CHICAGO — The Book Report Network on Friday said the company plans to expand its interactive book content and community site to include two new websites that further marry readers and authors.
Book Report Network CEO Carol Fitzgerald announced at the Book Expo America held here that ReadingGroupGuides.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com will join the Network.
“As publishing companies rush to get become digital, there isn’t enough emphasis on our readers, but there should be,” said Steven Cohen, chief financial officer of St. Martins Press. Any innovations in this area are much needed, he added.
Many of the discussion at BEA workshops focused on the idea that communities — among readers and between readers and authors — will become ever more important as bookselling on the Web continues.
“Fitzgerald’s network is poised to become the online version of People Magazine for books and authors with content engaging a wide range of readers — something our industry is missing,” said literary agent Loretta Barrett.
The Book Report Network currently offers interactive magazine content for eight online sites (including bookreporter.com, teenreads.com, and kidsreads.com) as well as four sites on AOL. These sites boast over 2.5 million impressions and attract around 500,000 dedicated book lovers a month.
With archives of over 4,000 reviews and hundreds of author interviews, at least five to seven new book reviews are posted at Bookreporter.com weekly and blurbs of those reviews are starting to show up on book covers including new releases from Pocket Books, Bantam, and Doubleday.
Reading Group Guides debuted this week with several titles from Vintage Books, a division of Random House. Jessica Willett, manager of promotion and new media at Vintage said that reading groups are a huge focus for the paperback imprint.
“We devote a lot of time and energy to our guides because we’ve found the word of mouth these groups generate is invaluable to us and Fitzgerald’s site reaches the audience we are looking for.”
More than 600 free guides, provided by various publishers, will be available on the Reading Group Guide site by late June. Editorial features include practical information about forming and running a reading group, articles about offbeat reading group ideas, and interviews with various groups, which are updated monthly by the site’s editor, Liz Keuffer.
The first interview is with a group of women in Germany, who have been meeting for over 30 years.
“Carol Fitzgerald is the only one I know who is really looking into that black hole we are all facing on the net of how to reach readers,” said Ina Gottinger of Mightywords.com.
Literary agent Susan Schulman said authors must realize they have to promote themselves online via website development and marketing.
“Publishing houses just don’t have the time or the manpower to do the job that needs to be done for each and every author,” she added.
“It’s no secret that the way to build readership for an author is to establish a direct and meaningful relationship with potential fans,” said Roger Cooper, formerly vice president and editorial director of Doubleday Direct, and now a consultant of editorial strategic alliances for iPublish, Time Warner Trade Publishing’s new electronic publishing division.
Cooper said that Fitzgerald is definitely someone to keep an eye on.
“She has three important things to offer — an abiding passion for writers and writing, a dedicated and fiercely loyal readership, and a product whose integrity is paramount to her and her readers.”
Authors ican get their website development done by Authorsontheweb.com at charter prices as low as $300 for the set-up fee plus a $50 a month maintenance fee.
