Friday, August 28, 2009

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.

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Friday, August 21, 2009

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 abbyAT SIGNlibrarything.com

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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.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

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!

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Thursday, August 06, 2009

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 CanadaHarperCollinsB&H Publishing Group
Conari PressWeiser BooksThe Permanent Press
ScribnerNew American LibraryScholastic
St. Martin's GriffinSouth Dakota State Historical Society PressMcBooks Press
SerenBarbour BooksBloomsbury
Delacorte PressSt. Martin's MinotaurThe Overlook Press
Broadway BooksDorchester PublishingPicador
Tilbury HouseRandom HouseKensington Publishing
Souls of My SistersCitadel PressDafina
Other PressNew York Review BooksMinted Prose
The Little BookroomAquila PolonicaW.W. Norton
Little, Brown and CompanyCandlewickSpiegel & Grau
Chin Music PressHenry Holt and CompanyHyperion Books

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