Archive for the ‘LT author’ Category

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Who reads an author?

I’ve “brought back” top member lists on author pages, significantly enhancing them with lists that show the author’s readers among your friends and connections, and among Legacy Libraries (eg., C. S. Lewis had a lot of Twain).

Also new, LibraryThing Authors now get a new “Your Readers” connections category, so they can find out what your readers think of a given author or work.

Discuss here

Labels: authors, librarything authors, LT author, new features

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

LibraryThing Authors Opens Up

We’re opening up and relaunching our LibraryThing Authors program—our way to connect authors to their fans.

Before, we required authors to have at least 50 books cataloged before joining LibraryThing Authors, and some 800 authors have done so. But some authors wanted to start right away or were more interested in reaching out—talking to members and listing their events—than cataloging their library. So we’re dropping the 50 books requirement. Visit LibraryThing Authors for directions on joining.

There’s more for authors to do on LibraryThing—now more than ever:

  • Add your readings and other events to LibraryThing Local. Events now appear on author pages too (eg., Sarah Monette, Megan Abott, James Dashner and Elizabeth Bear).
  • Add your photo to your author profile.
  • Connect with readers on a more personal level, in groups and on-on-one.
  • Showcase your favorite books on your catalog.
  • Add your home page, interviews and other links to your author page.
  • Dress up your “Common Knowledge” section with where you went to school, your agent, where you’re buried, etc.
  • Get your publisher to put one of your books up for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Or pick up a free book yourself. (Or wait a few weeks—we’re going to open that up to authors too.)

In the next few week’s we’ll be unveiling a new “Author Chat” section on Talk, where authors can engage readers directly.

Labels: librarything local, LT author

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

Which of your authors are on LibraryThing?

I’d added a feature to show you which of your authors—the authors of the books in your library—are also LibraryThing members. We call them LibraryThing Authors.

The impetus was an unfortunate event. Two LibraryThing Authors went hog-wild “friending” members. Some members were annoyed, and I stepped into create an upper limit of requests and comments per day (it’s 70). But it did raise the fact that there was no adequate way for LibraryThing authors to connect with their readers.

LibraryThing Authors? If you don’t know, LibraryThing Authors are authors who are members of LibraryThing and have put some or all of their personal books onto the site.

Wouldn’t it be great to see what your favorite authors were reading? Well, that’s the idea, and, so far, it’s been quite a draw. We have 667 authors so far. We hope this makes it even more attractive for all concerned.

Labels: authors, LT author, new feature, new features

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Early Reviewer books on NPR

Two LibraryThing Early Reviewer books have been mentioned recently on NPR, so we figured that deserved some notice here.

The story ‘Identical Strangers’ Explore Nature Vs. Nurture is about Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein’s* Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited.

And Disease, Politics Permeate ‘The Air We Breathe’ is on Andrea Barrett’s The Air We Breathe.

We’re still/perpetually looking for more publishers to join our Early Reviewer program—more information here: http://www.librarything.com/forpublishers/

And for aspiring readers/reviewers, we’ll announce the November batch of available books soon!

Oh, and Tim wants me to remind everyone about the latest book pile contest (below): Twenty-million books and/or Halloween…

*Paula Bernstein is, incidently, also an official LibraryThing Author.

Labels: early reviewers, LT author, NPR