Early Reviewers - September bonus batch

We have a small bonus batch of Early Reviewers up right now. The September bonus batch (hey, we're *almost* to September!) has only 25 copies of one book from Riverhead Books in it, but we think it's pretty fitting book for LibraryThing...

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you've already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it's correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, September 7th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US only. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Author interviews - you ask the questions

Each month, we conduct a few exclusive interviews with authors and then publish the interviews in LibraryThing's monthly State of the Thing newsletter. We're going to try something new—crowdsourcing part of the interview, and using questions from members in addition to our own questions.

How it will work
I've created a group: Author Interviews - you ask the questions

In the forum for that group, there's a topic for each author I have lined up for an interview. Got questions? Ask them in the thread for that author. Then I'll pick my favorites and send them to the author along with my own questions. The author will answer everything, and we'll publish the interview both in the State of the Thing and on the author's page on LibraryThing.

To start with, I need questions for Audrey Niffenegger! Add your questions for Audrey here.

Looking for inspiration? Past interviewees include Elizabeth Strout, Lisa See, David Ebershoff, Ayelet Waldman and more...

And an added twist
While I do have a slew of authors slated for upcoming interviews, there are many more out there we'd love to have. So, you can also add your own thread for an author we haven't signed up for an interview yet. Make the author's name the subject line, followed by "wanted". For example, the subject could be:

Neil Gaiman (wanted)

Then add questions you have for that author. When we have a bunch of questions, I'll write the author/publicist/publisher, begging for an interview.

Questions? Know an author who might want to be interviewed? Email abbylibrarything.com

Author chats upgraded

Author chat gets a makeover! In one of his last projects before he leaves us (goodbye!), Luke gave author chats a facelift. Previously, you could only find out about author chats (current and upcoming) by going to the Author chat group.

We now have a module for the homepage, which shows current and upcoming chats (you can customize how many you want to view at once).

You'll also see links to current, past, and future chats on all the relevant author and book pages.

Hugos for two LT Authors!

The 2009 Hugo Awards (LT page) included awards for two LibraryThing authors—authors who are also members, and in this case ones with really serious LibraryThing collections!

• Elizabeth Bear—member matociquala , with 1001 books cataloged—won "Best Novelette" for her “Shoggoths in Bloom." Bear won "Best Short Story" in 2008 for "Tideline."
• John Klima—member johnklima, with 1,601 books cataloged—won "Best Fanzine" for his Electric Velocipede.

Congratulations to all the winners. The others include the social-media-savy Neil Gaiman, whose The Graveyard Book, won "Best Novel." We'll get him one day!

August Early Reviewer Books

The August 2009 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We've got 64 books this month, and a grand total of 1,585 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you've already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it's correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Wednesday, August 26th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France and Germany. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Knopf Canada	HarperCollins	B&H Publishing Group
Conari Press	Weiser Books	The Permanent Press
Scribner	New American Library	Scholastic
St. Martin's Griffin	South Dakota State Historical Society Press	McBooks Press
Seren	Barbour Books	Bloomsbury
Delacorte Press	St. Martin's Minotaur	The Overlook Press
Broadway Books	Dorchester Publishing	Picador
Tilbury House	Random House	Kensington Publishing
Souls of My Sisters	Citadel Press	Dafina
Other Press	New York Review Books	Minted Prose
The Little Bookroom	Aquila Polonica	W.W. Norton
Little, Brown and Company	Candlewick	Spiegel & Grau
Chin Music Press	Henry Holt and Company	Hyperion Books