Issue 89 - Book Talk
500 Words is a publication of FutureX.Studio.
Hello, and welcome to 500 Words.
Not only are people buying more books, but they are also talking about them more often, in more venues. BookTok helped sell about 20 million books in 2021, more than 2.4% of book sales for that year. The #booktok hashtag has more than 200 billion views on TikTok, which is like saying every person in the world has viewed the hashtag 25 times.
Confession: I've never looked at that hashtag in its home environment, on TikTok. I'm not interested in another blippy platform. I'm looking instead for longform conversations about books. Conversations like that are getting easy to find.
Micro.blog, a microblogging platform originally launched on Kickstarter in 2017, has an excellent app called Epilogue. Pop in the title of a book you're reading or want to read, and Epilogue makes a microblog entry about it that you can post. It also keeps track of all the books you're reading so that you can impress your friends with all the books that you've read.
In 2013, after Amazon bought Goodreads for about $150 million, many readers thought it would be the end for Goodreads. The design was cluttered, and Amazon would only make it worse with ads. Maybe Amazon would even shut it down.
After all, Amazon bought the immensely useful Book Depository, a source of low-cost and out of print books and then closed it. (The site now redirects to Amazon, which is cruel.) But it turns out that Goodreads is too valuable a data source for Amazon. It is a lively platform, with conversations about every book you can possibly imagine, loads of reviews from everyday folks and professional reviewers, book clubs by the dozen, and book lists to browse.
It's still a horrible UX.
In reaction to all the design clutter on Goodreads, competitors sprouted up, including the well-designed Literal and a platform calledThe StoryGraph. Literal is an enjoyable way to discover and discuss books, and share reviews. The StoryGraph brings a techy flair to your reading list, using AI to analyze what you like to read, suggesting new books to try, and even telling you what kind of reader you are.
CLIMATE WEEK IN LA
It's Climate Week in LA this week, and as part of it, I joined a book club for climate fiction. I didn't know any club like that existed, but there it was. We're discussing The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson.
And to round out the book news for today, even the place where I buy my coffee and tea has a book discussion group. Every Tuesday night at LAMILL, in Silverlake (Los Angeles), 35 book lovers gather to read together for three hours, and at the end of the night, an author gives a talk.
READY TO LAUNCH: THE FUTURE LAB PODCAST
Launching on Tuesday next week: THE FUTURE LAB PODCAST. This season will be about how the stories we tell today help shape the future. For Episode 1, I'll interview Matt Gemmell, a writer of thrillers who hails from Edinburgh. (You'll like his accent.) Episode 2 features an interview with Tory Stephens, who works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager. I've got interviews lined up with authors, publishers, and editors.
BLURBOMATIC
I had the idea for something called BLURBOMATIC a few years ago. Now it's live. Every month, I gather reviews of recommended books and also audio recordings of authors reading their work. BLURBOMATIC helps you answer the question, “What should I read next?”
Thanks for reading and listening,
Lee
SOURCES
BookTok Statistics — WordsRated
BookTok Is Turning the Page to a New Publishing Era
The Rise of BookTok: How TikTok Transformed Publishing
Who Owns Goodreads?
Everything Owned by Amazon
IndieWeb entry — Micro.blog
Lee Schneider's Bookshelf on Micro.blog
The StoryGraph
Literal
Better World Books
The Future Lab with Lee Schneider
Blurbomatic
This is a weekly letter about indie publishing from Lee Schneider. Author of the novels SURRENDER, RESIST and the forthcoming LIBERATION. Creator of the audio dramas MISSION OF THE LUNAR SPARROW, YOUR PERFORMANCE REVIEW, and PRIVACY POD. Working on many things. Nice to see you here.