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Jan
18
The Only Book Search Tool You’ll Ever Need
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Ever thought about how awesome it would be if there were one centralized place where you could find out about all the new books coming out next week, next month, or next year, instead of visiting multiple websites for publishers, bookstores, and e-tailers and wading through their sometimes less-than-satisfying search tools?
Your wait is over! Edelweiss is a fantastic service that aggregates dozens of publishers’ catalogs and makes them easily searchable by title, subject, publication date, publisher, and more. And it’s free! The totally bookrageous Joe Foster gave me a tutorial to help me get more out of my Edelweiss usage recently, and he’s here today to give you the primer.
Up until this last September, I was the buyer at Maria’s Bookshop in Durango, Colorado. This was my mailbox, and this is what it looked like, pretty much every day. Most of those are catalogs; many are duplicates. The fun part was that every one of these catalogs was outdated before it was ever even placed in the mail. Print runs changed, covers were altered, titles we cancelled or postponed, whatever. Conversations with my sales reps were often spent listening to them correct the erroneous information on which I had based my buying decisions. It’s no surprise to me, really, that more and more publishers are looking at using digital catalogs, and that people who use those catalogs are digging it. I now work for the people who are trying to make this digital conversion of publisher catalogs as easy and usable for everyone as possible.
One of the foreseeable issues that will arise in the digital era is that some people will be better at it than others. What this means for people who rely on publisher catalogs for their business is that if there were not a single usable format to use, then there would be as many formats and processes as there are publishers. Some would be good and easy to use, while others would be, say, a pdf that does…well, nothing. It sits there until you print it out yourself, transferring the cost of printing from the publisher to you. Edelweiss sprang out of the need for there to be a single highly usable format, the best possible format, for people in the book business to learn. With Edelweiss, you have one format that actually enhances publisher catalogs: Keeps them up to date, makes them searchable, filterable, taggable, sendable, POS uploadable, tweetable, facebookable…
Here’s the thing, too. Edelweiss is free for everyone (well, everyone except for publishers…) Bloggers, media, booksellers, readers, squirrel-hunters, infant prodigies, and especially axe jugglers. You don’t even have to sign in, but it’s free to, and you get some more personalized functionability if you do. Not every publisher is on Edelweiss, but we’re working on it, and the more users Edelweiss has, the more likely more publishers will come on board, hopefully making it so we have one place where we can all easily go to see upcoming titles.
So, some nitty gritty:
Here are a few easy ways to get the most out of Edelweiss, especially as a book blogger:
First, register here: http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com/Register.aspx
You’re really not going to be able to filter and tag titles of interest if you don’t.
There are a few ways to browse for new titles. You can sift through all the catalogs, publisher by publisher (this is how bookstore buyers do it so they don’t miss anything…very time-consuming). You can also, and I recommend this way to the general interest user, browse by title.
This will take you to a highly sortable list of all the upcoming titles found in Edelweiss, (thousands):
Using these filters, you can find, say, all the paperback fiction titles that will be released in March 2011, which narrows the list down to a more manageable number of titles:
You can narrow this list of 261 titles down even further, if you like. To get the most out of this list, click on “View Enhanced List.” From here you can easily do a number of things, including: Tag titles of interest (more on that in a bit); see content, author bio, and comparable titles; see Twitter, blog and Goodreads buzz; send links to Facebook and Twitter; email titles or lists of titles to anyone; find links to author and publisher websites; read excerpts (when the publisher provides them, of course); see inside children’s picture books (again, if the publisher provides it); write personal notes and reminders; and of course, get crucial information about the book; all kinds of fun nerdy stuff!
When you tag a book, it goes into a personalized list, and all titles with that particular tag can be viewed in a special “Tags” area in Edelweiss. This is a great way to organize titles that catch your eye. Your tags can, obviously, be pretty much anything:” March 2011 Releases,” “#Pantyworthy,” etc.
Easy. There’s more you can do, but just starting with these things, browsing by title and tagging, you can take some pretty huge strides towards a more organized and comprehensive method of discovering (and not missing) those next great books.
Oh, and one last thing. If you’re into finding local authors we also have this handy GeoSearch tool, too:
I’m more than happy to show pretty much anyone how to use Edelweiss, so email me (joe at abovethetreeline dot com, or connect on Twitter: @weiss_squad) if you’d like to set up a time to talk about it.
No related posts.
I just love your mail box!
Thank you for this post and for sharing the info. and the link.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rebecca Schinsky. Rebecca Schinsky said: The Only Book Search Tool You’ll Ever Need http://goo.gl/fb/JCo0D [...]
This is insanely exciting!!!!! I’m off to register. I may never leave the house again.
Sandy´s last [type] ..The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Kindle
Now that looks useful! Thanks for the link, I’m looking forward taking a look around.
Des @ NovelSuggestions.com´s last [type] ..Children of the Resolution by Gary William Murning
Finally! I’ve been scouring the Internet for something just like this — and continuously wondering how folks find out about all exciting new releases. Definitely going to check this out!
Meg´s last [type] ..Book review- ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’ by Helen Simonson
How cool!!!
Good Lord, you just shaved years of catalog-browsing off my life. This looks like a great tool and I can’t wait to take it for a test drive. Many thanks!
How fantastic is that? Thanks for sharing!
Kate´s last [type] ..Love the One Youre With- Emily Griffin
[...] Read the rest of the article HERE [...]
Rebecca and Joe, you truly are amazing, giving tools to book bloggers that they probably didn’t have — and they probably need. Myself, I’m not as much into the “ARC scene” as other bloggers. I prefer going “old skool,” but for those who are into the new kids on the block, so to speak, then this tool is great. I must say even though I probably won’t use it, I am impressed and will be passing a link to this on to others so they can use. It won’t be the first — or I’m thinking the last time — that I’ve shared a post from this blog with others.
unfinishedperson´s last [type] ..Announcing yet another new blogroll- Quid pro quo
This is the Holy Grail of book release date tools. Thanks.
david´s last [type] ..Try It Before You Buy It – January 18- 2011 Music Releases
This is awesome! I’ll definitely be checking it out!
Oh, I should totally have called this post The Holy Grail of Book Release Date Tools!
I don’t remember how I found your blog, but I’m a regular reader. I was FLOORED when you said that you’ve recently worked as the buyer at Maria’s. Thanks for doing such a great job there. Maria’s is my favorite store in town.
To clarify: I never worked at Maria’s, but Joe, who wrote this guest post, did.
Hey Rebecca – Just wanted to let you know I linked this in my Friday Five this week!
Have a terrific weekend!
Kate´s last [type] ..The Friday Five – January 21-23
What a great resource! Thanks for posting!
Lisa@ButteryBooks´s last [type] ..The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
Thanks!
Wonderful guest post, thank you! Now I’m off to explore Edelweiss.
[...] by title, subject, author, etc. Best of all, it’s free (ah, my favorite four-letter word). Thanks to The Book Lady’s Blog for pointing me toward Edelweiss and for highlighting it on her [...]
Thanks for the heads up, I have been searching for some place where I can get all the new releases at once instead of having to visit all the publisher’s websites or getting lucky on Amazon. Thank you for sharing!
Jessica
Good idea…. Pity they’re so closely associated with Christian Evangelists. At least one of the bookstores they work with is listed by SPLC as a hate group.
And about half the bookstores they work with are -seriously- into the Christian home-schooling of children.
I can understand how one might disagree with a store or community’s practices, but “we judge you based on our own personal beliefs” isn’t really a sustainable (or defensible) business model for a company that serves the book industry, which is firmly founded on freedom of speech and supporting intellectual exploration.
Wow, this is extremely helpful. I’ve been a bit intimidated by this database when looking at it. This will make my life so much easier.