• 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

Wrox author

If you are a programmer who is not reading Scott’s blog you are missing out on a great resource.

“What’s Twitter?”
“What a waste of time.”
“Why does anyone care about what you have to say about these meetings?”

You may have had similar experiences in trying to explain a new technology, social networking, Twitter specifically, or quantum physics, for example.

The discussion really boiled down to “What is the value in a tool like Twitter?” I’m always frustrated when people fail to see the value in new technologies or the revolution occurring right in front of our faces – the use of social media, social networks, web working and so on. Some of this frustration probably stems from my own enthusiasm for such tools, but I’ll bet I am not alone.

1. Twitter is another tool I use to communicate. Not everyone can stop what they are doing to speak on the phone, or even find the time to schedule a call. Not everyone gets to their email right away. IM is blocked in some companies. Etc.
2. Twitter is a tool I use to find new topics. I find it to be an interesting look at the things people do with technology, and a way to discover new tools and approaches I had not yet found myself.
3. Twitter is fast becoming the quickest way to reach some of my authors. At least one has indicated she prefers to be connected via twitter.
4. Twitter is where conversation is happening, in real time, around the globe. I have had several interesting discussions with not only my authors, but authors from other publishers via twitter.
5. For every 100 “Walking my dog.” tweets (and there a lots of those) there is 1-2 real golden nuggets that lead to a new author, a new book, a new topic to investigate.
6. I am approaching 100 “followers” on Twitter – people who read what I say. 100 is not a lot, but as that number grows what a great platform for me to talk about my books, my authors, and my company.

In the end, Twitter is just another tool. It’s value is in how you use it.

Photo credit:  Safanna

Based on the schedules that the publishing industry lives on, we need to complete a draft of Groundswell very soon. Even so, I believe we are delivering material with a high degree of quality. I thought I’d take a moment to talk about how writing a book is different now — better, faster, more global, more collaborative — and the technologies I use that make this all possible.

Perhaps its the type of publishing I do, but I have found the tools Josh describes to be pretty common for my Authors.  However, for other types of books I can imagine some of these online tools feel pretty revolutionary.

Regardless, Josh correctly points out the shift to online collaboration and research tools for writing.  In my program I try to keep things fairly flexible in allowing authors to use a variety of tools – from wikis, to subversion to writing entire books online.

(Photo Credit: Monceau)