The Today Show’s monthly book club gives publishers new hope for Oprah-like success and features interactive elements like Twitter chats.
Case Study: And Other Stories’ “Editorial Crowd-sourcing” for Translations
UK publisher And Other Stories relies on reading groups to help choose which books to translate. Here’s a look from inside the German reading group in Berlin.
Publishing the World Targets Foreign Literature and its Young Lovers
Publishing the World Book Club is attended by young publishing pros interested in reading, promoting and publishing literature in translation.
Group Read of Brothers Karamazov Begins Today on Project D
By Dennis Abrams “Alexi Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place.” And so begins our journey into Fyodor Dostoevsky’s …
Rethinking Book Club Biz, Bertelsmann Disbands “Direct Group”
After scaling back its book club business over the last three years, Bertelsmann is disbanding its Direct Group as a stand-alone division as of June 30th.
Could Door-to-door Book Sales Be Revived in the US?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story looks at the success of door-to-door book sales in Brazil. It wasn’t that long ago when it wasn’t uncommon to see an encyclopedia salesperson walking the streets of your neighborhood going door-to-door with his or her sample case. Of course, that sales channel has disappeared in the US . . . whether whether this is …
One Book To Rule Them All on Twitter
By Edward Nawotka A month ago a call went out via the Twitter #1b1t asking for nominations for titles for what amounts to a global Twitter book club. The event, organized by Jeff Howe at Crowdsourcing.com, turned up dozens of nominations and for a while there it looked as if Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 going to win. Now wouldn’t that have …
“Connect, Don’t Network”: Author Blog Award Winners Gaiman, Benet on Blogging
By Edward Nawotka “Use your blog to connect. Use it as you. Don’t ‘network’ or ‘promote.’ Just talk,” says author Neil Gaiman, winner of the Twitter category at the inaugural Author Blog Awards given last month in London. Gaiman is among the most popular authors on Twitter, with 1,467,539 followers as of yesterday, May 3. It should also come as …
What Booksellers Want
By Helen Gregg On Thursday in New York City, a panel of three independent booksellers told a room full of marketers and publicists that free pizza will get teens to read (and buy) a book, that promotional posters and bookmarks are mostly just clutter, and why they aren’t selling e-books in their stores. The event, called “What Booksellers Want,” was …
Taking Issue with Newsweek’s Non-Book Club
By Erin L. Cox Hold on for a second as I get up on my soap-box…okay. I appreciate any media outlet that supports books through reviews, interviews with writers, listings of upcoming books, bestseller lists, or any other kind of support, but Newsweek’s column “We Read it (So You Don’t Have to)” and William Boot’s column on bestsellers in “The Daily Beast” are both …