Archive for August, 2009

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Early Reviewers – September bonus batch

We have a small bonus batch of Early Reviewers up right now. The September bonus batch (hey, we’re *almost* to September!) has only 25 copies of one book from Riverhead Books in it, but we think it’s pretty fitting book for LibraryThing…

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, September 7th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US only. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Author interviews – you ask the questions

Each month, we conduct a few exclusive interviews with authors and then publish the interviews in LibraryThing’s monthly State of the Thing newsletter. We’re going to try something new—crowdsourcing part of the interview, and using questions from members in addition to our own questions.

How it will work
I’ve created a group: Author Interviews – you ask the questions

In the forum for that group, there’s a topic for each author I have lined up for an interview. Got questions? Ask them in the thread for that author. Then I’ll pick my favorites and send them to the author along with my own questions. The author will answer everything, and we’ll publish the interview both in the State of the Thing and on the author’s page on LibraryThing.

To start with, I need questions for Audrey Niffenegger! Add your questions for Audrey here.

Looking for inspiration? Past interviewees include Elizabeth Strout, Lisa See, David Ebershoff, Ayelet Waldman and more…

And an added twist
While I do have a slew of authors slated for upcoming interviews, there are many more out there we’d love to have. So, you can also add your own thread for an author we haven’t signed up for an interview yet. Make the author’s name the subject line, followed by “wanted”. For example, the subject could be:

Neil Gaiman (wanted)

Then add questions you have for that author. When we have a bunch of questions, I’ll write the author/publicist/publisher, begging for an interview.

Questions? Know an author who might want to be interviewed? Email abbyAT SIGNlibrarything.com

Labels: author interview, authors

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Author chats upgraded

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

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Sears–Taxonomy–Not Safe for Work

Screenshots from Sears.com, showing unauthorized headings. The first one could be placeholder text, but the second one suggests to me someone is being let go and is taking out on the subject headings…

Click to see a larger image, and check out the breadcrumb trail.

Update: It was apparently done by changing the URL, which includes the category. A good tech lesson their. But I couldn’t get it to work. Maybe it still works for the second one because it’s cached.

Labels: humor

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Glowy magic, wolves and damsels in distress

Sci-fi/fantasy publisher Orbit has compiled a chart of 2008 Fantasy Cover Elements, charting the prevalence of unicorns and swords, elves and “glowy magic” (a big winner).

I’m disappointed in the minimalist “damsels in distress.” As a boy with a good collection of Conan novels, I feel that fantasy covers are all about occasions to show impossibly good-looking women in clothing of dubious practicality. I’m betting, if tallied, chainmail brassieres might well beat out glowy magic.

Labels: humor