Seth Godin wants you to harness the power of the net (using his Squidwho)

Seth Godin has some reservations about HarperCollins new Author Assist program that allows their authors to build their own websites through HC, and thinks he should use his new “people-powered who’s who of the web” (aka Squidwho) to build author sites (or fan sites for your favorite author).

Anyone used (or plan to use) either of these programs?

What are your thoughts?



P.S. This interruption of radio silence will hopefully continue if a.) I can get my computer to stay on longer than ten minutes when I'm trying to do something of any importance on it; b.) I can get a new computer; or c.) I give up on my vow to avoid blogging at work (which is technically being bent and mangled even as I type.

How do you keep them coming back for more?

I’ve been doing a lot of research on Web 2.0 marketing techniques and how to drive blog traffic recently, and the one subject that keeps coming up is the retention of readership.

For those of you who have experience blog traffic tsunamis or even more gentle waves, what have you done to try to retain those readers?

What did you do to get them in the first place?

Fun with Answers (and Links)

Keep the commentary coming on the “Blogging to Build Readership: Does It Work?” thread. I’m compiling my thoughts into something coherent that I’ll hopefully post later today or tomorrow. For those of you who’ve already shared your opinions, here’s a little something to keep you busy:

The Inkwell Bookstore Blog is looking for answers to the following questions:

As a bookstore employee/owner, what does your store do to attract a crowd?

And as a bookstore shopper, what sorts of things do you look for in the stores that you frequent?

Follow this link over and give them your answer. Maybe they’ll be able to co-op the idea into something that will work for their customer base. Go and spread your book-luvin’ knowledge.

Since the last link was to a blog, and we’re in the middle of discussing blogging in reference to how it affects an author’s readership, be sure to check out Coding Horror’s Thirteen Blog Clichés. I freely admit that I’m bad about the apologizing and a few other things on the list (and by few I mean several), but I defend my “excessive blog roll” as it is meant to be used by y’all to do more research on your field. At least that’s excuse I’m sticking with.

Thanks to one of my fellow DPI grads, I’ve started following Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog. Joe comments on a wide variety of areas that affect the industry and gives some great advice. I’m still mulling over his thoughts about e-subscriptions for magazines. PW allows subscribers to read the magazine online, but I only got a chance to play with one copy before my subscription ran out. Since I was reading it on the large (overly so, in my opinion) computer screen they provided us at the bookie job, reading wasn’t an issue, but with my laptop screen? I don’t know.

Through Joe I discovered Lori Cates Hand’s blog Publishing Careers, which is probably a bit more interesting to me than it is to you as it is billed as “An online "informational interview" for college students, new graduates, and career changers interested in knowing what a job in publishing is like and how they can get one.” Still, you can never learn enough about the industry you’re working in.

Awhile back when I was doing research on whether or not to move this blog, I ran across this breakdown of blogging software that I thought I should share. I don’t know how up-to-date it is given the changes different blogging sites have instituted, but it is a good resource if you’re thinking of trying something new.

In the realm of pure fun, go find a picture of you and your significant other (or significant something) and generate your own romance novel cover.

The cardboard Mr. Nelson pictured with me here was made possible by the good people at Fulcrum Publishing (and my DPI roommate who took the picture) who are responsible for Willie Nelson’s newest book On the Clean Road Again, which discusses Willie’s thoughts on Bio-diesel.

Blogging to Build Readership: Does It Work? Your Thoughts

Kevin Radthorne emailed me the other day to suggest we discuss the topic of blogging, specifically whether or not blogging authors out there have developed readers through their blogs. In his email he asked:

“for authors, are they able to see any measurable sales results from having started blogging? I ask this because blogging is the hot topic of the moment, and everybody's jumping on that bandwagon. However, most of the authors I've talked to about it primarily cite the connections to other authors' blogs. That, to me, does not seem to be their target audience, which should be readers. I don't get much sense that readers are spending a lot of time at writer's blogs.”

To me this topic covers a lot of different sub-topics that relate to why an author should even have a website and some sort of forum (be it a blog or a message board or a newsletter) to discuss their work and writing process at all. As this is something I want to discuss in depth, I’ll open up the discussion to your first and work from our comments.

How many of you—as authors—have noticed measurable sales results from your blog? Do you believe that this information is quantifiable (so you see hits through your Amazon link, etc)?

How many of you—as readers—have bought books by authors you have discovered through their blogs? What made you decide to pick up their book?

Given that the onus is on authors these days to do as much promotion as they can, and that most blog programs provide a free format that allows for easy updates without waiting for your webmaster do it for you, have you found blogging to be a worthwhile experience in the promotion of your books?

I want to get as many opinions on this as possible, so please ask your author friends and neighbors. The results of marketing and publicity, and the impact they actually have on book sales, can be hard to quantify especially in the online realm. While reader (and author) testimonials can’t stand for facts, they can highlight why people read blogs and what drives them to buy.

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Have I fallen off the face of the Earth?

Nope, but I do have one hell of a sinus infection, which has led (in the last day or so) to the discovery of a drug allergy as well.

Joy.

We'll return with our regularly scheduled blogging on Monday if not before. Until then what are your favorite rereads or the books that you pull out when you're sick because you need to get lost in the comfort of a familiar book?

School Reads You Actually Liked

So the other day we were chatting away in our cubicles in a lull between calls, and a coworker chose that moment to reveal that she’s reading the first Bartimaeus book. Since I practically beat her over her head with that suggestion daily for about a week, I wasn’t that surprised, but I squealed in delight anyway because I love spreading the Bartimaeus love. My cubicle mate (a mother of two ten year olds) wanted to know what the coworker and I found so interesting about Stroud’s trilogy, and five minutes of incoherent fangirl babbling ensued. Though properly informed by the incident about my book rabidness, she nevertheless mentioned that she was reading a really great book too. “I saw A Wrinkle in Time series the other day at Costco and I just had to buy the whole set. I loved that book when I was in school!”

The mention of reading “in school” brought about the topic of books we all liked to read in school vs. the books we slogged through all the while silently calling our teachers evil Lit pigs unable to assign a book we’d be actually interested in.

The list went as follows:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle

Hatchet by Gary Paulson

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Hey, I enjoyed it.)

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

There were a lot of other titles suggested, but for the life of me I can only remember the overlap. But it made me want to ask y’all, what books do you remember actually liking despite their designation as required reading?

What books did you despise?

Author Stalking, Requests, and Questions

Chelsea Cain is proving to be a hard woman to track down. Considering that she’s written for several papers in the area I thought for certain that she would have some sort of contact information on the internet. I’m so naïve…naïve and a little perplexed that the HeartSick site isn’t fully up and running yet.

(C’mon guys, if you’re giving away 4,000 ARCs in early June, you might want to get this up and running.)

I recently discovered that one of my coworkers works for one of the same papers she does, and I’m trying to think of the most casual way to ask him if he knows her. “Oh, you work for the ____________? Really? Do you know Chelsea Cain?” Every time I approach him though, he’s on the phone (big surprise, us being in a call center and all), and we never seem to have lunches that coincide. Curses, foiled again!

Meanwhile a friend is designing a letterhead—as well as business cards—for me to use when writing Minotaur for an ARC of my own. Going through official channels with the publicity department seems very not stalker-worthy. I mean really, what kind of book stalker tries to be all professional and business-like, I ask you? Still, since they’re hyping this book like crazy, hopefully they’ll feel I’m worthy of a copy to help keep the buzz going.

It turns out that not all publicists and publicity departments feel this way. I was emailing back and forth with another blogger, and she told me that she’s actually had publicity departments respond to her request for one title or another with, “No, we don’t want you to review book A, but we’ll send you a copy of book B which you expressed no interest in.”

Um, excuse me. You don’t want Book A reviewed? Why not? Is it that bad? Is it above being reviewed? What?

What does that say about the author and the book when the publicity department doesn’t want to take advantage of the possibility of free publicity?

I mean, maybe I’m not seeing the bigger picture here and this actually has something to do with not having enough ARCs or not wanting to just give books away to anyone, but to completely ignore a book request? If I were the author I would want some answers from my people, pronto.

Speaking of book giveaways, there are going to be some here over the next couple of weeks. All of the authors I’ve lined up interviews with have been kind enough to send me ARCs or finished versions of their upcoming books, and I like to pass those on to you. All you have to do is comment on the author’s thread or send me an email regarding the author interviewed and what you might like to see in the future and I’ll enter into a drawing for the book in question. Here’s a chance to check out a new to you author and get some fun summer reading without spending a dime.

If you’re an author interested in an interview or guest blog, you can email me as well and we’ll see what we can set up. I need to collect enough interviews and guest columns to supplement the month of July while I’m in school. I’m hoping to have enough content before I leave that I can get it all loaded into Blogger and just be able to hit post every morning. If you’re interested, email me at the email in the sidebar and we’ll see if we can set something up.

Until then, now that I’m working at a job where I sit upright (thus spurring my ability to get stuff done), I want to do more with this blog. If time restraints allow, I’d like to be get to two posts a day: one very focused on the industry like an interview or links to stories on the publishing world, and another that’s me just blabbering away. I’ve also recently agreed to write a monthly column for Romancing the Blog and to do every second Friday reviews for Paperback Reader, so here’s hoping my productivity stays strong.

So, if you want me to focus on something for this blog in between calls where I take people’s money and tell them horse stats, just drop me an email or leave a comment. I’ll take it into consideration as well as all those things I’ve started in the past but never finished. With the Belmont leg of the Triple Crown not until June I’ve got a couple of weeks to pack in the content.

Thoughts?

The ponies, the ponies, the ponies (and blogging questions)

There’s this poem I read in the summer after my eighth grade year when I was in the Summer Enrichment Program down at U of O. For years now it has haunted me because I can’t remember much about it other than I like it. Oh, and that it started with something like “I’m thinking of committing suicide off the bridge behind my house…,” ended with the repetition of “the grackles, the grackles, the grackles” and that the author’s name might have been Spanish.

Sweet bejezuz, I’m turning into one of my customers! Still, if you know what I’m talking about, please email me. Please. This has been killing me for years! It was a funny poem. Yes, it was. A funny poem starts with talking about committing suicide. It is not as weird as it sounds.

Anywho, moving on. Um, yeah. So the poem talks about the incessant sound of the grackles and last night it was all about the incessant sound of the phone ringing with questions about the ponies.

And about whether or not we were a completely legal operation, “‘Cause I had this friend who did this off-shore betting and he lost a lot of money when they didn’t pay out…”

Dude, we’re not that kind of gambling organization. The states invite us in. Unlike the mob we don’t just move in and take over!

Unless we are the mob, and I’ve been brainwashed by watching the ponies run and run. Oh, the ponies, the ponies, the ponies. Everything is Zen if you’re watching the ponies.

Well, it’s Zen unless you’re dealing with blogger—which I’ve been doing. I’m so tired of all the log in problems and weird post ickiness I’ve dealt with since the new blogger program took affect. I’m going to start looking into alternative programs today between calls and see if I can come up with some sort of alternative.

Of course that means teaching this old pony some new tricks, a questionable thing when one has been brainwashed by the mob.

If there are any of you out there who would like to share your expertise in the ways of Wordpress or other programs, please drop me an email. I value you knowledge and direction.

In return, I’ll tell you how to bet on the ponies and win.*

*The answer to this being, don’t bet on the ponies at all. You may not make any new money, but you didn’t lose any either.

Links: The Hey, It's Stopped Raining edition

I’m typing on a borrowed laptop at a coffee shop I hadn’t planned on visiting, but it is pouring outside and walking the twelve blocks home would leave me soaked for sure. Walking home now would upgrade my laundry pile from “tonight sometime” to “Jesus, girl, why’d you put it off so long,” which would lead to me putting on PJs as appropriate alternative clothing which would then necessitate a nap.

It’s like giving a mouse a cookie, really. Put a twenty-something in her PJs on a rainy day and she’s going to want to curl up under some blankets to take a nap. It all goes down hill from there. That’s the real reason I’m in this coffee shop, to avoid the napping fate and its ability to wile away my free time, something that has been precious as of late.

In life, it seems, nothing is ever really spread out. Up until last week I was experiencing the paralyzing powers of boredom, and then all of sudden not only had I gotten into the Publishing Institute but the temp company was hooking me up with a job! I went from interviewed to hired in less than an hour and was once again facing a future of forty hours a week, albeit this time taking calls in a cubicle for a job that I would need to get drug tested and licensed for. I wonder if they’ll object to me answering the phones in a faux Brooklyn accent.

Just seems appropriate, if a bit clichéd, for the whole gambling experience. Hopefully being a bookie will be as interesting as it sounds.

Life in the book world continues to go on in interesting and kooky ways. Many thanks to the reader who gave me the heads up on the Newsweek article where John Banville has interviewed his alter-ego Benjamin Black. While it’s no Vonnegut/Kilgore Trout affair it is definitely worth the read if you’re intrigued by the inner going-ons in writers’ minds. One of my favorite customers from the bookstore was so fed up waiting for the Christine Falls to be released in the United States that he just went ahead and ordered a copy on Amazon UK. Unfortunately we closed before I could ask him if it was worth the cost.

Dr. Howard V. Hendrix (the VP of the Science Fiction Writers of America, according to Galleycat) disparages all authors who dare to give books away online. In response many have come forward to disparage Dr. Hendrix in return, and around and around we go. Personally I’m a fan of writers offering up free books, and loved the concepts that David Wellington, Cory Doctorow and others used to gather a wider reading audience. I took an impromptu poll of the my friends when I first read about Hendrix’s comments, and general consensus appears to be if they liked what they read, they would probably buy the book when it was released in print (if not to read again themselves, then to loan to others). It was only after learning about Wellington’s online endeavors with Monster Island that I began stocking it in my store. It became the book we would recommend to our horror fans looking for something new and different, and a title that we continuously sold through.

What I’m saying is that I’m on the side of the free books, and apparently I’m not alone. You can read a free novel, Jumble Pie, on Melanie Lynne Hauser’s site (she of Confessions of a Super Mom and Super Mom Saves the World fame, both titles I’ve heard recommended to people who like Julie Kenner’s Carpe Demon).

Moka wants to help you get in touch with your inner spirit via your cell phone by distilling bestselling self-help/religion/philosophy books down to the essentials and text messaging them to your phone. From what I can tell, you pay month to month for the service, but the current promotion has the first month free. How much inner learning could you pack into that time?

If you’re looking for something to read during the unpredictable weather we’ve all been experiencing lately, I’d suggest checking out “The Killer Genre” on Library Journal. Com (link provided by Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind). Not only does the article outline a bunch of small and upstart mystery publishers putting out some edgy new material, but points out what award winning material it has been. Interviews with the Man in Black’s Jason Pinter and Robert Fate follow.

Marta Acosta has up a link to an article on the use of ghost writers to create works by big name (and dead) authors. Maybe that's what I need for this blog! Think about it, with a ghost writer I could have new content up every day. Of course, I could have new content up every day if I just sat my ass down and typed, but that's entirely beside the point.

Now I’m feeling a little linked out, but I would like to hear your thoughts on any or all of these links. While I feel that the “whether or not to give away books for free on the net” debate has been done to death (and the practice should just be accepted), I’m fascinated by the potential parallels to be found in the DRM debates and the pulling of copyrighted material from You Tube. Where does is the line between creating a name for yourself/spreading the word via free material and infringement?

Reader blogs...

I'm sitting here wondering what makes a good reader blog. Well, not true. I'm sitting here on hold with my old university trying to get a hold of a notarized transcript (shoot me), and I'm taking this muzak-filled opportunity to contemplate reader blogs, the good, the bad and the ugly. Now obviously we've pounded the subject into the ground when it comes to blogs needing interesting voice and content to be popular, but what about when the content is in part dictated by the books reviewed?

We can argue day and night about what constitutes a proper review, but for the moment we'll just settle for any blog or website dedicated (for the most part) to the reader's thoughts on books s/he has read. What makes an interesting, returnable (as in you return to it) reader blog?

Does the rating system matter?

Does it all depend on what is being reviewed (e.g. you would accept one style from a SciFi blog, but not from a lit blog)?

There's a whole list of review blogs in the sidebar that I need to update, but I want to hear your thoughts on what makes a good reader blog and how to build a better one.

I'll consider to gather my thoughts while I wait to talk to a real person.

For those of you not interested in this subject, go check out Sarah Weinman's thoughts on "Genre Wars from a different angle" and share your thoughts.

Ask a Bookseller...

Questions about bookselling? Bookseller behavior? Bookseller interactions in the wild?

Or even questions about that wild--the bookstore--itself?

Put 'em in the comments and I'll find someone to answer them for you (or maybe answer them myself).

So Many Ideas, So Little Brain Matter

I was beginning to fear that I was burnt out—used up—and the store closing was going to somehow signal an end to my understanding of the book world. In my overactive imagination I saw this gigantic hand reaching down from the book heavens and ripping a trail of pages from my brain, leaving me a drooling, illiterate mass on the couch, capable of only watching Law & Order reruns. Not that there is anything wrong with L&O episodes or formula crime dramas in general, but that was a scary, scary future that I did not want to have to face.

So I took a break, only logged on to the computer to check my email (Okay, and start the foundations of a Manga referral business for a coworker, but that doesn’t count), and spent some time hanging out with friends. We went out for sushi, I learned to make macaroni and cheese from scratch for a girl’s night extravaganza, and we had a pizza/beer fest that somehow turned into a world wrestling match and a fight for dominance over the Wii. And when I was at the store, it was all about the books and the customers I liked. The favorites have all been informed that we’re leaving now, they’ve asked their questions (But where are you going to go?) and now they’re trying to come up with their own solutions (Il Postino really thinks I should use my biology degree despite the many times I’ve told him that that ship has sailed). Sure, the vultures are disheartening (“So…when are your prices going to get even lower?”) and it seems like the question out of everyone’s mouth is still “You’re closing?” But overall we’re doing okay, and my book senses are starting to tingle again.

And these tingling book senses, when their not signaling a sneeze, tell me that there is a lot of interesting stuff going on in the book world right now. Stuff we should really talk about. Given that it is a new year and a new start, I’m going to once again post a list of interesting stuff I’ve heard about in the book world in the fervent hope that I will pick up these topics again and run with them later on this week (or even later on today):

1. Marta alerted me to this—and posted it on her blog: 50 Cent is launching an imprint through MTV/Pocket Books under the G-Unit name. And then today in Shelf Awareness I find this article referencing a feature from the Baltimore Sun:

“In a long feature, yesterday's Baltimore Sun shed some light on street lit. Sean Bentley, buyer of black fiction at Borders, told the paper that “African-American literature has seen double-digit growth in the last few years” and that urban literature accounts for about 25% of his purchases. “It is popular,” he continued. “It is speaking to a group of people that for a long time did not have an opportunity to have their lives told.”
Likewise, Vicki Stringer, the street lit writer and publisher who wrote her first work in prison and now owns Triple Crown Publications, a major street lit house, said that the genre “is going to continue to grow. It is very similar to music and clothing. Now it is literature. Everything is urban. Generation Y has an appetite for it.””

The crossover appeal of urban lit is surprising, and an area of the market I would really like to discuss. I’ve sold Triple Crown books to middle class kids living the world of the streets vicariously through the written word, to professional women and men, and to people who experience a less glamorized version of the life-styles portrayed within the books everyday.

2. I received an email recently from Suzanne Portnoy, author of The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker: an Erotic Memoir. While Suzanne’s memoir has been selling well in Great Britain, it has failed to make any progress stateside, something her publisher blames on the fact that sex doesn’t sell well here. Now she wants to know why, and so do I. Given our thriving romance novel industry, one would think that a frank exploration of a woman or man’s sexual discovery would do well. Or perhaps not, considering our Puritan roots and all. Then again, marketing might be to blame as well because the problem we always had with erotic novels and memoirs at the bookstore was where to shelve them? More often than not they ended up in the “Relationship” section, where no one would think to look.

3. Speaking of marketing, Karen Templeton’s Romancing the Blog column, “Marketing? Are you there?” could be applied to almost any genre (fiction or nonfiction) out there. Why does marketing go so wrong on an internal level? Are the playing to trends and not the book’s strength? Is there a disconnect between the publisher and the bookselling world or something else? I’ve heard just as many stories of big chains vetoing certain cover styles because they don’t think they’ll appeal to an audience as I have of distributing houses pulling the same deal with smaller publishers. Who’s making these decisions and how close they are to the actual bookselling level remains a mystery. You can’t change the fact that you get a bad cover or cover copy that doesn’t reflect your book, but you can use it to direct the marketing you do on your own. Obviously a topic we can discuss over and over again and it will never get old.

Now these are just three things that have been on my mind in the last couple of days. I’m sure that more topics will come up now that I’m in thought mode again, but I wanted to get these down on paper. Hopefully ruminations on one of these topics will be up later depending on how my day goes, but I want to hear what you think. What interesting book news has captured your interest lately and why? What topics do want covered here?

Bring it on, kids. It’s time to get down and dirty with the book business now that my brain is once again functioning.

Your Money or Your Life?

See what the New Yorker has to say about your raging book habit (thanks to educating alice for the link, you can check out the actual article in last week’s New Yorker).

Thoughts?

What's My Line?

I'm already in my "I hate Christmas" mode and it's only November 2nd. Of course, it could be that I'm just suffering from a time change hangover and the cold weather blues because I really do like the Christmas decorations the company chose this year which indicates that true grinchiness has not set in.

(Even if the colors do turn me a special shade of death warmed over.)

Given my general sense of blah-ness, I can't remember if we did this before (so please forgive me), but I was wondering what your favorite lines are from books. They don't have to be opening lines, and you don't have to keep it down to one. Just give the title and author of the book you pulled it from.

Jazz this cold November day up with some words, people. Spark some interest in others.

If form follows function does connection follow content?

A while back someone (I believe it was Diane C. but for the life of me I cannot find the comment) said something along the lines of readers being willing to forgive flaws in an authors style or story if the connect with the character. Of course, I could be wrong in remembering this, but the idea has been playing around in my head for a month or three. Do we as readers forgive obvious errors (grammatical, plot, etc) if we can identify or like the characters we follow? Can we forgive an obvious deus ex machine moment by the author to move along the plot (something that goes against the nature of the characters as they’ve been set forth) because we like the style or the voice?

What is your breaking point as a reader of fiction (scifi, fantasy, romance, mystery)? And when (and why) do you decide you love something enough to recommend it to friends or keep it on your bookshelf?

I ask because I just finished a novel where I did not identify with the main character and therefore could not justify any of his/her actions. I realized that had I liked this person (or even disliked them immensely but found them intriguing none the less), I would have been able to make the leaps in logic that the author wanted me to as well as forgive some shoddy story telling.

So how about it y’all. What works (or doesn’t) for you when you read?

(I put a longer column up tomorrow, but I want to incorporate some of your feedback.)

Where do you read?

The weather’s changed, gone cooler and so very dark early in the evening. Sometimes on Sunday mornings, I crawl out of bed, pull on thick socks and pajama pants, and wander out to my couch with my book. It’s a futon, more a second bed than a couch really, and after wrapping up in a thick blanket, it is the world’s best reading and napping spot. If the book is good I’ll read through the screaming of my tea kettle. I’ll read until the tea I make is cold in the cup and the sun stops fighting to get through my windows. I’ll read until there really is no point in putting on street clothes after I turn that last page—Nope, I should just crawl back into bed.

And if the book is bad? Oh well, the futon really is the best napping place in the world. Rearrange a few pillows, curl down against the side, and perfection. Nap away until the church bells chime that it is time to find some breakfast.

If what I’m reading requires me to sit up and take notice, to closely examine the text or the page for clues to the author’s meaning or the character’s motivations then I sit in the big, green chair. Best garage sale find ever, that chair is; plush and so large it tries to swallow me whole. Wide enough to let me sit cross legged or sideways with my legs draped over the arm. I’ve highlighted many a text in that chair, tried to memorize facts and figures or just understand the classics. Never with the correct posture, of course, but I think that is more my fault than the chair’s.

And if I should need a break from my facts, figures, or classical texts? The bookshelf behind my chair is filled: knitting supplies to Christopher Moore to Elizabeth George to the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. I just have to reach back and some book will take me away.

I’ve been known to read in the car—passenger or back seat, obviously—but the motion of the vehicle always makes me sleepy. I’m much too likely to nod off in the middle of a paragraph and awaken to find that I don’t remember what I’d last read.

I do read on the train, in the mornings, but the commute (if you can even call it that) is short and people watching can be fun. Any reading seems to occur in snippets and paragraphs, interspersed with me covertly trying to find out what everyone else is reading (and whether or not I’ve sold it to them), listening to the odd bits of conversation from those around me, and looking for the man who always rides with his cat perched upon his shoulder. I never get lost in a book on the train, but then again, I never have time, but maybe that’s the point. If the book is good enough those snippets will stick with me until I make my way back to my apartment to fall onto the couch or drape across the chair. It will keep me from detouring to a local pub for a snack and a beer or calling a friend.

If the book is good enough I’ll want to find a nice, soft place to return to its world as quickly as possible.

How about you? Where do you read?

The Madness Continues!

Yes, that’s right. There are even more links!

Links to other sites.
Links to favorites within this site.
Links to all the Book Sense 101 and “Doing My Homework” postings!

It’s not all there yet; I’ll continue to add new things as I find them, but at this time the link index in the side bar is officially longer than the posts on this page. I think I went a little crazy.

Scratch that, I know that I went a little crazy, but it helped me get organized. I now have a direct link to the website column (the original, not the slimmed down one I’ve been working on for months), the Challengers List (so I can finally finish those recommends), and other things that I need to work on/finish. Not having to search for them is going to make me feel better and allow me to avoid Blogger’s faulty search system (I had to scroll through the last year to find all the “Doing My Homework” columns.

I’m hoping with this new and improved easy access, I won’t let these things get away from me as much and I’ll finally be able to follow through on some of the stuff we’ve talked about here. I still want to work with the Midlist authors (as well as give y’all your recommendations), and I would like to do some more interviews/guest posts with people of interest (author interviews and guest posters of the past can be found near the bottom of the index, witness the insanity). Wading through a year of posts (I didn’t bother delving into 2005, that’s a panic attack for another day), made me realize that I need to clean out my archives and stopping setting myself up for huge projects that I don’t necessarily have time for. So next time I open my big mouth and ask for suggestions, questions or dreams, remind me that while Bookseller Chick would make an awesome superhero name I do not have any superhero type powers to back it up. Be sure to add in that I’m allergic to spandex and would totally trip on my cape and choke myself, just in case I don’t see the lack of powers as an insurmountable barrier.

Also remind me that I’m rather attached to having a modicum of a social life, and friends that will drag my ass out of the house if I resist. Friends who do not find blogging for the enjoyment and education of others to be a valid excuse to sit on my couch.

So, to be clear, we have more links marked with asterisks; we have some links acting as stand ins for columns that I need to get off my ass and finish; and we have a bookseller that mined so many litblogs for links (yesterday and today) that they are a blur.

Thank you, blurry litblogs, you’re links were lovely. I just wish I could remember your names.

Special thanks to Little Willow for the use of her index, and anonymous for pointing out there was an extra period in Evil Editor’s address. I still need you guys to check any and all links you have time for and let me now if any are broken or wrong. I was doing a lot of cutting and pasting towards the end, so it is entirely possible that I’ve royally screwed up a bunch of these.

If you are one of the links in the sidebar and you feel you are mis-categorized, please let me know so that I can move you to the appropriate placement. If you run a review side and would like to be included in one of the review categories then please email me your site name, the name of the sub-category you wish to be in and a brief description of your review qualifications or conditions.

Also if you feel that I left out something from Columns of Note (or included something that didn’t deserve any love), feel free to let me know. I compiled the list as I scanned through the archives while half asleep, and I still haven’t touched 2005.

This work for you?

Yes? No? Maybe?

Whatever, man, I need a break. There’s a whole backlog of emails calling my name before I do anymore web stuff, but first I need a nap. Link compilation is a tiresome thing.

Wide Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic and as Forgetful as Ever

“Wide awake, alert, enthusiastic.” My old roommate—the Druggie—used to say this when she was trying to convince herself (or me) to wake up as we stumbled around in our living room. Sometimes it was said with heavy, heavy sarcasm; sometimes through a yawn; and sometimes with such perkiness that she endangered her life by merely being in the same room with me.

Today would be one of those life endangering days.

What’s said is that I used to be a morning person, but ever sense this addiction to coffee my early morning awareness and intelligence levels have fallen dramatically.

(As if y’all didn’t know Starbucks was “the Evil” before they raised their prices again on Monday.)

That said, let me preface this with the acknowledgment that I might have asked this before (and boy do I hate repeating myself), but:

When you are reading, do you ever find characters that mirror some of your friends and enemies in real life?

Sure I know that “no character in this story is based on a real life person” blah di blah di blah, but I’ve found myself irrationally loving and hating certain characters just because they remind me of friends, family members or those I would rather not be bothered with. Sometimes it’s their physical characteristics, and sometimes it’s their attitude. I know that I’ve been able to identify with characters many others found uncompromising or those who others claim of TSTL moments because I’ve seen that “thought process/actual outcome” happen to someone I know.

Does this connection with real life work for you, strengthening your connection to the narrative? Or does it pull you out of the story because you can’t separate character from fact?

Please tell me I’m not the only one. That might be a greater offense than asking me if I’m wide awake, alert, enthusiastic.

*Yawn*

Cue the Music

This is not my awake face. In fact, the expression currently in use could be described a sleepy, squinty, and quite possibly a little pissed off (due to the fact I’m not smiling; my coffee has not kicked in), which is the result of thinking I could combine an active social life with the opening shift.

Silly Rabbit, life is for kids who don’t need eight hours of sleep to function.

Anywho, as I was walking back into my apartment last night, the church choir across the street was practicing. Sometimes—if my windows are open—when I’m lying on the couch reading, the choir will burst into song, mysteriously coinciding with some high point or revelation in the book. The first time it happened, it surprised me so much that I almost fell off the couch. I think someone was being murdered, and just as the knife raised to make the killing blow…Latin in three part harmony! Now that I’ve gotten used to it, I leave off the radio and open my windows when I want to read. Somehow whatever they’re singing fits, whether it’s my mood or the book’s.

I know that many writers have soundtracks that they listen to constantly in the process of writing a story, and it’s a fascinating process (how do you know what to pick? Do listen on repeat to one song per scene, or the whole grouping?). I often wonder if there is a reader equivalent, some sort of CD you always listen to (low and in the background) when you want to read? Does this change depending on the book or your mood? Or is silence the best (or only) option?

What hits the right reading (or writing) note for you?

Retell Me A Story (She Makes With The Excuses Again)

Remember back when I posted everyday and y’all were like, “Won’t this girl ever shut up? And what’s with these y’alls anyway, I thought she was from the West Coast? This weird hybrid of southern slang and valley girl ‘likes’ gives SoCal a whole new meaning.”

Well, that? That was the honeymoon period known as the happy time when they kept pushing back inventory and there were no major holidays, and that time is now over. Cyborg mania stayed up for so long last week (and made its rounds to a surprising number of other places) for the simple reason that the heat is on. That’s right: we had inventory, bigwig visits, and employee training. Oh, my!

At one point as I was rushing around trying to pull missed returns so that I could then go receive my new shipment, my trainee looked at me and said, “You must go home exhausted.”

Honey, you have no idea.

The thing is, this really has nothing to do with you guys, unless it was your books I sent back or didn’t have time to up-sell because I was running around like a mad woman. Inventory, bigwig visits and employee training are a necessary evil because we’re not all popped out into the book world, fully formed and knowledgeable, to spread and knowledge and light, nor are the customers and their sometimes sticky, kleptomaniac fingers.

Where was I? Oh yeah, long week, vacation not coming soon enough, brain functioning on dying power cells.

Excuses, excuses, excuses. Blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard it all before so move on, bitch.

Got it.

So let’s talk about something else. On Friday I pulled out a book that is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland called The Looking Glass Wars that is now making its U.S. debut, and it got me thinking about retellings that have become famous the last few years. Whether it is simply taking an alluded to character like Geraldine Brooks’ March or more intertwined with the original like Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, it seems like we have embraced this fanfiction-type send-up to the stories that intrigue us. Are we really seeing more of these retellings taking place or has this been a long, ongoing practice that I’ve missed by eschewing English classes for Biology in college?

Talk to me people, because I really do believe this is becoming popular. I mean look at all the retellings and continuations of Pride and Prejudice that exist today (from Darcy’s point of view, the marriage saga, and the resulting daughters’ books), and let’s not forget Louis Bayard’s Mr. Timothy. So what is the power in retelling a story from a different point of view? And what are the downfalls? Why would someone attempt it in the first place?

And what are some of the great retellings out there?