Tuesday, December 22, 2009

December State of the Thing

Last night I sent out November's State of the Thing, our monthly newsletter. Sign up to get it, or you can read a copy online.

This month's State of the Thing features a ton of new features, the SantaThing recap and free books.

We also have two exclusive author interviews:

Julie Powell first wrote Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen as a blog, which turned into a highly successful book, and a movie. Her new memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, picks up with Julie heading upstate to learn the fine art of butchering, while shuttling back to New York to confront her marriage and the end of an affair.

Masha Hamilton is the author of four novels, including The Camel Bookmobile. Her new novel, 31 Hours, starts in New York City, where a mother with the age-old intuition that something is wrong chooses possible overreaction over inaction. The story then follows several connected paths to reveal one character's motives behind his desire to help carry out an act of terrorism in the very city he grew up.

Next month, we'll be interviewing Colum McCann and Josh Ferris. Have a question for them? Post it here and we might use it in the upcoming interview.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Recommending books—and series

It's frequent for recommendations to include multiple books from the same series. So I've changed how recommendations display, to show these and get out of the way for other recommendations.



I also added recommendations to all Common Knowledge pages, so you can see aggregate recommendations for every series, award, place, character and so forth. For series, the results can be very good. Others can be strange, but are often quite cool.

This is another example of our continual effort to "unlearn" ecommerce, especially Amazon, conventions. Real people recommend series to each other—not to mention authors, genres, etc. Stores recommend discrete objects, because that's what they sell. LibraryThing, which strives be interesting and useful, not to sell things, can transcend these store limitations. We just need to realize they're there.

Come talk about it here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/79301

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A new holiday for December: Do Nothing but Read Day

Do Nothing but Read Day is this Sunday, December 20th.

It all started by a library science student wishing out loud that she could spend a day doing nothing but reading. She then started a blog to make it happen.

Here are the requirements:
  • you must read more than one book (they can be short, also short stories and audiobooks count!)

  • comfy clothing (jammies preferable)

  • no shoes (slippers are ok)

  • mugs of beverages and snacks
Optional:
  • sleepy cat(s)

  • blankies

Add the tag DNBRD2009 to whatever books you're going to read, and check out the tag page to see what others are going to be reading on Sunday!

The catch is that if you're reading all day, you can't post in the Talk thread about it on Sunday. So, go and discuss it now (and afterwards).

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Augmented reality for LibraryThing Local

See more screenshots. Yes, that's Portland new The Green Hand Bookshop!
LibraryThing programmer Mike has put together a LibraryThing "overlay" for the mobile phone app Layar. It draws on LibraryThing Local to show you the closest bookstores and libraries.

Layar turns your mobile device into an "augmented reality" window on the world. In our case, the app. shows you dots for local bookstores and libraries, so you can head in the right direction, as well as information about it.

Visit Apple's app store or the Android market to get it. Unfortunately, because it relies on the "compass," you'll need an iPhone 3GS (the new ones) or Android phone.

I'm somewhat skeptical of the augmented reality idea, at least until we have heads-up displays inside our eyeglasses. It doesn't help that Mike's Android phone has a misaligned compass. But Layar has map and list functions that are extremely useful. Travelers will be particularly impressed by the ability to land somewhere, and instantly know where the local bookstores are.

We have our own "Local Books" application coming out soon. We think it's going to be a big hit. Until then—and for the added kick of augmented reality—this is some pretty cool stuff.

Come let us know what you think.

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Monday, December 07, 2009

Be a good Santa: pick books for SantaThing

SantaThing is about to close! You have until 10pm EST to pick books for your Santa (or Santee, since you are the Santar).

You can see who your Santee is here. Look under the section "You choose the gift for:"

Click on the member's name to leave a comment with the title, author, ISBN and link to the choices. Be sure to note if your Santee has listed a bookseller preference.

In both of the past years, there were people who didn't pick for their Santa*. This year, we have a mobilized force of volunteers who will help pick books for those who have been abandoned. Join the group here. We'll start at 10pm when we close picking, and everyone will work until everyone has books!

*One thing to note: if you sign up someone else, as a gift recipient, the responsibility for your recipient's Santee is on you. You'll see one or more Santees in your You choose the gift for: section.

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Give the gift of LibraryThing: Teeshirt sale and more!

Don't know what gift to give your favorite bibliophile? Support reading habits, show readers in your life how much you care about their happiness, and give the gift of organization with the LibraryThing store.

We have LibraryThing teeshirts, on SALE! Normally, they're $15, but we're selling them for $9 until December 31st.

We also have cuecat barcode scanners ($15), stickers ($2) and gift accounts (yearly:$10, lifetime: $25)*. Who wouldn't like to receive a package with a cuecat cozily wrapped in a teeshirt? Another great pairing is a gift membership and a cuecat, for the post-holiday cataloging frenzy.

Shipping dates for delivery before December 25th:
December 21st: USPS First Class and Priority Mail shipping
December 11th: International shipping

We accept PayPal, credit cards, and even checks or money orders.

*Shipping is not included in the prices I quoted, but if you click on the links, you can figure out how much shipping costs based on your location and desired expediency.

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Friday, December 04, 2009

December Early Reviewer books

The December 2009 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We've got 73 books this month, and a grand total of 1679 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 Monday, December 21st at 6PM EST. It's earlier than usual, to account for all the end-of-the-year holidays.


Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to many many countries—too many to list here! 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!
PenguinBaby Ice Dog PressWeiser Books
Conari PressBloomsburyCanongate Books
The University of Akron PressThe Permanent PressBeacon Press
Henry Holt and CompanyFaber and FaberHunter House
BantamDoubleday BooksDelacorte Press
Random HouseLangdon Street PressBascom Hill Books
Random House Trade PaperbacksSt. Martin's PressPutnam Books
W.W. NortonCenter StreetCemetery Dance
Ballantine BooksNorth Atlantic BooksFaith Words
Hachette Book GroupHarperCollinsRiverhead Books
Rovira i Virgili University PressKregel PublicationsBethany House
Hesperus PressHyperion BooksHarper Paperbacks
HighBridgeHarperPicador
Knopf Canada

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