PublishersLunch Bookateria


I've followed the trade e-newsletter Publishers Lunch for years. It's a free daily e-newsletter sent out by Publishers Marketplace - a paid online resource of industry folks.
     In Publishers Lunch, they send out daily listings of book sales in various genres, often mentioning the purchasing editor, selling agent and price range. Each listing gives a quick blurb about the book (an elevator pitch, if you will). It's a great resource for studying the children's book biz, the key players in it, and how a good pitch sounds.
     Of course, a lot of those blurbs make you want to rush out to buy the book - which you could never do before today.
     I'm not sure how they'll work out the timing, as most announcements are made at the time of sale, not release - which can be months to years apart. But Random House saw an opportunity to use Publisher's Lunch already established market as a platform to offer books via indie-booksellers (Indiebound), publishing houses (not just Random House), etc. as a potential feel-good competitor to Amazon. They're trying to gain leverage and I think they might be onto something.
     Per their site:
     “[Bookateria will] provide the industry with a “store neutral” catalog of book product pages for linking as well as research/reference, as well an open place to comment on books … Publishers Lunch Bookateria also provides a complete private environment for searching books."
     Click the logo to go visit and look around. They seem to have brought together several different things which were never in one place before (award lists, store lists, latest releases, book sales, etc.). They even mention a social aspect - I'm wondering if it will be like Goodreads?
     They have most (not all) of my books in their system - so I think I'll be promoting sales through Bookateria now too. :)

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