Chew & Digest Books

A couple of weeks ago The Book Lady’s Blog featured a post on a feature of Booktour.com called Pressfinder. The concept is grand and I thought that since my readers might have missed it or, horror of horrors, not subscribe to Rebecca, I would talk Kevin into telling us a bit about it.

You have the floor Kevin….

My name’s Kevin and I run a company called BookTour.com. We have a tool calledPressfinder, which is a database enabling authors and media makers who care about books to find one another. If you’re a book blogger, I’m assuming “media makers” includes you.

PressFinder’s a pretty simple idea. A big pile of names, titles and email addresses of folks in the literary media, sorted and searchable by medium and location. A typical scenario where authors and their publishers use Pressfinder might be…

“My book came out earlier this summer and I’m visiting my sister in Chicago next weekend. I’d sure love to have coffee with some local book bloggers while I’m in town. Who might be interested?”

Same scenario for a bookblogger…

“I live in the Chicago area and just started publishing my blog ‘Literary Fiction and Strawberry Jam: For those who love books and breakfast, often together. I’d like to start interviewing authors when they come through town. How can I know what writers will be in Chicago when and if like to be interviewed?”

In both cases, if that blogger is listed on Pressfinder, their blog will appear in  a search on “Chicago” and “Book Bloggers” (Pressfinder has a dedicated section for them).  Within their listing, a blogger may indicate what sorts of books turn them on, how they like to be contacted, by whom, etc.?

Authors and publishers can search Pressfinder free three times. After that, it costs 5$ a month or 50$ a year. If you’re a listed media contact in Pressfinder, you may use it all you want for free.

Signing up as a blogger is easy.

1. Go to Pressfinder’s homepage. See that big orange button mid-page that says “Click to Add a Contact” Click it.

3. Fill in the blanks (the “notes” section is a good place to mention a little about your blog, the kind of books you like and the kind of author’s you’d like to interview/feature.) Then click the “Save Changes” orange button.

And you’re done! Your blog is officially listed in Pressfinder. To edit your listing, click the “edit contact” inside your listing’s box.

Pressfinder’s been around for just a few months and I’ve already been asked several times why we built it. Truth is, There are a ton of authors with books (good ones) to promote and only so many inches in the New York Times and only so many guest spots on The Colbert Report. Major media outlets–understaffed and bombarded–increasingly rely on smaller media–book bloggers, Indiebound newsletters, the literary minded on twitter–to gauge what books are gathering steam in the culture. An author’s appearance on “Fresh Air” is not their book’s birth in the marketplace  but its bar mitzvah. That book has probably already had its first “big break” by getting handsold, physically and digitally, by the readers of this blog and writers like my humble hostess. And if you’re a book blogger, someone like you.

Thanks Kevin for stopping by creating a very useful site for authors and book bloggers.

When I added Chew & Digest Books, there was not one other listing for my area and I know of at least 4. What are ya’ll waiting for?