Category Archives: Book Talk

Authors, Book Column, Book Talk, Events

Four Southern Book Festivals

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If you live in the South then you know the value of sweet tea and front porches. It’s those values that the following four book festivals, no matter how big or small they are, has in spades. Plus, you get to meet authors, listen to readings, buy books, and get your books signed. Did I mention there are books there? Check out what these four Southern book festivals have to offer in 2014:

Alabama Book FestivalAlabama Book Festival  Saturday, April 19, 2014 – for its 9th year, it will be held in Montgomery, AL’s, beautiful Old Alabama Town . It’s a wonderful venue, with walking paths between period buildings filled with authors giving talks and books to be bought. The Alabama Book Festival also has a great Children’s area with costumed characters and free books for kids. All those front porches in Old Alabama Town also mean that you never have to fear the rain as there’s always a place to gain cover.

Decatur Book FestivalDecatur Book Festival August 29th – August 31st, 2014 – this is a pretty large event, in Decatur, GA, and worth making the trip, if you don’t mind crowds. They have yet to publish a schedule or list of authors who will be attending, but they always have a list of big names that are fun to see (and have sign copies of your books!).

Southern Festival of BooksSouthern Festival of Books October 10th – October 12th, 2014 – this is another big event, in Nashville, TN. They always have 250+ authors, plus the added bonus of hosting a special venue for readings, literary performances and music (hey, it’s Nashville). I’ve heard that the hotel rooms are already all booked up. But they’re also planning an Authors in the Round Dinner, where you can buy a ticket to eat and chat with 40 visiting authors. That sounds kind of neat.

Mid-South Book FestivalMid-South Book Festival September 27th, 2014 – this one is a bit of a dark horse… a start up… a black swan, maybe? Held in Memphis, TN, this will be the inaugural year for Literacy Mid-South’s new book festival.  I don’t know what to expect, but I’m excited, because the folks organizing sure seem excited. It’s 2014, everyone should be in start-up mode, right!? I can’t wait to see what these folks put together to promote books and a life-long love of reading.

Book Talk, library, On the Web

Largest Photo Is of the Inside of a Library

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One of the largest indoor photos ever posted online comes in at over 40 gigapixels and is a fly-around-the-room tour of a library! How awesome is this place?

strahov library largest photo

This single image is made up of more than 3,000 images stitched together. If they were printed out the site claims the photo would be 78 feet long!

strahov largest library photo

This gargantuan gigapixel image has been online since 2011, showing the world the largest and smallest details of the Strahov Library. The Strahov Llibrary is in Prague inside the Strahov Monastery.

largest photo of a library

I could just watch this image all day checking out all of the spines in such detail. What an amazing library. This 40 gigapixel image is very cool, but I bet this place is something else when seen in person.

Book Talk

New Site Focuses on Business Books

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Simon & Schuster has launched 250words.com, which professes to be a “publisher agnostic” site focused on business books.

Staffed by five folks from with in S&S’s ranks, they report they will deliver daily a short single 250-word single post sharing some business wisdom or inspiration gleaned from a business book.

250words.com bookshelf

At launch, the seem to already have dozens of posts written. No doubt there will be no shortage of topics and titles to discuss. It’s amazing how many business books get published every year.

This year book publishers are aggressively going after “verticals” or “niches” or “silos” or “walled gardens”, etc. This is a tactic to answer the way people search and buy books these days. It’s something that has been refined by tor.com (one of my favorites) and narnia.com, plus a few others.

I’m anxious to see what the folks at Simon & Schuster make of 250words.com. They are also on Twitter and Facebook, if you want to check them out there.

If 250words.com doesn’t fit the bill for you, I would recommend you check out:

  1. 800CEOread – a blog about business books that I really enjoy. It’s certainly one of the most consistent ones out there
  2. Todd Sattersten – he’s a consultant for writers of business books, but his posts and twitter feed are always on my “to read” list
Book Column, Book Talk, On the Web

Google Explore For Book Lovers

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Last week Google launched a new search feature for their Google+ social network. Basically, it adds groupings, tags, etc. and makes the network all searchable so that you can skim through all of the content generated on Google+.

So what’s the first thing I did? I did a few simple searches through Google Explore to see if I could find any books and book-related content that was of interest. I really wasn’t looking for people “curating” (like pinterest or tumblr), but for real content that harkened back to the days of book blog rings and such.

So I clicked on the “Explore” button up top…

google explore book search

and searched for “Books”. I was thankful for the Google Explore displayed all of the books-related tags that I could follow and check out.

google explore books

Early on I found these not worth following because of all the ads, spam and sales pitches:

  • #free
  • #eBooks
  • #kindle
  • #kindlebooks
  • #author

The rabbit holes I really enjoyed falling down through Google Explore were:

  • #Reading
  • #BookReview
  • #AuthorInterview
  • #BookLovers (the best of the bunch)

google explore book lovers

As you can see, once you click on #BookLovers you’re presented with a whole new slate of sub-categories and tags to click through. As new as the feature is (and as under-used as Google+ is) it’s not hard to quickly separate the signal from the noise and find folks worth following. From there it’s a single-click to add them to a new (or old) circle to keep up with them.

When I next have a few free moments I’m going to click around with category, subject and book genre searches. Hopefully those will yield more leads to books worth reading. So check it out and let me know if you find any bookish folks worth following.