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?

Check out a "living book"

In an effort to combat budget cuts and ebooks, City Centre Library in Surrey, British Columbia, which is scheduled to open next month, has created the first ever "living books" program.

Basically in addition to bound volumes, the library will also provide residents with access to people. The librarian staff will maintain a list of local residents who have volunteered to share their knowledge of any topic, and other library patrons can make appointments for 30-45-minute conversations.

According to Good.is, librarian Ravi Basi told CTV British Columbia that the Surrey library staff initially imagined the living books initiative as a way to break down barriers between people of different races or religions, but people with interesting careers, life experiences, or academic research topics would make good volunteers as well.

The library is connecting local neighbors in a social atmosphere and advocating for open-knowledge sharing. My only question is how long until this hits the US?

10 awesome literary Tumblrs

Check out:
1.) http://iheartclassics.tumblr.com/
written by Sterling Publishing- They curate the classics so you don’t have to…mixing modern culture and classic lit. The classics are more relevant than you think!
2.) http://irisblasi.tumblr.com/
written by Iris Blasi- Coordinator of Digital Media for literary public relations firm Hilsinger-Mendelson East. Formerly an editor. Forever a reader.
3.) http://literarynerd.tumblr.com/
written by Kylie- Literature. Reading. Writing. Films. Craft. Design. Fashion. Travel. Adventure. Joy. Life.
4.) http://vintageanchor.tumblr.com/
written by Vintage/Anchor (Knopf Doubleday)- From Classic to Contemporary—The Best Books in Paperback.
5.) http://bookmania.tumblr.com/
written by Archie- Book Mania is an inspirational blog celebrating the amazing power of reading. It mainly features books & excerpts of various masterpieces published around the world. Aside from those, it likewise posts images of the world’s most beautiful premiere libraries, bookshelves, bookshops & cool book stuff.
6.) http://prettybooks.tumblr.com/
written by Stacey- The Pretty Books blog mainly involves sharing photos of beautiful books but I also frequently post book reviews, quotations, recommendations, discussions, and articles.
7.) http://bookshelfporn.com/
written by Anthony Dever- Porn for book lovers. A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.
8.) http://cinderellainrubbershoes.tumblr.com/ (Love the background and all the added features- good use of "ask me anything" and she connects her other sites, goodreads, etc to her page) written by just another girl who successfully wriggles out of the rabbit hole of college and is now trekking the Wonderland of literature and journalism.
9.) http://www.somewhereoverthesun.com/ (Good use of tabs at the top linking to places to purchase the book, and includes some customer reviews as posts)
written by Adi Alsaid- Thoughts about writing.
10.) http://betterbooktitles.com/
written by Dan Wilbur- This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!

What's your favorite author, book, or literature related Tumblr?

Book "Marks"

Haha check out these great book “Marks” (including Mark Wahlberg, Mark Zukerberg, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, Mark Anthony and Mark Hamill) via The Cheeky

Simon & Schuster's tweetable ad generates 292 tweets!

We (Blogads) recently rolled out a “Tweet this” button for ads, allowing advertisers to recommend a Twitter update directly from an ad. Simon & Schuster was one of the first advertisers to use the tweetable Blogads, while promoting Bethenny Frankel’s new book A Place of Yes and the results have been phenomenal! Simon & Schuster's engaging suggested tweet text included the author's twitter handle, a link to the book, and a reason for viewers to care. In all, the ads generated 292 tweets and over 6,700 clicks.

This is just the latest innovation to our custom units, and it’s proving to be a big win for advertisers who are looking to spark their own Twitter trend. Get started building your own now!

Simple and creative advertising

Cool campaign for Mint Vinetu book store by Love Agency.

A cheaper Kindle

"We're working hard to make sure that anyone who wants a Kindle can afford one," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a prepared statement, reports CNN Money. The result of those efforts is a new ad-laden Kindle that will sell for $114, which is $25 less than its current ad-free counterpart. The ads will appear on the screensaver and at the bottom of the home screen. An interesting twist is that Amazon plans to mix together advertisements from launch sponsors including Buick, Olay and Visa with daily-deal style discount coupons (like their own $10 for $20 deal featured on Living Social in the past). Is the $25 difference really enough to offset the "annoyance factor" of the ads? I think it might be. There's a chance, judging by the success rate of the Living Social offer, that people will welcome them. According to The NY Times ads have been in physical books for a while, and in one 1972 study, while readers claimed to dislike the idea of advertising in books, after actual exposure their negative feelings declined while brand awareness climbed. At any rate, I'm glad Amazon stayed away from in-text ads, as those would be more disruptive and intrusive-- but if we look at how written content has been supported online, it may not far behind. Perhaps a $89 Kindle is on the way.....

From an album into a book

Christophe Gowans, a graphic designer who lives in London, imagined albums as book covers-- a pretty cool idea! His collection includes everything from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Michael Jackson as something you might find in a library or a book store. For example, check out Arcade Fire's The Suburbs pictured to the left-- looks like an old school book of the month. You can view the well-thumbed covers here.

Party's on Twitter!

Hey ya'll! This morning I found an amazing list of book industry folks on Twitter and thought I'd share with you-- so you can get involved in the conversation!

Sections you might be most interested in:
Book Publisher Company Accounts
Book Publisher Individual Accounts
Literary Agents Accounts

There are 355 comments under the list, so it's worth trolling through there for additional influential folks-- like my good friends @juliabaxter @mjrose @mitzpa and @liternista.

Using a tool like Twiangulate to see shared friends/followers is extremely effective as well.

Poetry: spread the word

Writer, Greg Pincus, wants to spread poetry from online to the classroom. So far he's raise $1,940 towards his $5,000 goal. If Poetry: Spread the Word is funded, over the course of the next year (roughly May, 2011 through April, 2012), he will put 100 original poems up on his blog and out into the world for free and do 40 school visits (via Skype or, if it works out, in person) at no cost to the schools. He'll also create a collection that will celebrate and document the visits and the poetry--and you could get it! What are you waiting for, check out his Kickstarter project and pledge now!

When it comes to self-publishing

Over the weekend Derek Murphy, author of Jesus Potter Harry Christ, wrote a detailed post discussing ways to promote a self-published book. He's got a plan and he's willing to share! He recommends:
1.) Getting reviews
2.) Getting your kindle page set up
3.) Advertising with Blogads to spread the word (now you know why it's a great plan:))
4.) Choosing a peak time (i.e. when do people give a darn about the topic you wrote about?)
So far, only one other author has weighed in. What would you add to the recipe for success?

HarperCollins crowdsourcing community

Stumbled upon this gem via @brainpicker's article on Crowdfunding for Creativity. authonomy^TM is a writing community for writers, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by book editors at HarperCollins. Their goal is to flush out the brightest, freshest new literature around. Basically they want the crowd to spot the next big bestseller. At the end of every month the top 5 ranked books are delivered to the desks of HarperCollins editors. The board reads them and delivers feedback to the author’s authonomy profile. Each book only has one chance at this. In addition, you can submit your own manuscript, get advice, or write reviews of others. This is a fun idea-- there's no way any one editor can interact with all the content available on any given day or read all the thousands of potential books out there. Tapping the crowd for their collective curation seems like a good way to address the problem-- as long as the crowd is educated. Any other publishing companies doing something similar?

Books by hand

Sounds daunting right? A ton of craftsmanship involved in an old handmade book (check out the video). It seems that this attention to detail has been lost over the years. You'd think mostly because no one is willing to pay for it. We're a society that at the moment is demanding 1/2 off coupons (Groupon and all its clones), not better quality.

And then Sci Fi was born

Apparently it wasn't quite as simple as popping out of a belly. Check out artist Ward Shelley's beautifully detailed diagram of the history of Sci Fi.