Author chat gets a makeover! In one of his last projects before he leaves us (goodbye!), Luke gave author chats a facelift. Previously, you could only find out about author chats (current and upcoming) by going to the Author chat group.
We now have a module for the homepage, which shows current and upcoming chats (you can customize how many you want to view at once).
You’ll also see links to current, past, and future chats on all the relevant author and book pages.
Labels: author chat
This month’s State of the Thing newsletter several exclusive author features, which you can now see on the site, even if you don’t read the State of the Thing.
Interview
Interview with Author David Ebershoff.
David is the author of The 19th Wife—the story of Brigham Young’s 19th wife, Ann Eliza Young. In his interview with LibraryThing, David talks about his own personal library, his research process, and the book.
Reading lists
On the search for something to read? Authors Steve Luxenberg and Mary Jane Clark, gave us two very different “summer reading” lists. The books they suggest are pictured below, but see their pages for their reasons why.
Steve Luxenberg’s creative take on a summer reading list
Mary Jane Clark’s summer reading list
Steve and Mary Jane are also doing author chats on LibraryThing right now, so stop by to ask them a question!
Author chats
Authors stop by LibraryThing to answer questions from members, talk about their writing, and more. These three authors are chatting right now, and check out the schedule of upcoming chats for what’s up next.
Labels: author chat, author interview, authors, state of the thing
A few weeks ago I flew across the pond to speak at the London Book Fair. The panel* I was on focused on books and marketing in an online world. I talked about how traditional marketing is seen as just spam when it comes onto social networking sites (the “hi, want to be my friend? buy my book!” posts endear no one), and how authors need to genuinely participate and become part of the community online.
On LibraryThing, there are a number of ways for authors and publishers to become involved. I talked about Early Reviewers, of course, but also Author Chats, LibraryThing Local (add upcoming readings!), and our (upcoming) author interviews.
I spent the rest of the fair walking around to publisher booths, inviting them to join Early Reviewers. We have a majority of the big publishers in the US participating, but only a handful in the rest of the world. Part of this trip was to attempt to remedy that, one country at a time (if LibraryThing wants to fund an Abby world tour, that’s fine by me)! I talked to many UK publishers, and hopefully we’ll see some books available to more countries on the Early Reviewers lists soon!
And, of course, London was great fun. I’d only ever been to England on layovers before (meaning, I’d been to Heathrow, but not beyond the airport walls!). In the evenings I played tourist and walked all over the city. I only went inside a few places, but the highlight was definitely the underground The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms.
*See Lance Fensterman’s (my fellow panelist and director of BookExpo America) post about the panel here, and the moderator, Chad Post’s here.
Labels: author chat, authors, early reviewers, London Book Fair, publishers
I love authors. I love them so much I married one! LibraryThing has a whole host of special features to encourage authors to join, and make the most of the site.
So it comes as a surprise to hear LibraryThing called anti-author. (What we are, is against pay-for-review schemes, and authors who think LibraryThing is for posting advertisements and not engaging with anyone.)
So, we’re going to prove it. Until May 1, authors willing to join up, become LibraryThing authors and add some books, get a free CueCat barcode scanner, shipped for free. If you’d rather get a t-shirt, we’ll send one of those instead.
The rules:
How to do it:
More for authors on LibraryThing. There are a number of other ways authors can use LibraryThing:
UPDATE: Let us catalog your library! If you are a really “big” author, a LibraryThing Flash Mob Cataloging mob will come to your house and catalog all your books for you! We won’t tell anyone where you live, bother the cat or steal the silverware. You get a high-quality catalog entered by librarians and book nerds. We get the fun of cataloging an interesting library. (Yes, we think this stuff is fun.)
We tried to get this offer to Jon Updike, after doing his church, but he died soon after. (Jeremy and the Legacy Library crew REALLY hopes his library is not broken up and unrecorded, like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr’s!) We’ve also offered to do Neil Gaiman’s, so far without success. I now extend our invitation to Steven King, a fellow Mainer, and indeed close neighbor to Katya, librarian and flash-mob cataloging’s “original cataloging” maven. Anyone got King’s email? (Rhetorical question.)
Labels: author chat, authors, cuecat, cuecats, early reviewers, LTER
This month we’re trying something new with our Early Reviewers bonus batch. Sourcebooks is offering up 2,500 “copies” of In the Land of Invisible Women as an electronic download. The first 2,500 people will be able to download a copy to read and review.
Read a description of the memoir on the Early Reviewers list page:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list
And then you don’t even have to bother clicking “request it!” Just click here to download your copy.
You have until Friday October 31st to download a copy.
The author, Dr. Qanta Ahmed will be on LibraryThing doing an Author Chat from November 10-21. Read it now, and save your questions for her!
Labels: author chat, early reviewers, LTER
