Collection Developments @ Sno-Isle

Posted Jun 17, 2008 | Published in issue #999-1000 Jun 27, 2008 |

Borders and Eisner Offer Book Tie-In Series on Borders.com

By Lynn Andriani — Publishers Weekly, 6/17/2008 8:06:00 AM

Borders announced today it is teaming with former Disney honcho Michael Eisner’s independent media studio, Vuguru, to distribute a Web series. Robin Cook’s Foreign Body: The Prequel will run as 50 two-minute episodes on the newly launched Borders.com.

The clips will serve as a prequel to bestselling author Robin Cook’s latest medical thriller, Foreign Body, which Putnam will publish August 5. The first two episodes of the prequel are available for viewing today at www.BordersMedia.com/foreignbody. New episodes will be posted daily thereafter, culminating with the last installment on August 4.

Borders Group CEO George Jones said the Web episodes are “a great way for readers to catch the excitement of a new release.” Customers can pre-order the title on the site.

Vuguru is a new media studio for Eisner’s The Tornante Company. The studio produces and distributes story-driven content for current new media and emerging platforms.

well, Japanese as in several years ago.  i’d read a serialized book on my cell, would you?

DailyLit Launches Reading Groups On Twitter

– Publishers Weekly, 6/11/2008 9:26:00 AM

DailyLit, which publishes books in serialized digital format and then e-mails them to customers, is launching a reading group on the social networking site, Twitter. Through the effort DailyLit will release three titles–Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Tom Peters’ 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice–in free downloadable snippets starting on June 16. Twitter users, who communicate about daily activities and other odds and ends with friends (a la Facebook or MySpace), can sign up to receive the installments through alerts, or “tweets,” sent to them on instant messenger or on their cell phones. The installments will be sent out to all members of the groups at the same time, so readers can discuss the works, in real time, on Twitter forums. “We’re interested in exploring new ways to make books more accessible to readers, and sending book installments via Twitter is an innovative way to do just that,” said DailyLit CEO Susan Danziger.

from today’s Shelf Awareness:

Library News: Early Word Gives ‘Em What They Need

Congratulations to Nora Rawlinson, former editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, former editor of Library Journal, former librarian extraordinaire and a great onetime boss and dear friend, who has founded EarlyWord.com with another ex-PW person, Fred Ciporen. (More about him in another issue!)

Rawlinson said that Early Word aims to be to libraries what a great sales rep is to bookstores: offering insight on forthcoming titles that appeal to their customers and tips on titles that are suddenly taking off.

The centerpiece of Early Word is Rawlinson’s blog, “Give ‘Em What They Want,” where she writes every day in conversational and informative style about books libraries might otherwise miss or underbuy. “In libraries, there is so much else going on besides new books,” Rawlinson said. “Librarians don’t the time to look around and seeing what’s taking off. I’m trying to give them quick and easy access to what’s getting attention and rising in demand.”

For the blog, Rawlinson said she watches movement on Amazon as well as checks librarians’ catalogues and see what ordering patterns are. She also tracks reserve-to-copy ratios–in the case of Scott McClellan’s What Happened the ratios showed extraordinary interest, rising to 10 to 1 and 20 to 1, in some places, she said. Librarians also tend to read more pre-publication reviews than consumer reviews and can miss trends in that area, which Rawlinson addresses in the blog and with links to consumer review media.

Besides commentary, Early Word features a variety of resources for librarians, including links to national and specialty bestseller lists and to publishers’ e-catalogues. The site also offers information about book-related movies and TV and about one book/one community picks, a directory of publishers’ library marketing staff and their special services for libraries. (”The librarians’ sections on many publisher sites are hard to find,” Rawlinson said.)

The next main project for Early Word is to create a group of readers advisory and collection development librarians who will be paired with various imprints. “The imprint would pitch to the librarian, who would then write about their picks and takes on the books on Early Word,” Rawlinson said, explaining that “publishers don’t have reps who call on libraries because even though they are 10% of sales, there are too many of them.”

Rawlinson started posting in November, “just to get in rhythm and figure out what I wanted Early Word to be.” By the ALA midwinter meeting in January, she talked with groups of librarians to get more information about what they wanted from such a site. By the PLA meeting in March, Early Word had a soft launch. For the moment, the focus is on adult titles but eventually the site will grow to include children’s and YA books as well.

The arrival of Early Word is fortuitous: the importance of libraries continues to expand in the Internet Age, Rawlinson said. Library websites have long posted their holdings and allowed readers to reserve books. But now they offer downloadable audio and e-books, send out e-mail newsletters and are putting up staff recommendations. “These changes are bringing in a new group of users who don’t have time to go to the library,” she said. “Some of them come into the library once, to get a library card, and then do everything with the library online.”–John Mutter

Book from `Sex and the City’ film doesn’t exist

the latest Lee Child novel, Nothing to Lose: A Jack Reacher Novel is garnering good reviews including a starred review from Booklist. Lee Child is interviewed by the New York Times explaining the origins, nuances, and appeal of Jack Reacher.

the Penny Arcade takes a stab at the continued popularity of Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series.

with homicide statistics at their lowest since 1963, crime writers searching for inspiration from the New York City streets are going to have to look elsewhere for material or wait for the possible negative, but fruitful, impact of an economic slowdown.

This month is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming–you know the guy who wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang–and a couple of other books as well.  Timed to coincide with the birthday is the release of Devil May Care — the latest installment in the Bond franchise, by Sebastian Faulks.  Fleming led a life nearly as colorful as him most famous character and so coverage of his life, and the new book have been hard to miss–still here are couple of links I thought you might enjoy.

Remembering Fleming, Ian Fleming (NY Times)

For Your Eyes Only Ian Fleming and James Bond — web site for the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Never Say Die: James Bond Returns to the Page – podcast of the NPR Morning Edition interview with Sebastian Faulks.

here’s a brief clip from the Today Show highlighting hot books to read this summer from the book editor of Cosmopolitan.  in other parts of the country, it’s actually sunny for more than 2 days in a row, thus it feels like the end of the school year, May, and closer to summer