Morning Brief — Friday, October 31
Happy Halloween! I, alas, will not be celebrating. I have to get up so early Sunday morning for the marathon, I have to start going to bed early tonight.
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FishBowlNY reports that Portfolio is downsizing to 10 issues a year (from 12) and Men’s Vogue will now publish only twice a year. More specifically, Holly from Viking Penguin says that except for the Editor in Chief, the entire Men’s Vogue staff (including Mark Rozzo, our books contact) has been laid off.
NPR Books Watch — 10/24-10/30
Here are the NPR interviews for this week. Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink.
TOTAL book stories for the week: 19
All Things Considered: 4
Fresh Air: 4
NPR.org: 4
Talk of the Nation: 1
Tell Me More: 2
Weekend Edition Saturday: 2
Weekend Edition Sunday: 2
| All Things Considered | Gargoyle, The | Andrew | Davidson | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | More Information Than You Require | John | Hodgman | Entertainment |
| All Things Considered | Mercy, A | Toni | Morrison | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | English Major, The | Jim | Harrison | Literary Fiction |
| Fresh Air | This Republic of Suffering* | Drew Gilpin | Faust | History |
| Fresh Air | Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, An | Elizabeth | McCracken | Memoir |
| Fresh Air | Waiting for an Ordinary Day | Farnaz | Fassihi | Memoir |
| Fresh Air | Love & Death | Forrest | Church | Religion |
| NPR.org | Mercy, A | Toni | Morrison | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Have You Seen . . . ? | David | Thomson | Entertainment |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / When Will There Be Good News | Kate | Atkinson | Mystery |
| NPR.org | Dead Travel Fast | Eric | Nuzum | Pop Culture |
| Talk of the Nation | Widows of Eastwick, The | John | Updike | Literary Fiction |
| Tell Me More | Halloween Tricks and Treats | Matthew | Mead | |
| Tell Me More | AIDS Sutra | Sonia | Faleiro | Literary Fiction |
| Weekend Edition Saturday | Deaf Sentence | David | Lodge | Literary Fiction |
| Weekend Edition Saturday | Left in Dark Times | Bernard-Henri | Levy | Politics |
| Weekend Edition Sunday | Mayor’s Tongue, The | Nathaniel | Rich | Literary Fiction |
| Weekend Edition Sunday | Day At ElBulli | Ferran | Adria | Cooking |
Blogs, microblogs and websites
A lot of authors debate whether it’s better to have a blog or a website. Men with Pens posts about the differences between the two (and points out that blogs today look pretty spiffy compared with blogs of yore).
For authors who want to delve into the world of social media, Mike Fruchter posts 35 step-by-step tips to establish a social media presence. Although you need a basic understanding of terms like “domain name” and “blogroll,” the instructions are pretty easy to follow for relative novices.
But why blog in the first place? To connect with readers, of course, but will that lead to increased sales? According to bub.blicio.us, yes — loyal blog readers are swayed by posts when it comes to purchasing decisions. (From personal experience, I can tell you I’ve bought many a product featured on Gizmodo, my favorite gadget blog, and the other day when Boing Boing featured one of my company’s backlist titles, the Amazon ranking shot up to about 500.)
And if you are thinking about a microblogging site like Twitter, GalleyCat points out that the keyword “book” is most frequently typed in between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Morning Brief — Wednesday, October 29
We’ve been hearing about staff cuts at The Los Angeles Times for a while now. Liz from The Penguin Press reports passed on an article from Variety with some details. Unfortunately (although perhaps not surprisingly) the cuts affect a number of writers who cover books: Lynell George, Scott Timberg and Veronique de Turenne.
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Liz and Shannon from Viking Penguin both passed on the news that the Christian Science Monitor will publish exclusively online. The New York Observer reports that the last print edition will appear April 1, 2009.
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Massive cuts also at McGraw Hill (which publishes Business Week, among other titles), Time Inc. and The Newark-Star Ledger. I haven’t yet seen names of departing writers, but I’m guessing this doesn’t bode well for book coverage.
EBooks — promotion and reviews
There’s been plenty of talk about eBooks over the past few months (years), but between klunky readers and the half dozen eBook formats, they’ve gotten off to a rocky start. Leave it to Oprah to up the ante. (For anyone who’s been living under a rock, Oprah announced on Friday that the Kindle has “changed her life.”)
On the review side, GalleyCat ruminates on digital book review sites, i.e., sites devoted to reviewing eBooks, and the possibility of an IMDB for books.
All Book Marketing talks about promoting eBooks — do you guest blog? Place ads? Comment on related blogs to drive traffic to your book / site?
Promoting books online / with Twitter
O’Reilly TOC posts about how authors can best promote themselves online.
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Ogilvy PR posts about how to make use of Twitter, the popular microblogging site. The post isn’t really intended for absolute newbies, but there are a few things that will make sense to everyone, even if you’ve never used Twitter before: first you should search to see what (if anything) is being said about your brand, then you should create a Twitter account and finally you should engage with the Twitter community. Ogilvy also lists some examples of companies that use Twitter successfully, if you’d like to take a look.
On the other side of the fence, Simon Dumenico writes in AdAge about why he doesn’t like Twitter.
Radar and 02138 fold
Eat the Press, The Huffington Post’s media blog, reports that Radar has folded.
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And FishbowlNY reports that 02138, the glossy Harvard magazine, has closed up shop as well.
NPR Books Watch — 10/17-10/23
Looks like the NPR shows may have a bit of backlog — more than half of the books below were published in September.
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Here are the NPR interviews for this week. Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink.
TOTAL book stories for the week: 19
All Things Considered: 5
Fresh Air: 1
Morning Edition: 2
News & Notes: 2
NPR.org: 4
Talk of the Nation: 3
Tell Me More: 2
| All Things Considered | Burn and Dodge | Sharon | Dolin | Poetry |
| All Things Considered | Graveyard Book | Neil | Gaiman | Young Adult |
| All Things Considered | Wasted Vigil | Nadeem | Aslam | Mystery |
| All Things Considered | Where Three Roads Meet | Salley | Vickers | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | You Must Read This / Groucho Letters | Groucho | Marx | Entertainment |
| Fresh Air | Born Standing Up | Steve | Martin | Entertainment |
| Morning Edition | Olives and Oranges | Sara | Jenkins | Cooking |
| Morning Edition | House at Sugar Beach | Helene | Cooper | Memoir |
| News & Notes | Hog and Hominy | Fredrick D. | Opie | Cooking |
| News & Notes | Capitol Men | Phillip | Dray | History |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Graveyard Book | Neil | Gaiman | Young Adult |
| NPR.org | Book Tour / Brief Wondrous Life | Junot | Diaz | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Exact Replica | Elizabeth | McCracken | Memoir |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Right | Hanna | Rosin | Education |
| Talk of the Nation | Tried By War | James | McPherson | History |
| Talk of the Nation | B-List | David | Sterritt | Entertainment |
| Talk of the Nation | Alphabet Juice | Roy | Blount, Jr. | Pop Culture |
| Tell Me More | Bridge to Literacy | John | Corcoran | Education |
| Tell Me More | Tears of the Desert | Halima | Bashir | Current Events |
NPR / Fresh Air producer talks about what makes a good interview
The 26th Story just posted an interview with Fresh Air’s Amy Salit about what makes a good interview.
The Book Publicity Blog 