Pinterest for Book Publishers & Authors

What is Pinterest?
Pinterest helps you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web-- it's sort of a more visual way to bookmark things you're interested in. People use pinboards for things like planning their weddings, decorating their homes, and organizing their favorite recipes. Furthermore you can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

How can Pinterest help a book publisher or author?
Because it promotes the curation of information in a very visual way, people are using Pinterest as a resource to find things they like. More importantly, Pinterest users aren't restricted to searches information only pinned on their friends’ walls- so you're able to reach more people than on Facebook. As a result Pinterest could drive a lot of traffic back to your site if you're posting relevant content. The network now beats Youtube, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace for percentage of total referral traffic in January, according to a Shareaholic study.

Some ideas for boards you can create:
Books I Love (great reads- your books and others)
Threads for Book Lovers (clothing related to books)
Bookcases (pretty ways to store books)
Libraries (beautiful reading spaces)
Food for Book Lovers (food themed from a book)
Accessories for Book Lovers (jewelry, purses, bookmarks, lights, etc)
Crafts for Book Lovers (diy ideas for book fans)
Gifts for Book Lovers (great books and accessories)
Books into Movies (books that got turned into films, or that should have been)
Book Illustrations (pictures from books, or of books)
Spotted (your books out and about)

For additional inspiration, check out some....
Publishers currently on Pinterest:
Randomhouse
Chronicle
Penguin Australia
Book Bloggers currently on Pinterest:
Stacy Millican
BookRiot
Rachel Krueger
Jessica Shover
Trish Collins
Mandi Ottaway
Sleepless Reader
Swapna Krishna

Innovative Ways Of Building Community Around Books

Book publishers vary widely in their use of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest, according to research Blogads assembled in advance of its February 15 #SMWNYC panel on book publishers and social media.

Scholastic has done the most on Facebook. Randomhouse dominates on Twitter. Only three publishers are on Pinterest, the photo curation service popular with women, and five are on Tumblr, a blogging service.

The State of Book Publishers' Social Media (An overview from January 2012)












There is a noticeable correlation between the number of tweets per day or per month and the number of followers (correlation coefficient is about ~0.62). Publishers who tweet a lot have more followers than publishers who are less active which makes sense!








Please join us in NYC for our book panel: Innovative Ways Of Building Community Around Books! Sign up here.

Hosted by Blogads.com at The Gershwin Hotel Wednesday, February 15 at 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Publishers and authors are increasingly connecting to their audiences in innovative ways through new social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and book-based social networks. Join four publishing industry marketers as they discuss specific ways social media is helping them promote books — and what the changes may mean for publishers, authors and readers.

Speakers:
Miriam Parker, Little, Brown, and Company
Emily Lyman, Crown Publishing
Ryan Chapman, FSG
Guinevere de la Mare, Chronicle Books
Henry Copeland, Blogads

Re-inventing the library

According to Good, Occupy Wall Street's "people's library" has helped popularize the idea of book lending that takes place outside of library stacks. As it turns out guerrilla librarians have been occupying street corners across the country with permanent community-curated micro-libraries for quite some time though.

In 2007 Corner Libraries was launched on a New Haven street corner and then evolved to New York City. There, the project has developed innovative ways to distribute books such as via a chained-up sidewalk school desk, a book shed built to mimic a newspaper stand, a doghouse-shaped library living on a hand cart in Williamsburg, and now, micro-libraries built into tree pits on the city's streets.

Another group called the Little Free Library has installed hundreds of micro-lending stations largely on private properties around the United States and Canada.

I've also seen a number of coffee shops and resorts with bookshelves stacked with good reads that encourage patrons to enjoy a title or two- by just taking it, or trading for it.

It's proven that knowledge sharing benefits everyone, so I'm fully in support of book lending in any form. If you could create one- where would you place your pop-up library and what material would be in it?

Comic books and graphic novels delve into digital

Comic book visionaries are bringing their favorite characters to the iPad, in a multitude of ways, according to TrendCentral:

DC Comics’ Same Day Digital, now releases digital versions of their comics simultaneously with print editions. Available for iOS devices, Android handsets, and PCs, the comics are initially priced the same as the printed books ($2.99), but drop by $1.00 after four weeks. DC timed its digital launch with The New 52, a reboot of 52 iconic characters with updated stories, costume redesigns and a series reset to issue #1.

Chris Ware’s new work, Touch Sensitive, is a 99-cent comic available within the free McSweeney’s app -- which is great way to connect with a specific audience. Available only on the iPad, the 14 swipe-able pages of art and animation feature Ware’s trademark social commentary, contemporary layout, and annular characters.

And digital comics leader IDW Publishing, who offers several comic storefront apps, now has the largest collection of graphic novels available in the iBooks store to date. Titles include Dead Space, Dragon Age, and G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds, all of which utilize the new fixed-layout ePub format, for $6-$10 a pop.

Do you enjoy digesting comics digitally?

The Art of Writing

The majority of my time at my job is spent working on a computer, typing. Whenever November comes around and I attempt to write holiday cards, it is not uncommon for me to literally get a cramp in my hand. How pathetic!

I wanted to share this awesome project, because many people are in a similar situation to mine-- the art of writing is slowly dying.

Ecriture Infinie is an art project by Bili Bidjocka: eight giant-sized books made of blank, silent pages placed around the world one at a time. Each installation includes a large writing desk, a lamp, a pen. One by one, people approach the pages and leave their mark. They are invited to write as if it were the last time they could write by hand. The focus is not so much on the words, but on the gesture, the flow of the pen on paper, recorded on video. When each book is completed, it is sealed, wrapped, and hidden in a secret place, as in a time capsule. Will the people who will find the books in thousands of years be able to decipher it?

Track the travel of the current eighth book here.

20 re-imagined book covers from Flavorwire

Under the influence of characters, setting, and plot, a number of artists have recreated book covers of some of the most beloved literature. Check out 20 of Flavorwire's top picks inspired by the likes of J.D Salinger, The Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl here.

Borrow Kindle books from your library

File this under "A" for "Amazing" or "Amazon." You can now check out a Kindle book from your local library by grabbing it from their website (already 11,000 libraries are down with the program) and read it on any generation Kindle device or free Kindle reading app. Don't worry, when you borrow a Kindle public library book, you'll still have access to all the unique features of Kindle books. And after it expires, if you check it out again or choose to purchase it from the Kindle store, all of your annotations and bookmarks will be preserved!