October 17, 2011

News Roundup – the twitter feed edition

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Book Trade, News | Tags: , , , , , |
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MY APOLOGIES to those readers who’ve missed the News Roundups over the last few weeks: life, as they say. The good news is that this trade of ours is at least as busy as I am, with as much going on as ever. Don’t forget, you can pick up on news as it emerges via the UKCBD twitter feed, which I’m using this time around, supplemented by my personal feed, Eddie Olliffe, Melanie Carroll and SPCK Publishing to liven things up a little. If you’d like to see your tweets featured here next time around, give me a nudge by mentioning @notbovvered or @ukcbd in any tweet you’d like me to highlight.

Whilst we’re talking social media, make sure you don’t miss the Christian Authors, Booksellers and Publishers facebook group: it’s a closed group, intentionally so, a space for anyone involved in the Christian book trade to meet online but away from the public eye, to exchange ideas and information and offer one another mutual support. Feel free to drop in and join the conversation — or start one!

Over to twitter: most recent first…
 

April 25, 2009

The Lost Symbol and the Lost Hashtag #LBF09 #LBF

Posted by Phil Groom under Book Trade Ramblings | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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It’s a tricky business getting to grips with new media, especially when you’re dealing with a two thousand year old story — always assuming, of course, that Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol, actually does take up the plot where The Da Vinci Code left off rather than lose it completely.

twitterBut this post isn’t about Dan Brown’s lost symbol: it’s about the book trade’s lost opportunity at this year’s London Book Fair — about twitter and the humble hashtag. It’s about a failure to seize the day or, more precisely, the twittersphere — the dynamic, live and interactive world of millions of prospective book buyers. Not, I hasten to add, to lay accusations or blame at anyone’s feet, but rather to help us think ahead, to help us find a way to do better next time and in other places.

“What’s a hashtag?” you ask. Easy: it’s a word with a # in front of it. Like this: #LBF; or this: #LBF09; or even this: #LIBF. Essentially it’s a key word chosen or created to link related tweets, which allows people to track a particular topic; and if everyone tweeting that topic uses it, it takes off, to become a trending topic: a topic in twitter’s top 10. Then more people join the conversation and so it grows. Used intelligently, a hashtag is one of the most powerful tools in a new media maven’s marketing toolbox. Allow Mari Smith [1] to explain:

Dan Brown enters the story on Monday, 20th April, the first day of the fair. Or rather, he should have entered the story. According to this week’s Bookseller (lead news story, p.3), the Random House announcement of a publication date for his Da Vinci Code sequel The Lost Symbol was Monday’s “main talking point at the first day of the London Book Fair.”

Except it wasn’t: I know, because I was there, listening and talking and tweeting my way around the place, and the first I heard of it was when I received my copy of the Bookseller on Friday.

I admit that I was there with my own agenda as a Christian bookseller: but how is it possible that an announcement of what is more or less guaranteed to be the biggest publishing event of 2009 — impacting both the mainstream and Christian marketplace — could simply pass me by? My mistake, it seems: I was interested in this year’s London Book Fair, so I was tracking #LBF09 rather than the generic #LBF, and I was following @theBookseller as my source of news.

But the announcement entered the twittersphere via @PublishersLunch at 4pm under #LBF and whilst a few people RT’d (retweeted) it, the Bookseller’s twitter announcement didn’t appear until 5.26pm — and was posted with neither a hashtag nor any other mention of the Fair (also strange: the Bookseller’s news report of the announcement doesn’t mention LBF either). 

To quote @andrewspong: 

It says a lot about an industry when an event can’t decide what its hashtag is: #LBF #LBF09 #LIBF. Hint: next year, use #LBF10

… and what it says, it seems to me, is that the book trade — booksellers, publishers and marketeers alike — simply doesn’t get twitter yet. 

Wakey wakey @theBookseller!! And wakey wakey LBF and the wider book trade.

[1] Mari’s video discovered via Jon Reed’s hashtags and gladrags (@publishingtalk). Thanks Jon — even if you did suggest the ‘wrong’ hashtags!!

 

March 31, 2009

Tweet Tweet: Who’s Twittering in the Christian Book Trade?

Posted by Phil Groom under Bookshop Ramblings, Christian Bookshops, Christian Publishers | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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twitter

Last Updated December 1, 2010

Twitter. It seems you can’t turn on the TV or radio, pick up a paper or open a magazine without someone twittering on about twitter. Even April’s Christian Marketplace, p.39; but I’m to blame for that one.

So what’s it all about? What’s the point? Two words: twitter connects. Bookseller to bookseller: bookseller to customer: bookseller to publisher and supplier: bookseller to author; and vice-versa, as well as every other possible which way. It connects us professionally but, perhaps more importantly, as people. So let’s make it three words: twitter connects people; and people, surely, is what this trade of ours is ultimately about.

So who amongst us is twittering? Here’s a list of those I know of so far, with a few from beyond the Christian trade thrown in for good measure — because we wouldn’t want to be just talking to ourselves, would we? Since UKCBD is a UK focused project, I’m initially restricting this list to UK users or those with a clear UK crossover. Other users are very welcome to comment, of course!

Index: Bookshops and Booksellers | Authors | Publishers and Suppliers | Others


Bookshops and Booksellers (A-Z by Shop Name/Surname)


Authors (A-Z by Surname)
With links to authors’ blogs and UKCBD Reviews where available.


Publishers and Suppliers (A-Z by Company/Surname)


Others

Index: Bookshops and Booksellers | Authors | Publishers and Suppliers | Others

If you’re on twitter, have some sort of connection to the UK Christian book trade and would like to be added to this list, please leave a comment on this post and/or follow/tweet me @notbovvered and I’ll gladly add you.

For a list of who’s twittering in the wider book trade, check out @jennifertribe‘s  Directory of Book Trade People on Twitter; and be sure to visit the christianbookshopbods twibe and blog set up by @unicorntreebks.

If you’re not on twitter and can’t quite figure it out, check out these posts from a couple of guys who’ve been at it for longer than me:

If you’re not convinced after reading those, then I guess twitter really is not for you. No worries: the world will keep on turning.

Where Next?

 

February 6, 2009

Making the News, Getting Interactive?

Posted by Phil Groom under Bookshop Ramblings | Tags: , , , |
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UK Christian Bookshops DirectoryAre you? Or to be more precise, is your shop? Making the news and/or getting interactive, that is?

As I’ve been ploughing (almost literally, given the weather recently) my way through the UKCBD database updates, I’ve come across several shops which have made the news in one way or another or have added blogs and facebook profiles to their online presence.

I’m adding these to shops’ directory entries as an extra enhancement when I find them, but why leave it to chance? I know it’s Darwin’s 200th anniversary this year and all that, but whatever your beliefs about evolution/creation, one thing you can be sure of is that your online presence will evolve one way or another — either creatively as you take control of it or chaotically as you leave it to chance and the search engines…

So if you’ve made the news, locally or nationally, or if you’ve set up a blog or created a facebook, other social network or twitter profile for your shop, please let me know and I’ll add it to your UKCBD entry.

I’ve also tweaked the database so that each entry updated since January 31st 2009 now includes its modification date in the main directory as well as in the corresponding standalone entry: from now on you’ll know exactly how up to date (or out of date!) every entry is. No date on an entry means that it hasn’t been updated since Jan 31st… 

Now, get on out there and build yourself a snowman…

(and if you’re incurably curious, you’ll find me twittering here: twitter.com/notbovvered)

 

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