NPR Books Watch Contest (3/15-3/21)
I know a lot of people are out today / have left early, but whoever is left / is checking email: the first person to let me know (correctly, of course) the imprints of these books will win the NPR Books Grid for this week that lists, in addition to the information below, the dates, imprints, book subjects and post-interview Amazon rankings for these books. (We officially closed at 3 p.m. and I’m heading out, so I’ll get you the grid by early next week.)
TOTAL this week: 10 book stories
1. All Things Considered / Vivian Goodman / Buzzard, The / John Gorman (8 book stories on ATC this month / 4 this week)
2. All Things Considered / Michele Norris / Why Women Should Rule / DeeDee Myers
3. All Things Considered / N/A (You Must Read This) / John Marks
4. All Things Considered / Noah Adams / But Didn’t We Have Fun / Peter Morris
5. Day to Day / Madeleine Brand / Generation Kill / Evan Wright (4 MTD / 2 WTD)
6. Day to Day / Alex Cohen / 99¢ Only Stores Cookbook, The / Christiane Jory
7. Fresh Air / Terry Gross / Man Who Pushed America to War, The / Aram Roston (5 MTD/ 2 WTD)
8. Fresh Air / Terry Gross / Willing / Scott Spencer
9. Morning Edition / Karen Grisgby Bates / N/A (Writers Respond to a ‘Faux Memoir’ of Gang Life) (4 MTD / 1 WTD)
10. Weekend Edition Sunday / Bonny Wolf / Happy Nowruz / Najmieh Batmanglij (1 MTD/ 1 WTD)
Following LA media
Holly from Viking Penguin just pointed out that the LA Observed blog is a great way to keep tabs on LA media.
How to get publicity by not doing a book tour
As I’m sure you have all heard by now, U.S. customs officials prohibited Sebastian Horsley from entering the country to promote his book Dandy in the Underworld on account of, get this, “moral turpitude.” Let’s not forget these are the same folks who’ve accidentally let terrorists through our borders. And what about the moral turpitudiness of our governor? I mean, ex-governor. I mean, new governor.
At any rate, this has to be the most publicity an author has ever gotten for not doing his book tour — I first read about this on GalleyCat Thursday afternoon and since then most of the litblogs as well as Boing Boing, Slate and USA TODAY have covered the story. All of us in publishing have been wracking our brains about alternate methods of promoting books, but I do believe this is one idea that has eluded us … until now.
Meanwhile, as of mid-day Friday, Dandy ranks #286 on Amazon — way to go Harper Perennial!
How to set up an RSS reader in two minutes — Part I
I think I just read probably the 375th post about SXSW — that’s the South by Southwest festival in Austin — pretty much all of which mentioned blogging, social networking, gadgets, laptops, feeds, you name it. This was a music festival. (I wonder what they’ll be discussing at a technology convention like TED — time machines??)
Avant Guild weighed in on SXSW in yesterday’s newsletter: “You owe it to yourself to start learning about and using outlets like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and anything else that allows you to spread the word and create conversation about the great work you’re doing.”
As a publicist, before you even consider following blogs, know that without an RSS reader you will not be able to do so. An RSS reader allows you to read newsfeeds, all in one place, from blogs and other websites (print, radio, TV) — it’s like going to the library to read all of your magazines, except this library is online. (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.)
Setting up an RSS reader really doesn’t take much time, but I know there are a lot of you who want to do it but haven’t yet gotten around to it, so just follow the links in my posts (second and final part to come on Monday) and you’ll be set up in a couple minutes.
There are three main ways to set up an RSS reader:
1. Bloglines: Click here to register.
2. Google Reader: Click here for more information. (You can use your existing Google / GMail account to log in.)
3. Your browser: You’ll notice that many websites have an orange button with squiggly white lines. If you click on the button, that site’s feed is automatically sent to the RSS reader built into your web browser. It’s simpler because you needn’t add individual URLs to a reader, but it’s less flexible because you can only access your feeds on the one computer. (With Bloglines and Google, you can log in from any computer — or cell phone with web access.)
I personally have Bloglines, but only because I was copying someone else. I know people who prefer Bloglines, others who prefer Google, and still others who find that the simplicity of adding sites to their browser’s reader far outweighs the lack of portability. Do whatever works best for you — it’s important that you set up and use a reader. How you get there doesn’t much matter.
On Monday I’ll list some websites you can start adding to your reader.
Morning Brief
For authors who don’t know what blogging is all about, here’s an article from yesterday’s NYT that gives an overview of how to approach it (how often to post, what tone of voice to use, etc.)
***
Russ Marshalek of Wordsmiths in the Atlanta area sent out a release about their Grand Reopening Weekend starting Friday, March 28. The store is moving to a different space and as of March 25, their street address will be:
Wordsmiths Books
545 N McDonough
Decatur, GA 30030
