Not Yet Tired of These Four Walls: The Links, Links & More Links Edition

After a slack-tastic last couple of days I thought that I would get back online and see what’s been going on without me.

Short Answer: A whole of a lot.

Shelf Awareness has been running a great series of articles on what went on at the ABA’s Winter Institute. I was jealous before (thanks to the Written Nerd’s recap over a Rogue beer), but now? Now there are no words. I wish they would make these things open to the public. Sign up now because it’s great reading, be you a reader, bookseller, or author.

(Speaking of the Written Nerd, we both have a question for you, dear reader. Do you use any feed programs to keep up on your favorite blogs, and if so, which ones? Neither W.N. nor I are very knowledgeable in this area and we’d both like to streamline our reading process. Your thoughts on bloglines vs. newsgator vs. whatever would be very helpful.)

Meanwhile Booksquare got a whole new look! Go and enjoy the lovely illustrations and the brand new content.

Thanks to Dear Author, I learned about, submitted my blog to, and was summarily rejected by Blogburst. Since this has about as much significance in my life as my failed modeling career (in other words, not much), I’m not hurt by the rejection. I knew that my content probably wasn’t what they were looking for. But for those of you that tend to write book reviews and more journalistic articles, you should apply. If you’re picked up you could greatly increase you readership and traffic to your blog.

And more blog traffic means more income, at least according to this Christian Science Monitor article. Personally, I’m more intrigued by the Brainiads Smart Marketing than AdSense.

This is old news for those of you who visit Cynsations on a regular basis, but Cynthia recently got bookseller Elizabeth Bluemle to outline what she thinks makes a successful bookmark. Sure, she’s doing it for kid’s books, but this applies to anyone making a bookmark for their book.

The new February Book Slut is up! As always interviews, reviews and opinions abound. Go read.

The Needle nominees, they’ll be up tomorrow (or so says POD-dy Mouth).

Agent Kristin has continued her Agent 101series with a discussion of contracts. Good reading if you’re interested in even coming close to getting published, or just interested in what all that law jargon means.

And how did I miss the fact that the NY Times Book Review has a blog? I’m such a loser.

For any and all “Big-haired” gals, Jennifer Lynn Barnes (the author of the YA novels Golden and Tattoo) has a video blog on the subject. This has inspired me to come up with my own vblog idea (though it has nothing to do with big hair), which will hopefully debut sometime after I get my severance check.

Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy has linked to her article in the School Library Journal about children’s book blogs. While most of you know all about surfing blogs to find out what people are saying, as a bookseller I found certain ones were great to turn parents onto and wish that I’d come up with some kind of list. If I’ve learned anything in the bookselling world, it’s that most book browsers/buyers like to feel self-sufficient and take care of the book searches on their own. A list of great children’s review sites would have helped them along in their research.

Looking for a news round-up of the flashier book news? Check out what the Bookblogger has for you today.

And finally to give you some idea where everyone’s head was at during the closing, I give you my Boss’s recap on “We’re Closing Because…” du Jour, because you can only be asked the same question eight million times before your brain goes a little wonky. Fortunately Saturday’s beerfest and inadvertent Irish dancing floorshow proved that we’re all coming out of this just fine. Some people are already bored, others have already gotten jobs (or just continued on working the jobs they had), and we all are waiting to see what surprises Payroll has in store for us (in my case, still not getting my address right). I wonder where we’ll all be in a year.