Book blogs?
I need to broaden my horizons, and pick up a few good book-industry and bookseller blogs. I don't care about book deals, but I wouldn't mind some insight into how publishing is changing, particularly when it comes to technology.
I subscribe to some 114 blogs right now—mostly library-related, with a smattering of technology, startup, web 2.0 and competitor ones thrown in. But I don't follow much in the way of publishing industry blogs—pretty much only the BookFinder Journal, Michael Cairns' Persona non Data, Eoin Purcell, BookBrunch and Joe Wikert. And I only read one bookseller blog, the recently-discovered Hang Fire Books, which I read for the pulp covers.
Does anyone know of any good blogs?
Labels: book blogs, books
posted by Tim at 12:49 AM
28 Comments:
Hallo Tim. MobyLives (the resurrected blog of US independent Melville Press) is simply brilliant.
http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/
If you want news about works in translation, the Three Percent blog from the University of Rochester is also interesting.
http://www.rochester.edu/college/translation/threepercent/index.php
Not a publisher, but there's always the Literary Saloon at the Complete Review, too.
Hi Tim. Have you checked out http://books.alltop.com/? It pulls feeds from a mix of book blogs from reviewers, publishers, and sellers. Great place to start at least.
http://www.bookspotcentral.com/
That's one I am contributing too. Genre fiction oriented in the widest sense of the term. The number of bookblogs, genre or not is enormous, I only keep up with two dozen or so.
Tim
I subscribe to if:book
It's far more blue-sky and discursive than industry reporting, but it's low volume and takes interesting perspectives in depth
Tim, a few that I like:
O'Reilly Tools of Change - http://toc.oreilly.com/
Publisher's Lunch is a good paid newsletter, but they have a free RSS feed of their headlines:
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free/rss.xml
If you like business books (and really, what's not to like?!), then 800-CEO-Read's blog is a decent round-up of reviews, interviews, and miscellany: http://800ceoread.com/blog/
Occasional thoughts on the state of the publishing industry and the impact that technology is having on it at http://michaelhyatt.com/, the blog of Thomas Nelson Publishers CEO Michael Hyatt.
Nora Rawlinsons' "Early Word's goal is to help Collection Development and Readers Advisory librarians stay ahead of public demand and identify hidden gems." It is title specific rather than a general view of publishing, though.
http://www.earlyword.com/
HarperCollins "ideas" blog...
http://www.26thstory.com/blog/
One of the better of the critics blogs
http://www.themillionsblog.com/
Book news and links. Not so much on deals.
http://www.bookninja.com/
A few I've bumped into ...
Future Perfect which is about the future of publishing and e-books.
Editorial Ass which is about many things including life as an editorial assistant.
Peter Bentley's blogwhich you may have, since it's library-ish.
I like Holt Uncensored:
http://www.holtuncensored.com/hu/
She's a former editor and was the book critic for the SF Chronicle.
From the agents side of things, I read the Rejector, who is an agents assistant. Mostly its her critique of query letters, but there's also opinion on the publising industry as a whole:
http://rejecter.blogspot.com/
Shelf Awareness - it's not a blog, but an email newsletter with "daily enlightenment for the book trade" - lots of informative news and links
Although the main focus is crime fiction, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind also covers the wider industry http://www.sarahweinman.com/
i noted baen, tor, book view cafe, and eve's alexandria but I forgot
ebooks just published. http://www.ebooksjustpublished.com/
Tim -- I used to subscribe to "Against the Grain" from the College of Charleston, a journal that drew together the interests of publishers, booksellers, and librarians. It was full of stuff and fascinating. I just looked it up on the Web, and it seems to have an evolving web presence and four attendant blogs, but it also seems to be still primarily in print form. If you don't know about it, it's worth asking for a smaple print copy, as the website doesn't seem to have as much stuff -- but I didn't spend much time there. It's a great publication.
my own thanks to folks who posted blogs and links. I have added many of these to my blog reading list.
There's usually something interesting at
http://www.bookslut.com/blog/
A good one here in Canada, eh, is http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/
SF being the loud and vital roomful of loonies that it is, I keep up with its doings at http://sfsignal.com/
Almost always something ignorable from YouTube followed by good tidbits on industry doings.
Has no one recommended Lux Mentis/ Lux Orbis? http://www.luxmentis.com/blog/luxblog.html, Ian Kahn has recently joined the ABAA and is enjoyable.
Also, not a bookseller, per se, but bibliophile blog on all things book related:
http://exilebibliophile.blogspot.com
GalleyCat is a really good industry blog. http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/
I work at Oxford, and we have a great blog, but it's book & author focused, not so much industry: http://blog.oup.com/.
Critical Mass is the blog of the NBCC, the National Book Critics' Circle: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/.
Here's Seminary Co-op's new blog.
I kind of like The Written Nerd, by an employee of McNally Robinson/Jackson:
http://writtennerd.blogspot.com/
The Reader's Advisor Online Blog provides updates on publishing.
Chip MacGregor of ChipMacGregor.com stays well informed. There are quite a few people who follow his blog.
Don't be led astray by his delusions of grandeur and self-importance though! ;)
I like...
Hold Uncensored
http://www.holtuncensored.com/hu
Can't recommend her enough. Posts are sporadic, but informative. Good information, great person.
Booksquare
http://booksquare.com/
Lots of general links discussing libraries, books, bookselling,
writing, publishing, and the like.
GalleyCat, which is part of Mediabistro
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/
A little bit of everything; not hugely well indexed, however.
IndieBound
http://www.indiebound.org
This has recommendations for new titles from Independent bookstores throughout the country. No blog, just good readin'.
Reading Group Guides
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/>
Pretty much what it says. This would be a good resource if you want to grow an online book group idea; more of a reference really.
Bookslut
http://www.bookslut.com/blog/
Author interviews, reviews, links to industry information. Smattering of booky goodness.
Hope you enjoy!
~kath
If you've found Joe Wikert, then you're doing good!
For Industry talk/trendsdI also really enjoy:
http://indexmb.com/
And for tools/tech/trends in books (much of which publishers should pay attention to), it's hard to beat:
http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/
And I just have to mention how great the discussion among the publishing insides are on Twitter.
Build up the right list of Imprints to follow and it's well worth the time to participate.
Happy New Year!
I haven't read all the 'book blog?' posts, but there's a technology blog on our {Canada) CBC site that may ofer occasional bookish bits: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/blog/2008/12/187734spark.html
where you can sign up.
Not a blog, but I assume you know of CBC's greatest book podcast, Eleanor Wachtel's Writers & Company. You can't find a better interviewer. Shelagh Rogers also has a show/podcast on same network called The Last Chapter.
There are so many good book blogs out there I am sure you will have more than a couple of favorites. I just started one recently myself, Lost in Books, on Blogger (click my name to visit). And I have listed there several other blogs that are very good as well. Come by anytime! You are always welcome. :D
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