This is a list. I thought I would create one for your enjoyment.
1) Check at your local bookstore. There is is usually a staff picks section. Powell's books
has a nice short Staff Picks section. http://www.powells.com/picks
2) Check at your local library. They usually have staff picks. This is a list of staff picks from New York Public Library. http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showlist.html?sid=5796&list=CNL3
3) If you use public transportation, watch for ads for books. I see ads for John Grisham on the New York subway as well as the Metro North.
4) Read the latest review material like Publishers Weekly or Kirkus Reviews. There are specialty review books like Horn Book for Children, Choice mostly for academic libraries, and VOYA-- Voice of Youth Advocates for teenage books.
5) Read popular magazines like Jet, People, or Newsweek. They all have book reviews.
6) Listen to the radio. Radio shows often talk about books. Jim Freund's Hour of the Wolf interviews science fiction authors. http://www.hourwolf.com/ . NPR-- National Public Radio often has authors reading.
7) Watch television. Most of the talk shows interview authors. Oprah Winfrey has a book club. It is one of those giant things. She revived a lot of classic literature. Charlie Rose invites quite a few authors. A lot of the documentaries on PBS are also in book form. Ken Burn's civil war series has an excellent corresponding book series.
8) Watch to see what other people are reading. People read everywhere, on the subway, at the park, in waiting rooms, and other places.
9) Attend readings if you can get to them. KGB Bar has a fantastic fiction reading series.
http://www.lcrw.net/kgb/
10) Watch the news. Every time something horrible happens, there is a new set of books coming out. O.J. Simpson spawned huge amount of books.
11) Check the obituaries. If an author dies, their estate often releases a lot of material for publication. Also, many people wait until after they are dead to have their biography released.
12) Go to book festivals. New York Is Book Country is the big festival of books for New York.
13) Go to conventions. Book Expo America is the giant book convention for the publishing industry in the United States.
14) Check out authors web sites. Neil Gaiman has an excellent blog. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
15) Check out publishers web sites. Their new books will be featured prominently.
http://www.tor-forge.com/
16) Make sure to look at your favorite cover artists site. I like Donato Giancola a lot.
http://www.donatoart.com/ They will describe the books which they are creating covers for.
17) Check the various writers professional associations. Most professional associations for writers give awards for quality new fiction. The Horror Writers Association has the Bram Stoker Award. http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm The Mystery Writers of America has the Edgars http://www.mysterywriters.org/
18) Check specialty genre sites like Science Fiction Site, or Uchronia, the alternate history list, http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.uchronia.net/
19) Most genres will also have forums or newsgroups where they discuss a specific type of book.
20) Expect that your favorite writer in comic books might also write in other formats. Alan Moore wrote his autobiography, Peter David wrote both comic books and regular science fiction books.
21) Don't expect to see an author stick to just one genre. Joe Lansdale writes mysteries, horror, and westerns. Elizabeth Lowell writes science fiction, romance, mystery, and suspense. Walter Mosley writes novels, science fiction, and mysteries. Check to see if your favorite author writes in more genres than one.
22) Check the latest movies. Many of them came from novels. Read the novel before you go see the film. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is just as good as the film.
23) You can find author readings on Youtube. This really surprised me. I put up a video of Jonathan Carroll reading from Youtube earlier on this site.
24) Philip Jose Farmer has a myspace.com page which is pretty interesting. Authors are taking advantage of the new media. http://www.myspace.com/pjfarmer
25) Authors also do podcasts. Bantam Dell has a nice list of podcasts by authors.
http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/podcast/
26) Don't forget to support your local library. Go to local library booksales put togther by the Friends of the Library.
5 comments:
Hi there,
The latest way to find books is by way of your own online bookstore.
When you own your own online bookstore, you get the "pick of the month", interviews with authors, multiple ways to interact with other avid readers, and even ways to "get that book that's inside of you" onto paper... and tons of other benefits, too.
I can show you how to do that, if you'd like.
I have seen bookwise.com, it is not to my liking. I have looked at a number of different systems that might work, chrislands.com might work, so might booksense.com, or bibliopolis.com. If and when I am ready to start expanding, I will probably speak to these people and they will point me in the proper direction. There are specialty hosting companies which build online stores. I have an idea about some of the distributors. I have talked briefly with Koen and have some ideas about how Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and other distributors work. Right now, this still is a fun experiment which I will expand slowly.
Honestly, if you have read my posts earlier, I am looking at something a bit bigger than a bookstore. I am interested in building something like a social networking site around books with a variety of features. I have looked at the bookstore idea and it wouldn't in terms of time and money pay off well enough financially. It might be fun, but fun doesn't pay the bills.
Hi again,
Not sure how long ago you may have looked at BookWise... but we are now supplied by Baker and Taylor.
By early spring we'll have direct access to about 1.5 million titles which is basically their entire inventory.
You're free to set up your business however you choose, whether as a hobby... a way to enrich other's lives through reading, or as an income center.
It's kind of like, what's not to love with their new expanded model.
Oh, all this was revealed on December 1 of this year.
I have one more comment that has to do with bookwise. My site is focused on recommending books, not creating a generic bookstore. If you could talk to bookwise about building a sites around specific recommended books-- about 200-300 it might be better than a store. Blogs which include items for sale are not going to be structured the same as a generic bookstore, nor are most blogs going to need something like what Bookwise is describing. What I need to have is a recommendation style page which will feature-- click on the book get my comments plus picture.
An improved Amazon style picture link box. I would much rather not get sent to Powells or an affiliate site. A bookstore structure for blogs.
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