thriller Embassy by Richard Doetsch) at $6.99. Neither publisher is offering their vook titles as bundled content with ebooks or printed versions of the books, though HarperStudio considered it, and may bundle future titles.

This Friday, #FollowReader is Waxing Poetic!

Is the digital age welcoming in a new poetry renaissance? That will be the topic of discussion on Friday’s #FollowReader TwitChat. Join Dominique Raccah-publisher for SourceBooks and creator of the newly-launched site PoetrySpeaks.com; along with Guy LeCharles Gonzales of LoudPoet.com, and me as we talk about what the World Wide Web might mean for the world of poetry.

Some probable topics of discussion:

• Why PoetrySpeaks, and why now?
• Can the web (and PoetrySpeaks.com in particular) fix the “problems” poetry has faced in the past (notably: discoverability and the intimidation factor)?
• Has the poetry community and/or ecosystem changed since the rise of the Internet? Are poets and poetry lovers the better, or the worse for it?
• And much, much more–As always with #followreader, one never knows quite where the conversation will take us)!

So, hope you can join us Friday, November 6th at 4pm ET. If you have a chance and want to get up to speed, you can: Learn more about PoetrySpeaks.com:

• Wall Street Journal blog post about PoetrySpeaks.com
• Fantastic demo of PoetrySpeaks

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Learn more about our guests:

• Dominique Raccah
• Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

To join the #followreader conversation on Friday, here’s what to do:

1. Just before 4pm ET, log in to Twitter or whatever interface you use (e.g. Tweetchat, Tweetdeck, Twitterific, etc.)
2. To follow the discussion, run a search for #followreader
3. I’ll start by asking Dominique Raccah (@draccah) and Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (@glecharles) a few questions, before opening up the discussion to the group.
4. To post to the discussion, type #followreader in each tweet

NOTE: You might want to experiment with TweetChat, which refreshes quickly and automatically loads your hashtag when you are in the discussion.

Looking forward to tweeting with you on Friday!

Those who can’t make it, watch this space next week for a recap of the highlights. 

And please feel free to suggest topics for upcoming #followreader chats below.

Book Reviewing in a Digital World: #FollowReader Recap

How do major book reviewers select books, and how much has social media and other technology changed the way they discover new titles?  Do print galleys, pre-pub reviews and trade shows matter any more, as digital tools expand and print review outlets continue to shrink? 

Those were some of the questions we explored with Lev Grossman, Time magazine’s book critic, technology writer and Nerd World blogger, and Carolyn Kellogg, who reviews for the Los Angeles Times and writes the Jacket Copy blog, last Friday our #followreader discussion on Twitter (October 30, 2009).

Among the highlights:

• Social media buzz is gaining importance, but it can’t make up for a book that doesn’t deliver
• Paper galleys are most desireable because taking notes in them is easy
• Standalone e-readers are still too expensive for these professional readers
• Some reviewers pay more attention to publisher marketing efforts than others
• Small houses do have a shot at getting reviewed
• Becoming the author of three novels has made Grossman wince at what he used to say in his reviews
• Reviewers do regret it when they miss the chance to review good books

Here’s the full conversation:

What makes you sit up & decide to review a book?

@leverus: Have your publicist tuck a $50 right around page 100. Works like a charm. Not many people know this. #followreader

@Corb21: we tucked 1,000,000 dollar bills in our books once…funny, but not necessarily more reviews. #followreader

@leverus: My antennae start to crackle when I see somebody doing something genuinely risky or genuinely new. #followreader

@leverus: Doesn’t happen very often. For example: I skipped the Doctorow this fall. It’s a great book. But not a new book. #followreader

@leverus: Formally, stylistically, thematically: I had seen Doctorow do these things before. No one does them better. But: not new. #followreader

@paperhaus: Well I nearly fell over dead when my editor showed me the new Thomas Pynchon. Having a recognizable name helps. Esp. Pynchon. #followreader

@leverus: Counterexample: Jess Walters’ FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS. Nothing else I’ve read this year felt that utterly contemporary. #followreader

@leverus: (Except Cory Doctorow’s MAKERS) #followreader

@leverus: The more I review, the less I’m interested in names. The writing has to deliver. #followreader

@paperhaus: Since advance copies of books don’t have art, we rarely judge by the cover. #followreader

@charabbott: Does this mean you read 10x more books than you review? #followreader

@leverus: I wouldn’t put it as high as 10X. But I read a lot more books than I review. And I read a HELL of a lot of first chapters. #followreader

@bnreviewer: Curious to know what books over past year you passed on and now wish you’d covered (assuming any). #followreader

@leverus: There are so many worthy books I regret skipping. The Dan Chaon comes to mind. #followreader

@CollectedMisc: Is there a place for audacious failures? Works that tried something big but failed or did so in an interesting way? #followreader

@paperhaus: Yes, one of the great things about Jacket Copy (the LA Times book blog) is that we can cover so much #followreader

@leverus: Give an example of an audacious failure! I want names named. #followreader

@paperhaus: There was an intentionally failed book, @leverus, called B is for Bad Poetry – genuinely terrible poems, cute blog post. #followreader

@leverus: I would call KINDLY ONES an audacious failure. I was truly blown away by its ambition. #followreader

Where do you pick up buzz about new books and authors?

@charabbott: Do you just read the books on your desk? What else influences you? #followreader

@leverus: I read the trades. But I don’t trust them. I talk to editors and publicists and agents, a lot. And other writers. #followreader

@charabbott: Why not trust the trades? #followreader

@leverus: in the case of PW: no bylines. I need to know who the reviewers are, so I can understand their context, biases,etc #followreader

@Corb21: What chance does a smaller publishing house have at getting reviewed? What ups their ante? #followreader

@paperhaus: Indie houses have a good chance of getting attention around here. We review New Directions, Two Dollar Radio… #followreader

@charabbott: What’s the most offbeat book you’ve covered lately? #followreader

@paperhaus: Offbeat: probably LA BIZARRO, an updated list of wildly eclectic restaurants & places around LA. #followreader

@charabbott: How did you find out about LA BIZARRO. Sounds like a local publisher? #followreader

@paperhaus: LA BIZARRO was pubbed by Chronicle Books. #followreader

Do you use digital Galleys and e-Readers?

@NetGalley: Does having a printed galley on your desk influence you or will you track down a book if you want it? #followreader

@leverus: It never hurts to have a paper galley kicking around. But yes, I’ll hunt down a book if I know I want it. #followreader

@Corb21: how do you feel about a digital copy? Does it HAVE to be paper for you? #followreader

@leverus: No digital ARCs here. I don’t think e-reader tech is mature yet. and I need to take notes as I read. #followreader

@paperhaus: No digi ARCs here, either. Until a free reader shows up on my doorstep, I can’t afford to switch. #followreader

@leverus: It’s really about the note-taking functionality. Though also, yes, the $$$. Kindles are expensive. #followreader

@CollectedMisc: Just thought I would note that you can highlight and take notes on the Kindle and export as a text file. #followreader

@leverus Exporting from Kindle = possible but cumbersome. I’m a technophilic guy, but it has to outperform paper. to me, it doesn’t yet #followreader

@Corb21: if you got something digital would you ignore it or request the paper? #followreader

@leverus: I would request paper. Though if the pitch was v off-base, I would (to my lasting shame) probably ignore. #followreader

@paperhaus: I do not own an ebook reader, other than my iphone, on which I’ve installed several e-reader apps. #followreader

charabbott: Do you read for work on your iPhone? and if so, how does it affect the reviewing experience? #followreader

@paperhaus: I read on my iphone to compare apps for a blog post. But now it’s recreational; haven’t finished Moby Dick yet. #followreader

How Important is Publisher Marketing?

@jenwgilmore: Can we pls address the importance/influence of marketing? #followreader

@leverus: Re: marketing, I agree it is relevant. If a publisher is really investing $$$ in a book, that interests me. #followreader

@paperhaus: Wow, I’m really different than @leverus on this. I don’t care how much $ a pub house spends. This may be an east/west thing. #followreader

@leverus: I feel like I should clarify: marketing interests me b/c somebody at the house is willing to bet money on a book #followreader

@jenwgilmore: With so little marketing on “non-brand” names, what are the signals you respond to? The same as old days? #followreader

@leverus: Same as old days — “buzz,” whatever that means. gossip, good trades. but also blogs and twitter. #followreader

@paperhaus: My creaky old punk self distrusts marketing. Too much push and … I feel pushed. #followreader

@paperhaus: That said, it means a lot to have a genuine publisher or trusted publicist promoting your work. #followreader

@mattbucher: Should books be marketed at all? The cream will rise to the top?? #followreader

@leverus: I wish I believed that. I just don’t see the literary world as reliably meritocratic. sometimes cream sinks! #followreader

How Much Are Your Influenced by Social Media?

@charabbott: In the past year, have you heard more about books through social media or other online sources before publication? #followreader

@leverus: Yes, info about new books is definitely reaching me thru social media. Twitter especially, it’s amazing tool. #followreader

@paperhaus: I love hearing about books thru new channels (Twitter, Facebook) but also standing in the book room and reading #followreader

@paperhaus: But all the buzz in the world can’t save a book that doesn’t have that zing. #followreader

@Corb21: Who do reviewers trust on social media? Authors, Publishers, Publicists? Readers? #followreader

@paperhaus: Reviewers trust all of the above on social media: Authors, Publishers, Publicists, Readers #followreader

@michellekerns: I’d like to know what you both think about the explosion of blogs, etc. reviewing books. Does it drag the art down? #followreader

@paperhaus: I was an indie blogger before coming to the LATimes, so I’m a big fan of book blogging. More conversations! #followreader

@leverus: What a perilous question.More reviewers=more good reviewers, but I think there are irresponsible voices out there #followreader

@leverus: I think good reviewing rests on solid scholarship. must have read the precedents #followreader

@charabbott: Has direct feedback from readers via your blog prompted you to change any of your reviewing practices? #followreader

@paperhaus: re: direct feedback via the blog – never change practices. But my feelings have been hurt once or twice #followreader

@ClaudiaC: I’ve read that people are more inteested in ‘people like me’ reviews (Amazon) vs. ‘expert’ reviews. Thoughts? #followreader

@leverus:it’s a huge question. too big for a tweet. shifting from top-down to bottom-up culture. will change everything! #followreader

@ClaudiaC: fascinating change! Do you see bottom-up culture happening? #followreader

@leverus: I really do. See my much maligned WSJ piece “Good Books Don’t Have to Be Hard” for extended-play version. #followreader

How much attention to you pay to trade shows?

@charabbott: What about trade shows? Do you rely on buzz from Book Expo as much as ever? #followreader

@paperhaus: I’ve been to 4 or 5 Book Expos and I think it’s changed a lot.

@leverus, you’ve been to lots more, right? #followreader

@leverus: I’ve been to a grand total of 3 book expos! #followreader

@leverus: I listen to trade show buzz. I’m looking for info everywhere, even if it’s not top quality info. more = more. #followreader

@leverus: But with Book Expo in New York now, I’ll never be able to escape it again. #followreader

How much does your readership, and being an author yourself influence you?

@susanmpls: does your reader demographic influence picks? Or are you selecting what peaks your interest? #followreader

@leverus: reader demo does affect what I cover. I’m paid to serve Time readers. They skew older, and female.I keep it in mind #followreader

@charabbott: How has yr experience as an author changed your approach to reviewing? #followreader

@leverus: Being an author has definitely made me a gentler reviewer. I realize it’s partly a conversation w/ the author. #followreader

@charabbott: It sounds like you don’t review books you hate – so that should help with author relations! #followreader

@leverus: I don’t do hatchet jobs anymore. I used to. I wince when I think about it. #followreader Future of reviews?

@NetGalley: Do you worry about disappearance of standalone book review sections? or trust reviews will be elsewhere? #followreader

@leverus: I worry about disappearing book sections. but at the same time I wonder if they couldn’t do more to save themselves #followreader

@paperhaus: It’s OK for books not to have a stand-alone section; the real challenge today is to newspapers as a whole. #followreader

@paperhaus: I worry that professional reviewing is shrinking – anyone who wants in has to work xtra hard, bloggers or not

NaNoWriMo + Bite-Size Edits Ring in November’s Spirit of Wordiness

Ah, November: a time of thanksgiving, and a time of NANOWRIMO!! Yup, it’s now officially 3 days into the wonderful November tradition (now in it’s tenth year) that writers everywhere simultaneously loathe and love – NaNoWriMo. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, NaNoWriMo–or National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

And this year, thanks to the folks at BookOven, NaNoWriMo partcipants will also have a chance to get their work edited! BookOven’s Hugh McGuire is inviting all NaNoWriMo-ers to take advantage of the company’s Bite-Size Edits program. Here’s how it works:

1. NaNoWriMo participants just go to http://bookoven.com and register for an account
2. Create a new project, and tag it “nanowrimo” (you can make your project public or private)
3. Invite a group of friends, or fellow writers to be proofreaders
4. Every day, post your finished Nanowrimo text into a new chapter
5. Turn on Bite-Size Edits
6. Send a message to your team of proofreaders, letting them know a new text is ready for editing (be sure to include the URL to Bite-Size Edits for the project)
7. When Nanowrimo is done, you can accept/reject/modify the edits made by your team
8. And then, when you’re ready to look at the novel again, you’ll have a clean copy of your text ready to polish into something wonderful (or to make you shudder with shame!)

McGuire sees Bite-Size Edits and NaNoWriMo as a great combination. “Bite-Size Edits has been this very useful little secret for a while, and we thought that Nanowrimo was a perfect place, where rough texts are being produced, and getting other eyes to look at the text is valuable,” he explained. “The other nice thing is that with Nanowrimo, you don’t necessarily want to show your novel to people – it’s expected to be a mess. Because Bite-Size Edits chops the text up, and serves it randomly, editors don’t see the whole thing, just parts. So you don’t have to worry about revealing just how messy the book really is.”

Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo agrees:  “Bite-Size Edits is a very cool tool, and coinciding [this invitation] with NaNoWriMo taps into the spirit of wordiness that pervades the month.”

Should NaNoWriMo-ers consider actively editing via Bite-Size Edits as they write? McGuire doesn’t think so. “November is for Nanowrimo–it’s for writing; post-November, the writer can take a look at what they’ve got. But the nice thing here is that they’ll have a cleaner text to work with when they are ready. And, the other great thing is they’ll have some people already engaged in the text.”

David Nygren, an author whose work “Boy/Girl” is undergoing community editing on Bite-Size Edits, believes NaNoWriMo-ers should try it out. ” I see it as the ideal editing tool for the final stage of the editing process, once it’s time to make certain that each sentence is tight.   One of the best things about it is being able to get input from a wide variety of people.  Although you can invite specific people to edit, to annotate or to do Bite-Size Edits on your project, much of the input you’ll get is from people going through random snippets, doing Bite-Size Edits for a variety of projects.  It’s invaluable to get feedback from such a large pool of people.”

David’s advice for NaNoWriMo-ers? “I would strongly advise them to put whatever they create as part of NaNoWriMo on Book Oven right away.  Don’t wait until you think it’s ‘good enough.’  Put the chapters up as you write them (chapters can be added to a single project individually).  It’s the ideal way to, in a sense, publish without publishing.  Their work will be out there online for people to see, but since Book Oven is an editing platform, everyone knows it’s not the final work.  Nobody is going to hold the imperfections against you.  Why not get whatever feedback you can?” He also suggests that those who do put their work up on Bite-Size Edits include some kind of cover image for their project.  “It doesn’t have to be anything fancy,” Nygren says,” But, judging by the number of views per project, people browsing through the projects tend to gravitate toward those with some kind of cover.”

Definitely sounds like a cool way to get your work in progress a bit closer to finished format! For those of you NaNoWriMo’ers who try it out, please let us know how it goes. And good luck with the novel writing, folks!

Giving Readers What They Want: Susan Danziger

Delivering books to readers in new, more accessible ways is the book industry’s new challenge. Yet few publishing insiders can claim to have pioneered new delivery systems the way Susan Danziger has with DailyLit, which offers subscriptions to regular book installments that can be read in 5 minutes or less via email or RSS.  Fewer still have devoted themselves to introducing publishing’s rank and file to today’s digital leaders. Yet that’s what Danziger has done with the free monthly speaker series The Publishing Point (formerly known as the Digital Publishing Group).

Susan Danziger

Danziger is used to looking at the industry from fresh vantage points. Trained as a lawyer, she began her career negotiating licenses at a children’s media company, before moving to Random House, where she headed up legal and business affairs in the children’s division. After spearheading a project to digitize thousands of the company’s backlist titles in the early ‘90s, she left Random to start her own literary agency, Fox Meadow Media, and then, six years later, DailyLit.

In this installment in our series on publishing professionals who are helping change the way we read, we talk with Danziger about the future of digital reading. For more background about DailyLit and the Publishing Point, keep scrolling.

What reading habits are emerging among your subscribers?
They’re all over the map. More than 60% of our subscribers change the default day and time that our e-mails arrive  – compared to 90% of people who accept the default with other subscription media. Commuters may start their day with an installment of DailyLit, or read it when they get to work; there are also people who read it on their lunchtime break, or tell us, “this is my 5pm martini”.

How do most people access DailyLit?
The iPhone is getting bigger, but last survey showed that most people were reading on PCs or laptops.

Do your readers seem to have different reading tastes, based on the device they are using?
We’ve been conducting a survey and people say that when they’re reading on the computer, it’s more for information than relaxation. I’m also hearing that younger people actually read blogs for relaxation on the computer. But DailyLit readers are  definitely reading serious books. They are reading and finishing Anna Karenina on DailyLit, saying things like “this is the first tool that’s allowing me to read the classics I want to read.” We have more fiction available, but nonfiction is doing well too.

How do you see the future of digital reading, based on the feedback you’re getting to Daily Lit?
It’s all about consumer choice and giving readers what they want. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg now. The whole industry will be completely transformed, and not very far in the future. I think there will be lots of options for people to read. Some will read a book in bed, or an iPhone app at the beach. DailyLit is one way for people to integrate books into their lives. As content is created for different mediums, the market for reading will only get bigger, and that’s where the fun begins.

How do you think the reading tastes of people who are in their 20s now will evolve in the next few decades?
My gut instinct is that books will be evolving in terms of content, and will emerge in different media. There will still be paperbacks, but there will also be a whole world of books that merge text with video and social media. We’re starting to see projects now that make use of the tools that are out there. But at end of day, it’s all about story and storytelling. Words will still play a big role, but they will be supported with visual and audio tools. Books as we know them will continue, and the great ones will live on.

Do you think Japanese-style cell phone novels have a chance in the U.S.?
We really want to keep DailyLit about high quality work. We want to make sure that we have content people can trust. We might open DailyLit up to previously unpublished work down the road, I’m definitely thinking about that, but it’s not currently a site where people can automatically add content they’ve created.

How will DailyLit keep up with reader tastes?
We’re in the process of adding more titles created specifically for DailyLit, and are allowing authors and publishers to create content that work well in the serialized format. We’re also developing lots of interesting technology to help market books and expand our reach to additional readers. For instance, we recently launched a virtual book club on Twitter, so that folks can read books on to the same schedule.

DAILYLIT Vital Stats

Laurels: Chosen by the Sunday Times (UK) as the # 1 best book website in August, 2009

Number of Daily Lit subscribers: “Hundreds of thousands,” says Danziger.

Number of titles read to date: More than 500,000 books in more than 25 million installments.

Number of titles available: about 1500 – including newly released and public domain fiction and nonfiction titles, language lessons, SAT prep, and original series, such as a “Wikipedia tour” of Greek gods and goddesses, and a fashion series, Shoes, Bags and Tiaras, which draws on book content published by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Price range: About half the available titles are free, including classics and some new titles sponsored by their publishers. Short stories cost 99 cents. Full length books range from $4.99 to $9.99.

Partners: Publisher partners include Harper Studio, which entered a sponsorship making all of their fall titles available for free, and Macmillan, which is sponsoring a backlist push for suspense author Joe Finder. Non-book title sponsors have included H. Stern Jewelers and Gallery Collection.

Promotion: Users can link their DailyLit profile to Twitter, to automatically tweet about when they start and finish a book

Extern program: Publishing people who want to learn about digital world can join this program, which requires starting your own blog, usingTwitter and Ning to engage a community, and eventually presenting project results to Daily Lit.

THE PUBLISHING POINT Vital Stats

Launched: Spring 2009 as the Digital Publishing Group; Relaunched October 2009 as The Publishing Point

Mission: “The group is a way to educate and empower and inspire people in publishing to move to the next level in publishing’s industrial revolution, and to help publishers become more comfortable in this space.”

Features: Free monthly speaker series typically meets in conference rooms at the Random House building, 1745 Broadway at 55th St., New York City. New website includes community forums, a listserv, and a video interview series (first up: Cory Doctorow).

Members to date: 304

Next meeting: Michael Healy, Executive Director of the Book Rights Registry, to speak on The Google Book Settlement: What You Really Need to Know (November 18, 2009 at 12:30pm). Details here.

Speakers to Date:

• Hanny Hindi, from Clickable, on Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimizaton
• Seth Godin, author of Tribes, etc., on Rethinking the Publishing Industry
• Andrew Savakas, from O’Reilly Publishing, on Why Mobile Matters
• Gail Harwood, from Martha Stewart Omnimedia,  on What Is a Publisher?
• David Karp, from Tumblr.com, on developing books ideas via social media
• Neilan Choksi, from Lexcycle/Stanza, on mobile e-publishing
• Debbie Stier, from HarperStudio, on the future of publishing

#FollowReader: Of Nooks + Blogs + Piracy

Last Friday on #followreader, we were very fortunate to have the lovely AND smart, Laura Dawson join us for a discussion on the new Barnes and Noble dedicated ereading device, the nook, as well as some conversation about Laura’s new venture Bloggapedia, and the controversy surrounding the practice of sharing ebooks with friends — is it piracy?

 

Highlights from the conversation:
The Nook:

• $259 (preorder online – not currently available for instore purchase)
• Exclusive In-Store Content — nook offers users the ability to read any ebook b+n carries via wifi while inside a Barnes and Noble brick and mortar store
• eBook Sharing — great idea: nook users can virtually loan their purchased ebooks – one at a time, for up to 14 days. Catches are, owner doesn’t have access to the title during the loan period, AND worse – publishers can opt out of the program (many have already indicated they will do so).
• SD Slot — users can sideload content (get files from their own computer, etc) and device’s hardware memory need not be a problem
• Free eBook with Pre-order –  Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is yours for free when you pre-order a Nook.
• Full Color touch screen AND eink screen — browse for books via color screen, read on eink screen.

Bloggapedia:

 

• First curated blog directory
• Users can rate and tag blogs (the more who participate, the more refined the blog curation becomes)
• Bloggapedia blogs will be available via subscription formatted for reading on the nook AND free online for reading via webbrowsers

eBook Sharing VS. Piracy:

• readers want to be able to loan their ebooks to friends
• publishers and authors worry that ebook loans could cut into potential sales

The full transcript from the discussion can be found here.

 

Related links
the nook

Laura Dawson’s 1st impressions of the nook http://bit.ly/36TmDk

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-barnes-noble-wont-sell-nook-to-go-in-all-stores/

twitter nook contact (answers for your nook questions) @eBooksBN

Bloggapedia:

read more about bloggapedia http://bit.ly/PT1Bo

ebook sharing versus piracy:

from @dearauthor “readers have copyright rights 2″ http://bit.ly/Qd5fJ

“Trust Your Readers” from @brianoleary http://bit.ly/Mmdld

http://dealnews.com/features/e-Book-Readers-Cheat-Sheet-Amazon-Kindles-Barnes-Noble-Nook-jet-Book-more/321945.html

On e-Reading Devices in General:

E-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight http://bit.ly/2RyORD

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/10/25/should-i-buy-an-ebook-reader-this-year/

http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/a_mobile_bibliography/

http://technologizer.com/2009/10/26/the-e-reader-explosion-a-cheat-sheet/

Follow the Reader Fridays: Now Featuring Hot Links + “Overheard On Twitter”

Charlotte and I spend a lot of time reading about reading (and publishing, and book selling, and pretty much anything to do with books and bookishness). We also spend a lot of time on Twitter, and some of the things we come across there run the gamut from brilliant to hilarious, and often both at the same time. Point being,  we realized we simply MUST start sharing some of our online finds with you guys on a regular basis.

Hence – we’ve decided to officially  make Fridays around here,  “Follow the Reader Fridays: Featuring Hot Links and ‘Overheard on Twitter.’” That’s right – we’re curating some bookish link love and a whole lot of twitter just for you, dear readers! It’s going to be fun. Feel free to send us any cool links you’d like us to share, and retweet us with any fabulous tweets you’d like to see in this space. (This week is a little Thursday and Friday-heavy, since we just decided to do this on Thursday.)

So, with no further ado, here’s the first installment of “Follow the Reader Fridays!”

Follow the Reader Fridays: Hot Links

Macmillan issues new boilerplate contract – digital royalties lower than other big houses

BookGlutton Partners with O’Reilly for Bookstore

Fictionaut’s Jurgen Fauth on Morning Media talking about future of the literary journal

Come enjoy the Texas Book Festival this weekend downtown Austin

Free first chapter (pdf) of Masha Hamilton’s 31 Hours (I guess that’s like 1 free hour?) from Unbridled

Mark your calendars: November 11th – NYC’rs can hear about reading in a digital age with Lisa Holton and other bookish visionaries

Twitter tips compiled by Alice Pope, editor of Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market

5 Steps to Beginning a Social Media Strategy

Nominate Library World’s Movers and Shakers!

Android’s (the wireless phone – not the robot from the future)  impact on ereading

New eBook Delivery system from Libre Digital – format/device not an issue

Evolve or Die: Why Reinvent Independent Bookstores?

Read This AND That: BethAnne Patrick talks “The Children’s Book” vs. “Possession”

BookSwim Proposes: A Book Used for a Proposal Book

Halloweenie Bonus: Two Terrifyingly Booo-kish Hot Links:

10/31 Eddie Munster on Sound Authors Radio

Three Hauntingly Unforgettable Literary Houses

Overheard on Twitter this Week:

@kirkbiglione: I’m full of questions today. For example, when I stop reading my Vook, do I need a Vookmark?

@glecharles: #pbv Friedman on enhanced ebooks: “I’m not interested in disrupting the reading experience; it’s sacrosanct.”

on the other hand -
@CdnPress_Arts: Kate Pullinger, Eoin Colfer say ebooks + e-readers should embrace multimedia http://bit.ly/1aq6kc

@colleenlindsay: You’ll frequently get rejections or requests for partials from me at 3:00 AM. Queries are a great way to deal with insomnia. #AllAboutAgents

@rachellegardner: Contrary to popular myth… most agents actually love writers, books and publishing. #AllAboutAgents

@jtribble: Poisoned Pen now using NetGalley: RT @NetGalley: As of today, publishers can choose 2 offer protected (DRM) OR open (DRM-free) galleys

@bookavore: Someone thought we were a bar. To be fair, the window full of books definitely makes it seem like a good place to get sloshed.

@bookavore: We’re considering a new section: The Island of Misfit Books. Yea or nay?

@susanmpls: Books R like bras. some lift you up. some offer support. some make you feel good. some R pretty. some R recced by ur doctor.

This Friday, #FollowReader Looks at Book Reviewing 2.0

Given the way digital marketing tools continue to expand while print book reviews continue to shrink, we have a few questions about the ways that major book reviewers are selecting titles for review:

• How much has social media and other technology changed the way book reviewers discover new titles? 
• Has direct feedback from readers on the Web affected how books are chosen or how they are covered?
• Do book publicists, trade shows and pre-pub trade reviews have as much influence as in the past?

Those are some of the questions we’ll explore with Lev Grossman from Time magazine and Carolyn Kellogg from the Los Angeles Times, in our weekly #followreader discussion on Twitter, Friday, October 30, 4-5pm ET.

Lev Grossman is Time’s book critic. He also writes about technology and blogs about geek culture for the magazine, and is the author of three novels: Warp (1997), Codex (2004), and The Magicians (2009).

Carolyn Kellogg writes the Jacket Copy blog for the Los Angeles Times, in additon to her own blog, and also reviews books for the newspaper.

To join the #followreader conversation on Friday, here’s what to do:

1. Just before 4pm ET,  log in to Twitter or whatever interface you use (e.g. Tweetchat, Tweetdeck, Twitterific, etc.)
2. To follow the discussion, run a search for #followreader
3. I’ll start by asking Lev Grossman (@leverus) and Carolyn Kellogg (@paperhaus) a few questions, before opening up the discussion to the group.
4. To post to the discussion, type #followreader in each tweet 

NOTE: You might want to experiment with TweetChat, which refreshes quickly and automatically loads your hashtag when you are in the discussion.

Looking forward to tweeting with you on Friday! Those who can’t make it, watch this space next week for a recap of the highlights.

And please feel free to suggest topics for upcoming #followreader chats below.

Learning a New Game:Book Publicity In The Age of Social Media

[A little note from Kat about this post: The other day I kind of let Amazon have it because they are Twitter-phobic. I was quick and harsh to judge them, when I should have been understanding and reached out to offer my help. Maybe they just don't "get" the technological nuances of Social Media. Maybe they are just overwhelmed with their many other high-quality customer service efforts. In addition, it must be difficult for a company of Amazon's size to find the resources to put into learning and executing Social Media Strategies. So - feel free to think of this post as my apology to you, Amazon... It isn't, but feel free to think of it that way.]

Isn’t technology great?

With the touch of a button, we can reach out to almost anyone, almost anywhere. And that’s something that as book markteer (and sometimes publicist), you’d think I couldn’t be more pleased about.

And I am — in theory.

It’s when attempting to put the theory of new media marketing and publicity into practice that I occasionally run into trouble.

New Media book PR is a whole new ball game–complete with new equipment and new tools, and lacking any established rules.

As a result, people on both the pitching and receiving sides of this new game are facing all kinds of hurdles and frustrations.  Even “Twitter-Happy-Go-Lucky” me has more than my share of social media mis-steps every day of my book pitching week. So, sit back and I’ll share with you a day in the average book publicist’s life.

First of all, lets get something straight. There’s this perception that being a book publicist is all about long lunches, early happy hours, and fabulous book parties – but it’s just not so. Personally, I blame those eyeball hungry sensationalists Ron Hogan and Jason Boog over at GalleyCat for posting all those festive book party pictures rather than more realistic portrayals of book PR. (Though, I suppose no one really wants to be subjected to photos of anxiety-ridden publicists stuffing books into cardboard boxes at 4:45 while the Fed Ex guy looks on disapprovingly. )

No, the sad truth of the matter is, book PR is mostly work. Sometimes it’s fun and rewarding work, but it is quite often a lot of plain old fashioned hard work. For the average book publicist, her  day is spent planning and managing multiple events for multiple current authors; making sure books and people are where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be; dealing with the day to day endless and mandatory meetings about production schedules and acquisitions and budgets; and placing and returning a bazillion (yes, a bazillion — I counted) phone calls and emails.

These phone calls and emails are usually to  a bazillion media contacts that may, or may not still be working at the same outlet doing the same job they were last week when she pulled her media list, but hey, that’s part of the game.

Oh, wait.

How could we forget? The game has changed. It’s all new, remember?

So, now it’s the age of the Internet, and blogs, and Facebook, and Twitter, and whatever other social networking app just sprung up while I was writing that last sentence. And now, on top of the work that was already too much to handle, your friendly neighborhood PR maven has to figure out:

• If her audience of core readers for a particular title is using Facebook or MySpace or Twitter or blogging or reading blogs; and…
• If so, who are the most influential/relevant Twitterers, or bloggers, or facebook friends, etc., etc., etc.; and…
• Just what part of her other publicity activities is she supposed to give up in order to find the time to first learn and then acutally use this new time-saving and fun new medium?

I know, I know – get out the violins, right? This is not insurmountable. This is not rocket science. And, we’re bound to get the hang of it… eventually.

But, in the interim, may I ask one little favor of you?

Could you pretty please – with sugar on top – cut us PR types a little slack while we try and figure out the future that is now? Because, we will make mistakes.

If, for example, we forget that you are only willing to be contacted via Facebook; or if we do not follow you back on Twitter right away; or if we mistakenly send you a sci-fi ARC, but you only blog about fantasy; or if we accidentally skype you and then hang up in a panic just as you are answering because we didn’t know that was what that button did — would you please not  assume we did any of these things to offend you? And will you please be kind and gentle and forgiving – the way you would with an otherwise adorable and well-behaved child who has just dropped your iphone in the toilet?

Because, we’re just learning how to play this new game.

Luv,

Kat

Free Sony Readers for Book Reviewers

Chasing down the gossip that a consortium of big publishers are brewing a new strategy for distributing Sony Readers to book reviewers brings to mind that REO Speedwagon song:

Heard it from a friend who/ Heard it from a friend who/ Heard it from another you’ve been messin’ around.

Everyone I called admitted to thinking about getting other publishers to do the nasty, but no one wanted to be publicly identified or quoted on the record.

Of course, this is an idea that has made the rounds repeatedly in various forms over the last few years.  But now the moment just might be right - since e-readers have become almost as indispensible as Blackberries to sales reps and executives at Hachette, Random House, Simon & Schuster and other publishers, and the Kindle has become such a hot consumer commodity.

Some Quick Caveats

Before we go any further, bear in mind that no one is proposing that print galleys will immediately become archaic or that the Sony Reader is the only e-reader option. The main idea is to get e-readers into the hands of key reviewers, as an incentive to become more familiar with the advantages and (let’s be honest) the disadvantages of e-readers and e-galleys, given that they will almost certainly co-exist with print galleys for many years to come. I’m assuming here that most publishers will opt for the Sony Reader, since it doesn’t carry the charged political symbolism of the Amazon Kindle for them.

Why distributing Sony Readers to book reviewers is a good idea from the reviewer perspective:

• Instant Access: no more days spent waiting for a print galley to arrive while a deadline looms
• Portability: e-galleys are easier to work with on the go
• Reduced processing costs: e-galleys are easily opened, stored, forwarded, read and archived or deleted than print galleys, which have to be shucked of their mailers, sorted and stored, mailed to other reviewers in some cases, and eventually boxed up for recycling, donation or destruction
• Waste reduction: though designed for temporary use, print galleys are still made of trees, and shipping them around only increases their carbon footprint. Anyone who works with galleys shares in the responsibility for this.

 Why it’s a good idea from the publisher perspective:

• Cost reduction: each galley costs $ 12 – $20 to distribute (e.g. $6- $10 to produce and $6- $10 to ship)
• Waste reduction: see above
• Focus on e-reading can’t hurt the e-book market
• Proof positive that publishers are technologically forward-looking and solution-oriented

How can we prevent this from becoming a good idea that a consortium of publishers will never agree on?

Let’s take a look at the issues around distributing e-readers from the publisher standpoint, in the interest of overcoming them:

• Are e-readers worth supporting? The jury of publishers is still out on this basic question, which includes whether electronic readers encourage more reading as print outlets diminish, and its corollary: do e-readers diminish the attention given to printed books?
• How to maximize cost efficiency? What’s the best way to allocate minimal dollars to a maximum number of reviewers?
• How to determine a reviewer list? Different houses favor different reviewers, after all.
• How to navigate hierarchies of reviewers? Is it better to target the assigning editors at a publication or the freelancers who write for them? Is reaching out to some reviewers over others going to create ill will?
• What about indie publishers? Will indie publishers in the consortium be able to attract enough respect and attention from the designated reviewers to make it worth the expense?
• What about booksellers? Will reaching out to reviewers create resentment in other quarters – e.g. will booksellers demand their own initiatives?
• What about platform and security issues? How to cope with the limitations of the Sony Reader or any other e-reader?

Has anyone formally asked the reviewers how they feel about all of this?

Rather than speculate about what reviewers are thinking , I’m going to stop here and open this discussion to comments from them, with the aim to get back to you, dear readers, with a synthesis of the responses within the next week or so, so we can keep this discussion going.

Questions for reviewers to consider as you respond:

• Is it an unacceptable influence on the review process if publishers underwrite the cost of such a valuable professional tool?
• Would it help if e-readers were loaned to reviewers, rather than granted outright?

And for those who can’t wait until the deliberations end

Here are a couple of contests you can enter to win a Sony Reader:

• Until May 30, 2009 – Purchase key fiction titles from White Rose Publishing and enter to win. Details: http://ow.ly/2Wnn
• Until June 9, 2009 - Purchase key romance titles from Wild Rose Press and enter to win. Details: http://ow.ly/2Wk3

Politics of Twittering at Work and Fave Bookseller Blogs – Revealed!

The politics of Twittering at work, favorite bookseller blogs and smart author and librarian tweeters were among the topics that caught fire in our first #followreader discussion on Twitter. About 30 publishing people spontaneously joined in between 4:30 and 5:30pm last Friday afternoon.

It was sort of like a pick-up game of publishing chat.

The warm-up questions revealed that some Twitterers are buying more books because of the recommendations they find on the site, and that Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is a popular read.

Then Kat threw out a little red meat.

She asked how everyone’s employers viewed their use of Twitter for work-related projects.

Twenty posts later, here’s what we’d learned about Twittering at work:

• Tweets that are good for business are generally supported by bookstores, but some discretion is advised
• Several booksellers said they tweet, but it’s not exactly official
• Others said their stores not only encourage the use of Twitter but have made it part of their jobs
• A tweeter who works at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan has tweeted about some of the store’s famous customers (e.g. Gail Stalz’s hair) without any complaints
• A PR person reported that her publisher blocks social networking sites at the office, even to its marketing staff, yet also tells its employees they should have pages on Facebook and use Twitter

For more highlights, read on. And mark your calendar for Friday, May 1, from 4:30 – 5:30pm, when we’ll have  our next discussion.  To follow it in realtime, go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in #followreader. To join in, just get on Twitter, follow @katmeyer and @charabbott, and insert #followreader into your responses.

Favorite Bookseller Blogs

• Bookavore or follow @bookavore on Twitter
• Bookdwarf or follow @Bookdwarf
• Bookstore People “We review independent bookstores to encourage people to visit them and shop”
• Boswell Books “Daniel Goldin has great taste in books - witty too!”
• Inkwell Bookstore
• Kash’s Book Corner or follow @kashbk “Arsen is smart and articulate. Love reading his blog.”
• Powell’s Books “Especially like their guest bloggers”
• Reading is Breathing or follow @readandbreathe
• Wordsmiths Books “Great testimony to what a bookstore blog can do”  EDITOR’S NOTE: Blog still up as of 4/20/09, but store closed 3/2/09.
• Wordhoarder or follow @richrennicks
• The Written Nerd or follow @booknerdnyc
• Vroman’s Books or follow @vromans

Favorite Author Tweeters
@arjunbasu
@benmezrich
@cecilseaskull
@DanKennedy_NYC
@ElizMcCracken / Elizabeth McCracken
@EmilyMandel
@ErinHere / Erin McHugh

@kpwerker / Kim Werker
@JoeFinder
@JulieKlam
@harlancoben
@neilhimself / Neil Gaiman
@robinbenway
@raquelita / Rachel Kramer Bussel
@realjohngreen / John Green
@smallplaces / N.L. Belardes / “the first original Twitter novel”
@SusanOrlean
@tobiasbuckell
@YasmineGalenorn

Hot Librarians on Twitter
New York Public Library or follow @nypl
@SonoranDragon
@superwendy
@younglibrarian

Thanks to the participants in last Friday’s discussion
@aaronhierholzer
@AnnKingman
@bencrowder
@bookavore
@BookingIt
@Booklorn
@bookmans
@BookstoreK
@ColleenLindsay
@deepredbells
@emilyrmurtagh
@espressojunky
@ErinHere
@EternalCow
@ftoolan
@jchristie
@jeanenne
@kalenski
@kpwerker
@mesjak
@MichaelWaisPub
@mikecane
@Minerva8843
@permanentpaper
@RheaB
@russmarshalek
@sonorandragon
@vromans

Unbridled Books and NetGalley Team Up on a Cool Contest

As the debate over our “Free Sony Readers for Booksellers” post rages on, Unbridled Books and NetGalley have thrown some fun into the mix (disclosure – NetGalley sponsors this blog). To encourage booksellers to read e-galleys, they are challenging booksellers to come up with hand-selling pitches for Emily St. John Mandel’s debut novel,  Last Night in Montreal. The three most creative pitches will each be rewarded with a SONY ereader.

For those who want to know more about the fine art of hand selling, MJ Rose has an old but great post about this very essential skill over at Buzz, Balls, & Hype.

For more information about the contest, check out the press release below. And here’s wishing all you booksellers good luck! (If you win, can I borrow your SONY Reader? Promise I’ll give it back… eventually!)

Unbridled Books and NetGalley announce a contest inspired by author Emily St. John Mandel and our bookseller partners.

(April 20, 2009, Denver, CO) Unbridled Books and NetGalley announce a contest inspired by author Emily St. John Mandel and our bookseller partners. We want to encourage booksellers to read e-galleys, and to make this possible, we are offering a SONY Reader to the three booksellers who craft the best handselling pitches for Mandel’s debut novel, LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL (pub. date June 2). The contest runs from May 1, 2009 through midnight on June 1, 2009.

One (1) SONY Reader will be awarded to each of the three (3) winning booksellers. Unbridled Books will decide on the winners, and the winning handselling pitches will be posted on www.unbridledbooks.com and shared with media and through social networking sites. Please, only one (1) submission per bookseller.

You can download a galley of LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL right now at www.netgalley.com.

If you want to participate, please email Unbridled Books Sales Director Steven Wallace at swallace@unbridledbooks.com with your handselling pitch. Please include your name, your store name and full contact information, including email and phone number. In the email subject line, please reference SONY READER/NETGALLEY Promotion.

This contest is limited to booksellers in the United States.

For more information, please contact Caitlin Hamilton Summie, Marketing Director, at caitlin@unbridledbooks.com or 888-732-3822 (888-READ-UBB), x104 and Susan Ruszala, Director of Marketing, at Susan.ruszala@netgalley.com or 908-456-3383, or please visit:

www.unbridledbooks.com

www.netgalley.com

Publisher Outreach to Bloggers: New Models

Although many corporate book publishing imprints uphold a separation of church and state when it comes to publicity and online marketing, insiders admit that the distinction between the two is getting more blurry all the time.

So who’s taking the initiative to reach out to bloggers and build a new model for marketing and publicity? Here are a few encouraging examples.

Thomas Nelson: Keeping it Simple

Last October, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson became one of the first large houses to create a specialized outreach program for bloggers. The initiative was spurred by CEO Mike Hyatt, an active blogger, who solicited other bloggers’ reviews in a post about the company’s fall releases. When more than 250 people signed up to write reviews of each book he mentioned, the house decided to put up a site catering to bloggers, offering five to ten key fiction and nonfiction titles, says PR spokeswoman Lindsay Nobles.

Nelson offers finished books to bloggers on three terms:

• Bloggers must post a review of any book received from Nelson on their own blog and on a consumer website
• Bloggers must also post a link to their reviews on Thomas Nelson’s site
• Bloggers who do not post a link to their review will not receive another book

“Bloggers help fill the gap.”

As traditional print outlets wane, “bloggers are helping to fill the gap,” Nobles said, adding that Nelson has encountered very few derelict reviewers. Since the site launch, the main enhancement has been to allow visitors to sort reviews by blogger, in addition to showing all blogger reviews for each title. The house is also trying out a new strategy — asking reviewers of Andy Andrew’s The Noticer to post reviews on the same day – to see how a unified approach affects the impact of the reviews.

“We treat everyone the same.”

 Asked if the Nelson prioritizes bloggers with high traffic over others, Nobles says, “we haven’t done a lot of analysis on the elite bloggers. So far, we’re treating everyone the same.” Although she pointed out that bloggers who are just getting started are valuable, because “people coming to their sites are clearly loyal and trust them,” she also acknowledges that the house is looking into ways to analyze blogger traffic stats.

Bloggers return the favor

Bloggers rated 38 of the 45 books on the Nelson site with four to five stars. Only 3 books received three stars, which was the lowest rating given to any book. Many titles have accumulated more than 50 reviews, suggesting that the house will likely break the 1000 book giveaway mark for the program fairly soon.

Penguin Group Goes One to One with Bloggers

This week, Penguin is launching a blogger outreach initiative, catalyzed in part by the raw frustration expressed by bloggers last month at the New Thinking for Old Publishers panel at the South by Southwest convention. That’s where two Penguin execs along with Bloomsbury publicity director Pete Miller were doused in humiliation, according to Miller’s account of the event.

A change in approach

Penguin first invited bloggers to a series of online forums several weeks ago, but the effort was recast at the end of last week in an e-mail from publishing manager Molly Barton, who explained that instead of holding forums, the house had decided to put each blogger in touch with an individual publicist at Penguin “who will gather information about your blog so we can better serve you in the future, and respond to the questions you’ve posed,” according to her e-mail.

Stay tuned

Though this new framework is less transparent than the open forums that were originally proposed, it could also make for closer relationships between bloggers and publicists. We’ll be checking back with Penguin to see how the initiative evolves, but in the meantime…

What Would You Like to See?

Book bloggers and book publicists: what are your thoughts on these efforts, and what you like to see publishers do?

Some questions to consider as you respond:

• What blogger outreach programs do you think are the most promising?
• How can publishers make bloggers’ lives easier?
• Would you like to see digital galleys become part of these projects?

Please share your thoughts!

The Importance of Book Curators, Part I: The Marvelous IndieBound iPhone App

Addendum to original post:

Matt Supko contacted me today and offered a note of clarification regarding the ABA/Indiebound’s plans for an IB iPhone app eBook purchasing option:

At no point has ABA been in direct partnership with Lexcycle.  We had been planning to use a publicly documented protocol which any developer may use ( http://www.lexcycle.com/booksellers ) to send ebooks to Stanza for reading.  Those plans are now under review. Otherwise, our ebook strategy remains unaffected.

Again, we’ll be in touch when we have something exciting to announce!

- Matt Supko, Web Content Coordinator, American Booksellers Association

Book curation is much on my mind lately. And it’s also on the minds of some of my favorite people.

Thanks to #AmazonFail, we now know that we can’t believe everything we find in search is everything there is to find. Automated lists based on alogrithms and key words work quite well to a point, and have their place in the world. But, when it comes to something as specialized as finding a book that will fit my interests and tastes and changing whims — I’d prefer to trust that kind of search to a human being who has made a professional career of matching books to people.

Unfortunately, at the same time that more and more books are finding their way into the world, more and more of the people who help us find our way through the stacks are finding themselves out of work. Ironic? Well, maybe. Depressing? Definitely. And, as not to be all gloom and doom on a Monday, I’m holding the sad stories for Part II of this 2-part post.

Today is all about the hope and happiness — and you can’t beat the ABA iPhone App for happy!

IndieBound on Call!

The awesome IndieBound for iPhone app announced early last week is my new best friend. It’s like having my favorite indie bookseller at my beck and call, ‘cuz with it I can:

• Browse indie bookseller recommendation lists (The Indie Next List, The Kids Indie Next List) and bestseller lists (The Indie Bestseller Lists)
• Search for books from a comprehensive database of in-print titles
• Review detailed book information
• Buy books online from indie bookstores
• Find local, indie bookstores nearby, or across the United States
• Find other independently-owned businesses, like coffee shops, movie theaters, and bicycle stores

After downloading and trying it out, I simply had to talk with Matt Supko, Web Content Coordinator for the American Booksellers Association and the guy behind this very cool app, and find out how it came to be:

KM: When did the idea for the IndieBound iphone app first originate, and how long did it take from start to finish to get it created/approved by Apple/and officially launched?

MS: Probably the first mention of an IB for iPhone app goes all the way back to last summer, but we didn’t decide to really jump on it until early December. I worked on it in my spare time from December through March (I do a lot of other stuff for ABA, too!). The backend, web service stuff was easy to do, but to make the app itself I had to teach myself Objective-C–that took a while! Then we had a beta test with some booksellers and some publishers and everybody in the office with iPhones frantically trying to break it. It went to Apple early this month; came out on Monday.

KM: What has reaction been among IndieBound bookseller members; iphone owners; and tech trade pundits/reviewers of new apps?

MS: Booksellers have basically said: “Thank you.” They’re excited, whether they have iPhones or not, because they recognize how large a market this is and what the future potential for independent booksellers is in the mobile marketplace. I think it caught a lot of people by surprise, even though Avin let it slip in his address back at Winter Institute. My goal was to make an app that was fast and fun to use, and everyone I’ve seen who has actually *used* the app has agreed that it came out well. We’ve had very positive reviews in the App Store so far, and I’m pleased that most people seem to immediately get what the app is all about.

KM: Rumor has it you will be adding ebook purchasing capability/access — can you elaborate, or is it still being worked out?

MS: Sure. ABA’s E-Commerce Solution is working feverishly right now on ebook functionality for members’ websites. This will be a complete, robust ebook solution with availability in multiple formats–notably Palm (eReader) and ePub–etc. Concurrently with this, we’ll release an updated version of the iPhone app that adds ebook search functionality and an “also available as an ebook” feature to relevant titles on the book lists. Users will also have access through the IB app to ebooks they have purchased on any ABA E-Commerce Website. Ebooks will download directly into Lexcycle’s popular Stanza app for reading.

I can’t give you an ETA, but it’ll be ready sooner than you think. I think it’s worth pointing out that, with the exception of Stanza, most other ebook solutions for iPhone (Fictionwise’s eReader, Amazon’s Kindle app) also currently require you to purchase on your computer, then sync to the phone. Further down the road, we’re planning to integrate ebook purchasing directly into the app as well, avoiding the hop to Safari.

KM: Philosophically, what is the ultimate goal of the IndieBound App, and does IndieBound have other such innovations in the pipeline?

MS: The goal of the IndieBound app is the same as the goal of the whole IndieBound movement: to raise awareness of the importance of shopping local, and to call attention to the vast curating expertise of independent booksellers. That’s really where I feel our niche is in the App Store right now. There are plenty of apps that will let you search for books, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for, they’re not going to be much help. Our app does both: it includes a search, and carefully-curated book recommendations. And that’s what we’ll continue to focus on even as we add additional functionality to the app. Do we have other innovations in the pipeline? Of course!

***

I, for one, am incredibly impressed. No, it’s not the same thing as shopping/browsing AT an indie bookstore, and you can’t get that sense of community via an app, but it’s a really great way to take some of the expertise housed in our wonderful bookstores and make it more widely available.  Check out the IndieBound app for yourself - but be warned — it can lead to major book shopping!

The Importance of Book Curators, Part II: What We Really Lose When We Lose a Community Book Seller

Yesterday I sang happy praises for the IndieBound iPhone app, and in spite of some less than encouraging news re: a little company called Amazon, I still have very high hopes that IndieBound’s work to optimize the presence and viability of community booksellers online will continue to be successful.

I also mentioned I’d be sharing a less happy story from the book curating front. And, here it is…

Vertigo's co-owners and investors. Photo by Charles Steck.

Last week was the last week for one of the best independent bookstores in the country. Vertigo Books, closed its doors after 18 years of serving the Washington D.C. and College Park communities. I grew up in Prince George’s County, where Vertigo Books had made its home the past few years, and I’d recently become “Twitter Pals” with Vertigo’s co-owner, Bridget Warren.

So, when I saw news of Vertigo’s closing, I asked Bridget if she’d be up for a talk about Vertigo, and bookselling, and reading, and all that stuff. And, in spite of having one heck of a busy schedule (not only did Bridget run Vertigo with her husband Todd Stewart, she’s also director of programming for the Prince George’s County Public Library system AND the mother of a college freshman and a 10-year old), Bridget made the time to chat with me and share some of her thoughts about the changes in the book industry and what they mean to her, to communities, and to readers everywhere.

The conversation was every bit as enlightening as it was heart wrenching. Bridget is all you could want in a book curator. She’s smart, she’s nice, and she’s passionate–not only about books, but about people and how they connect through the written word. And, when I spoke with Bridget, we talked a lot about community and books, and the importance of the places where we physically visit with one another to commune over a shared love of storytelling.

But, my thoughts kept coming back to all the incredible knowledge that Bridget and Todd (and their two daughters, for that matter) have accumulated during the past 18 years at Vertigo Books. Now that Vertigo has closed, what happens to that wealth of knowledge? And what happens to the people-reading talent/skills that they’ve developed over all those years? Reading people and helping to suss out what it is they are REALLY looking for in a book–that is quite an ability.

For example, Bridget related a wonderful story of a young man coming into the store one summer day. He was out of school and wanted something to read, but didn’t know what to get. He asked her where the “bestsellers” were — and after just a few minutes of talking to him and asking him the right questions, she was able to find out what he was interested in and get him a book that was just right for him.

Bridget shared other stories that showcase the many little things we all rely on from our friendly neighborhood booksellers (but don’t notice until they’re gone). She spoke of the shelftalkers in the children’s book section — hand written by her daughters, and so good that grandmoms and moms knew they didn’t even have to look at the book, their kids would love it. And she spoke of one customer commenting on the store’s impeccable title selection (a testament to Todd Stewart’s expertise as a great buyer), saying, “I can walk in here and I know I will leave with a GOOD book. I may not always LOVE the books you recommend, but that’s okay – i don’t have to love it. I can be challenged by a book. I’ve never gotten a bad book from you guys.”

That’s a major function of what people like Bridget and Todd do. They know their customers. They know what they read. They know what they’d like to read. And they make it a point to know about the books that don’t always get picked up by the mainstream bestseller lists. From its inception, Vertigo Books championed the work of emerging and established authors of color and political progressives. (Those voices that disappeared from Amazon during #AmazonFail, those are the very voices Vertigo Books tried to showcase.) As Bridget puts it, “Monolithic entities are not a good idea. We need voices from the margin–poking at the complacent underbelly.”

So, what happens to that?

Mulling it all over, I sought out the high priestess of all things bookish, Ms. Kassia Krozser of Booksquare, and she offered some wonderful observations about just how important the booksellers in our lives really are, and how developments such as the IndieBound iPhone app are one way community booksellers might be able to gain a competitive edge:

Booksellers (I am not counting B&N, Borders) have the unique advantage of being physically placed within the community (if they don’t have the misfortune of being in a high rent district that makes it impossible to survive). That face-to-face conversation is so important, and I think the community it engenders is the bookstore strength. I mean, I go to Vroman’s just to feel like I’m part of Pasadena. That I never leave empty-handed is a sign of my fiscal weakness.

Looking at the Indiebound app, I can see how the big organization can work with the individual stores to make it easier for online shoppers to buy books, either in person or via electronic delivery (an area I think booksellers will be able to exploit quite well if they do it right, and if publishers make it easy for this to happen) or via mail. People are willing to wait a day or so. Next day delivery is nice, but convenience is better. And if all indie stores use their collective ju-ju (technical term) to force competitive pricing (the Amazon advantage), I think consumers, a least a good number of them, would be willing to shop local, either via iPhone, laptop, or in person.

The brainpower of booksellers, like librarians, is the competitive advantage here. Amazon can give me reviews, it can give me prices, it can give me free shipping (hello, electric water heater!), but it can’t talk to me about what I think I want and what I really want (nor can it help me remember Joan Didion’s name when I am having a serious Christmas shopping brain meltdown…nice people at Vroman’s can).

Unfortunately, the nice people at Vertigo Books no longer can. Not in person anyhow. And, while Bridget sees the IndieBound iPhone app as a nice cog in the wheel of truly effective curating/bookselling, her experience is that nothing can take the place of being a part of your customer’s day to day lives. She offers a bit of hope with the news that Todd is considering a blog dedicated to book reviews and recommendations. And there are whispers of a possible book co-op.

So, that’s something. And maybe, along with developments like the IndieBound iPhone app, bookseller blogs and other innovations might lead to a viable, sustainable model that allows the brain trust of community booksellers, with all their book and people know-how, to continue enriching our lives and our culture.

Because, as Bridget quite succinctly stated as our conversation reached its end, “We have to find a productive way to share and help filter the great number of crapola books for customers.” And I coudn’t have said it better myself.

Love,

Kat

[Note: Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher does a wonderful job of summing up what the closing of Vertigo means to the community: “When a big company goes away, a Circuit City or a big bank, for example, the local impact is relatively minimal–some workers lose their jobs, but the effect is regional or national in scope. But when a small local business dies, we lose a chunk of ourselves, a piece of the thing we call community, the reason we live wherever we might live.” Read the full article here.]

‘I Want to Be the Online Charlie Rose’: A Chat with Bethanne Patrick

An important part of our mission at Follow the Reader is to connect book reviewers, book bloggers, media people,  booksellers and librarians on the Web – especially those interested in how the best aspects of the print and digital worlds might converge. So, to break the ice, we’re launching a series of profiles of community members who are abetting the cross-pollination of electronic and traditional print media.

“I would love to have become a Ron Charles [at the Washington Post] or Nick Owchar [at the Los Angeles Times], but I came along at the wrong time. Hence the Book Studio, where I’m creating my own online book review ‘section’ to edit.” –Bethanne Patrick

Bethanne Patrick is an obvious choice to begin our series. An avid bridge-builder between print journalism, online book programming and TV, she is currently launching a pioneering blend of the three at The Book Studio, an outgrowth of WETA, a PBS/NPR affiliate in the Washington D.C. area. Over the past 12 years, Patrick has developed solid print credentials—most recently as a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly and as a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) who has reviewed books for the Washington Post and People magazine. She also currently hosts a weekly author forum at Barnes & Noble’s Center Stage, having cut her teeth launching AOL.com’s book channel from 2004-2007 (now defunct after layoffs). Each month, she also appears on TV to recommend books on New York One. As “The Book Maven,” Patrick is a regular presence on Twitter and in the book blogosphere,  and often participates in thoughtful exchanges with print editors and bloggers that can be tracked across the Web.

(Full disclosure: I am also a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly and an NBCC member - but met Patrick only very recently.)

“I’m a Late Bloomer with a Non-Linear Career”

A Smith College grad, Patrick nearly began her career as a publicity assistant at St. Martin’s Press, but turned down the offer when she became engaged to a West Point cadet whose first assignment was overseas. While her husband attended law school, she started graduate work in English with the intention to get a Ph.D. and teach, but when a college pal pointed out that she’d be happiest talking to people about books, Patrick recognized her true mission.

Like many women with growing families, she found that achieving that goal would involve some improvisation. While having two children and undertaking various moves, Patrick taught and freelanced as a writer for Army Times and Episcopal Life, and bought books by the carload whenever she found a good independent bookstore. Then, in 2001, she was hired as the first telecommuting editor for Pages magazine. Within another three years, she was working at America Online, then located near her home in Northern Virginia, where she launched the books channel. This year, she moved over to WETA.com’s The Book Studio, which offers a mix of book reviews and author interviews in prose and audio formats, including an audio interview with Michael Pollan that will run May 15.

The following conversation – which ranges from the lessons of launching online book sites, to what publishers can do better, to the distinctions between bloggers and book reviewers – took place earlier this week via instant messaging.

The Book Studio at WETA.com

Charlotte Abbott: You are a book reviewer who is pioneering a new online arena for books on the website for a radio and TV station. Does that mean you’re threatening to the status quo every way you turn?

Bethanne Patrick:  Unfortunately, that’s true. I wish we weren’t, but people find it scary to see something new. I will say that the AUTHORS are incredibly happy, grateful and thrilled – but I want READERS to feel the same way. The Book Studio has only been live for a few weeks, and so far, the time on-site stats are very, very good. People are stopping by and staying for a while.

CA: How do you keep the higher-ups at ease?

BP: I tend to be quite a people-pleaser, so why not let that work for me?

CA: But how do you avoid accommodating others so much that you lose opportunities you can see clearly but others can’t?

BP: I did lose some opportunities in the past, but no longer –I’m really focused now on what my strengths are. I know that I want to review and interview. I’d like to be the next Charlie Rose – though that sounds so arrogant. I may not get there! But that is a great goal: to be the online Charlie Rose.

CA: It sounds pretty good to me.

BP:  Some people say to me: “Oh, be more hip than that!” But I believe that books will remain the best way for people to express complex ideas.

CA: Well, we can be sure you will have better hair!

BP: I promise better hair…even if I have more chins!

CA:  What needs to happen for online book forums to assume the preeminence that Charlie has on late night TV for the intellectual set?

BP:  I think we need to include the enthusiasm that people have for talking about books. Maybe we need a book group chat show, a smart one. At the Book Studio, we plan to experiment at some point with group videos -e.g., me and other reviewers, me and a bunch of authors in one genre.

CA: How will you handle reviews?

BP:  Eventually we’ll have both professional reviewers (e.g., Oberlin professor Anne Trubek, Preservation editor Sudip Bose, and more) AND community reviewers. We also want to make sure people will see great book blogs that they might like, where they can go for more of a particular type of conversation, and also circle back to our site for interviews, spotlight reviews, etc.

The Lessons of AOL

CA:  What was your biggest lesson at AOL? 

BP: First: I could talk with readers any time I wanted. But: I didn’t want to chat with just anyone. I wanted to talk to really smart, informed people. I am not trying to be cruel or disrespectful to those who have found their bliss in online chats/book message boards. I just wasn’t interested in chaff at all; I wanted to go straight to the wheat.

CA: Was there a lot of trial and error in launching the book channel?

BP: Oh, yeah. At first, I tried to make things a little too library-like. I had to get into the AOL groove and tuck the intellectual things in between celeb author interviews. That’s why you’ll still find lots of Google hits with me and Heidi Klum!

CA: Did you work with the forums?

BP: In retrospect, I wish I’d worked more with the AOL book forums. There was a lot of power and passion there. But, in my defense, I was actually discouraged from doing so, since the emphasis during my three years at AOL was on original content. (The emphasis shifts at AOL a lot.) I was working hard on developing a voice for my blog and on figuring out how to get publishers’ content fed into our environment.

CA: What was the impact?

BP: My biggest lesson from the community at AOL was that a lot of people will buy a lot of books if you connect them to the content. My most successful examples were two very different books: Mark Leyner’s Why Do Men Have Nipples? and David Friend’s Watching the World Change: 9/11 in Photographs. Show people some content in an engaging way and then give them an immediate opportunity to buy a book and you get big wins, all around. But it has to be in a media context; otherwise, consumers feel too manipulated. (Yes, of course, we’re all being manipulated all the time.)

CA:  Do you mean you created a context for these books related to daily headlines?

BP: Yes, that was the most important thing: to relate to either a headline or a search item. I could have spent my entire AOL career just on Harry Potter, LOL!

CA: Were you ever able to exercise your sensibility as someone with an MA in medieval lit?

BP:  Yes! HarperCollins published a fun little book about 100 Most Famous People Who Never Lived—not just characters from lit, but characters from myth, advertising, etc. Very fun for general public and also for academics, because of the lit connections. My boss said, “Don’t do this, it’s a loser. No one cares about fictional characters,” but I put together a photo gallery with fun text and it was a HUGE win: one million unique page views. Sold a lot of books, too!

CA: How satisfying.

BP:  There is room online for a convergence of commercial success and intelligence. I believe that, or I wouldn’t keep doing what I’m doing.

What Publishers Can Do Better

CA:  From your perspective, what do publishers need to do better, to adapt to the proliferation of bloggers, e-galleys, multiple book platforms, etc.?

BP:  First step: Every publisher needs a PR person for new media, NOT just an online marketing manager. Any publisher whose main PR people are stuck in print/broadcast past should move on. Even TV these days has online components! Second: publishers need to understand that there IS a difference between amateur book bloggers and professional review bloggers like Sarah Weinman, Ed Champion, Mark Sarvas, and me, on my best days.

CA:  How do you differentiate the roles of PR vs. online marketing?

BP: PR people are better at building pre-pub buzz, which is still important. Online marketing people are sometimes good at it — but they’re still better at post-pub marketing.

Book Reviewers vs. Bloggers

CA: What’s the difference between amateur and pro book bloggers – can you spell it out?

BP:  I recently read a so-called “review” on an amateur’s site that was little more than a plot summary, with  an “I loved it,” and a link to a giveaway. That’s lovely and very accessible–but it is NOT a review. A review can be 100% positive, but it still has to give you some analysis, some depth, some peek into WHY the book matters.

CA:  Right, but isn’t there a place for enthusiasts in spreading their enthusiasm for books?

BP:  There is definitely a place for enthusiasts! They are hand-selling books; they are voracious readers and very loyal.

CA: As bloggers and book reviewers converge through electronic media, will only the fittest of each group survive, or can they expand the audience for books if they work together?

BP: A great question, since I am an example of that convergence. As a reviewer, I want legitimacy, standards, a community. I still believe in that, and still believe that the NBCC matters. Which is why I want to drag it kicking and screaming into the online world!

CA:  Yet you seem to very encouraging to book bloggers – judging by your comments and participation on various blogs.

BP: I am, because I think that hearing from people who do adhere to NBCC standards will help them look at those standards, too. Also, nothing’s wrong with MORE talk about books, as long as we all understand that there are still some delineations.

CA: Like between those who write for pay and those who write for free?

BP:  As I’ve said on Twitter, I’ve always been paid for blogging – which makes me suspect to the litblogging community. And I’ve blogged for a long time, which makes me suspect to the NBCC.

CA: How do you think those tensions can be resolved?

BP:  I think they’re all based on fear–that a paid blogger isn’t upholding indie standards, that a blogger of any type can’t uphold critical standards—but neither fear is justified.

CA: So it’s a matter of getting people to look past the format (e.g. blogs or print) to see the quality of the content?

BP: Yes.

CA: Of course, blogs also offer all kinds of fascinating content development opportunities – and self publishing opportunities.

BP:  Yes. That’s why bloggers need to be rigorous about what their goals are.

CA: Thanks for sharing your insights, Bethanne! Best of luck, and please keep us posted on how it goes at The Book Studio.

Book Bloggers and Indie Bookstores Unite!

Potential ways that bookstores and book bloggers might work together proved a lively discussion topic on our most recent Twitter discussion, now a weekly event on Fridays from 4pm -5pm ET.

[To listen to our discussions in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To join in the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.]

The topic was sparked by Drew Goodman, a bookseller at The Bookmark at the University of Utah campus store. A Twitterer who writes the Bits of Ink blog, Goodman recently explored the future of the book blogger in a provocative series of posts that got us thinking about bloggers’ potential to straddle the roles of traditional book reviewers and booksellers, and how booksellers and book bloggers might work together.

Interlinking Indie Booksellers and Book Bloggers

While acknowleging that “Every bookstore should have a blog,” Goodman points out:

“Very small stores may not have the time or the resources to devote to maintaining a blog. Small to mid-size stores may not be able to dedicate someone to consistently write a blog (and you must be consistent). Some bookstore owners or managers may not feel they have the technical expertise or internet savvy to create a blog. Some stores question the effectiveness of a blog in generating sales. I’ve heard all the excuses.”

Yet traditional booksellers and bloggers can help one another, Goodman suggests, if stores forge relationships in which a blogger links all their book reviews to a store’s web site. In compensation, he proposes, bloggers “would earn a percentage of each item sold through their recommendation” and might also earn a slightly higher affiliate percentage if they were dedicated to promoting a particular store. The blogger might also receive advanced reading copies of books, and promotion of their site through store marketing efforts, such as listing the blog address on posters and on store bookmarks, mentions at events, etc.

Bookstores might request that a blogger feature a particular book, or post by an author who will be attending the store for an event, Goodman suggests. “Maybe the blogger could allow for guest posts from members of the bookstore staff, still creating potential for sales, while taking pressure off the blogger,” he adds.

More Bookseller Input Needed

The bloggers and booksellers who participated in our Twitter discussion took these ideas in myriad new directions, during an impassioned discussion that went on for a solid hour and a half. Yet as you’ll see from the highlights below, there was more imput from bloggers than from booksellers.

So, booksellers, we would welcome your reponses to this discussion in the comments area below – and surely Goodman would too, on Bits of Ink. [Note: Goodman is identified in the comments below as @booksliesalibis.]

Book Bloggers Unite!

@mawbooks: Book bloggers going to #BEA, message @ftoolan for meet & greet booth space! Great opportunity! Take advantage! #followreader

@ftoolan: Thanks. I hope it catches on. I think bloggers need to show themselves as a community instead of disjointed individuals #followreader

@susanmpls: Is there a comprehensive-ish directory of book bloggers? Ideally w/blog interests. Might be way for indies to find like minds #followreader

@AnnKingman: I am trying to create a database of book bloggers by region to help book community at large #followreader

@bostonbibliophl: I would love to do shelf-talkers/recommendations for a store. porter square, are you out there? harvard bkstore? #followreader

@AnnKingman: Do you know@Bookdwarf? I think we may have to have a Boston area blogger/bookseller meetup. Good idea #followreader

@myfriendamy: Any SoCal bookstores willing to be featured on my blog (a visit from me!) please contact! #followreader

@BookWorm71: I am in Ontario, Canada #followreader

How Can Bookstores (and Publishers) Support Bloggers?

@myfriendamy: If bookstore promotes my blog as place 4 reviews, would gladly link 2 them 4 purchase bc readership is my #1 #followreader

@R_Nash: Hey, how about trusted bloggers’ shelftalkers ‘n’ such? #followreader

@AaronsBooks: we’d do shelf talkers for bloggr reviewed books, & we give ARCs, wld lv bloggers to let us know who they are when in the store #followreader

@JoniParagraphs: I have been working on a blogger recommends shelf – I don’t have staff. Will supplement IndieBest sec. #followreader

@craftygirljen: I think the shelf talkers would be a great way to draw attention to various books & blogs. #followreader

@booksliesalibis: Bloggers, would you print bookmarks with your blog info to leave in stores for stores to share?

@mawbooks: Absolutely! I’d be thrilled to have bookstores pass on my blog info via business cards or bookmarks

@jane_l: Most bloggers are hobbyists & don’t make money from blogging & therefore cannot/will not spend $$ on advertising. #followreader

@ColleenLindsay: Ack! As a former bookseller, I hated when publishers left bookmarks. They end up getting tossed. #followreader

@ColleenLindsay: Stores could offer a promo discount code for readers of a particular blog #followreader

@ largeheartedboy: @bookavore @atomicbooks already offers discounts for my 52 Books series: http://is.gd/vXT8 #followreader

@booksliesalibis: How about a book blogger Tweetup at a local bookstore each month? Have customers talk with bloggers about favorite books #followreader

@RonHogan: Blog/bookstore events don’t have to be author readings. One alternative: book club hosting! #followreader

@bookpatrol: An affiliate program for bloggers with e-commerce enabled publishers AND bookstores might help the cause #followreader

@susanmpls: Pubs would approve co-op to store. It’s up to store and blogger to divvy the share. That’s how I’d run it from our house. #followreader

@ColleenLindsay: Technically, co-op monies belong to the publishers; they would have to approve pay out for this. #followreader

@RonHogan: The collaboration between @maudnewton & Housing Works is a perfect example of blog/store synergy. #followreader

@AaronsBooks: we link to some blogs on our site, we’d do link exchanges with more if there’s interest, but not want it too cluttered #followreader

@trishheylady: If I got to pick from your ARCs, I’d consider not linking to Amazon. #followreader

@mawbooks: I do get to pick ARC’s from my local indie, but it was never expected of me to get rid of my Amazon links. #followreader

@nethspace: Indies offering me galleys and swag does little – I’m already buried and have TBR Stack that’ll last years #followreader

Do Regional Relationships Between Bloggers and Booksellers Make Sense?

AnnKingman: Would think that pubs would love to target regional interest books to local bloggers. #followreader

@largeheartedboy: I am surprised more indies don’t work closer with blogs, especially regional wonders like @mnreads #followreader

@AnnKingman: local certainly not mandatory, but there is power in local. Access to authors, ARCs, community issues & commentary #followreader

@mawbooks: I would love to see if my local indiees would be interested. We have 20+ bloggers in our area. #followreader

@nethspace: link to local store isn’t so good for bloggers who live in small towns with few stores and people #followreader

@nethspace: I love indie stores – but the one’s close to me have terrible SFF selections and knowledge #followreader

@ColleenLindsay: When I started to research SF/F book blogs for online promotio, fully 50% of them were outside US #followreader

@nethspace: Exactly – my reach is probably 99% national/international and <1% local/regional #followreader

@jane_l: That’s the appeal of blogs – bringing together a geographically diverse readership #followreader

@booksliesalibis: If there are few bloggers in an area, why couldn’t a blogger from a distance away support a store? #followreader

@wordlily: Different approaches/scenarios are necessitated by whether area has many/few bloggers/bookstores #followreader

@alexanderchee: Should stores and blog rings adopt each other, and share? #followreader

On Linking to Indies vs. Amazon

@mawbooks: I’ve always had “invisble” links but will start saying “Title available through . . . ” #followreader

@mawbooks: I am uncomfortable with exclusive linking. I would link back to store in addition to Amazon & other sources #followreader

@mawbooks My local indie asked for indie link to be listed first. I can do that. #followreader

@mawbooks: I’ve made exactly zero dollars from Indiebound. But I am changing my linking habits to see if that changes. #followreader

@mawbooks: I have indiebound in my sidebar, but it’s not enough. Links need to be in the posts too.

@jane_l: I linked to AMZN & Powells for 6 months — Earned nothing from Powells & good $$ from AMZN #followreader

@jane_l: I made enough to cover shipping for prizes and blog hosting fees (shipping is hugest event 4 me) #followreader

@jane_l: I switched to Indiebound after #amazonfail. Wanted to walk the talk even at a loss. Am definitely losing $$ #followreader

@jane_l:I have had more than one reader email me that they were disappointed I removed Amazon links #followreader

@jane_l: Part of success of AMZN was offering $$ to bloggers & making it easy for them to integrate into sites & earn $$ from content. #followreader

@Wordlily: Amazon is easy for the purchaser, too, though. One-click purchase, wishlist, free shipping options … #followreader

@BookishRuth: the problem that bloggers have is that most readers want to buy from Amazon. It’s frustrating. #followreader

@bostonbibliophl: I link to Indiebound. But response is always “I like Amazon better.” Indies still going uphill #followreader

@BethFishReads: I’ve made zero from Indiebound, but then I’ve made < $10 from Amazon. I’m not pushing enough, I guess #followreader

@Condalmo: I link to Powell’s w/out any problem. #followreader

@trishheylady: I’m linking to Powell’s along with Amzn. Powell’s link is 1st. Really gd aff prgrm. Don’t know if indiebound compares. #followreader

@booksliesalibis: A problem for indie booksellers. If we give space in our stores & web, we hate to see Amazon on yr blog. #followreader

@myfriendamy: Received a lot of anger from indie sellers for linking to Amazon on buybooksfortheholidays.com not impressed #followreader

@mawbooks: I don’t think you’ll ever get bloggers to stop linking to Amazon.BUT you can get them to do mulitple linking. #followreader

@DevourerofBooks: I’d likely lose sales but willing to put indie first- but I don’t think fewer people would read the blog #followreader

@DevourerofBooks: Could definitely give indies top billing, make a statement ‘consider supporting an indie’ #followreader

@booksliesalibis: That’s the beauty of Indiebound. You promote books, get affiliate $’s and Indiebound handles which store. #followreader

Other Blogger Concerns about Working with Indies:

@myfriendamy: My readership is my no 1, will not compromise for bookstore must consider global readers #followreader

@myfriendamy: Will bookstore be upset if I give neg review 2 one of their hot titles if sending patrons 2 my blog? #followreader

@BethFishReads: I don’t really want to become a commercial-looking site. I want to promote books rather than any 1 store #followreader

@craftygirljen: Stores should make clear they don’t necessarily support blogger views, so bloggers could say what they want. #followreader

@leatherzebra: It’s hard to support indie booksellers when they treat you horribly (directly) for being a genre writer #followreader

@booksliesalibis: I think there are stores out there that respect books, not genres, you could work with them. #followreader

Never Get Laid Off with ‘Director’ in Your Title + Other Bookish Lessons from Colleen Lindsay

Colleen Lindsay

Writing for this blog rocks for a number of reasons, none the least of which is, I get to talk to some of the coolest people in the book world. A person who fits that description to a tee — one Ms. Colleen Lindsay. Colleen is the consummate bookish chick. She has worked in almost every imaginable aspect of book-selling and book publishing and is always taking on new challenges and learning new things about the book world, which she, in turn is all too generous about sharing with others.

My small gift of paying it forward, dear readers, is having the pleasure of sharing a little bit of Colleen Lindsay, with you. So, with no further ado, allow me to introduce you to the fabulous Colleen Lindsay, Bookish Peep of the Day…

Her First Book-Related Job:
“Part-time bookkeeper at a bookstore in San Mateo, California.The bookstore is defunct now, of course, as many Bay Area indie bookstores are. But back in 1984, the SF Bay Area indie bookstore scene was an especially thriving one. (I didn’t say I was a GOOD bookkeeper!)”

First Publishing Job Laid Off From:
“Ballantine Books as a sales assistant in the mass merch division. Mass merch is eye-opening. You really learn where the bulk of the books are sold in the United States. After a couple of years, the mass merch accounts all consolidated into just a few mega-corporations. I was laid off, along with eight of my colleagues across the country.”

Why Patti LaBelle is Basically Responsible for Her Move from San Francisco Book Selling to NYC Book Publishing:
“In April of 1999, I got a phone call from a very nice guy at the Random House events marketing department asking me if I wanted to come work with him in NYC. I’d just had a pretty exhausting celebrity event (while working as Events Manager at Stacey’s Bookstore in San Francisco) with Patti LaBelle and had quite literally just walked her and her entourage out of the building, so I was a little cranky and tired.

I knew Christian pretty well, since we did so many events with Random House, and I honestly thought he was joking. I said something like ‘Sure! You pay my way to New York, and I’ll come work for you!’ and I hung up. He called me two weeks later and said ‘Okay, I fought for it and got you a moving allowance. Now will you come work for me?’ How could I say no to that? LOL!”

Her Best Job Ever:
“Heading up the publicity for Ballantine’s very profitable science fiction & fantasy imprint, Del Rey Books — specializing in SF/F, pop culture, media tie-ins and – eventually – helping to launch their new manga line.”

Most Important Lesson She has Learned from Publishing:
“Never get laid off with the word ‘director’ in your title. You’re just told repeatedly that you’re overqualified for everything.”

On Becoming an Agent:
“So what do you do when you want to stay in publishing but can’t find work? You become an agent!  ha ha ha ha!

I started doing a round of informational interviews with agents I knew through my wonderful Del Rey authors, agents like Ann Seybold at Janklow Nesbitt, Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House, and Richard Pine at Inkwell Management. They were all very gracious with their time and insight.The last informational interview I had was with Peter Rubie and Stephany Evans at FinePrint Literary Management. We had a great talk, and by the time I got home, there was a voicemail from Peter asking me to come aboard with FinePrint. That was in February of last year.”

On #QueryFail:
“Queryfail was a project that another agent, Lauren MacLeod, and I came up with. We asked a few other agents to join in, to do something that I’d done a couple times on my blog: live-streaming my queries as I read them, and letting people know what it was that made me stop reading or passing on the query, and why.

We scheduled it for one day in March, and reminded people online about it.  When that day came, we honestly had no idea that it would be come so damned big! Nor that so many writers would get their panties in a bunch over it, frankly. It ended up being mentioned in two stories in the Guardian UK, a newspaper in France, a newspaper in Sweden. And for me, it was just the same exercise I’d been doing on my blog.

After all the initial brou-ha-ha died down, the fact was that we had far more positive feedback from writers than negative. Most writers saw it for what it was: an educational exercise. I got a number of wonderful thank-you emails, and a couple of cards sent to the office.  Most of the participating agents also told me that they noticed a real difference in the quality of the queries they received in the weeks immediately afterward, so I’d say for that reason alone, #queryfail accomplished what we set out to do with it.”

On Publishing’s Ups and Downs + the Power of Storytelling:
“I would love publishing more if it didn’t keep imploding on itself and making bad decisions. Seriously, I love the book industry but it seems to shoot itself in the foot every three months. This past year was probably the worst, but I’ve lived through several bad shake-ups. Publishing always bounces back. Each time it takes publishing a little longer to bounce back, however. I am hopeful that once the economy bounces back, that the book industry will also pick up again.

Because, ultimately? I believe in the power of storytelling. Storytelling has gotten mankind through thousands of years of plague, and famine, and war, and floods, and depressions, and storytelling will get us through this. Storytelling is a powerful thing.”

On Blockbusters, Midlist, and the Bottom Line:
“I think that if publishers stop going for the blockbusters entirely, they’ll go out of business. I mean, let’s face it, you may not like Dan Brown, but four bazillion other people do. Why? Because he is a good storyteller. I think that sometimes people in the book community are too quick to label certain titles as junk, simply because they are popular. It’s kind of a sour grapes mentality. When Stephenie Meyer became big, half the YA authors in the world slammed her because they thought they could write a better book; the other half wanted to BE her, and all started writing vampire love stories. But ultimately, something in the Twilight story connected at a deeper level for teenage girls.

Is that a bad thing? Even if you consider that the subtext of the books are a little creepy, at the very least, it gives parents and teachers an opportunity to also read the books and open up a dialogue with their kids about what they find disturbing in the story.

And I will also say that I don’t believe that big trade publishers don’t respect midlist authors. If you go through any new catalog from a large trade publisher, what you’ll see primarily IS midlist. There will be a lead and a sub-lead title, and then a lot of midlist. Because most of the backlist gets built by nurturing midlist writers. Sure, some writers get cut loose because they stop selling completely. And that’s a business decision. But look at the backlist catalog of any large publisher and you’ll see a slew of midlist authors who never really make it big, but sell decently enough every year that they stay in print.

I think that publishers have always had to look toward the bottom line and bestsellers pay the bills. Look, this is an industry with a notoriously low profit-margin. It’s a business and a business exists to make a profit. Thus, bestsellers are necessary. And the truth is…bestsellers can build reading community just as much as any other book.”

On Publishers Connecting with Readers:
“I know that when I worked at Ballantine, they were doing a marvelous job. They were the first publisher to do the bound-in reading guides with their Ballantine Readers Circle books, something that other Random House imprints soon copied, and within a couple of years, nearly every large publisher with a trade paperback line was doing that.

I know that marketing departments do pay attention to book groups, and a lot of them set up virtual book tours with authors, where an author calls into a book group meeting to answer questions. I think that the advent of the Internet has helped some smart publishers start conversations with readers through the use of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, free ebooks, and author forums.

When I was a publicist at Del Rey and I wanted to set up a book tour for a Star Wars author, I didn’t go to the bookstores for proposals. I went to the readers at TheForce.net, a huge Star Wars fan group. I went into forums for other authors to discuss upcoming titles with readers. Basically, if you go to where the readers are, instead of trying to draw them to your own website, you’ll have much more success at connecting with them.”

On Blogging:
“I had a very long-running blog called La Gringa & Co. that I kept for years. It was sort of a reflection of my feeling very out of place as a San Francisco transplant to New York City. I was working for Random House at that time and – as much as I love traditional publishing – I have always also been fascinated by new technology, especially new media. I’ve always been a sort of early adopter of anything techy, and a blog was no different.

My posts the first couple of years were more or less just a sort of online letter to my friends and family, all of whom I routinely neglected to keep in touch with because I was a lazy email correspondent. Eventually, it grew into more of a place for me to tell stories about my life, adjusting to life in NYC, and learning the ins and outs of corporate publishing. When I moved to Del Rey in 2000, my blog became more and more geared toward pop culture, science fiction and fantasy and the book industry.

I was pretty careful to remain anonymous and never discussed my work or talked about Random House, because the Internet was still a wild and woolly place to most publishing companies at that time and some publishers had been known to fire employees for blogging. However, pretty much everyone who had anything to do with the SF/F book scene knew who La Gringa was. What was remarkable was that so many people kept my identity secret for so long! At some point in 2002-ish, I just got tired of blogging. I was feeling like it was more of an obligation than a pleasure and I didn’t want to do it any more.  In a fit of pique, I did something incredibly idiotic: I deleted several years worth of blog posts. Like, gone. Poof! Oooops. Afterward, I realized how stupid that was.

Oh, well! Anyway… People started to notice that I wasn’t blogging anymore and they asked me why. I got dozens of emails a week from people that – up until that point – I didn’t even know had read my blog. I decided to start up the blog again in late 2003 and that blog ran until May of 2007. For the last year and a half, I had a co-blogger, another editor who worked for a major publishing company. She went by the name of Book Stud (I can’t tell you who this was, by the way, because she would prefer to remain anonymous). I wrote about books and SF/F and pop culture; she wrote about music and knitting and theater, and we both wrote about being a geek in general.

I took that blog down and archived the material. I’d decided that I was tired of being anonymous and I didn’t like writing things that I couldn’t put my name behind. I believe that the book industry needs more transparency, frankly.
And thus The Swivet was born in August 2007.

One frustration that I’ve always had with blogging was that I knew blogging would be a great way to reach out to readers and the SF/F community but the strictures of corporate publishing were such that it was an area most of them were unwilling to explore as a promotional tool or a way to build community with customers — very, very frustrating!

Thankfully a lot of that has changed now, and you see more and more publishers who are actively using blogs as a way of building community online.”

On eBooks:
“People always are kind of amazed when I tell them how long I’ve been reading and advocating for ebooks. I started reading ebooks in 1998.  I had a Palm Pilot. The original, with the teeny little screen and only 1 mb of ram.  That one. There was a cool little publisher called Peanut Press that began to publish books in .pdb format –  I was hooked. When I got a Palm IIIc later on, the screen and contract were better so it was even easier to read. And there was an autoscroll function so that when I went to the gym I could set the book scrolling while I was on the treadmill or elliptical.

At one point after I started at Random House, I discovered that Documents to Go had an option for creating .pdb files, so I started making my own ebooks out of manuscripts I was working on and I could carry around dozens of manuscripts at a time. I use a Sony Reader now, but only to read manuscripts, since Sony doesn’t offer Mac support. (Get on the ball, Sony!)

I’d like a Kindle, too but ultimately I see myself leaning more toward getting an iPhone and using Stanza and Scroll Motion technology to read.  I actually preferred reading on my Palm, and only made the switch when my Palm died (my fourth Palm!) last year. I’ve read on iPhones and it’s a great experience.”

On Her Love of Books and Reading:
“When I was a kid, I went to a Catholic school that was high on language arts and not so great on math. Thus the reason that I was able to read at a high school senior level when I was in second grade, but never did learn my times tables until I was about 24.

The nuns only wanted us reading books that were designated for our reading level. Our GRADE reading level. So I was only allowed to take out books from the section reserved for second graders. Which was maddening. So I snuck into the 8th grade section and climbed up as high as I could reach…which was the science fiction and fantasy section. I grabbed the first thing I could, stuffed it down my uniform and took it home, read it, brought it back and came back for more.

The first book I grabbed was an Isaac Asimov.”

Colleen’s One Small Step Toward Saving Publishing Would Be:

“It would be great to see any one publisher make it a company policy to take one day a month AT WORK and make it a reading-only day.  I’d love to see publishers step back and try to remember why most of their employees are working in publishing in the first place: a love of reading. But the way most of your day is structured at any publishing job actually precludes one from simply READING.

As an agent I’m up against the same thing. It was a huge wake up call for me last year to realize that in a 12-month period, I’d read only seven – SEVEN! – books that weren’t client manuscripts or partials I was evaluating. It takes some of the joy out of the work.”

Fictitious Book Character She’d Most Like to Twitter With:
“Aud Torvingen from Nicola Griffith’s wonderful series of books The Blue Place, Stay and Always. But i suspect that Aud would just hunt me down and break my neck for bothering her.”

And, even if you are not Aud Torvingen, you can twitter with Colleen here!

~ Kat

Thank You Miss Hook: A Post in Honor of Reading Mentors Everywhere.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about reading. I imagine that might sound funny, given I spend most of my waking hours thinking about books and the publishing industry. But, reading – though a huge part of the book and publishing industry, is very much its own animal. It’s alive. It lives and breathes in you. It finds you, one way or another, and becomes a part of you.

Reading is a gift. Reading is a passion. And, our introduction to reading is probably something we should think about and honor more than we do.

So, I’ve been thinking about my introduction to reading…that magic moment when the characters on the page actually became words, and I was able to READ!

I have 3 older sisters. As I think back, to the earliest memories of my childhood – I remember my sisters with their books. At home in our rooms – at the library – coming home from school. They always had those books!

I wanted so badly to be able to do what they were doing. So, I faked it a lot. Holding up a book, staring at the page, then turning the page at just the right time. Laughing or furrowing my brow — mimicking whatever expression they happened to have on their face while they were doing this elusive thing called “reading.”

I distinctly recall feeling incredibly frustrated by the whole thing. And I remember my sisters trying to help me learn to do what they were doing — to read. My oldest sister, Peg – ten years my senior — she actually made a bit of headway. I have fuzzily happy memories of sitting with her and her explaining letters and sounds, and words. But, mostly I remember having huge temper tantrums because I was NOT GETTING IT.

My mom was a lot better at the patience part of teaching reading. And, very good at helping me see the connection between the words and the story they told. I remember sitting with my mom and feeling very calmed and excited and hopeful about the process of learning to read. But, even with her help, I didn’t fully learn to read at home. And, being stubborn didn’t help. I have happy memories of going to the library, but my most vivid childhood library memory: the day I had to pay for the book that I cut up out of frustration. (I know – I defaced a book. I was the ultimate Bad Seed.)

Luckily, school happened. With morning session kindergarten at Ascension Lutheran School and the wonderful Miss Hook,  it all came together for me. The alphabet, the words – the stories – READING! BAM! It took.

Yes, it pretty much took a small village to teach me to read: between my sisters and my parents and Miss Hook, and all the other teachers who taught me to read better and to appreciate reading, and of course, the authors themselves — I became a full-fledged member of the reading world.

So, thanks mommy; and thanks Peg and Jen and Chrystie; and thanks Miss Hook! And, thanks to all the reading mentors out there. You are all so very awesome!

And to anyone who happens to be reading this, please feel free to share your own stories about how you found reading, and who your reading mentors were/are. We’d love to hear from you!

Luv,
Kat

Blogger Signings at BEA

Here’s a quick note for those of you who will be fortunate enough to attend this year’s BookExpo America in New York later this month. The Firebrand booth will be hosting “meet and greet” session and “signings” with some really wonderful book bloggers and others who write and report on books. Charlotte and I will be hosting this one-of-a-kind event (perhaps even the first of its kind?), and we’re really looking forward to it.

Check out Fran Toolan’s post over at his “Issues in Publishing” Blog for more details. We hope to see you in New York!

Blogger Signing Schedule at BEA

Firebrand is thrilled to announce that 44 bloggers signed up to be at our booth (#4077) during Book Expo America.  It’s clear from how quickly this idea went from concept to reality, that book bloggers need and want to create community-to-community relationships with publishers, retailers, and readers. This is an incredibly exciting time in publishing!

We invite every publisher at BEA to review this schedule and mark their calendars, so they have a chance to meet the bloggers who are helping to sell their books.

The schedule is below. We have a couple of new entries (Sarah Weinman, Ed Champion, and Austin Allen) not listed below, or if you have trouble reading the layout below, Click Here

		Friday, May 29th
10am
The Book Maven	Bethanne Patrick	Books, Publishing, Current Events
Presenting Lenore	Lenore Appelhans	YA, General Fiction Reviews
11am
Follow the Reader	Charlotte Abbott,    Kat Meyer	Professional Readers, Publishing Trends
Maw Books	Natasha Maw	Childrens, YA, Middle Grade, Adult, Author Interviews
12pm
GalleyCat	Jason Boog	Publishing, Technology
Tools of Change for Publishing	Andrew Savikas	Publishing, Technology, Social Media
1pm
Books on the Nightstand	Ann Kingman, Michael Kindness	Books, Publishing, From a publisher perspective
Beatrice.com	Ron Hogan	Books & Writers
2pm
Booksquare	Kassia Krozser	Books, Publishing, Technology, Social Media
Jenn’s Bookshelf	Jennifer Lawrence	Books – All Genres
3pm
The Swivet	Colleen Lindsay	Agenting, Publishing, General Blogging
Book Club Girl	Jennifer Hart	Books, Publishing,
4pm
Booking Mama	Julie Peterson	Books, Book Clubs, Authors
My Friend Amy	Amy Riley	Literary, Women’s, Christian, Historical
The Friendly Book Nook	Amy Riley	Kids, Middle Grade, YA Reviews,  Mysteries
		Saturday, May 30th
10am
Beth Fish Reads	Candace  Levy	Reviewer, Book Professional
Pop Culture Junkie	Alea Adou	YA Books, Chick Lit, Graphic Novels
She is Too Fond of Books	Dawn Rennert	Reviews, Author interviews, Publishing
11am
Hey Lady! Watcha Readin’?	Trish Collins	Reviews, Author interviews, Publishing
Reviewer X	Stephanie Leite	YA Books
My Cozy Book Nook	Molly Totaro	British Classics, Contemporary Literature, Mysteries
12pm
Book Reviews by Jess	Jessica Kennedy	Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy and YA books
Smart Bitches Trashy Books	Sarah Wendell	Romance
1pm
Personanondata	Michael Cairns	Publishing, Technology, Social Media
Sharon Loves Cats	Sharon Somers	YA Books
Janicu’s book blog	Janice Y	Urban Fantasy, Romance, Suspense, YA books
2pm
Book Blogger Panel		Hosted by Jennifer Hart
Room 1E15
3pm
The Big Picture	Laura Dawson	Publishing, Technology, Social Media
The Olive Reader	Erica Barmash	Books, Publishing, From a Publisher perspective
Literary License	Gwen Dawson	Contemporary Literary Fiction, Int’l Fiction/Translations
4pm
Stephanie’s Written Word	Stephanie Coleman-Chan	Contemporary, Historical, YA Fiction,  some Fantasy, Memoirs
Bookrastination	Jay Franco	Comics, Sci-Fi, Publishing Professional
Every Day I Write the Book	Gayle Weiswasser	Current Fiction
		Sunday, May 31st
10am
Reading the Past	Sarah Johnson	Historical Fiction
Literary Kicks	Levi Asher	Literary Fiction, Poetry
11am
Wands and Worlds	Sheila Ruth	Juvenile, YA, Fantasy and Sci-Fi
Mother Reader	Pam Coughlan	Kid Lit, YA
12pm
Teleread	Paul Biba	ebooks, epublishing – News, Commentary, Analysis
Laura’s Review Book Shelf	Laura McCarthy	YA, General Fiction, Paranormal Romance
1pm
The Tome Traveller’s Weblog	Carey Anderson	Historical Fiction
Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind	Sarah Weinman	Crime and Mystery Fiction
The Bat Segundo Show	Edward Champion	Culture and Literary Podcast
2pm
The Abbeville Manual of Style	Austin Allen	Arts + Culture, Literary Fiction, Book Industry Commentary

The New Book Buying Realities

The presentations from the Making Information Pay conference organized by publishing consultants Mike Shatzkin and Ted Hill for the Book Industry Study Group are now up on the web.

Having attended the conference, I recommend checking out “The Customer’s Always Right: Who is Today’s Book Consumer?” by Kelly Gallagher of Bowker. His data-rich slides reveal fascinating customer behavior by age and gender that should be required reading for editors and publicists as well as booksellers, librarians, and media. In other words, a much wider audience than the publishing operations executives, indie and university press publishers and academics who attended the half-day program at the McGraw Hill Auditorium on May 7th.

Why does it always seem like the publishing rank and file are the last to be exposed to this crucial information? Oh well, I guess that’s where Follow the Reader can play a role.

Getting to Know the Customer

Gallagher prefaced his talk by arguing that we need to work harder to understand people who buy books, since they are buying them in new places and in new ways. As it happens, Bowker, one of the show’s sponsors, has a helpful product in this area: PubTrack, a syndicated consumer research service that delivers monthly stats based on responses from 36,000 book buyers–selected according to age, gender, income, household size and location–who buy 120,000 books over the course of 80,000 “shopping occasions,” and have signed on to answer 75-question surveys. Nice information, if you can afford it!

To his credit, Gallagher did share a lot of great information. For example, did you know…

Most readers now get book information online

• 67% of readers say they find reviews online vs. in traditional print media
• 54.8% rely on online/internet ads to find books
• 24.8% rely on retailer e-mails

Seniors are embracing e-readers and e-books

• Of Kindle owners, people 50 or older are the biggest adopters, followed by 18-34 year olds
• 35-49 year olds who read e-books prefer doing it on their iPhones
• But most people (48%) are still using their computers or laptops to read e-books
• E-book sales grew 183% among seniors aged 65+ and 174% among seniors aged 55-65

Sales channels skew by age

• Online is the #1 selling channel: 23% of the market vs. retail chains at 21%
• Younger readers are big supporters of bricks and-mortar retail, while older buyers tend to buy online
• 20% of all female buyers and 16% of female buyers 65+ buy books through traditional consumer book clubs

Here are more highlights for all the omnicurious number crunchers out there. There’s lots to chew on and discuss. We welcome your comments below!

Who was reading in 2008

• 45% of Americans read a book last year
• The average age of those who read a book was 44
• 58% of readers are women
• 32% of readers are over the age of 55
• The average reader spends 5.2 hours reading per week vs. 15 hours online and 13.1 hours watching TV  (In 2008, going online surpassed watching TV as a primary activity)

Who was buying books in 2008

• 50% of Americans over 13 bought a book
• The average age of the most frequent book buyers was 50 years old
• 57% of book buyers are female and they buy 65% of books (e.g. women buy books and they buy in volume)
• 67% of books were bought by people over 42; Gen Xer bought 17% of books; Gen Y bought 10%
• Of books purchased by those who earn $100K or more, mystery and detective fiction represent 16% of sales, juvenile 13%, romance 6%, thrillers 4%, and comics and graphic novels 4%
• 41% of all books are purchased by those who earn less than $35K
• The average price of a book purchased last year was $10.08
• 31% of all book purchases are impulse buys

Who bought what digitally in 2008

• People 50 or older are leading the way in adopting the Kindle, followed by those 18-34
• People 35-49 prefer using their iPhones to read e-books
• But most people (48%) are still using their computers or laptops to read e-books
• While e-books are1.5% of the total book market, ebook sales grew 125% overall in 2008
• E-book sales grew 183% among seniors aged 65+ and 174% among seniors aged 55-65

Today’s fiction consumer

• Mystery/Detective and Romance account for more than half of all fiction people buy
• Fiction buyers in every category are predominantly female

Where people bought in 2008

• Online is the #1 selling channel: 23% of market, vs. retail chains at 21% (these numbers flipped in 2008 vs. 2007, when retail chains were at 23%)
• 21% of fiction was purchased online in 2008
• Younger readers are bigger supporters of bricks and-mortar retail while older buyers buy online
• Traditional book clubs (e.g. Bookspan) still capture significant part of older adult market – 20% female buyers and 16% of 65+ female buyers

How people became aware of books in 2008

• 67% say they see reviews online vs. in traditional print media
• 54.8% rely on online/internet ads to find books
• 24.8% rely on retailer e-mails
• 15.7% rely on ads in newspapers and magazines
• 21% of fiction purchases in 2008 were based on online awareness, with online book reviews the lead source of information (6.2%), followed by online ads (4.8%), the author’s personal website (4.6%), e-mails from retailers (3.2%), publisher’s website (2.9%) and online forums, blogs, Google and Yahoo searches (1.1%).
• Fantasy readers and romance readers are more active on social networks than thriller and mystery lovers

Please feel free to share your thoughts below. And please join us tomorrow (Friday, May 15) on Twitter from 4-5pm ET for our weekly publishing discussion at #followreader. To listen to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To join in the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.

The Outer Limits of Publishing: Will Readers Take Control of eBooks?

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits.
— Opening narration  – The Control Voice  – 1960s

This past Friday, Follow the Reader’s weekly Twittersation (#FollowReader), took a shot at having a discussion on eBook pricing and distribution. It’s a rapidly developing and chaotic world, this eBook world. There are a lot of players, and there is a lot of confusion — over price, over formats, over standards, over distribution, over rights and territories — etc., etc., etc.  So, it was perhaps not surprising that the eBook Twitter Chattersation was not only quite robust, but also quite all over the place.

And, it was quite well-attended. Sure, I was sad that more of the e-publishing-side players didn’t show up for the conversation, but I was thrilled that lots and lots of e-reading tweeps DID show up for this particular discussion. Is it ironic, or just expected that while readers were there and were quite vocal about what they want, few from the publishing side were there to hear it?…(old patterns in a new medium? could be.)

What is clearly clear amidst the confusion: the reading (and by reading, I mean reading and purchasing) public are paying attention. This is not your grandfather’s “book” consumer. This is a new generation of readers who want WHAT they want WHEN, and HOW they want it.

They don’t want to be locked into devices and formats. They do want lots of choice and lots of title selection. They will not pay a premium for no perceived value. But, they will pay for demonstrably enhanced, rich content that adds to the reading experience. And, they are increasingly aware that they have the purchasing power to dictate where the market will go.

In other words, if e-book publishers/e-reading device manufacturers/and e-reading software developers want to make it in this game, they had better put on their listening ears and start showing up to hear what the e-reading public has to say.

Yup. Lots of opinions about eBooks and eReading were expressed last Friday. And, the whole conversation made me giddy with hope that the future of book publishing will be entirely driven by proactive and very engaged readers (in the business world, they refer to this as “consumer demand”).

I, of course, prefer to take this to the Utopian extreme. Imagine a world where readers are in control of the “programming.” That’s right — no more publishers controlling the transmission. Instead, readers will be controlling what gets published, when and how!

Yes, it’s a bit radical, but this is not so far from where things are headed .

What time is it? According to my Kat-watch, it’s a really good time for publishers to ask themselves exactly what purpose they serve in a world where they no longer control  the transmission. My hope is that they’ll take more of an interest in the programming — you know, maybe focus on curating quality content that meets the needs and desires of their reading audience? Maybe they should try that kind of thing.

That’s where I’d be focusing if I were an e-book (or print book, for that matter) publisher

And, speaking of #FollowReader TwitChats — don’t forget to tune in to today’s #FollowReader Twittersation, starting at 4PM EST. Just head on over to Twitter and search by #FollowReader. Hope to see you there!

Luv,

Kat

Raw Intelligence on Reading Decisions

Word of mouth – always an important influence on booksellers and other early reviewers when it comes to deciding what to read next – is gaining ground on the web via blogs and Twitter. That’s what we learned at last week’s richly anecdotal and completely unscientific #followreader discussion on, yes, Twitter. The hour-long conversation about how professional readers decide what to read drew scores of responses from the U.S., and even the U.K. and beyond.  See below for highlights, including valuable tips for publicists on how to pitch bloggers and booksellers, and the question of using e-galleys.

Please join this week’s publishing discussion on Thursday May 21 from 4-5pm ET. We’ll be on Twitter at #followreader, a day ahead of our usual Friday timeslot because of the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. This week’s topic is the connections between librarians/publishers/authors/readers. To follow to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To join in the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.

Blog and Tweet Power Rising

Book blogs are clearly exerting influence on booksellers and book bloggers trying to decide what to read, based on the large number of comments we received, though each group seems to trust recommendations from other readers of their own ilk above all (e.g. bloggers trust bloggers; booksellers trust booksellers).

Tweets are also an important new source of recommendations for books, say publishers, booksellers and bloggers (big surprise, since this discussion took place on that very social network). Tweets and retweets only amplify the effect. “I have been really enjoying bookseller recs from their blogs, something I only discover via Twitter,” said one publisher (@AZPress).

Some idiosyncratic rules also guide some readers: one bookseller reported, “I throw in backlist every 4 or 5 ARCs, usually make sure it’s widely in print; out of print books are for vacations! (@jtpm). A blogger said, “If I find a new-to-me author, I usually start reading all backlist. But have a two-books rule: two bad ones and I move on.” (@susanmpls).

Other major influencers are pretty much what you’d expect, depending on the reader’s awareness of an author, interest in plot or subject, the visual appeal of the cover (“I totally read books based ONLY on the cover” @mawbooks), industry buzz, author blurbs, and the book’s release date. For booksellers, the physical quality of the galley is also a factor: “POD is still not up to par, for a lot of book people at least. Bad quality of book = turnoff.”(@leighmcdonald)

E-galleys elicited mixed responses, with some reporting openness to the format but hesitation about the cost of e-readers and the platform issues involved.

What Influences Bloggers

Buzz among bloggers is a key factor in choosing what to read, say bloggers, along with their personal familiarity with the author or interest in the subject. For example, several mentioned that one blogger got about 12 other blogs in the romance community to read a small press title by Judith James.

Author blurbs also influence this group: bloggers are less likely than booksellers to discount blurbs as motivated by politics and logrolling than booksellers are.

New releases, new authors and more genres appeal to bloggers more now than before they blogged, many agree with gusto.

Library and store displays and outreach, and award lists also influence some bloggers.

•  “My library is really on top of things with weekly newsletter, contests and digital sources.” @BethFishReads
• “My library displays a lot of local writers’ books. I’d never hear of them otherwise.” @chrisbookarama
• “Updates is not something my library does. I think the U.S. is ahead on this.” @insidebooks
• “I’m tempted by 3’s for 2’s in bookstores.” @helenawaldron

Traditional book reviews are an influence to some degree: some read prepub reviews in the print editions of PW, Booklist, Audiofile or Bookmarks, or major publications like the New York Times (“the NYTBR is more influential for nonfiction”), while others read reviews online and on reader networks like Library Thing. Some don’t read reviews at all.

Social networks for readers also attract some bloggers looking for recommendations, but reactions are mixed.

• “Most of my recs came from Library Thing before I started reviewing & I still look to it as a good source of quality recs” @BookishRuth
• “I’ve looked at the reviews on Good Reads of books I’m considering. @janicu
• “I like concept of LibraryThing et al. but it’s hard to spend time in so many different social networks” @katmeyer
• “Library Thing’s interface annoys me” @janicu
• “Disappointed in Good Reads for finding books I wouldn’t find otherwise.” @AZpress
• I hardly look at Shelfari and Library Thing anymore” @chrisbookarama
• “I find my friends’ bookshelves on Completely Novel a good influence” @helenawaldron

A personalized pitch from the publisher increases the chances a blogger would look at a galley, though some dismiss publisher cover letters altogether.

• “I appreciate if author or publicist sends me gentle reminder about a month before release date.” @jane_l
• “Not asking for help, just my consideration. Well crafted and personalized is best.” @mawbooks
• “Best ones mention things found on my ‘about’ page, compliment my family and blog” @mawbooks
• “Best ones reference who referred them to my blog, why they are glad they followed through.” @mawbooks

Few mentioned the book’s publisher as an influencing factor. One who did followed the New York Review of Books.

What Influences Booksellers

The look and feel of an ARC matters more to booksellers, particularly the cover.

Buzz or word of mouth is equally important, particularly from other booksellers, but also from customers and publishers. And while booksellers cast a suspicious eye on politicking and payback in author blurbs, they acknowledge that blurbs still have power.

• “My wife’s rec carries big weight. After that, other booksellers or book bloggers can get me excited.” @vromans
• “Author blurbs influence whether I feature a title on front table or leave in section.” @RickRennicks
• “A blurb from a beloved writer will make me at least look at the book @bookdwarf
• “In my market, a blurb from Neil Gaiman would sell copies of the phone book” @RickRennicks
• “Re: big blurbers, a co-worker and I get a big chuckle out of every books with an Eggers or Shteyngart blurb @ErinHere
• “When it’s a personal rec from a rep, always read it and often book ends up  as a staff pick. Love our reps!” @michelleinkwell

Mixed Responses to Digital Galleys

Booksellers and bloggers who read digital galleys wish more were available. Some who don’t reported they would if they had an e-reader, but the price is too high. Some just love paper.

• “I would love a system where I could pick and choose, download what I’m most likely to read.” @booksquare
• “If I had an e-reader, I would read digital galleys but I’d still like a copy of book once published.” @mawbooks
• “Without an e-reader, I know I would never read it on my computer.” @bostonbookgirl
• “E-readers are good for space, time management.” @helenawaldron
• “Maybe with one or two more generations of e-readers. So far, too hard to do my page flip scans” @history_geek
• “I’m not yet reader to buy an e-reader. Until format is standard and universal.” @BethFishReads
• “When I do an ebook it’s usually a last resort for a book that didn’t arrive in time for my stop on a blog tour.” @Wayne Hurlbert

Thanks again to all who participated!

Kindle Publishing for Blogs: A Double-Edged Sword for Bookish Bloggers?

Joe Wikert's blog on Kindle

Last week Amazon announced a few things.
One, Amazon Encore, a program that rewards successful self-published titles, and the other – Kindle Publishing for Blogs in beta: a fast track self publishing tool to upload your blog for sale via the Kindle Store. In a nutshell, via Kindle Publishing for Blogs, bloggers can create an account, login and then add blogs for publishing to the Kindle Store. After review, there are chances the blog will be published in 48-72 hours (it could initially take longer because of the initial rush). Amazon will define the price based on what they deem is a fair value for customers, and bloggers will (eventually) be paid 30% of the monthly blog subscription price for every subscriber to their blog. (For more details, read the FAQ’s here.)

“Hmmm,” I thought. “I blog. I know bloggers. This sounds like something worth looking into, thinking about, researching, perhaps.” Because, you know, I’m one to hold a grudge (I’m working on this – therapy helps) and am still a little bit miffed about Amazon’s lack of interest in community relations during and after the whole #AmazonFail kerfuffle. And, to be honest, as a small press publisher (on many occasions, in past and future lives) AND as a book marketer for publishers and authors big and small, I’ve always had mixed feelings about the equity in relationships between Amazon and content providers.  No one can argue that Amazon doesn’t offer unequaled wide-reaching distribution, but their terms tend to lean largely in favor of Amazon.

I know, they’re in it for profit and what should I expect? Amazon’s “odds in the house’s favor” policy is exactly why they’re enjoying life aboard the good ship Amazon, while the rest of us in the book publishing ocean are fighting over the last remaining life rafts.

Yes, Amazon is very good at what they do.  Anyway, this isn’t exactly my point, or points — trust me I have one or two. And, I’ll get there eventually, but let’s get back to the story…

I was curious to find out more. I wanted to read Amazon’s agreement and perhaps flesh out what I could discern about what Amazon was offering to bloggers, and what bloggers were possibly giving up in exchange. So, I took a gander at that agreement.

I started reading.

And, I got confused after the second sentence.

And,  as I always do when I get confused – I went to my Bookish Tweeps. Surely someone in Twitterland was twittering about Kindle publishing for blogs, and they’d be able to offer a fair and balanced view of the pros and cons… Okay, that’s just not true. Honestly — I just couldn’t wait to read what I assumed would be defiance from my upstart, renegade bookish blogging tweets. Surely they  would be up in arms about this. “30%? HAH! Who does this Bezos think he is, anyway?” Yeah. I was looking forward to some indignant railing against the man.

Wow.

Was I wrong. Instead of protests and jeers, I was quite surprised to find that some of the people I wouldn’t have expected in a million years to sign up for anything even remotely related to Amazon, were jumping quite readily on the Kindle blog publishing bandwagon. Yup. They were signing their blogs up for Kindle distribution, and they appeared to be not only willing, but also gleefully excited at the opportunity to do so.

I won’t name names (it would take too long). But, a LOT of book bloggers have signed up for Amazon’s Kindle blog publishing beta program. To paraphrase, the reasons blogging buddies are signing up for the Kindle program are all quite reasonable and run the gamut:

• To claim one’s blog feed as their own rightful property (you see, a rather large loophole was/is still? allowing just anybody to claim just any blog as their own and sign it up to the program. See TechCrunch’s article: “How The Kindle Now Lets You Steal This Blog” to learn more about this.)
• Make some income off of their blogging efforts.
• Gain access to a huge potential audience of readers.
• Just curious to see how it works.

But, I needn’t have completely despaired–a bit of banter on Twitter revealed that not everyone was jumping on board. Some individuals were joining me in my cautiously skeptical approach. Among the reasons for refraining from signing on that dotted line:

• Amazon’s murky Digital Publishing Distribution Agreement including open-ended phrasing such as: “You grant to us, throughout the term of this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide right and license to distribute Publications as described in this Agreement.” Sure, the “nonexclusive” part sounds good, but “irrevocable and worldwide” are rather broad terms. Oh, and this part is also a little daunting: “We reserve the right to change the terms of this Agreement at any time.”
• Keeping one’s blog free. (One blogger said, ” I don’t want some users to have to pay for it. I’d much rather optimise it for mobile use so people can read it on their phones.”)
• And, as expressed by Eoin Purcell: “the locking in of revenue splits.” In his post, Bloggers: Amazon will eat your lunch, Eoin states, “One of my major concern is that if bloggers agree to this completely uneven deal from Amazon now, it will persist. This will give Amazon an enviable position and allowing even their competitors to take hefty slices of the distribution chain value even while offering better terms than Amazon itself.”

Myself, I have all sorts of crazy ideas about the longer-term effects of bloggers jumping on board with Amazon’s blog publishing to Kindle program. I think Amazon stands to gain a lot more here than the rights to distribute blogger content. They are also:

1. Gaining access to very valuable customer data, and
2. Gaining access to high-quality, trusted reviews of products (e.g.: books, movies, music, water heaters, etc.) that they also happen to be selling on their world-wide web of a global marketplace.

With this new program, Amazon will have access to data on who is paying for blog content and what content they are paying for. That data is incredibly valuable. Even more so than mere web-based traffic analytics. Because, not only will they be able to track who the blog customers are and what they are interested in topic-wise, but they can use that data to make decisions about what products would most likely be the best bets to offer for sale in their big world-wide-web super store.

Add to that the potential to aggregate and repurpose blogger content (the high quality, trusted reviews I mentioned before) on Amazon product pages, and Amazon sure has a lot more going for them in this deal than a mere 70% of blog subscription sales via the Kindle.  Amazon has already scored big points with their customer reviews, and they license some “professional” review content, but with the Kindle Publishing for Blog program, they will be in a position to aggregate and post the most-highly read blog reviews for books, movies, virtually any product they sell — AND they’ll be getting passive income from the sale of the content to Kindle to boot. Smart!

So, it is the proverbial double-edged sword. While bloggers will no doubt enjoy some immediate benefits, they will also be aiding Amazon’s efforts to be conquer the world, er I mean become  even stronger in the online marketplace. Bloggers may not care so much right now, but in the future they might find themselves in the unenviable position of competing against Amazon for a share of that market. And, that my friends, is one heck of losing proposition.

Of course, bloggers are getting SOMEthing. Wider possible readership, and revenue (albeit not much) where they had none before.

So, I open up the floor to you — you Book Bloggers, you. What’s your 2 cents (i won’t take 70%, I promise) on this issue?
Have you signed up for Kindle’s Blog Publishing Program? Why, or why not
Do share!

Luv,

Kat

Also on the Web re: Amazon’s Kindle Blog Publishing:
HOW TO: Publish Your Blog on the Amazon Kindle (Mashable)

Amazon Puts Any Blog on the Kindle, for a Price (PC World)

Bloggers: Amazon will eat your lunch (Eoin Purcell’s Blog )

Note to FOFTR (that’s “Friends of Follow the Reader” – acronyms have never been my strong point): Please join this week’s publishing discussion on Thursday May 21 from 4-5pm ET. We’ll be on Twitter at #followreader, a day ahead of our usual Friday timeslot because of the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. This week’s topic is the connections between librarians/publishers/authors/readers. To follow to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To join in the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.

Edelweiss: The Ultimate Digital Book Catalog?

Long a dream of cost-cutting publishers and readers who fantasize about the perfect electronic search for forthcoming galleys, the digital book catalog is finally becoming an industry reality. HarperCollins has gone completely digital with its Fall 2009 catalog, to be followed by the Random House imprints in Spring 2010 (except for the typically exceptionalist Knopf Group, which will wait until Summer 2010). And most major houses now offer digital catalogs alongside their printed ones.

But for booksellers, reviewers, librarians and other professional readers, the question remains: how to aggregate and manage all this book information, and (dream of dreams!) even create one’s own customized catalog of key titles?

Buzz is building that one good answer may be Edelweiss, the digital catalog interface created by Above the Treeline, the retail sales data system widely used by independent booksellers. To find out more, I recently walked through the site with my friend and neighbor Ted Hill, who’s working on the Edelweiss sales strategy. (Yes, we sang a few bars of the eponymous song from The Sound of Music – who could resist?)

Overall, I was quite impressed with Edelweiss’s features, especially since Above the Treeline only started developing it last summer. Beyond a doubt, it’s far more user-friendly than anything else currently available (e.g. searching Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Ingram for forthcoming titles, as I often do now). But (spoiler alert) I’m not quite ready to say that Edelweiss is ultimate digital book catalog interface for reviewers - yet. 

Before I explain why, here’s a quick overview of what Edelweiss can do:

Current Features:

• Available catalogs include: Chronicle, Hachette, HarperCollins, Ingram, John Wiley, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale (This leaves out Houghton/Harcourt, Hyperion, Macmillan, Norton, Perseus, Scholastic and any other publisher aside from the 10 above — but more are likely to sign on in the next year, as Edelweiss builds its publisher base.)
• Edelweiss is searchable across publishers and categories.
• Searchable categories include: 50 nonfiction categories, plus fiction and juvenile fiction, poetry and drama. You can also search by pub date and print run (though I couldn’t figure out if it was possible to do both at the same time — it would be very handy if so).
• Keyword search runs on subtitle, book description, author bio, quotes, and excerpt fields. You can also search on more than one keyword, to find African American memoirs, for example. Another great feature is the overview that tells you where a particular keyword shows up - e.g. if you search for “Chicago,” the overview will tell you that the word appears in the title of X books, in the author bios of Y books and in the catalog copy for Z books in a given range– and you can click through to each group.
• It’s quick and easy to browse for both basic information and detailed title information
• It’s customizable, so  you can save and print your own list of titles (although I couldn’t figure out how to do this right away – will need to noodle with it some more)
• Personal notes can be typed in and saved by individual users
• Title info is updated in real time
• It’s available for free to non-booksellers (without access to sales or ordering info seen by booksellers who subscribe to Above the Treeline)

So it’s really pretty good. But here’s where it could be improved for professional readers:

• The categories are not sophisticated enough for narrow searches and using additional keyword searches doesn’t always streamline the process. You can search the ”fiction” category, but you can’t sort for popular sub-categories like romance or mysteries without doing a keyword search–but since keyword searches include book descriptions and excerpts, you may get some books with the word “romance” in their catalog copy that aren’t relevant to your search. Similarly, there’s no gay or lesbian category, such as that found on Amazon and Ingram, and searching by keyword doesn’t necessarily pull up all relevant titles.
• The workflow is tailored to the publisher-sale rep relationship and doesn’t take into account that reviewers may want to search on non-traditional categories, such as “celebrity books.”

Anyone else out there seen Edelweiss yet?  If not, I strongly recommend you visit the Above the Treeline booth at BEA and check it out. Let me know your thoughts–and I’ll share more of mine as I experiment with it a little more, and discover its intricacies. Watch this space!

My Book Expo Education

I’ll admit it. On the eve of my 10th Book Expo, I still love it. Within a few miles of the convention center, my blood starts to beat with excitement at the great gathering of the tribe. Ah, to see and be seen – hastening to the next panel, grabbing galleys, hobnobbing in the aisles with everyone I’ve ever worked with – propelled by unabashed bookish enthusiasm through this promiscuous co-mingling of readers in owlish glasses and sensible shoes, and readers who love books enough to strut among them all day in short skirts & heels!  

I’m glad that Book Expo’s permanent home is now in New York. Though I’m no special fan of Javits Center or working on Sundays, there are some undeniable advantages to having it here: more authors walking the floors, higher attendance by the rank and file from the big publishers (who are so often denied this kind of opportunity to grasp the big picture), real bagels and yellow cabs, and cheaper subways than in other cities, not to mention the pleasure of sleeping in my own bed. There’s also the prospect of moving the conference to mid-week in 2010, so next year, Sundays may even be out of the question.

I used to arrive late to educational programs on Thursday, and leave early – but have gradually shifted the balance, after discovering that it’s easier to network, receive new ideas and think in full sentences inside the conference rooms than amid the chaotic hubbub of the show floor.

Here’s are the programs I’m especially looking forward to – though there’s no way to catch them all.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

9:30AM – 10:30AM: A Strategic Approach for Harnessing the Power of Social Media:  A Publisher Roadmap, presented by Tim O’Shaughnessy – CEO & Co-founder, LivingSocial

I’m curious to hear about how O’Shaughnessy advises publishers to work with the Visual Bookshelf community, touted here as the most popular Facebook application, even though I’ve personally found Visual Bookshelf too time-consuming to maintain regularly–and it’s not as popular among #followreader discussion participants as Library Thing and Shelfari. 

10:30AM – 11:30AM: Data Crunch: Books and Their Competition for Leisure Time Attention – How do They Stack Up? presented by Kelly Gallagher – VP – Publisher Services, RR Bowker

Gallagher gave a fascinating presentation on consumer book buying trends in 2008 at the Making Information Pay conference a few weeks ago, with fresh statistics drawn from a monthly survey of 36,000 readers that we recapped in our most popular post to date.  His look at where books fit into the general cultural mix is also likely to be provocative.

11:00AM – 12:00PM: Stay Ahead of the Shift: What Product-Centric Publishers Can Do to Flourish in a Community-Centric Web World, presented by Mike Shatzkin – Founder & CEO, Idea Logical Co, Inc

Few can match Shatzkin’s pedigree as a second-generation publishing brat (his father Leonard created the Dolphin Books imprint at Doubleday in the late 1950s with Jason Epstein and later ran Collier Books), and fewer still can match his willingness to predict the future of publishing 20 years from now.  If you’re looking for new ideas, you’ll find some here.

2:30PM – 3:30PM: The Concierge and the Bouncer: The End of the Supply Chain and the Beginning of the True Book Culture presented by Richard Nash formerly Publisher, Soft Skull Press and Dedi Felman – formerly Sr. Editor, Simon & Schuster

Richard Nash, a clever and experienced independent publisher turned publishing solider of fortune joins veteran editor Felman in asking ”what might the ideal publishing company look like? How would we build a new system for connecting writers and readers?” Wild and witty tweets will surely flow at this one, and I’m all ears.

2:45-400pm, Room 1E12 : Social Media and the Independent Bookseller: Len Vlahos of ABA, Stephanie Anderson of WORD Brooklyn, Megan Sullivan of Harvard Bookstore and Ann Kingman, Random House sales rep.

This could be the perfect forum to find more bookseller tweeps and test some of the ideas from our #followreader discussion on how booksellers and bloggers can work together. Plus a chance to meet @lenhouse, @bookavore, @bookdwarf and @annkingman.

4:15PM – 5:15PM: BEA Editors Buzz moderated by John Freeman – US Editor, Granta.

Editors and titles include Paul Elie – Editor, FSG (Michael Sandel’s JUSTICE); Deb Futter – VP, Editor in Chief, Grand Central Publishing (Leila Meacham’s ROSES); Alexis Gargagliano – Editor (Alex Lemon’s HAPPY); Harriet Popham Rigney – Executive Editor, Tor Books (Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s A MEMORY OF LIGHT); Ben Sevier – Sr. Editor (Jonathan Tropper’s THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU); Robert Weil – Executive Editor, W.W. Norton (David Small’s STITCHES).

Friday, May 29, 2009

11AM to 12PM at the Firebrand/NetGalley booth (#4077): Stop by for a quick chat with Kat Meyer and me or check out the list of bloggers who will be signing over the weekend. I’m reserving time to meet as many as possible at the first blogger “signing” at BEA.

Also on Friday, 4:30PM – 5:45PM: 7×20x21 at BEA: Publishing’s most innovate thinkers talk about what inspires them. Presented by Debbie Stier, Harper Studio; Pablo Defendini, Tor.com; Jeff Yamaguchi, Doubleday/Knopf; Matt Supko, ABA/Indiebound; Chris Jackson, Spiegel and Grau; Richard Nash, ex-Soft Skull; Lauren Cerand, independent public relations representative.

Thanks to the generosity of The New Yorker, this panel is the only one at BEA with an open bar.

More liquid refreshment can also be had at the BEA Tweetup, Friday night from 8:00PM to 10:00PM at the Greenhouse, 150 Varick St (Between Vandam & Spring), New York, NY.  Here are more details.

See you there!

BookExpo ‘09: A Whirlwind of Fun + Worry

I’m just back from BookExpo America. “Just back” being a bit of an exaggeration, since I got back to my little desert home on Monday night, but have been in “BEA Hangover” state until this morning.  Was it worth it? Well, yes and no. In my bookish opinion, this year’s BEA was pretty much business as usual in many respects, but there were a few very fantastic events and many small moments that made this year one to remember, and all of them were about connecting in real life with some of the really great people that make being in the book world really wonderful.

BEA Book Blogger Palooza

@ftoolan All the important stuff at #BEA09 is happening within 50′ of booth 4077 #followreader

Jessica Kennedy proudly displays her blogger trading card. (photo by SmartBitches Sarah)

The truly remarkable Mr. Fran Toolan summed up the biggest BEA highlight in the quote above. Booth #4077, the Firebrand/NetGalley Booth was THE PLACE TO BE on the show floor this year. Fran’s stroke of genius in hosting a bevy of book bloggers at the booth paid off in spades. All weekend long, enthusiastic bloggers “signed” (no really, they signed these fantastic book blogger trading cards that @PermanentPaper – aka Melissa Klug of Glatfelter Paper designed and printed) while a large flatscreen displayed tweetdeck streaming the action live on Twitter.

Let’s just say, the book blogger signings at the NetGalley booth were a huge hit. Masses of people gravitated to the booth, and for those who were unfamiliar with book blogging and bloggers prior to being pulled into the 4077th’s orbit, they didn’t stay unfamiliar for long. I’d go so far as to say lots of conference goers came away from the booth huge fans of book blogging and some even told me they were going to take up blogging themselves.

GalleyCat did a shoutout (complete with video) about it, and Verso’s Denise Berthiaume brought her video crew over to interview a few of the bloggers too. So, that’s success. To quote another esteemed bookish person who knows about such things, one Mr. Richard Nash, “Fran did a very rare thing. He created an event on the floor. It was a gathering place.”

BEAtweetup

According to all (or all I’ve heard) accounts, the BEAtweetup was also a huge success and I’m pretty sure both sponsors and guests (all upwards of 500 of them) left happy. As an organizer of said event, I was pleased as punch that it even got a good “review” from Miss Carolyn Kellog (@paperhaus to you Tweeple) in the LA Times’ Jacket Copy. And, aside from being thrilled that all went off without any noticeable hitches, I’m really glad it’s over and am planning to have a t-shirt made: “I survived the BEAtweetup of 2009.” So, thank you all you sponsors, and thank you all you organizers, and thank you all you guests who attended. I think the People’s Party needs to be a tradition. (see you next year – who wants to organize?)

But What of the Books, and Readers, and Authors, and Whatnot?

Book: The Sequel

Oh, right. The books. Celebrating and SELLING the books. The real reason all of us were converging upon the Javits Center. Well, there were some books. There were not as many physical galleys as in previous years  (though the hot ones were in big demand — lots of people were seeking copies of Suzanne Collins’ follow-up to Hunger Games, Catching Fire), but there was a lot of action regarding various forms of new-fangled digital book stuff: digital galleys (NetGalley had a  number of new publishers sign up for their e-galley program, and Harper Collins began a trial use of Symptio e-galleys); there were some audio “galley” downloads; Perseus Book Group crowd-sourced and pumped out their flash-fried Book: The Sequel in various formats (note: this book rocks, and you can request an egalley of it at NetGalley by searching “sequel” in the catalog at netgalley.com); the Espresso digital book machine was going full force; and Above the Treeline demo’d their very cool digital catalog, Edelweiss.

As for authors and celebrating books, one particular event really warmed my heart–and made me worry about the future: the ABA’s “Celebration of Bookselling/Indies Choice Book Awards.” I’m still not sure why the good people of the ABA were kind enough to invite me (thank you, Mark Nichols), but boy was I happy to be there. Esteemed author after esteemed author (many from the Indie Next List) got up (or showed up via video) to thank the indie booksellers who have very much been responsible for making the esteemed authors esteemed.

Sherman Alexie, Suzanne Collins, Jon Scieszka, Kristin Cashore, Mo Willems, and on and on…what a cool thing to see people we worship — worshipping booksellers.  (BTW: Sarah Vowell’s video “thank you” for Wordy Shipmates being voted “best conversation starter,” was hilarious and hopefully will show up on YouTube).

What worries me…more of the same I’ve expressed here before. If our beloved and endangered indie booksellers can no longer work as indie booksellers, who is going to help us find the Sherman Alexies and Suzanne Collinses, etc.?

High Anxiety

My sense of worry over whence the indies shall go, is small potatoes compared to the practically palpable vibe of anxiety many publishers were putting out in the conference center. That’s the thing. With all the hope and new ideas and energy of change, the worry and angst from some of the bigger publishers was a real drag. In spite of there being some great educational sessions with lots of ideas for making the book world a better place in leaner times, the people who really needed to be in those sessions were all in their booths lamenting the passing of the golden era.

Whatever.

So, those are my first impressions of BEA09. No doubt many of you who were also there have some impressions of your own to offer. And, as always, Follow the Reader would love to hear them!

Luv,

Kat

Some great posts around the web re: BEA:

• BookSquare: BEA 2009: A Bit of Deja Vu All Over Again
• Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits: Sherman Alexie Clarifies “Elitist Charges”
• HarperStudio/26th Story: #BEA09
• The IdeaLogical Blog: BEA Will Be A Shame to Lose, But Can It Be Saved?
• Publisher’s Weekly: Sunday, Bloody Sunday-Richard Nash
• PersonaNonData: Readers at BookExpo?
• LibraryJournal: BookExpo America 2009: Books and Digital Delivery Dominate Show
• BookSelling This Week: Live From BookExpo
• Inside Higher Ed – Views: The Tension Point
• Magellan Media: BEA and Everything After

PS: Join us tomorrow (Thursday, June 3rd at 1:30 PM EST) for #FollowReader! We’ll be announcing the Book Blogger Signing Sony Reader winners!

My Book Expo Hangover – and Wish

My Book Expo hangover has lasted longer than usual this year, maybe because I crammed four days of meetings into two and, after 10 years of faithful attendance, took Saturday and Sunday off to go to my 20th college reunion. The two events have pushed me to reflect on the past, present and future more intensely than usual, and it’s taken a little while to get my feet back on the ground.

For me, BEA’s bookends were Mike Shatzkin’s talk, Stay Ahead of the Shift: What Product-Centric Publishers Can Do to Flourish in a Community-Centric World, and the CEO Roundtable led by Tina Brown and Harry Evans. While Shatzkin reviewed the considerable changes of the last twenty years and daringly forecasted those of the next twenty, the CEO panel was unhappily mired in the present. Shatzkin fluently played the role of a visionary with Einstein-like hair, pointing out challenges and opportunities with equal verve, but the CEOs were more like grim container ship captains in choppy seas, fastening their attention on e-book pricing, book promotion on You Tube and other threatening icebergs, with all hatches battened.

Shatzkin’s big takeaway was that we are in the twilight of “the good old days,” and entering transitional decades when costs will rise and revenues decline as publishers support inefficient old models and experiment with digital ones that will require many iterations and years to mature. The big takeaway from the CEOs was that it’s just about all they can do to flog the old model: “The Today Show is not as effective as it used to be—and the Internet has not replaced it,” said Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy, who is looking to front-of-bookstore displays to jumpstart sales, even though the recession has markedly reduced store traffic and most browsers start their book searches on the Internet.

Now, to be fair, everyone made generalizations with enough hot air in them to steam up our proverbial glasses. Shatzkin is also an independent consultant who doesn’t have nearly as much at stake from day to day as these venerable publishers. And although both sessions took place (at different times) in the same large conference room at Javits Center, Shatzkin’s talk drew about a third of the audience that the standing-room-only CEO panel did, with fewer recognizable faces in attendance.

I was left with a persistent sense of whiplash as I tried to integrate Shatzkin’s sensible talk about the importance of niche-focused “vertical integration” (e.g. not only creating and distributing content in all formats, but fostering dedicated online communities through content aggregation and curation) with the CEOs’ resolutely traditional view of their role in creating, manufacturing and distributing books in the physical world.

“How are we going to get from resentment about the unsustainable present to a more workable future?” I kept wondering while navigating the crowds between conference rooms. In every panel, everyone seemed on a different wavelength.  Making sense of it all is clearly a big job for as many bright minds as the industry can muster.

Some people, particularly unemployed publishing veterans, are very motivated to start building bridges. But we will also need a whole lot more young, rank-and-file publishing people to attend these forward-looking programs. I’m talking about the 20- and 30-somethings in editorial, publicity, online marketing and sales, as well as in online and bricks-and-mortar bookselling. Though many are on the front lines of the publishing process, they can also be blinkered by their limited roles in the publishing assembly line, and too rarely encouraged by higher-ups to seek out the big picture. But we need their engagement, vision and energy more than ever to make the transition to the future.

(Yes, when I graduated from college 20 years ago, I was one of them - an often blinkered editorial assistant working my way up the ladder at HarperCollins, later moving to Avon Books as an editor, then Publishers Weekly as a writer and editor. But to me, today’s rank and file are luckier than we were, back in the industry’s more stable days, because they have a bigger opportunity now to put their stamp on it.) 

If I have one fervent hope for BEA next year, it’s not so much that consumers will be invited to attend on the last day, as Richard Nash and Michael Cairns have suggested, but that every publishing person in their 20s and 30s has the chance to attend the educational programming and become part of the online and offline conversation about how to get from the present to the future we will create together. Here’s hoping that moving the conference to mid-week next will only make it more possible.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as mine continue to gel.

#FollowReader: The Genre Discussion

Last week we had a fantastic #followread discussion on Twitter.
As suggested by @Jane_l, the topic for the discussion was genres, and began with the questions: “Are genres helpful or limiting? Who defines the scope of the genre?”

I have to say I was rather pleasantly surprised at just how many people got involved in this discussion (we had well over 300 tweets in the hour long session), and I was delighted that there were such varied and interesting views on the idea of genres.

While it’s impossible to capture the whole dynamic and fun of the live conversation, I’ve selected some of the major themes (and some of the representative comments) that came up. To view all the tweets, you can click here. And, if it’s any indication, looks like #FollowReader discussions are going to keep getting better and better!

Thanks to everyone who joined in. We really appreciate each of you taking the time to participate.

The importance of genres to the book industry (publishers, booksellers, libraries, wholesalers, etc.) — how this is changing/morphing:

shayera #followreader Genre labels helpful to librarians. Patrons often are bizarrely picky about reading choices. Genre labels help them stay happy
janoda I believe metadata and keywords will surpass the importance of genres.My library has a tagcloud search function and it’s great
markrevans Yes, and multii-genre hard to manage physically. Systems are weak at this.
multi-genre obviously easier on web. the best stores do it, but it is a pain (two copies, cross merchandised)
PartSixofThree .@KatMeyer Booksellers shelve into the genre section where experience has taught them that most peop. will look for the book
momstravaganza I’ve had lots of customers and patrons pissed off about the “wrong” titles in “their” section.
ftoolan yet the standards for how books are categorized are retail based only… retail standards reflect the way retailers shelve their books. They drive how some wholesalers buy them.. however retail stds are not granular enough for online search & discovery because they don’t reflect the way readers think
markrevans .@ftoolan agree, not just granularity but titles that cross many genres, retail must pick one
momstravaganza #followreader As someone who has spent 2 decades putting stuff on shelves, sometimes you just have to pick a section and put the thing there
sruszala also issue of frontlist vs. backlist–easy to find stephanie meyer now in displays/front pages, but what about in 5 yrs?
ftoolan @galleysmith there are standards in place for publishers and libraries (BISG, LOC) but they can’t keep up with changes
markbloomfield pubs categ also reflects authors “input” – a much bigger factor to them than reader/bookseller consideration
PartSixofThree . @markbloomfield Absolutely true. Some suspense writers get livid if told they are “mystery” writers.
KatMeyer .@ftoolan and BISAC, etc. SOOO over complicated compared to something like cloud tagging.
PartSixofThree . @galleysmith The bigger an author is, the more clout they have as to where their books get shelved.
Tuphlos @PartSixofThree True. LA Banks got her bks moved out of Af-Am to area with more Urban fantasy bks SF/ or ROm depending)
ftoolan Baker & Taylor now does all their buying based on BISAC Category. if pub doesn’t label, no books get bought
bookavore Sorry to jump in, but at WORD we only shelve books under fiction and non-fiction for the most part—many customers love this
ftoolan @markrevans biggest weakness of any taxonomy, it’s opinion based, and not many people have the same opinions

How publishers use genres to reach markets (in both good and bad ways):
Tuphlos #followreader Genre labels are helpful, but not when genre really = marketing. Suspense vs. thriller vs. crime = what?
jane_l @Nobilis but what abt reader expectations. I.e. most rom rdrs expect HEA. Pubs R using label but not delivering the HEA
Nobilis @jane_l #followreader So are the pubs responding to readers, or attempting to shape the genre? Sounds like the latter.
jane_l @Nobilis I think pubs are trying to capitalize/exploit the genre expectation of consumers rather than “shape” it.
SmartBitches Personally, I resent the use of labels for sales purposes when book itself does not fit at all within that genre, esp romance
jane_l @SmartBitches I agree, but that’s the pubs attempt 2 “fool” reader. Genre labels serve as a filter. Can’t focus on 100 titles

How Readers feel about strictly defined or not strictly defined enough genres:

BookingIt I find genre labels helpful AND limiting. They provide me a useful clue, but not everything fits.
npilon I feel that genre labels are important for setting reader expectations regarding a book’s content.
galleysmith #followreader But who makes up the genre labels? My romance might be another persons chick-lit.
mikecane My sterotyped idea of “Mystery” kept me from reading it for years., Til I discovered Crime Fiction within it!
jimnduncan #followreader Things I don’t get: when suspense/thriller gets lumped into the general fiction shelves. Makes me not want to look.
jennsbookshelf @jimnduncan I agree. Definitely needs to be split up more. Horror gets own shelf, why not suspense/thriller
sruszala i shop new releases by label or shelf too–with so many books to choose from, how can you NOT have a start
SheilaRuth Genre definitions not always clear. Does dystopian fiction go under SFF? How about horror? Sometimes it’s lumped with SFF.

How tagging of digital content is changing the way genres are categorized, who is categorizing them, who is buying them, how they are buying them , and how this in turn could effect what gets published:

SmartBitches #followreader Are genre labels helpful? Yes, but I believe online shopping means genre labels will give way to keywords.
jane_l @SmartBitches I don’t think categorization will ever give way totally to metatags bc browsing is still impt buying activity
sruszala readers are creating genres in online venues–this is basically what tagging is, yes? like on library thing?
jane_l @BookingIt how will consumer meta tagging affect bookscan lists and the like? P& L templates (tx @Ftoolan )
momstravaganza RT SmartBitchesThat’s what I think is happening with digital shopping options: tags & keywords redefine genrel labels
mikecane Browsing in online stores is still too slow! #followreader (glares at Fictionwise and just about all others!)
SmartBitches Speaking only for me, I did a lot of impulse try/buy with Kindle sample feature. easy to get 3 chapters, then buy
redrobinreader IMO even w/in modern definition there is ambiguity re who defines (pubs, readers, scholars)
galleysmith How can publishers include authors in the process of tagging their genre? Or is that even important?
ftoolan #followreader this issue is why google will win in selling e-books. they index content, not metadata
sruszala @ftoolan it’s so true. content indexing will always trump metadata.
ftoolan The other problem with user generated tags is measuring performance #followreader, how will pub know what to invest in?
jane_l @happysurprise lol. I just think content based searches may end up w/ not results u want i.e., thinking
happysurprise In my experience, readers are the best at recommending books I’ll like and buy. I love the user “lists” at amazon
janoda .@SheilaRuth Comp.search like in libr.might work in bookstores too. If they all got on WorldCat the tags could even be global
SheilaRuth @janoda I like that idea of making WorldCat avail in & include bookstores. Could be an Amazon antidote.

Whether there’s a place/purpose for categorizing books by ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.:

markrevans @KatMeyer absolutely. no right answer. depends on selection and customer base. i tend to not like breaking out by ethnicity
jane_l @KatMeyer Some like the niche marketing but others want desegregation for the books. Online it cld be done both ways
janoda As a non American, I always found it hard to grasp why there should be African American Romance. Do they love differently? I’d just throw them all together under romance, don’t think colour or culture should matter genre-wise
pussreboots @janoda I am American and the separate African American genres boggles my mind too.
markrevans .@janoda people like to identify with protagonists, esp in romance. they like books that speak more directly to them
SheilaRuth @janoda I completely agree on African American romance. Why does it have to be a separate category?

And a Lesson on What Constitutes the Romance Genre:

jane_l @Nobilis but what abt reader expectations. I.e. most rom rdrs expect HEA. Pubs R using label but not delivering the HEA
jennsbookshelf @SmartBitches I agree. Way too many books are labeled “romance.” What makes a romance?
SmartBitches #followreader Simple rule: if there ain’t a happy ending for the protagonists, it ain’t a romance. Fuck with that? Mutiny.
markrevans also, no adultery in classic romance genre



And last but not least, a very helpful stab at renaming genres to make them Twitter-Friendly from @SmartBitches:

SmartBitches #followreader For random enjoyment: twitter friendly genre renaming,1: Mystery=WHO? Thriller=WHAT? Crime Fiction=OUCH! True Crime=NOWAI!
More twitter genre : Romance=YES! Selfhelp: NO! Psych: Huh? LIterary Fiction: OPRAH! Fantasy: WOW! Science Fiction: 01101111!

5 Ways to Put More Skin in the Game

It’s been three weeks since Book Expo, and the trade show is a fading memory. My feet feel fresh, I’ve caught up on my sleep, and I’m back on top of my work. But that also means it’s time to refer back to the little memo I wrote to myself in the middle of a restless night after BEA, about what to do differently after the show.

1) Focus and specialize

The reign of publishing’s great generalists is winding down: it’s all about niche, now. It’s time to bring one’s most valuable skills into clear focus, and choose key areas in which to specialize. For me, that means focusing on new ways to connect readers and writers in multiple formats, with the help of clear communication and an inclusive, democratic ethos.

2) Keep a ”stop doing” list

It’s easy to pile up stuff to do, but not so easy to let go of what’s not working. Here’s what’s on my list:

• Stop reflexively saying “yes.” If I can’t get out of it, say ”let me sleep on it.”
• Stop assuming I’m the only one who can get it done. Can I delegate it? If not, does it really need to happen?
• Stop being a perfectionist - just get the idea across and keep moving. A good idea will take on a life of its own.

 3) Listen to the pain

In the last few years, I’ve supported my dad through a terminal illness, and had more than my usual share of colds, aches and pains. I find that when I let go of my resistance and really listen to the pain, I open myself to rich and unexpected insights that point me in inspiring new directions. Why wouldn’t this technique also work with an ailing industry?

4)  Keep the big picture and the little picture in balance

The day-to-day details are as absorbing and relentless as ever, but that doesn’t change the fact that the old model isn’t working as well, and the new model doesn’t exist yet. Experimentation is key and so is making time to stay in touch with a variety of viewpoints. But that doesn’t mean the details should get any less than they’re due.

5) Get outside the bubble  

This is a tough one, but every day I aspire to step outside my comfort zone and keep an ear open for distant signals - by reading a blog in another industry; talking to a neighbor, teenager or even a total stranger about books or the Internet; or eating something totally new for lunch.

Is it time for lunch yet?

Do Twitter and Blogs Really Drive Book Sales?

We’ve all heard the old adage that “fifty percent of advertising works, we just don’t know which fiftty percent it is.” But does it apply to book chatter on Twitter and blogs? And if so, now that it’s becoming possible to measure just about everything through digital analysis, do we have to accept that it’s still true?

Which way to the Acacia tree?

Those were just a few of the questions in play at a recent #followreader discussion on Twitter, which yielded more than a few interesting facts and resources:

• Many participants testified that they have purchased up to ten books in the last few months on the strength of recommendations on the social networking site.
• Bloggers Anne Kingman and Michael Kindness, who are Random House sales reps by day, reported that more than 30% of their readers at Books on the Nightstand have bought three to five books based on recomendations on the site and 14% have bought six or more, according to the 252 respondents to their recent reader survey.
• A recent survey of lit blog readers shows that 56% buy books primarily based on the influence of blogs
• Mark Evans, who works with Edelweiss, the cool searchable catalog of forthcoming books that we’ve written about before, says that Edelweiss correlates book mentions on blogs and Twitter with point of sale information, and ranks the results.
• Science fiction review blogs are ranked “pretty decently” on what looks like an inbound link/post frequency count at 42blips, according to @bloggeratf

Still looking for examples

As more than 60 people brainstormed together for an hour, only a few concrete examples surfaced of books whose sales were driven by book blogs. One title mentioned was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - which sparked major buzz early this year with online promotion of the book jacket and title. Another was the crime novel Hogdoggin’ by Anthony Neil Smith — a.k.a. @docnoir — who went on a blog tour for his book and posted the initial results.  

Still, it was a little puzzling that there were so few specific examples of books launched via blogs and Twitter, given the mix of participants, including many book bloggers and a healthy number of independent publishers and booksellers, a couple of publishing software developers, and at least one sales rep.

Reframing the question

One strand of the blogger reaction to the discussion topic was articulated by @Writing_Is_Fun: “But isn’t Twitter/blogging just people conversing? Do we need to quantify it, or turn it into a business model?” Meanwhile, those representing the publisher point of view, like Random House sales rep Ann Kingman, were more likely to point out that “buzz is great, but we need sales through the register.”

Some wondered if it would be more productive to reframe the question: “How can Twitter/blogging create more influence?” asked @gregpincus. “Has anyone figured out how to tell if a blog or Twitter campaign is successful?” added NetGalley’s @ftoolan.

Scroll down for some of the answers that surfaced during the session.

Enter Hugh MacLeod’s amazing blog-driven book launch

The same week we had our discussion, I noticed that Ignore Everybody by popular blogger and Twitterer Hugh MacLeod had hit Amazon’s Top 25. A quick call to Maureen Cole, his publicist at Portfolio (Penguin’s business imprint), confirmed that its rise was based primarily on blog and Twitter reviews. (Two weeks later, as I write this, the book is at #467 – not bad at all). 

MacLeod is a comics artist who created his website in 2001 as a way to sell his art (e.g. cartoons sketched on the back of business cards, and larger prints), and now attracts more than a million visitors a month. On Twitter, MacLeod has 17,474 followers as @gapingvoid.

Portfolio (Penguin’s business imprint) printed an extra hundred galleys to send to bloggers about a month before publication, and many responded with reviews and interviews with MacLeod around the book’s June 11 publication date, said Cole.  ”A lot of the buzz online has been totally organic, and not because of anything we did – just people who picked up the book or pre-ordered it because they’re big Hugh fans,” she said. “It really helped that Hugh was already well known and respected on the blogs and Twitter.” The only print media the book had received was a brief mention in a USA Today roundup about 10 days before publication.

The answer is out there

So clearly, there are examples of Twitter and blogs driving sales out there. We just have to find them. If you have any you’d like us to  know about, please leave a comment below.

Meanwhile, let’s get back to the highlights of our Twittersation, which pointed the way to how it might be possible to increase –and measure — the impact of blogs and Twitter going forward.

Commercial impact of blogs and Twitter:

• @PhenixandPhenix: A lot of the value with online buzz happens when you hit a tipping point. That’s why timing is important
• @PhenixandPhenix: Blog/Twitter buzz attracts traditional media coverage. Producers, journalists are tuned in.
• @MoriahJovan: I see a direct correlation between my Twitter presence and sales.
• @DonLinn: We monitor hits in real time when I do Shameless Book Pimping [on Twitter]. Hits spike a little for short time.
• @Deb WorldofBooks: I’ve seen one-day spike pushes on Twitter that were very successful, and ones that weren’t.
• @BethFishReads: At least Twitter talk moves discussion beyond one’s blog readers and has greatly increased audience.
• @jimnduncan: Twitter works I think if you can get book mentioned by the right Twitterer. Hard though since most folks follow and don’t tweet.
• @WheatmarkBooks: I always recommend using Twitter to drive traffic to blog to drive traffic to book sales. It CAN work.
• @DebWorldofBooks: If I see an interesting book on multiple blogs, I’ll tend to go buy them.
• @npilon: Seems to me that blogs are never going to generate Oprah “big hits,” but increased sales across the board
• @Wordlily: What about getting 100 blogs (cross-section) to share click-throughs to purchase the same book?
• @mawbooks: But you’d need a heck of a lot of sales to make it profitable for 100 blogs.
• @KatMeyer: In some cases (where blog is not BOOK blog, but topical non-fiction-related blog), a niche review can be huge, e.g. in gardening
• @@LizB: True test is to pick older title and see what happens if buzz is made.
• @susanmpls: When our books went live in Google Book Search, our backlist sales doubled PER BOOK. If book sold 4 units one year, sold 8 post GBS.
• @susanmpls: For our books, academic and librarian list serves result in both desk copy requests (i.e. course sales) and buzz
• @charabbott: What if IndieBound created a discount for buying books based on tweets by their booksellers or store blog recommendations?
• @O_David: Could Indiebound give Twitter users & bloggers “affiliate” IDs that could be used in links and traced back?
• @vromans: Does my blog result in direct sales (i.e click-through to buy)? Rarely. But indirect sales? Definitely. Booksellers tell  me.
• @AnnKingman: @Vromans makes a good point: twitter/blogs great for branding, but mainstream publishers don’t benefit much from branding 
• @AnnKingman: Publishers and bookstores directing energies to twitter/blogs means something else must go. So what should go?

How to track blog influence

• @markrevans: Edelweiss could corrolate internet buzz and [point of sale] data on a given day -  I will see what we can do! 
• @markrevans: Twitter and blog very different dynamics, probably easier to measure blogs
• @AnnKingman: I think pubs value blog coverage, but measure it more in terms of “buzz” like traditional publicity, not like marketing.
• @LizB: Affiliate sales [e.g. via Amaz0n] don’t show whole picture (and not all sales get mentioned in report)
• @mawbooks: Unlike a bookstore tour where sales are more immediate, blog reviews can still generate sales years later
• @LizB: [Reviews are] online until server goes down, etc. Electronic isn’t necessarily best archive.
• @ReneeAtShens: A survey question asking, “Have you ever bought a book after reading about it on a blog or Twitter?”
• @hmccormack: What about creating a Twitter bestseller list?

Please join this week’s#followreader publishing discussion on Thursday June 25 from 4-5pm ET. To follow to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To add your comments to the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.

Nurturing Literary Culture: Ron Hogan

The third installment in our Profiles in Convergence series, focusing on book people who are helping to create a happy convergence of the the print and digital worlds, features blogger Ron Hogan. Read on to find out how he won friends and influenced people with his blog Beatrice.com, how it led him to create an event series and writer’s conference, and why he dismisses the much-discussed distinction between first-wave vs. second wave book bloggers.

Ron Hogan

RON HOGAN began writing his blog Beatrice.com in the mid-1990s, helping to establish “online magazines” as a viable way for authors to reach potential readers, while working at the independent Los Angeles bookstore Dutton’s. He maintained Beatrice.com during a stint at Amazon.com and after moving to New York, where he began to build a substantial following for the publishing blog Galley Cat, sponsored by MediaBistro, and to build a freelance writing career.

For its first decade, Beatrice.com was primarily a vehicle for interviewing authors, until Hogan’s paid writing work took more of his time, and he made Beatrice.com into a venue for shorter commentaries on book-related news. Most recently, Hogan has parlayed Beatrice.com into a platform for a reading series at New York City’s Mercantile Liberary, and an upcoming writer’s conference. Follow the Reader recently caught up with Hogan to discuss the launch of his new ventures.

Tell us a bit about the literary events that have grown out of your adventures in blogging. 

I’ve been working on two types of events. First, there’s the free monthly author reading series I’ve been curating for the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction [in midtown Manhattan]. I also host a monthly celebration of romance fiction called Lady Jane’s Salon [in a downtown Manhattan lounge, with a $5 cover charge]. Lady Jane’s serves as a benefit for a non-profit group that donates romance novels to women’s shelters, and through my work on that series I’ve become interested in doing more literary events as fundraisers for different types of non-profit organizations.

How is your upcoming writer’s conference different than others?

My writer’s conference focuses less on questions like ”how do I become a better writer?” or “how do I get an agent?” and more on “how can I publish my writing most effectively?” The focus is not just on selling your manuscript, but making sure it sells well enough that publishers will want to continue working with you. Some of that involves understanding what’s going on in the publishing industry, and some of that is about the proactive steps writers can take in pursuit of ongoing success. I’ve been planning one such conference with the Mercantile Library’s Center for Fiction for several months now–the current plan is to hold it in Manhattan in the late fall of 2009–and I have begun discussions about doing similar events in other cities.

What inspired you to specialize in these events?

The impulse behind my decision to launch a Beatrice.com reading series, and then to get involved with creating other events, was to take the enthusiasm for books and writers I’d been displaying online and bring it into the “real world” in ways that could inspire, entertain, and benefit others.

In my role as a senior editor at GalleyCat, I also came to realize that a significant segment of that blog’s audience consisted of writers who were hungry for information about how the publishing industry really works — the more practical and pragmatic, the better. I felt that workshops and conferences would be a good vehicle for that information, and if I could produce those events in such a way as to also nurture local literary cultures, such as non-profit organizations like the Center for Fiction, all the better.

When you created Beatrice.com, did you have any idea that it might lead to paying gigs?

I wasn’t thinking about that when I launched Beatrice in the ’90s, although I did start thinking about getting freelance jobs soon after, since the emergence of online magazines created opportunities for freelance writers. My original goal, when I began interviewing writers, was pretty much just to create an opportunity to talk to authors I admired about how they got to be so good, and to share my enjoyment of those writers with others. Along the way, as my relationships with publishing companies grew stronger, publicists would naturally try to pitch up and coming young writers to me, and those interviews proved to be just as rewarding as the ones with veteran writers.

How has Beatrice’s value to your career changed through the years? And what do you think is the next step for your blog?

Beatrice has always been “useful” to me professionally — it was on the strength of my first three years of interviews that I got a staff job at Amazon.com in 1998. It was on the strength of my first few months of blogging that I was invited to submit the book proposal that became The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane. And it was on the continued strength of the blog that mediabistro.com hired me to help relaunch GalleyCat after its first iteration had stumbled out of the gate.

Until GalleyCat came along, Beatrice was my public identity, so of course it shaped my professional identity (not least of all because it brought me into regular contact with the publishing industry). At the same time, it’s always been first and foremost an instrument for me to discuss some of my most enthusiastic passions, and whatever path my professional career takes, Beatrice will continue to be a place where I talk about what’s on my mind where books and publishing are concerned.

What do you think of the recent debate on the Book Publicity Blog and others over “first wave” bloggers vs. “second wave” bloggers? Do you think it’s true that “lit bloggers” typically write traditional newspaper-style reviews, and tend not to turn on the comments feature or invite conversation with their readers, while “book bloggers” tend to be more community- and conversation-driven and less inclined toward a professional reviewing style or getting paid to review books?

I find that debate incredibly tedious. But I would concede that, from the perspective of publishing industry professionals like Yodiwan (who writes the Book Publicity Blog), or for authors looking to promote their own books, it’s useful to know that there are different types of book bloggers, and that they have different approaches to writing about books — simply as a matter of efficiently matching the right books and the right promotional styles with the right outlets. That’s just the basic professional competence expected of any publicist or marketer.

Beyond that, I find attempts by book bloggers to distinguish themselves as part of a wave or a clique apart from other book bloggers self-serving. If you feel the need to identify yourself as being in the “first wave” of anything with two or more waves, you might as well just tell people that you’re afraid of becoming irrelevant. You’ll notice it’s never the so-called “second wave” bloggers who come out with sweeping statements about how different they are from the “first wave.” And you’ll notice certain “first wave” bloggers have nothing to say about the alleged dichotomy, because (I would imagine) to their mind every minute wasted on this non-issue would be a minute away from celebrating what they believe to be great writing. They don’t need to dramatically underline the stylistic differences between them and other bloggers in order to be successful. The work speaks for itself.

I say all that as somebody guilty of making several self-serving generalizations about blogging and bloggers over the last four years, especially about why many readers came to find book bloggers more relevant than book reviewers. And it would be disingenuous to imply that I don’t actively consider how Beatrice and GalleyCat shape my professional public identity, and vice versa. Ultimately, though, I am less worried about how my blog compares to anybody else’s, and more concerned with whether I’m doing the best job I can do to tell people about books and writers I find interesting.

Do you think bloggers will ever make up for the declining influence of traditional media?

“Make up” implies an emphasis on quantification that doesn’t particularly interest me, and sets up the false idea that all the influence moves in a big chunk from one place to another. Bloggers already influence readers, right now. Whether they’ll do so “as much” as traditional media is less important than the need for authors and publishing companies to recognize that there is no one sure-fire path to influencing readers, and that they’ll need to be prepared to reach out to readers wherever they may be found.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with Follow the Reader, Ron. Before I let you go - just a few quick trivia questions. What’s the best book you’ve read this year?

I’ve read a lot of great debut novels for the Beatrice.com reading series, and I wouldn’t want to privilege any of them above the others, so I’ll mention two debut memoirs that’ve come out recently, Cheeni Rao’s In Hanuman’s Hands and Andy Raskin’s The Ramen King and I.

What book are you most looking forward to this year?

I’m in the middle of Glen David Gold’s Sunnyside, and I’m loving it so far, but I won’t get to pick it up again for a while, and that makes me sad.

What blog can’t you live without?

XKCD.com

NOTE: If you liked this interview, you might want to check out the first interview in this series, with Bethanne Patrick, who runs the Book Studio at WETA.org. The second interview was with literary agent and blogger Colleen Lindsay. Watch this space for upcoming profiles of other bloggers who appeared at the blogger signing in the NetGalley booth at Book Expo 2009.

Summer Reading With A Twist

Recently our Thursday #FollowReader discussion went a bit lighter-than-usual topic-wise, and we spent a delightful hour or so talking about summer reading. This conversation was no mere list of summer titles to be read (though, that certainly was discussed), but a well-rounded exploration of all that summer reading entails — including how it might be changing with the introduction of ereading devices other digital reading options.

Some of us seem to favor lighter reads during the summer, but plenty don’t let the season dictate just what or how they’ll read. Interestingly, many of us commented that we love  reading books about locations where we’ll be spending our summer vacations, and a lot of of also share a delight in finding completely random reads at summer vacation destinations.

You can find the thread in its entirety at: http://bit.ly/18Xmq7. And, for a “condensed” version, check out the summary of highlights below:

Question: How Will You Be Reading Your Summer Reads This Summer?

npilon: @KatMeyer I’m planning to try to read some classic fiction as eBooks this summer. Pride and Prejudice, at minimum.

lmtapscott: @ KatMeyer No one could drag me away from print. An eread just isn’t a book!

Question: Bookstores – Do Your Sales Increase in the Summer? Does any Genre Outsell Others in Summer?

I’m Not Bonding with My Sony Reader

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a Sony Reader and thought, “Why not?” After all, as the head of marketing and sales for NetGalley, a service that advocates digital galleys….well, that’s a train I should be on. But so far, I’ve not been converted.

The headline here is a little misleading—the truth of the matter is, the Sony Reader device is pretty okay. The setup was easy. It’s easy to use (though my 4-yr old fully expected a touch screen). It took a little getting used to the timing of moving to the next screen without interrupting the flow, and the screen size is too small for my liking. But overall, as a device, I’ll give it a B.

It’s the CONTENT that’s horrible.

Let me explain. Mainly, it’s difficult to find the content I want in the Sony eBook Store. For better or worse, I’m accustomed to the thorough and intuitive search you find on Amazon. It’s not perfect, but it’s good more times than bad. But because of the limited content in the Sony Library, and the (to me) preponderance of public domain titles popping up as search results, the feeling there is more bargain-basement than cutting edge.

Now, I admit, browsing for titles in an online bookstore or even a real bookstore is not so easy. Most readers go online or into a store looking for a title they want to purchase, even if only as a jumping off point for browsing. But here’s the rub with the Sony Reader store: the top five titles on my list? Not in the store. The top children’s book on Amazon, which my 8-yr old thought he would try? Not in the store. His next three choices? Not in the store. The 1000-page book on Pearl Harbor my husband thought would be perfect in digital form? Not in the store either.

Now I’m frustrated, though not ready to give up. I did finally find a book I’d try. (Note to publishers: I wasn’t willing to pay $15 for it, though—I opted for an under $5 book.) But Sony, why not give me my first 5 titles for $5? Even book clubs do this. Not treating the reading device owners as a club, who will eventually share, annotate and recommend content to other owners, seems shortsighted, especially as newer devices will have wireless connectivity built in. (Imagine your device telling you that there are 5 other people within walking distance reading the same book–or GPS on your reader that recommends books based on your physical location. You’re in Iowa? Try…).

But I digress. I started reading, finally, and again the content fell short. I’m just not satisfied with the ebook being an exact replica of the printed book. Don’t book publishers watch TV? I’m no expert, but haven’t you noticed that as DVR has become more popular, the content and makeup of shows has started to change? The front matter has gotten shorter, they’ve inserted content between commercials, product placement has crept in to nearly every aspect of the show itself. I’m not suggesting these tactics for publishers, but why not find ways to enhance the reading experience?

You know what I’d like to see? Something that calculates how much longer I have before finishing the book at my current pace. Or, at the end, suggestions for how I can share my thoughts with other folks who have read the book, or other books I might download next.

I believe that the Kindle’s connectivity (and others to follow) may eventually overcome some of these hurdles, and if you haven’t read Felix Torres’ recent post on Teleread about Amazon’s Kindle strategy, stop reading this and click on it. The one bright shining spot I can see for publishers in all this is that they cultivate and harvest quality content; and despite Amazon’s many talents, content creation is not high on the list.

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of tweeting from publishing folks noticing Kindle users in the subway and other city places. These tweets have an air of wistful excitement—“it’s happening, someone’s really coming to our party!” And I agree, change seems to be in the air. But I live in suburbia. There are no Kindles on the school playground or in the supermarket, none that I’ve seen.

Until publishers think “outside the book” to deliver reading experiences, I believe there’s a real danger that their curated and edited content won’t be as widely consumed as it could be—and that is a far bigger danger.

Virtual Ways to Connect Around Books, Pt. 1: Flashlight Worthy Books

Follow the Reader is all about creating and nurturing the community around books. We like to talk about the people who are helping bring great books to life, and the people who are helping spread the word about those books. And, we don’t want to forget the people who are creating new ways for people to spread the word about books.

I recently spent some time chatting with the people behind some very nifty web-based tools– tools created with the sole purpose of facilitating engagement around books. In today’s post, I’m  happy to introduce to you Eric Mueller and Flashlight Worthy Books!

Eric Mueller of Flashlight Worthy Books

Flashlight Worthy:

Flashlight Worthy Books launched last summer with one goal in mind: helping readers find something great to read. Featuring “handpicked book recommendations,” the site is a collection of over 250 lists of great books spread across 54 categories– spanning every subject from “Understanding the Financial Crisis” to “Memoirs of The First Year of Teaching.” There’s also large collections of lists of children’s books, award-winners (“Nominees for the 2009 Hugo Awards”) and dozens of other subjects.

Eric Mueller, the co-founder of Flashlight Worthy, explains further: “The overriding criterion for recommending a book on the site is that it’s ‘flashlight-worthy’– that is, good enough that it’ll keep you up past your bedtime, reading under the covers with a flashlight!”

Many of FLW’s lists come from authors who have expertise in their area– for example, Robert Rodi, an author with nine published novels, recently wrote his first personal memoir (about getting involved in the dog agility training circuit). When approached to make a list, Rodi named his nine favorite personal memoirs, writing a brief blurb for each about why it made his list. In this way, not only do readers learn about nine great books, but they also become acquainted with an author they may not already know. Clicking any of the books links to Amazon for more detailed information.

Virtual Ways to Connect Around Books, Pt. 2: Book Glutton

Today I take great pleasure in introducing you to Book Glutton–a very cool site that celebrates and enhances the community aspect of reading, bringing the real-world conversations that occur around books online, and literally into the books themselves. The Book Glutton reader–dubbed the “Unbound Reader”– is built entirely on open web standards, is free to use, and allows both shared comments and real-time chatting on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Book Glutton is fairly simple to use. Clicking on a title from the site’s catalog opens a book right in the browser. Once inside, there are two ways readers can participate in the Book Glutton community:chat and annotations. Visitors and members at Book  Glutton can form their own reading groups, join existing reading groups, or just read from the available titles on their own. The layout, design, and usability are gorgeously thought-out, and the joy of sharing thoughts within the books is a truly cool experience.

Further building on their vision of  design cultivating community, Book Glutton recently debuted a reading widget that allows for distributed reading. Via the widget, each book in Book Glutton’s catalog can easily be embedded virtually anywhere on the web. All functionality of the reader including membership capabilities stay with the book itself and will transport with the widget.

Book Glutton co-founder and president Travis Alber likens the reading widget to “what youtube did for videos — making it easy and no more need to have plugins, etc.. You can put a book on your blog or put it on your friend’s blog.” Apparently the widget is a hit, and has gone universal. Says Travis, “There has been quite a bit of international usage, despite the fact most of our content is in English. We’ve seen universities, reading groups and readers install it for all kinds of reasons.”

Virtual Ways to Connect Around Books, Pt. 3: Adaptive Blue’s Glue

Fraser Kelton of Adaptive Blue

In the third of our profiles on nifty websites and tools that help readers and bookish types connect online, we bring you a glimpse at Glue. Fraser Kelton from Adaptive Blue, the company behind Glue, was kind enough to answer a few questions and shed some light on this very interesting and literally ubiquitous new way for readers to share their thoughts about books.

Q: What exactly is Glue, and how does it work?
Glue is a web-wide social network for books, movies, and music. It appears automatically as you browse popular sites to show you friends who have visited the same item and what they think.

The cool part about Glue is that it uses semantics to connect people around a common object, regardless of where it’s visited. This means that if you visit a book on Powells, you’ll be able to see what your friends thought of that book even if they visited it on Amazon, B&N, IndieBound, or dozens of other popular book sites.

Glue is a browser add-on, so it can bring you contextual information where and when it makes sense – while you’re looking at a book or movie on a popular site.

Unadventurous Reading Gets You Nowhere

Here at Follow the Reader, we tend to think readers are smart, with fascinating habits. But dare we admit that some readers are so unadventurous that they’re, well, not-so-smart?  Heck, I’ll even go one step further and suggest that more than a few of these folks can be found in some dominant social groups. Yes, I’m talking about white readers who read only white writers, men who read only books by other men,  liberals and conservatives who read only books by those of their own political persuasion — and publishers who think that books with black people on the cover don’t sell. 

We all live in a bubble to some extent, so when publishers pander to this clannishness, it’s often chalked up as good business. That is, until dirty secrets finally get out, and the publishers don’t look so smart after all.

Yes, I’m thinking about the jacket of the YA novel Liar by Justine Larbalestier, with its tight closeup of a white girl with long blonde locks, even though the book has a black tomboy protagonist with short, “nappy”hair. According to Larbalestier’s blog post about the situation, Bloomsbury Children’s Books whitewashed her novel despite her sincere concerns that the cover image would confuse her readers and undermine her story. It was a pretty hot topic in our #followreader discussion on Twitter last Thursday, which explored examples of book marketing FAIL.

Signs of a shifting power balance

In the past, when publishers held most of the power, this sort of author-publisher disagreement was swept under the rug unless the author was a bestseller with an über-agent who could quickly land a new deal. But in the world of blogs and social media, readers can now deliver pointed market feedback well before a book’s pub date, and authors can point to a gathering community consensus to advance their concerns, as Larbalestier did. (Though to be fair, I should mention that Publishers Weekly has reported that some booksellers don’t have a problem with the jacket.)

Since Liar is due for release on September 28, Bloomsbury still has time to fix the jacket–although there are likely to be significant costs and possibly some delays if a change were made at this point, given the book’s 100,000-copy announced printing. But so far the house has shown no sign of a proactive reponse to the mounting reader feedback on Larbalestier’s blog and at the young adult blog Editorial Anonymous (where there are 82 comments so far).  Instead, Liar’s editor has defended the cover, according to Publishers Weekly, arguing that

Micah, the unreliable narrator, could have fibbed about her own appearance. “The entire premise of this book is about a compulsive liar,” said Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA and Walker Books for Young Readers, who worked on Liar. “Of all the things you’re going to choose to believe of her, you’re going to choose to believe she was telling the truth about race?”

Yet if reader and bookseller outcry isn’t enough, what would change the publisher’s mind?

Publishing’s race problem

According to the Larbalestier, the underlying issue is that Bloomsbury has had a lot of success with books with girls on the jacket – though not black girls. And as she fairly points out, this is not just Bloomsbury’s problem: 

Since I’ve told publishing friends how upset I am with my Liar cover, I have been hearing anecdotes from every single house about how hard it is to push through covers with people of colour on them. Editors have told me that their sales departments say black covers don’t sell. Sales reps have told me that many of their accounts won’t take books with black covers. Booksellers have told me that they can’t give away YAs with black covers. Authors have told me that their books with black covers are frequently not shelved in the same part of the library as other YA—they’re exiled to the Urban Fiction section—and many bookshops simply don’t stock them at all.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve heard plenty of variations on this story. But I just can’t believe that, at a time when there are two widely admired black girls in the White House, these outdated ideas still hold water. 

What to do?

For starters, Bloomsbury should start by admitting they screwed up, and by changing the book jacket, whatever the cost. 

For everyone else, the simplest solution is to examine your prejudices and start reading more promiscuously. If you’re not sure what I mean by that, just read Inkwell Bookstore’s very smart blog entry about unenlightened white liberal readers:

They listen to world music, they donate money to Darfur, and they campaigned en masse to make Barack Obama the President of the United States. Still, I dare you to try and push Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go on a fan of Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays. Both books deal with the slowly crumbling mental states of misfit Los Angelenos, both books make frequent and poetic use of dream imagery, and both books garnered their authors considerable critical acclaim at the times of their release. So what keeps Mr. and Mrs. Whiteperson from picking up Himes’ novel while they wait the requisite 7-10 years for Didion’s next? You know the answer. It’s the pigmentation of the author and his protagonist. Simple as that.

So if you’re white and haven’t read a black author in a while, why not visit White Readers Meet Black Authors, a fun and intelligent blog by author Carleen Brice?  It will cater right to you, with plenty of great book recommendations.

And wouldn’t it be cool if a consortium of male bloggers took a cue from the open-minded gals on the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit, who are hosting Carleen on a blog tour? (In classic web style, Carleen has returned the favor by hosting them on her personal blog, the Pajama Gardener.)

Finally, those of you who want to set me straight on my blogging or reading tastes, or to share your recommendations about smart multicultural and mixed gender book blogs, can do it in the comments area below.

The Future is Now: Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness

Random House sales reps by day, Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness are also bloggers by night–and subjects of the latest installment in our Profiles in Convergence series, about influential bridge builders between the print and digital worlds. They launched Books on the Nightstand in April 2008, with one of the few podcasts about books aimed at booksellers, librarians, and the general reading public. “We thought that our insider’s perspective on books would be a fun twist,” they explain. Most of the books they write or talk about “happen to be published by Random House,” since they read so much for work, although they swear they will talk about any book they love, no matter who publishes it. And while their self-funded blog is an independent project not related to their employer, Kindness and Kingman confess they do dream “that Levenger will want to sponsor us someday.” Read on for their recent conversation with Follow the Reader.

What motivated you to take on your blog in addition to your very busy jobs as sales reps?

Michael: Talking about the books has always been my favorite part of the job. Several times a year we present titles to reading groups [in bookstores], and often get asked to do many more than our schedules would allow. Ann came up with the podcast as a way to have those conversations online, on a regular basis.

Ann: At one of our evening presentations at bookstores, a consumer approached the store owner and asked if Michael and I could write a monthly column in the store newsletter. Though circumstances prevented it, I didn’t forget the exchange. A year or so later, as part of a new hobby, I saw the incredible power that a well-written and engaging blog or podcast could have in creating excitement about a yarn or pattern. And I finally put two and two together and realized that we create excitement about books and give readers a peek behind the “publishing curtain” by starting our own blog.  

Ann Kingman

Has blogging made you better at selling books to your accounts?

Michael: I think the feedback we’re getting directly from readers has given us a better intuitive sense of what’s being read out there. Yes, I knew The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society was a big, popular book, but the feedback we received from our readers and listeners let me know exactly how much this book touched people.

Ann: It has made me read differently, and think and talk about the books in a different way. In our sales calls with the bookstore buyers, we tend to emphasize comparisons: this book is similar to that book. We talk about the marketing and publicity campaigns. We look at the book jacket. But for the blog and podcast, we speak much more in the language that frontline booksellers use when selling a book to their customer: This is why I love the book; here’s how I felt when I was reading it. We talk about the use of language and the storytelling ability of the author. I think this change has made us more effective in talking to booksellers, and allows them use our information with their customers, even if they haven’t read the book themselves.

Which of your blog posts has been most popular?

Michael: One of our most commented on posts was ironically one I called “95% of You Don’t Need to Read this Post.” It was about baby naming books. I just love that it happened to be useful and perfectly timed for so many people! 

Who is your typical reader?

Ann: We recently did a survey of our readers and listeners, and found the following to be quite interesting: 

• 88% of our readers and listeners are from the United States
• 28% of our audience works at a publisher, at a bookstore, or at a library
• 26% of our audience has a blog that frequently discusses or reviews books.
• 87% of our audience has read at least 1 book based on our recommendation, and 24% have read 6 or more.
• Just under 50% of our readers/listeners engage with Books on the Nightstand through our GoodReads or Facebook groups, or regularly comment on our blog.

To what extent do the bookstores in your territories tune into your blog, versus readers who have stumbled on the blog but don’t work with you professionally?

Ann: People in our stores read the blog, though I don’t have any hard numbers, and I don’t know if they are subscribers or just occasional readers. We also have bookstore readers who are not in our territory, as well as readers from used or nontraditional bookstores. Overall, though, the bulk of our readers are “civilians”–people who love books and want to hear or talk about them.

Michael: On the blog, I raved about one of Ann’s titles several months before it came out. When she was selling the list to one of our stores, the buyer said he’d definitely take that book “because Michael loved it.” Things like that still surprise me. You represent your publisher’s books to regional bookstores, yet by blogging about Random House books, you’re taking on a role that’s akin to marketing or publicity, since you’re now reaching consumers as well. 

Do you think more publishing people will play this kind of hybrid role in the future?

Ann: We’ve been speaking directly with consumers through bookstores for the last several years, so those roles have already been shifting. In the publishing industry, there has always been a filter between the publisher and the consumer: bookseller, book reviewer, TV personality. But it turns out that book consumers also like to hear directly from the publisher.

Michael Kindness

 Michael: It’s so hard to know exactly how the reps’s role, and indeed all publishing positions, will change over the next few years, but I think we can all agree that it will. It’s vital to be adaptable and that’s what I think Ann and I are doing. And not only with blog: we’re doing more consumer interaction than before, like reading group nights and holiday gift presentations.

I do want to stress, though, that at Books on the Nightstand, we don’t speak in an official role for the publisher. It is an independent project, and so we truly talk about the books that we are passionate about, or the books that we think our readers and listeners will love, and we don’t care who the publisher is. The reality is that we read mostly Random House books because of time constraints, but we never write or talk about a Random House book just because we want to “market” it. I believe that our readers and listeners would see through that in a minute.

How does Random House regard your efforts? Are they encouraging people to blog, or just tolerating those who do?

Michael: Everyone at Random House has been incredibly supportive of our work. A few of the RH publishers have given us books for giveaways and have been pleased with the attention those giveaways received.

What person in publishing do you most wish would write a blog?

Ann: I can’t limit it to just one. I wish everybody would blog. In our industry, we work with the most interesting people, and I would love to get to know them all better. And I’m not alone. I think there’s a huge opportunity for publishing people to connect with readers. Readers have a fascination with the “glamorous” world of publishing, and I know they would love to hear from publishers, editors, publicists, designers.

What upcoming book are you most excited about?

Michael: From the Random House list: Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. It’s an amazing novel about identity and identity theft and features three separate storylines that come together in very unexpected ways. From “out-of-house:” Stitches by David Small. I got this galley at BEA and read it that weekend. I’m still thinking about this graphic memoir about Small’s childhood. I expect it to end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

Ann: I can’t wait to see what happens with The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, coming from Doubleday on September 15th. Personally, I am over the moon about Lorrie Moore’s new novel, A Gate at the Stairs (Knopf, September). As soon as I finished the novel, I wanted to re-read it — something that I never ever do. Beyond Random House, I’m dying to read Scholastic’s Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, the sequel to The Hunger Games, one of my favorite reads from last year.

We are pleased to report that Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman will make a guest appearance at this week’s #followreader publishing discussion on Thursday, July 30 from 4-5pm EST. To follow to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To add your questions to the discussion, tweet them to moderator @charabbott with the #followreader tag. And to contributute comments to the discussion, use the #followreader tag.

Proliferation and Pricing Wars for eReaders and eBooks (#FollowReader Summary)

Shhh! No one seems to have a clue about ebooks...

Well, I apologize. Events have made this a much busier summer than usual for all of us at Follow The Reader. Therefore, I am even more behind on my posting than normal. However, as promised, here is a summary of our #FollowReader “twittersation” from July 9th on Ebook pricing and Ereading device proliferation.

Spurred by that week’s flood of announcements regarding ebooks, ereaders, the pricing of both, and the never ending menace of DRM, this #FollowReader discussion was in a word, LIVELY.

Over the course of an hour and a half (many stayed past the usual hour mark, and kept on chatting until almost 5:30PM EST), many opinions were shared, along with links to articles, statistics and other information. We had more than 80 participants and well over 600 tweets.

I’ve highlighted a few of the discussion comments below, but for the full conversation, you can search here using hashtag “followreader” and dates July 9, 2009 to July 11, 2009.

Why Laura Dawson? Because Books Aren’t Just Books Anymore!

We’ve noticed that people seem to really enjoy our profiles of bookish types. (Yes, we actually do pay attention to things like reader comments and website traffic – not to mention retweets!). So, we are making a concerted effort to shine the light more frequently (and possibly more brightly) on the interesting individuals who make the bookish world go round.

Today we chat with Laura Dawson, who blogs at LJNDawson.com, and also pens the industry newsletter: The Big Picture . Laura (AKA: @LJNDawson on Twitter where she is a very valuable member of the bookish tweeting community), is a book tech savvy gal about town. As the CEO of LJNDawson.com, Laura helps lots of different players in the industry position themselves in publishing’s rapidly changing landscape. When not spreading the news that “books aren’t just books anymore,” Laura raises two fantastic daughters, and perfects her skills as a consumate foodie. But, since we’re here to learn about her bookish side, we managed to keep the conversation centered on that…

#FollowReader: Book Marketing Fail

Cover Win

In continuing our valiant effort to catch up with summaries of #FollowReader’s past, we present our wrap up of the July 23rd “Book Marketing Fail/Book Marketing Win” #FollowReader discussion.

This twitchat was sparked by the Simon Kernick incident (wherein a promotional edition of one of Kernick’s older books prominently featured Dan Brown’s name on the front cover – large enough that a careless reader might mistake the book for a Dan Brown authored title). Twitter’s #BookMarketingFail Flames were fanned with news of the “whitewashing” of the cover for Justine Larbalastier’s forthcoming YA novel, Liar – a book about an African American girl. So, the topic of getting reader’s attention with marketing seemed a good one for discussion. And, it was.

Cover Fail

The conversation began with questions and comments about what book marketing tactics work, and what tactics miss the mark. Participants seemed to agree that while any publicity is good publicity (even if not entirely scrupulous), the best marketing is marketing that engages readers on a more personal level. Bookstore parties and word of mouth were mentioned as favorite forms of book marketing.

Eventually the conversation turned to the impact that cover art, and book design in general can have on how a reader experiences a book. It certainly wasn’t the direction that I’d expected the twitchat to go in, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

In a happy turn of events and a true #FTW for everyone really, the the North American cover for Liar will be sporting the image of an African American girl.

Note: Thanks to Bowerbird for helping with list of participants and transcript capture.
Don’t forget to “tune in” Thursday at 4pm EST for our next #FollowReader chat.

#FollowReader: Bookish Communities

We’re almost caught up with #FollowReader conversation summaries! (go, me!). Last week’s #followreader was really fun (well, for me anyway). The topic was: “Bookish Communities, On and Offline – Where Do You Get Your Fix?” Lots of people tweeted up to let us know about their favorite face-to-face and web-based book clubs, as well as about book-centric social networking sites, libraries, bookstore events, blogs, and websites that they frequent to get their book on.

Lots of people still favor the good old fashioned in person book club. Others are fans of online book groups, and social networking sites. GoodReads and LibraryThing were both cited as great sites. Lots of people mentioned genre-specific clubs they belong to, also.

Conversation wise, the topic of whether publishers should be creating and/or controlling bookish communities was discussed at length. Many, many opinions on this one, but overall most of us don’t think publishers should have control, but it’s cool if they want to facilitate.

This week I’m especially thrilled to announce my DH has written up a program so I can capture our #followreader conversations and present the transcript in “logical” chronological order (that is, oldest to newest). In upcoming posts, we’ll perhaps present this as a link to a site where the transcript will be hosted so not to clog up the blog with tons of tweets, but even as it is, it’s pretty nifty! Enjoy.

Oh! And if you have anything to add about bookish communities – especially great resources for on-and off-line book clubs/groups, PLEASE add in the comments section here. Lots of people will be very appreciative!

Thanks!

Luv,  Kat

Transcript for #FollowReader: Bookish Communities ON- and OFF-Line. Where Do YOU Get Your Fix?

bookish community-there are lots of ways to define, it but how do you live it? what’s your favorite bookish community offline? #followreader

Posted by KatMeyer at Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:01:12 +0000 (msg id: 3168547045)

Do you belong to a book group? Do you visit the library for your real life bookish community fix?Do you go to author signings? #followreader

Posted by KatMeyer at Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:02:00 +0000 (msg id: 3168556501)

Kingman and Kindness on Reaching the New Book Consumer (#FollowReader Recap)

OK, it’s now officially #followreader catch up week, with the third of three recaps from our weekly Twitter discussions.

This discussion took place July 30, after we posted a dialogue with Random House sales reps and bloggers Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, and then invited the two of them to join our friends on Twitter in a #followreader conversation. 

Working from the premise that ”the entire book business culture and tradition is up for grabs now,”  Ann and Michael proved fearless in their willingness to reassess the business and where it can go in these digital times. The result was the best kind of Twittersation – a long riff on fresh ideas with scores of improvisationalists, that turned into one of our most intense and creative #followreader conversations to date. Many thanks to Michael and especially Ann, who was able to stay for a full hour!

[NOTE: Due to technical constraints, I've reconstructed the conversation primarily from the Twitterfeeds of @annkingman and @mkindness, in addition to my own. Apologies to the many other participants in this conversation whose smart comments I was not able to retreive.]

Here are some of the highlights:

How can we keep books high on the cultural radar?

@AnnKingman: I’d love to see more salons, where people talk about book they’re reading or love, not a traditional book club

@charabbott: You could say that #followreader, #litchat, #tbc, #editorchat and #TuesBookTalk are all newfangled book salons.

@AnnKingman: I think the salon can work online and off – Twitter, blogs, Goodreads, etc. are all kind of online salons

@AnnKingman: Offline book salons are not as popular as online, but there’s potential

@charabbott: Maybe the key is creating offline parlor games with books. I once invited eight friends over on Oscar Wilde’s birthday to read one of his plays aloud.

@jnyrose: Free books are nice. But hanging out with large groups of book-obsessed people is fantastic.

Who might be the tastemakers in these emerging book salons?

@annkingman: Indie e-mail newsletters are great, and we are starting to see more indies with blogs, which thrills me.

@mkindess: There are customers who look to booksellers for recommendations, why not editors too?

@annkingman: If you read a book you love, would you want to read another acquired by that editor?

@annkingman: Last three non-brand-name books I loved were all acquired by same editor, but I didn’t know it at the time. Now I’ll read anything she buys.

@mkindness: I think readers would be interested ito hear from the editor who brought them The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

@charabbott: Yes, I watch some editors and agents, like Susan Kamil and Nicole Aragi for fiction, and Eamon Dolan for nonfiction.

@annkingman: Publisher and editor extremely important for bookstore buyers because they’ve learned who to trust. Why can’t that carry over?

The Rise of Libraries in an ‘e’ world of Books?

The recent announcement about the partnership between Sony and Overdrive in the support of supplying eBook distribution for libraries has me wondering if we are on the brink of a huge power shift in publishing.

In traditional publishing models, publishers have viewed the library market as significant, but very small compared to retail outlets.  The library model is (of course) that they buy once, and lend it out for free to their patrons.  Patrons were generally a local geographic community. Publishers have never worried about retail sales being cannibalized by library borrowings.

But, now we have the eBook world, growing very rapidly, being supported by hardware and download technologies that make it easy for readers do download  and read eBooks.  Sales of eBooks in the past 2 quarters are higher than they were in the previous year before that.

Publishers are seeing this shift, and while many don’t believe that eBooks are cannibalizing print book retail sales, others are not so sure.  Amazon, with its retail power is forcing the price of eBooks into a range under $10 – and traditional publishers are already wringing their hands saying that their businesses are unsustainable at that price level.

But what happens to publisher revenues if it is as easy for a reader to go online, and download an eBook for free from their library, as it is to go on Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com and pay $10 for it?

Where is the value to the reader to pay money for an experience you can have for free?  The way Amazon works, you can’t lend your copy of an eBook to anyone else anyway.  Since few if any people will ever see your eBook collection, do you need to keep them around after you have read them anyway?  Sometimes, perhaps, but not always.   And so what, if the book is unreadable in 60 days you probably finished it anyway? Certainly there is value if these conditions of free are not acceptable to the reader, but, for many titles, they well may be.

Additionally, library patrons no longer have geographic boundaries.  Going online, it’s just as easy for me to join a public library in California as it is in Massachusetts.

The rise of eBooks may mark a new, more powerful, era for libraries, and will probably cause a massive consolidation among them.  However, publishers will need to contend with library sales cannibalizing retail sales.  And as eBook procurement becomes easier for the reader, eBook reading will eventually cannibalize print reading.  Print books will become souvenirs of a reading experience, and may be some source of revenue, but only a pittance compared to the current print models.

I’m afraid this bodes significant challenges for all publishers, but most especially the big ones, whose massive infrastructures need to be supported.  Smaller, more nimble publishers who see themselves as author services companies, will be the only ones who can create business models that are sustainable.

The real question is: will this be good or bad for the reader?

Talking with My Friend Amy: All About Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Book Blogger Appreciation Week was started by Amy Riley of My Friend Amy in an effort to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.

The first Book Blogger Appreciation was observed in the fall of 2008 and occurs every September. The week spotlights and celebrates the work of active book bloggers through guest posts, awards, giveaways, and community activities. In addition, Book Bloggers are encouraged to register their participation for inclusion in the Book Blogger Database.

Note: Today – Saturday, August 15th, is the deadline for submitting nominees for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Nominations are accepted in all categories.  Anyone can nominate a blog and bloggers may nominate themselves. Click here to nominate your favorite book blogs.

Amy was kind enough to answer a few questions about Book Blogger Appreciation Week and the Book Blogger Database.

KM: Tell us about the Book Blogger Database. How and why did you start it? Is it successful? Are you planning on expanding it/adding more search categories?

Amy Riley: The database/directory was started because I thought it would be nice to have an easy way to find book blogs by the subject matter they cover. When I started BBAW last year, I honestly thought I would be lucky to have 60 bloggers interested in the idea. Over 400 blogs registered for inclusion in the directory. It will be updated this year with all 950+ blogs that have submitted their information.

As far as its success…well it takes time to spread the word, and I still see people start new book blog directories every few months. Any blog can add themselves as well, they just need to be approved. I have absolutely no technical skill so Monica of Monniblog and Lys of I Read What?? handle all of that! Hopefully we can get the directory to a place where it will be useful for anyone who wants to find a book blog on any genre or subject matter, and maybe even get to the point where book bloggers, bookstores, and other people who have an invested interest in reading and books can find others in their area.

Libraries (and Librarians): Braving the Digital Age

Kathy Ishizuka

As digital publishing options become more and more prevalent, libraries of all kinds are working to incorporate digital into their collections and service offerings. This is no easy task, and libraries face plenty of obstacles as they gear up for the digital age. To get a bit of insight about how some libraries and librarians seem to be dealing with the changes of “Library 2.0,” we spoke with Kathy Ishizuka, the technology editor of School Library Journal, and Shayera Tangri, a branch manager for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Shayera Tangri

Kathy (@kishizuka) and Shayera (@shayera) have graciously agreed to join us for today’s #FollowReader discussion, where we’ll be talking about how libraries are changing and what it means for readers. Please join us on Twitter beginning at 4pm EST today. (Use the hashtag #FollowReader to join in).

1. How do librarians feel about the increasing digitization of information?

Kathy Ishizuka: From my perspective covering K-12 education, I would say school librarians and media specialists are embracing the increased digitization of information, if not leading the way in this regard in the K-12 community. They are, after all, at the front lines – negotiating the information needs of students and teachers and coping with dwindling, even-nonexistent budgets, all while trying to impart literacy skills and the critical thinking required in this new information landscape.

Finally!

We interrupt this public service blog to bring you an update about its sponsor – NetGalley.

This morning we are making a couple of announcements.  The first being one that I promised a while ago: NetGalley CAN NOW SUPPORT THE SONY READER!  (oh it feels good to write that…)

Although a couple of months later than I hoped, NetGalley.com can deliver PDFs to Adobe Digital Editions (which is the software used by the SONY Reader and several other reading devices).  This means that Reviewers at NetGalley.com can now request versions of titles to be downloaded to their SONY Reader, as long as that option has been allowed by the publisher.  Today, Reviewers can log into NetGalley.com and request the majority of the Fall ‘09 titles in our public catalog.

This is a major accomplishment for us, as it sets the stage for a whole string of enhancements and offerings that we are planning for the future.  Some of these things, I’m not ready to divulge, but one I am ready to commit to is the support of ePub files (should publishers enable them), which will happen in the very near future.

Our Reader community has been very vocal in asking for these reading options, and we are very pleased to be able to accommodate them.

In the theme of “Following the Reader,” our second announcement is the addition of Lindsey Rudnickas to our team as our “Digital Concierge” (tip of the hat to Michael Cairns for that phrase, which we’ve turned into a title).  Lindsey, a former publicist at DaCapo Press in Boston, will be the main liaison between our publisher community and our Reader community.

At Firebrand (and NetGalley), we believe that systems are tools, but people provide solutions.  Bringing Lindsey on board reinforces our vision of a company that helps connect publishers and professional readers.  Lindsey will be charged with understanding who is in our reader community, what their tastes are, and helping them find the books that best fit those tastes.  Additionally, Lindsey will be helping publishers reach beyond their traditional contact lists to find others who have a professional reason to review their titles prior to their publication.

I feel strongly that this human element will be the difference between NetGalley being a “good” service, and an “outstanding” service, and we’re really looking forward to Lindsey’s contributions.  Lindsey can be reached at lindsey [dot] rudnickas [at] netgalley [dot] com.

If you haven’t checked out NetGalley in a while, please do.  As of this writing, we have approximately 330 Fall ‘09 titles from around 40 different publishers.

Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming months!

#FollowReader: Libraries in the Digital Age

For last week’s #FollowReader Twitchat, we were honored to be joined by Kathy Ishizuka of School Library Journal, and Shayera Tangri of the Los Angeles public library system.

Our topic of conversation was: Libraries in the Digital Age. And questions and comments ran the gamut from what digital offerings are offered by school and public libraries, to what services students and patrons could use more of, to severely diminished library budgets and how libraries make the most of them.

Some interesting issues that were brought up were: the confusion among patrons as to what digital offerings and services are available from what libraries; whether students are interested in/use the digital offerings made available to them in school libraries; how much of library budgets go to digital services versus paper books and other materials; how Internet e- and audio-book borrowing works across library branches and system; and the tidbit that Australian/UK authors receive royalties each time a book is checked out.

Among some of the really informative links shared during the conversation were:

• Growth of ebooks in libraries, an IFLA report. http://bit.ly/3kTBO9
• Library use value calculator from Maine State Library: http://bit.ly/10GnQd
• How lending rights work in Australia  http://tinyurl.com/nzv82y
• School lib collections have been shrinking since 04/05: http://bit.ly/jih5
• Story about library that did away with Dewey Decimal: http://bit.ly/Urrxc
• ebooks’ in schools is evolving. Joyce Valenza only recently created this resource: http://bit.ly/JMBOe
• Dewey alts: Some r considering: http://bit.ly/BISAC
• Overdrive: http://tinyurl.com/lgdztz

Below is the entire transcript of the chat. Thanks to everyone who joined in, especially Kathy and Shayera. Tune into Twitter again on Thursday, August 27th at 4pm EST for another #FollowReader TwitChat!

#FollowReader: What Readers Want Publishers to Know

image courtesy of despair.com

Oh, the #FollowReader Twitchat last week was AWESOME. The topic? What you, as readers, want publishers to know.

There was an incredible turnout with readers and publishers well represented. Ideas were flying around furiously. Among some of the most agreed upon and/or interesting:

• Book covers matter a lot to readers. Readers want the cover to accurately represent the content of the book, and blurbs are not as appreciated as is a good summary and description of the book. Oh, and don’t give away too much of the plot on the jacket copy.

#FollowReader: Fall Books to Fall For

While Doubleday has printed some 5 million copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and they’ll start hitting the bookstore shelves on September 15, we thought there might be a few other books coming out this fall, and perhaps a few of you might want to know about those less hyped titles. So, for last Thursday’s #followreader chat we put out the call for other anxiously awaited fall reads, and wow did we got a lot of good recommendations!

There were some great suggestions in a lot of different categories. Some notable mentions:

• YA: Harper Teen’s Are Those Bazooma’s I See Before Me? by Louise Rennison was mentioned a few times. It’s on sale October 6th.
• Biography/Military: Jonathan Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tilman is finally being released on September 15th.
• Memoir/Political: Ted Kennedy’s True Compass is available September 14 from Twelve Books.
• First Time Fiction: On sale today, Shandi Mitchell’s very highly touted debut novel Under This Unbroken Sky (Harper Collins).
• First Time Fiction: Coming from Swallow Press in October, Thirsty: A Novel by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe.
• Fiction/Literary: Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs from Random House is already available.
• Fiction/Literary: Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk (Doubleday, already availble)
• Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Tor’s highly anticipated book 12 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series – The Gathering Storm is available October 27th.
• Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Terry Pratchett adds to his Discworld series with Unseen Academicals (available October 6th from HarperCollins)
• Mystery/Thriller/Fiction: Stephen King’s Under the Dome ships Novmber 10 (Scribner).
• Romance: St. Martin’s Press releases Lisa Kleypas’ Tempt Me at Midnight on September 26th.
• Romance: Ava Gray’s Skin Game (Berkley Books) will be on sale November 3rd.
• Children’s/Illustrated: Lerner Publishing’s Bad News for Outlaws written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, looks to be a great black history title (for grades 3 – 6).
• Children’s/Illustrated: Elise Primavera’s Auntie Claus: Home for the Holidays just looks awesome. (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books, on sale October 6th).

A couple notable links for more title ideas:

• Romance readers – check out Borders and Sue Grimshaw’s September Must Reads.
• USA Today Shares 25 titles Critics Can’t Wait For

AND - Here’s a link to the entire archived twitchat, where you will find lots and lots of other great titles to look for this fall — check it out: #followreader

In other news – Follow the Reader is so incredibly proud and excited to say, we made the short list for Best Industry Blog in the  Book Blogger Appreciation Week’s Awards. Check it out, check out the other great finalists for all the other great categories, and be sure to check out all of the bookish blogs that BBAW is shining a light on!

Rich Rennicks on Helping Booksellers Expand Their Influence Beyond the Neighborhood, Great Reads, and More.

Rich Rennicks

Oh dear, lately we seem to have gotten a bit lax here at Follow the Reader. But, today we are making up for our recent lack of quantity, with a whole lotta quality in the form of a lovely chat with the Word Hoarder’s own, Mr. Rich Rennicks.

Rich is a self-described “father, bookseller, gardener, writer, and jack-of-many-trades,” who works as bookstore liaison for Unbridled Books, and part-times it as a book seller for Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC.  As you will find out, Rich also enjoys the pleasure of a good book.

If you needed another reason to be fond of him, Rich is a huge advocate of book sellers using social media to engage with their customers, and has a fantastic post all about it over at Word Hoarder. Go check it out after you read our equally fantastic interview with him.

Kat Meyer: Through extensive research (I clicked on the “About” section at your blog), I discovered you are not native to North Carolina, but hail from Ireland with some time spent in the UK. You mention on your blog that your  library reflects your travels. Can you elaborate? Are there any titles that stand out as touchstones for particular times and locations of your life?

Rich Rennicks:

Ireland
There are several books that impacted on me for one basic reason: their authors lived (or had lived) nearby, and that brought the world of arts and letters close enough to home that I began to think I might have a part in it some day.  Brendan Behan’s memoir Borstal Boy, J.P. Donleavy’s hilarious The Ginger Man, and Francis Ledwidge’s poetry, were particularly impressive and remain so..

England
I read Pynchon, Rushdie and Eco for the first time while I lived in the UK. Any of their books could change a person’s life.

US
I read Silas House’s marvelous Clay’s Quilt on a trip to NC while I lived in Michigan. That book, with its warm and nuanced understanding of Appalachian culture, had a great deal to do with my family deciding to relocate back south after years up north. Also, Look Homeward Angel is one of my favorite books of all time — and one of the few to reduce me the tears – so, Asheville carries a certain aura and romance for me because of Thomas Wolfe.

Travels
I almost began grad work in Indian and post-colonial literature after falling under the spell of Rushdie, Roy, Mukherjee and others. My wife and I traveled throughout India in 1998, and I brought home a ton of Indian novels and some literary nonfiction. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s hilarious English, August is one of those special books for me. I’ve discovered an informal fraternity of travelers who have spent serious time on the subcontinent and have often read that book. It captures the distaste the urban, educated Indian often feels for the raw, superstitious life of rural India, which often mirrors the first impressions and feelings westerners have of the country. It’s a book I’ve bonded with a few people over, and one that is something of an antidote to the glossy, sprawling family sagas that were being published as fast as possible for a few years. English, August is no more comprehensive or representative of India’s myriad communities than those sagas, but is one of the few books I’ve found that takes a brutally and humorously honest look at what’s often romanticized.

Announcing: Twitter hashtag – #NGpick

Attention NetGalley and Twitter Users! We interrupt this public service blog to bring you an exciting announcement about its sponsor – NetGalley – and Twitter.

 

But first, let me back up and introduce myself. I’ve recently joined the NetGalley team as your “Digital Concierge” (as announced in this post). I know, it sounds cool, but what does this mean?

 

In a nutshell, it means I’m here for you.

 

I’m the main liaison between the reader and publisher communities of NetGalley, and it’s my goal to help connect readers with books that they’ll like, help publishers connect with readers who might review their books, and help everyone make the most of what NetGalley has to offer.

 

Some of you have probably received emails (or tweets) from me, asking for your reading preferences. If I haven’t already connected with you, feel free to reach out to me – I’d love to hear from anyone and everyone who uses NetGalley.

 

Things I’m especially interested in hearing: what kind of books you like to read and review, where your reviews appear, what you love about NetGalley, and most importantly, what about NetGalley isn’t working for you. I’m open to all feedback – good, bad, and ugly!

 

Email me anytime at lindsey [dot] rudnickas [at] netgalley [dot] com or DM me on Twitter @NetGalley.

 

Now, back to our announcement. We’re starting a new hashtag: #NGpick (NetGalley pick)!

 

Being the Twitter lovers that we are, we’re starting a hashtag to highlight the books you review that are also available on NetGalley. The purpose is to spread the word about the galleys, while at the same time drive more traffic to your blogs/websites. Are you on board?

 

Here’s how it’ll work:

1. You write a review of a book that you read using NetGalley.
2. You include #NGpick in your tweets about your review (with a link to your blog/website/review).
3. I’ll be sure to re-tweet (RT) all the #NGpick tweets (and we can all ask others to RT, too).
4. I’ll put a Twitter widget on this Follow the Reader blog, which will also show the #NGpicks.

Thanks in advance for helping to make this hashtag just as popular as #followreader, #fridayreads and others – we can always dream, right?

 

I look forward to connecting with you all. In the meantime: read, review, tweet, and enjoy!

 

-Lindsey, your friendly Digital Concierge for NetGalley

 

Not signed up with NetGalley? Anyone who reads and recommends books professionally (reviewers, media, bloggers, journalists, librarians, booksellers and educators) can use it for free! Visit us to learn more and register: NetGalley

Reaching Out to Readers: ECW Press Recruits Shelf Monkeys!

ECW's Simon Ware

At Follow the Reader we love hearing about publishers who love connecting with readers. One such publisher is Toronto’s ECW Press. Their innovative (and adorably named) Shelf Monkey program allows for direct (and very personal) interaction with, and feedback from their readers.

What novel thinking from a publisher! Recently, ECW’s publicity director,  the charming Simon Ware, answered a few questions about Shelf Monkey and what it offers to both readers and to ECW.

KM: Describe ECW’s Shelf Monkey program:

SW: Shelf Monkey is an advance review program for people who wish to review new ECW titles. Signing up takes a couple minutes via an online submission form found on our homepage.

When we’ve got new books on offer in the categories that Shelf Monkeys like, we email them to see if they are interested in any of the titles that are currently available; the choices are entered in a random draw by Jennifer Knoch (Shelf Monkey’s top banana) who then sends a galley or advance review copy to the selected Shelf Monkeys.

KM: Where’d you come up with the idea for Shelf Monkey?

SW: In a digital age book publicity is still about old fashioned word-of-mouth. Our aim is to invite people who love to read and write about books to read and write about our books. We can’t claim it’s a unique idea (various publishers have built review communities for marketing purposes) but we do handle it on a personal level. The process isn’t automated – we answer emails, pack galleys, and send them all from our office here in Toronto.

The program name comes from the title of a satirical novel called Shelf Monkey, by Corey Redekop (ECW 2008). The novel is about a secret society of book lovers who strike back against what they consider homogenization of books; they refer to themselves as Shelf Monkeys. To go meta-Shelf Monkey, there’s even a review of Shelf Monkey left by a Shelf Monkey on our website.

KM: How many Shelf Monkeys do you currently have in the program?

SW: We launched Shelf Monkey earlier this year at Book Expo America and membership has been steadily increasing. So far, we have a smallish troop. Given the current rate of growth we can maintain the personal nature of the community, something that’s really important to us.

KM: Who are your Shelf Monkeys? (bloggers, professional reviewers, etc.?)

SW: Membership ranges from professional media to dedicated book bloggers to first time reviewers who post a comment on our site. It’s open to North American residents over the age of 16.

KM: Is it difficult to keep track of all the shelf monkeys and their reviews?

SW: Not difficult – it can be time-consuming. However, we request notification of any review or mention posted externally (Facebook, LibraryThing, GoodReads, Amazon, etc).  And we only send out one book at a time per reviewer. Before sending a second title to a Shelf Monkey we’d need to see they’ve reviewed the previous one.

KM: Do you send out physical arcs, or do you encourage people to use the digital arc system via Net Galley?

SW: We’ve offered both. Most Shelf Monkeys seem to want a copy of the book in the mail as compensation for their time. But as e-readers gain popularity we’ll see more digital galley requests. NetGalley users who’ve downloaded an ECW book have received an invitation to become Shelf Monkeys. Being familiar with the digital galley format already, they are more likely to download and review from a pdf.

KM: What looks exciting on the fall 2009 ECW list?

SW: How long do you have?! What’s exciting for me personally is the variety of new titles landing on my desk right now. Highlights include Grinder, the second book in a wicked noir fiction series by Mike Knowles (move over Richard Stark!), Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review this month; Spotted, by Crissy Calhoun is a must-have accessory for fans of the stylish show Gossip Girl; unofficial TV companion guide books for shows Lost and Mad Men are finding their audiences of die-hard fans. And speaking of die-hard fans, two new wrestling titles are due to hit shelves this fall: Chris & Nancy: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide, by Irv Muchnick, and Drawing Heat the Hard Way, by Larry Matysik, reveal shocking and compelling stories from inside and outside the squared circle.

Simon Ware is publicity director at Toronto-based ECW Press. Recognized by Publishers Weekly as one of the most diversified independent publishers in North America, ECW Press is a publisher of fiction and non-fiction. Nearly a thousand titles have been published by ECW Press and distributed throughout the English-speaking world and translated into dozens of languages. Every year ECW Press releases about fifty new titles and continues to support and promote a backlist that includes poetry and fiction, pop-culture, sports books, biography, and travel guides.

Poisoned Pen’s WebCon

Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen Press

Here at Follow the Reader, we’re always excited about events and tools that bring authors, publishers, readers, and other bookish types together to talk books. So, when a month or so ago, I stumbled across the website for Poisoned Pen’s Web Con, I was muy intrigued.

Taking place this Saturday, October 24, 2009  PPWebCon is described as the world’s first major virtual mystery and crime convention bringing authors and readers together online from all over the world. Pretty cool, eh? And, if anyone can deliver the goods on such a cool premise, it’s the folks at Poisoned Pen.

I sent a few questions to Robert Rosenwald, who kindly (and promptly) returned some answers. So, for those who want to know more about what is likely the coolest (and premiere) virtual event for mystery lovers EVER, please read on!

KM:  Where’d the idea for WebCon come from?

RR: It came from several places at once:

• It’s something that had been riding around in the back of my head for a while.
• One of our authors, Mary Reed, suggested that Poisoned Pen Press authors might want to have an online conference.
• Janice Hally, the con’s web mistress, goaded us on.
• Several PPP authors jumped on the bandwagon.

KM: Who is the target audience, or attendee, for WebCon?

RR: Mystery readers and writers, and people who’d like to be mystery writers.

KM: What authors will be presenting at WebCon? What has their reaction been to the idea of a virtual conference?

RR: Too many to name. Our Guest of Honor is Dana Stabenow, International Guest of Honor is Lee Child. Laurie R. King will be interviewing Lee Child and Kate Miciak, Editorial Director of Bantam Dell at Random House Publishing Group (and another Guest of Honor). The reaction has been very positive. Many are a little bewildered and confused by what technology they need to master but people are really looking forward to it.

KM:  What’s the feedback so far from prospective attendees?

RR: Very strong. Some have expressed amazement at the concept.

KM: Authors will have a chance to pitch to editors – how will this work in a virtual setting, and what editors will be present? Any agents?

RR: We’ll have four Poisoned Pen Press editors available including our senior editor, Barbara G. Peters. Each will handle five pitches. Writers will submit a synopsis and the first 30 pages of a manuscript electronically to the editor assigned to them (assignment shall be done by random draw). The editor will spend about ten minutes talking with the writer about their reactions to what was submitted and issues with the written materials they’ve looked at. This will be done one on one using Skype.

KM: How is the tech end for the event being handled? Will there be video/tech people involved in more than one location?

RR: There will be relatively little live video though there will be some. There are several YouTube videos that have been created for the Webcon and I really don’t know what all else. There will be a fair amount of live audio through BlogTalkRadio.com which basically lets one stream to the web a conference call. We’ll be doing a live video from the bookstore at 9:00 am (our time – PST) in which Libby Fisher Hellmann will be moderating a panel of authors, Betty Webb, Frederick Ramsay, and Donis Casey on Building Suspense. We have a handout that will be available for download as well.

KM: Will there be an offline component to the conference?

RR: Everything will be online. There will be components that are not real time but will have been prerecorded or previously created.

KM:  Since it’s virtual, do you expect the conference to continue in a virtual setting after the conference date?

RR: We’re planning on leaving up the website at least for the next year to be available to anyone who is interested in going back through one or more of the presentations or panels. The audio and video will also be archived.

KM:  I love the idea that you’re offering a $20 book voucher for the PP bookstore with registration. What are some of the other goodies that conference goers can expect?

RR: There are some short stories, there are some audio and video clips, book trailers, recipes, a variety of things in the goody bag. I really don’t know all that has been collected.

—

So, if you are a mystery fan, author looking to chat with publishers and other professionals in the genre, or – like me — just really intrigued at the idea of an online/virtual bookish conference, head over to the PPWebCon site and check it out. There is no limit to the number of attendees, and 100% of profits from your $25 registration fee will be donated to public libraries.

~ Kat

Book People, Meet the New FTC Guidelines

Are you complying with the new FTC Guidelines for bloggers?

For book bloggers and other readers who receive promotional galleys from publishers and discuss books via social media, the new FTC Guidelines for bloggers have raised as many questions as they’ve purported to answer. Publishers also say they are confused by the guidelines, which go into force on December 1, 2009.

Last Friday’s lively #followreader discussion on Twitter helped to clarify what publishers and  independent book reviewers should do to comply with the new regulations, thanks in large measure to our guests: media lawyer Jeff Hermes, of the firm Hermes, Netburn, O’Connor and Spearing, P.C., and Marie Cloutier, who blogs about books at the Boston Bibliophile.

For the highlights of the #followreader discussion, read on. 

But first, for the intrepid among you, here are the full FTC guidelines.

For more background on the FTC Guidelines and how bloggers must adapt to them, check out the detailed FAQ with Jeff Hermes at the BostonBibliophile.

Also, here’s how Richard Cleland, assistant director in the division of advertising practices at the FTC, responded to the concerns of major bloggers in Fast Company:

“To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?”

Now, here’s our recap of the #followreader discussion, with Jeff Hermes (a.k.a. @HermesJP) and Marie Cloutier (a.k.a. @bostonbibliophl).

#Followreader: FTC Guidelines for Book Bloggers

Media Lawyer Jeff Hermes (@HermesJP)

 @HermesJP The Guides require disclosure of “material connections” between a blogger and publisher which might influence a review. #followreader

 @HermesJP A “material connection” isn’t a relationship — it’s any perceived “compensation” arrangement. #followreader

@HermesJP The FTC is only concerned w/good reviews in the Guides. #followreader

 @HermesJP If you disclose that you received a book for free, you’ve complied and you don’t need to return the book. #followreader

 @bostonbibliophl it’s to protect consumers. consumers have no idea who blogger is, what their agenda/relationships might be. #followreader

  

 @HermesJP The main thing to keep in mind is that the disclosure must be clear and conspicuous. #followreader

@bostonbibliophl I’m saying it on each review from now on. #followreader

@thebookjournal I added it in the sidebar of my blog. It appears on all pages. #followreader

@Ooh_Books What I do now is put it at the end of review and state that in no way did it influence my review. #followreader

@HermesJP The Guides are not clear if the disclosure has to be made on each review. #followreader

@mawbooks I imagine something would have to be added to the feed as well. So those on readers can see as well. #followreader

@mawbooks My plans: continue to tag posts “review copy,” link in footer feed & end of post (w/ cat & tags) a disclosure link. #followreader

@Ooh_Books I now have link to separate disclosure page as well.#followreader

@HermesJP Bottom line is that the disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous” with respect to the reviews at issue. #followreader

@Writing_Is_Fun What if the book doesn’t come from a publisher? What if it’s from another blogger or the authors themselves? #followreader

@bostonbibliophl if it’s from another blogger there is no obligation to review. But author is same as pub for me. #followreader

@HermesJP Technically, you don’t need to disclose if you DIDN’T get it for free #followreader

@HermesJP If the review is bad, arguably no disclosure is required under the Guides. #followreader

@HermesJP The FTC is less concerned about professional reviewers having an undisclosed bias… and feel that it’s widely known that pro reviewers get free books, so no discl. would be req’d. #followreader

@charabbott Yes, book bloggers included in guidelines, but will FTC scrutiny fall on endorsements of more costly stuff? #followreader

@HermesJP Price does matter. The FTC won’t go after anyone for a single low ticket item… but the FTC will be concerned about a series of low-priced items going to bloggers. #followreader

@HermesJP The FTC would start with the manufacturer/publisher, and then work down to bloggers. #followreader

@Eugenia_Kim Does it begin on certain date, or do we need to back-disclose our relationships? #followreader

@HermesJP Excellent question w/ no clear answer. Generally, these sorts of regs are prospective — so going forward… The effective date is December 1, 2009. #followreader

@HermesJP The issue of how the FTC Guides apply to bloggers outside of the US is a very tricky one…jurisdiction issues. #followreader

@HermesJP ultimately, the FTC will need to put this into practice for there to be grater clarity. #followreader

#Followreader: FTC Guidelines For Social Media Users

@mawbooks: FTC says that reviews on social networks are included in the guidelines e.g. twitter. Seems impossible to police #followreader

@BookobsessedGrl Yes. Twitter, Facebook, LibraryThing, all of those. #followreader

@Eugenia_Kim On Twitter, opinions fly so freely. Bloggers could neutrally link to review which then has the disclosure, no? #followreader

@castironowl I’ve seen “compcopy” hashtag used as a shortcut FTC disclaimer on tweets. #followreader

@Eugenia_Kim I like #compcopy! What about #$copy for when we bought the book? #followreader

@Writing_Is_Fun: #compcopy is too long! #followreader

@charabbott Yes, but if it’s much shorter than #compcopy , will it be clear disclosure? #followreader

@Ooh_Books I think #freecopy is more clear #followreader

#Followreader: FTC Guidelines for Publishers

@AMACOMBooks What is the burden on publishers? Stickers on every review copy: *please disclose you received this for free* ?? #followreader

@HermesJP The publisher is responsible for communicating the obligation to disclose to the blogger; Guides don’t say how #followreader

@HermesJP I’d imagine you would include a statement in any cover letter sent to the blogger. #followreader

@Eugenia_Kim I think it’s smart to provide suggested disclosure lang. Some might not know about new regs. #followreader

@AMACOMBooks under the impression that FTC is more likely to go after cos. giving freebies than those blggrs receiving. http://bit.ly/yjcSQ #followreader

@castironowl In that case, sounds like publishers shouldn’t send books to bloggers unless they know blogger posts FTC disclaimer. #followreader

@AMACOMBooks I assume we will have to show it’s company policy or evidence of correspondence (emails, etc)? #followreader

@HermesJP If the FTC investigates, yes. #followreader

@HermesJP If the publisher tells the blogger to disclose, they’ve pretty much done their part. #followreader

@HermesJP HOWEVER, if the publisher uses the blogger comment in its own promo materials, then the pub must discl. as well. #followreader

@AMACOMBooks So if we use a review quote from a blogger & stick it up on Amazon, etc. we must disclse that they rec’d free copy. #followreader

@castironowl And still fit that within Amazon’s 20-word review quote limit? Eep! #followreader

@charabbott I have heard publicists at some major houses scoff at idea FTC would come after them. Should they worry? #followreader

@HermesJP Depends. The FTC is looking for egregious behavior. If a publisher is boosting books through reviews… on Amazon, using fake names, the FTC might investigate other promotional practices. #followreader

@NetGalley Are the rules the same for digital/electronic galleys? I assume it doesn’t matter what format the book is recieved? #followreader

 @HermesJP That’s right. The Guides don’t suggest there’s a difference. #followreader 

#Followreader: How will the FTC Guidelines affect readers?

@Eugenia_Kim I think as a reader of reviews, it won’t matter a bit if reviewers say up front they got book for free. #followreader

@Katiebabs FTC would have an Elliot Ness to root out those who didn’t disclose? Waste of tax payers money #followreader

@BookJacquie Yes, hope gov’t has better things to do than discourage people from reading & talking about books #followreader

@CheekyReads I’m all for disclosure – think it’s very helpful for newbies and for making blogs more trustworthy #followreader

@Eugenia_Kim I just want to say, I love book bloggers and appreciate their devotion and hours put into reviews. Just disclose and keep on. #followreader

Watch for our weekly #followreader discussions on Twitter, on Fridays from 4-5pm ET.

The Day It All Changed

OK, sounds dramatic, but trust me, mark down October 19, 2009 as a day to remember.

Rarely, in my career have I been “blown away” by a demonstration.  Tonight, “blown away” doesn’t even begin to describe it.  I should have seen it coming, but, I didn’t.  I was completely blindsided.  I was blindsided by the vision of Brewster Kahle, the raw brilliance of his team, and the entire group of individuals and companies who played a role in Brewster’s “convocation”.

Brewster Kahle

What I saw, was many of the dreams and visions of e-book aficionados everywhere becoming a demonstrable reality tonight.  I say ‘demonstrable’, because by Brewster’s own admission, it’s not ready for prime time, but the demonstration was enough to make my head spin with the possibilities.  But you don’t really want to know that, so let me do my best to just report what I saw.

Let’s start from the beginning…

Tonight, Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive Founder and Chief Librarian, introduced what he calls his “BookServer” project.  BookServer is a framework of tools and activities. It is an open-architectured set of tools that allow for the discoverability, distribution, and delivery of electronic books by retailers, librarians, and aggregators, all in a way that makes for a very easy and satisfying experience for the reader, on whatever device they want.

Now that may sound fairly innocuous, but let me try to walk through what was announced, and demonstrated  (Please forgive me if some names or sequences are wrong, I’m trying to do this all from memory):

• Brewster announced that the number of books scanned at libraries all over the world has increased over the past year from 1 million books to 1.6 million books.

• He then announced that all of these 1.6 million books were available in the ePub format, making them accessible via Stanza on the iPhone, on Sony Readers, and many other reading devices in a way that allows the text to re-flow if the font has been changed.

• Next he announced that not only were these files available in ePub form, but that they were available in the “Daisy” format as well.  Daisy is the format used to create Braille and Text to Speech software interpretations of the work.

• There were other statistics he cited related to other mediums such as 100,000 hours of TV recordings, 400,000 music recordings, and 15 billion (yes it’s a ‘b’) web pages that have been archived.

• He then choreographed a series of demonstrations.  Raj Kumar from Internet Archive demonstrated how the BookServer technology can deliver books  to the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) XO laptop, wirelessly.  There are 1 million of these machines in the hands of underprivileged children around the world, and today they just got access to 1.6 million new books.

• Michael Ang of IA then demonstrated how a title in the Internet Archive which was available in the MOBI format could be downloaded to a Kindle – from outside the Kindle store – and then read on the Kindle.  Because many of these titles were in the Mobi format as well, Kindle readers everywhere also have access to IA’s vast database.

• Next up, Mike McCabe of IA, came up and demonstrated how files in the Daisy format could be downloaded to a PC then downloaded to a device from Humana, specifically designed for the reading impaired.  The device used Text-to-speech technology to deliver the content, but what was most amazing about this device was the unprecedented ease at which a sight impaired person could navigate around a book, moving from chapter to chapter, or to specific pages in the text.

• Brewster took a break from the demonstrations  to elaborate a couple of facts, the most significant of which was the fact the books in the worlds libraries fall into 3 categories. The first category is public domain, which accounts for 20% of the total titles out there – these are the titles being scanned by IA.  The second category is books that are in print and still commercially viable, these account for 10% of the volumes in the world’s libraries.  The last category are books that are “out of print” but still in copyright.  These account for 70% of the titles, and Brewster called this massive amount of information the “dead zone” of publishing.  Many of these are the orphan titles that we’ve heard so much about related to the Google Book Settlement – where no one even knows how to contact the copyright holder.  (To all of my friends in publishing, if you let these statistics sink in for a minute, your head will start to spin).

• Brewster went on to talk about how for any digital ecosystem to thrive, it must support not just the free availability of information, but also the ability for a consumer to purchase, or borrow books as well.

• At this point, Michael came back out and demonstrated – using the bookserver technology – the purchase of a title from O’Reilly on the Stanza reader on the iPhone – direct from O’Reilly – not from Stanza.  If you are a reader, you may think that there is nothing too staggering about that, but if you are a publisher, this is pretty amazing stuff.  Stanza is supporting the bookserver technology, and supporting the purchase of products direct from publishers or any other retailer using their technology as a delivery platform.  (Again, friends in publishing, give that one a minute to sink in.)

• The last demonstration was not a new one to me, but Raj came back on and he and Brewster demonstrated how using the Adobe ACS4 server technology, digital books can be borrowed, and protected from being over borrowed from libraries everywhere.  First Brewster demonstrated the borrowing process, and then Raj tried to borrow the same book but found he couldn’t because it was already checked out.  In a tip of the hat to Sony, Brewster then downloaded his borrowed text to his Sony Reader.  This model protects the practice of libraries buying copies of books from publishers, and only loaning out what they have to loan. (Contrary to many publishers fears that it’s too easy to “loan” unlimited copies of e-Books from libraries).

• In the last piece of the night’s presentation, Brewster asked many of the people involved in this project to come up and say a few words about why they were here, and what motivated them to be part of the project.  The sheer number of folks that came out were as impressive as the different constituencies they represented.  By the end of this the stage was full of people, including some I know, like Liza Daly (Three Press), Mike Tamblyn (Shortcovers), and Andrew Savikas (O’Reilly).  Others, I didn’t know included Hadrien Gradeur (Feedbooks), the woman who invented the original screen for the OLPC, a published author, a librarian from the University of Toronto, Cartwright Reed from Ingram, and a representative from Adobe.

After the night was over, I walked all the way back to the Marina district where I was staying.  The opportunities and implications of the night just absolutely made my head spin.  I am completely humbled to be asked to be here and to witness this event.

In one fell swoop, the Internet Archive expanded the availability of books to millions of people who never had acc