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May
31
Bookrageous Episode 19: Nonfiction Frenzy
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
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Not sure where to get started in nonfiction? Or maybe you’ve been burned by boredom in the past? Or you’re just looking for your next fix? Never fear! Team Bookrageous has recommendations galore.
Show notes with all books discussed after the jump. Read more
The Sunday Salon 5.29.11—1,000th Post Edition
2011 at 12pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
So, I sat down to write a post about my week at Book Expo America, Scott Westerfield’s super ‘rageous hidden talent (dude can sing in Donald Duck voice IN HARMONY WITH HIMSELF…yeah), finally meeting Adam Ross, and the undiscussed problems with Margaret Atwood’s new and supposedly exciting remote e-book signing thingamajigger (about which I will become eleventy billion kinds of ranty), and then I saw this:
And that means that THIS is my thousandth post. That’s a lot of blogging, y’all!
Now, not to say that Book Expo, Scott Westerfield (you’re dying to know how he does it, aren’t you?), Adam Ross, and Margaret Atwood-inspired ranting aren’t important, but I want my thousandth post to be significant…reflective of what I’ve accomplished in nearly three years and 999 posts…representative of my approach to blogging and my reasons for doing it.
I could write a crazy-long post about all of that, and about the impact and (often unexpectedly) awesome results of being passionate (and LOUD) about books online, but really, I can sum it up quite handily. What have I gotten from writing 1,000 posts? Connections, friendships, a TBR list that is at least seven lifetimes long, and the satisfaction of knowing I’m contributing, if even just a little bit, to helping bring attention and readers to terrific books and the writers who create them.
Also? Totally amazing book inscriptions and the satisfaction of knowing that one of my favorite authors knows me forever as “the panty girl.” What more could I want?
What It Is Like to Go to War is coming from Grove/Atlantic in September, so you still have plenty time to get to Matterhorn first. And you should. Because it’s amazing. And also because Karl Marlantes deserves more groupies. I mean, Jenn and I are totally holding things down (she’s the “kool-aid girl” to my panty girl), but make no mistake: we are recruiting!
So there you have it. My 1,000th post. Panties. A fabulous author. And one of my favorite, most bookrageous friends. This blogging thing might be crazy, but it’s pretty freaking great, too.
The Brooklyn Bookstore (and then some) Tour
2011 at 1pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
So, I’m here at Book Expo America in New York for the week, and as I always do, I came away with the intention to blog regularly through the week and tell you about what I’m seeing and learning and who I’m meeting. But here we are on Wednesday, and I’ve been working on this one post sporadically since Sunday, and I think it’s safe to say that most of the news will have to wait until next week.
But! I spent Sunday tooling around Brooklyn with Ali, my fun-size wondertwin (it’s not often I meet someone else who is as short as I am, so when it happens, it’s very exciting) for a day of bookstores, ”adult” shops (come on, you know you’re not surprised by this) and one comic shop. And here’s what I saw.
First stop, in Greenpoint: WORD Brooklyn, home of indie bookseller extraordinaire (and superfavorite partner-in-crime) Jenn.
The store is wonderfully curated and gorgeously displayed, but my favorite things were the shelftalkers written by visiting authors. Behold, Emily St. John Mandel raves about Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe:
Post Redux: The Only Book Search Tool You’ll Ever Need
2011 at 11am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
This post originally ran in January, but since I’m in New York all week for Book Expo and will be telling you all about not-yet-published books I can’t wait to read, it only seems fitting to share a way for you to find out about them on your own whether you’re at Book Expo too or not. (And if you are, make sure you drop by booth 4479 to meet the good folks from Above the Treeline.)
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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, after the jump. Read more
Unbridled Books Partners with ABA for Exclusive 25-cent EBooks Sale
2011 at 6pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
There are already about a million reasons to love Unbridled Books. Here’s one more: June 9th-11th, Unbridled Books will be offering e-books of 25 of their best titles for 25-cents each EXCLUSIVELY through independent bookstores who use the eCommerce system.
Unbridled has partnered with the ABA (American Booksellers Association) to make this possible (more details on that below). Not all independent bookstores use eCommerce, so this is a special offer that is only available through participating stores. Check out this list of independent bookstores that sell Google ebooks.
If you don’t want to miss this awesome opportunity from Unbridled, or if you’re looking for an indie bookstore to support with your e-book purchases, please allow me to recommend my hometown favorite Fountain Bookstore. Bravo to Unbridled Books for a creative solution to encouraging indie bookstores to sell e-books and introducing indie bookstore shoppers to the Google e-books system.
Here’s the official news from Unbridled. Find the list of books that will be available June 9th-11th for 25 cents each after the jump.
Since the announcement late last year that independent booksellers would soon be selling eBooks from their bookstore websites and the launch of the Google portal on the ABA’s eCommerce stores, Unbridled has been following the developments of this promising alternative for eBook customers. We followed the creative and proactive ways in which booksellers have been educating their customers about purchasing eBooks from independent stores. We also visited many of the eCommerce store sites to see what they were doing to highlight their new eBook sales option. While the major e-retailers have a big jump on the market, we felt that the independent booksellers should be applauded for their response to this new market. We began talking to the staff at the ABA about the progress of eBook sales and offered to help.
Unbridled Books offers nearly every title in eBook format, and as an independent, for-profit publisher, we understand the struggle involved in bringing awareness to the readers. So to help entice readers toward this new channel of eBook sales, we are partnering with the ABA on a promotion that highlights 25 Unbridled eBooks that booksellers can sell for three days (June 9th, 10th and 11th) for 25 cents each. These 25 titles include 16 Booksense/Indie Next titles, two of which are former Booksense or Indie Next #1 selections. This promotion is designed in support of ABA’s eCommerce stores; there are an estimated 250 bookstores in that program who are now selling eBooks on their websites. The ABA and Unbridled Books hope that this offer will help those 250 stores to increase awareness that customers can purchase eBooks through their local independent bookstores and can, for a limited time, buy their copies of Unbridled’s remarkable list of titles for a few pennies.
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