Category Archives: Events

Birmingham, Book Talk, Bookstores, Events, library, News, On the Web

Four Bookish Dealings of a Timely Nature

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I just wanted to take a moment to make sure that some of these things are on your radar, as they all have deadlines and dates attached to them. I think it would be fun if everyone promoted and participated in these events! Let us know of anything else cool going on that we could follow.

This week (September 14-18) has been Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Many, many cool blogs have been mentioned and awarded. Congrats to all who participated and won! My RSS reader overfloweth now. Too many great new blogs to keep up with

Publishers Weekly has declared November 7th as the first annual National Bookstore Day. They promise lots of industry coverage and hometown events are in the works. So I’ll pass along any bookstore specific events I hear about here in Birmingham.

Also, head over to Fictional Stimulus site. It’s a new reading-online experiment that kicks off on September 22nd. I honestly have no idea what is in store there, but I’m excited. Basically, you sign up and they send you 12 emails over four weeks which are designed to dole out “introductory tasters” for digital reading. So if you’re curious about the future of reading, books and publishing, you should check it out. It’s a ning site, so let me know when you get your profile set and we can connect. I do hope it’s good. Lots of potential there!

You have just 13 more days to take advantage of the JCLC’s Food for Fines program. That is, for every canned food item you donate to the library, one dollar will be subtracted from your ‘overdue materials’ fines (up to $10). I think all Jefferson County library locations are accepting the can goods donations. It runs through the end of September.

Birmingham, Events, library

Books and Beer!? Does it get any better?

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Attention Birmingham, the Emmet O’Neal Library is hosting a sudsy summer benefit on July 30th. It’s a gourmet beer tasting (now possible thanks to FTH). they’re calling Books and Brews. You’ll need a membership to get in. They are $30 a pop and are available at the door. Though they’re saying only 250 memberships are available.

The event kicks off at 6pm and runs until 8:30pm.

Book Talk, Events, Media, News, Publishers

Where were the publishers?

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I wasn’t able to go to BEA this year, so my online stalking of every attendee and panel confernce has been relentless. So far lots of slides and podcasts and enough video to keep me from running down the street mad. But one trend I started noticing a few weeks ago were the lack of publishers sitting in on all the great panel discussions. With panels titled: The Concierge and the Bouncer: The End of the Supply Chain and the Beginning of the True Book Culture and even Jumping Off a Cliff: How Publishers Can Succeed Online, one would think a publisher would be on stage… but no. Lots of authors and technology commentary, but not a lot about workflows and editorial processes that actually get a finished product in front of customers.

So I was glad to see Yen’s post about this today and even more excited to see some of the groups online that she highlighted. I’m familiar with all she mentioned and would only add a few of the discussions over at the Book Blogs ning site and the discussions at O’Reilly’s TOC community (also a ning site). And if you’re on Twitter the #followreader back-and-forth every Thursday are fantastic!

Someone on Twitter also said that they left BEA more pumped than ever, which is great news. Publishers need to adapt quickly if want to be able to continue adding value to an author’s work. And industry events like BEA and TOC are just the places to hear how… if the right people get to speak.

Authors, Book Talk, Events, News, On the Web

For those of us not at BEA

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Yes, once again, it’s that time of year and BEA is in full swing up nawth in New York. And once again I’m down south… not at BEA. But the bourbon is cheaper here and I didn’t have to stress over what books to pack as my “trip books”, so I guess I have that going for me. Well that and BookTV, which has a great line up of live and delayed BEA coverage all weekend long. So check out the schedule to see what you can see. One note, I see that Pat Conroy was in the lineup on an author panel, but today had to pull-out due to his still recovering from surgery.