Chris Webb

Social Networking site Mashable has has assembled a new collection – Books Toolbox: 50 Sites for Book Lovers. Among some familiar sites such as Amazon and LibraryThing, you will find many others that you probably have never heard of. Although many of them simply seem to be clones of each other, there are a few gems. Some I find interesting:

• TitleZ
• What Should I Read Next?
• MixBook

I fairly sure that these 50 are the short list. What this means, of course is that book readers are alive and kickin’ despite the rumors of their death (3 out of 4 Americans read books) and like many others they are forming networks and relationships online. This is dead obvious to those of us involved the social networking, but as publishers we still need to understand how to connect with these groups without resorting to what I’ll call “traditional” PR and marketing efforts.

Some publishers are already engaging these groups. If you are a member of one of these book networks, what have you observed with respect to publishers being involved?

Image: Amaztype