[stylist] Book Networking

[Kerry Thompson]

Something I should have thought of last night during Justin’s presentation:

There are book-related social networking sites. I know of two, Good 
Reads (http://www.goodreads.com/) and Library Thing 
(http://www.librarything.com). All I know about Good Reads is what it 
says on the front page which is in part:

Are You an Author or a Publisher?
Gain access to a massive audience of more than 5 million book lovers. 
Goodreads is a great place to promote your books.

There is a button labeled “Author Program” and one labeled “Advertise.”

Being a member of Library Thing, I can discuss it in detail. There are 
three aspects to Library Thing.

It is a cataloguing site. You can enter, rate and “tag” or label books 
you read, categorizing them in one of several pre-set categories such as 
Your Library, that is books you own, Read but Unowned, for library books 
and the like, Wish List, etc. Under certain circumstances you can see 
other people’s libraries and collections and add books from them to one 
of your collections, as for instance to your Wish List. Library Thing 
keeps a running total of the number of books in all your collections as 
well as the number in each separate collection. For instance, there are 
789 books in my Your Library collection, meaning that I have so far 
catalogued 789 of the books I own.

It is a social site. You can have friends, as on Facebook. You can join 
and participate in any of almost innumerable groups. The one I 
participate in most often is “What Are You Reading The week Of...” 
where, as the name suggests, participant discuss their current reading. 
It is also possible to create discussion threads and groups of your own. 
Some of these groups become very lively and close-knit.

Finally, of most immediate interest here, Library Thing is a place where 
authors and publishers can publicize their work. Some authors are 
designated as Library Thing authors, meaning that they have both 
personal profiles and libraries and author pages. A Library Thing author 
may be profiled and/or interviewed in the site’s monthly newsletter. 
Online chats are also organized with these authors.

I know less about LT’s relationships with publishers. One popular 
feature I do know about is the early reviewer program. In this program, 
a publisher releases a certain number of books to LT for free 
distribution before the official pub date. Early review books always get 
a lot of attention and cause a lot of buzz, generating both demand for 
library copies and book sales. Non-ER books can also catch fire and 
suddenly become the book that everybody is reading this week or this 
month, thereby also generating sales.

A presence on Library Thing, and presumably also on Good Reads, can 
reach a lot of potential readers.

Kerry