Organizing geographically -- for a purpose

[Ann Kingman]

I've been thinking that it would be nice to have a directory or something of book bloggers by location (city, state, country, province, whatever). This idea first came to me when I attended the Connecticut Book Awards for work, and discovered that each U.S. state has a Center For the Book, as part of the National Center for the Book affiliated with the US Library of Congress. The people that were at the awards all worked in the book industry or were authors who were nominated for awards. I mentioned this to a bookseller, and she told me that there were little resources to promote the Center for the Book.

If book bloggers in a state got together and worked with their Center for the Book, I think we could at least raise awareness of what these Centers do, and highlight the awards.

Then I started thinking about some other reasons to organize by area:

1) partner with local booksellers for various things

2) Get on publishers' press lists for galleys that are local to an area

3) Receive notification of author events, possibly allowing author access for interviews, etc.

A few of us (booksellers, publisher people and bloggers) were talking this over on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, and we think there might be some real possibility. I'd like to know what you think:

1) is this a good idea?
2) How can we best organize this?
3) What other things would be enhanced by having a community of bloggers organized geographically?
3) What would be potential pitfalls to think about in advance (i.e., if you have Amazon links on your blog, a local independent bookstore might have an issue with that).

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Peter N. Jones]

I'd love to be part of this. We can also share ideas on blogging and how to get galleys and the like.

I'm in Colorado; are there any other Rocky Mountain bloggers here?

__________________________________________________
Director: Bauu Institute and Press
Publisher: Interesting New Books and Author Interviews
Editor: Indigenous Peoples News from Around the World
Editor: Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

[Amber Stults]

Another way to keep a little bit of anonymity for those who wish is to just list the state for the location. That may not work well for Canadian reviewers or other countries. (Some of the those Canadian provinces are big!)

A result of such a directory could be museums/libraries/book sellers notifying nearby bloggers of an author's local connection or publishers could contact bloggers in areas where their books are not selling as well as they would like. I'm located in Ohio and most of my blog visitors are from my home state. :)

[Ann Kingman]

Amber, thanks -- that's a good idea, depending on the size of the state.

I'm happy that you shared the fact that most of your blog readers are from your home state. I wondered if that might be the case. Ours seem to always be from Kuala Lumpur or Australia ;)

I'm still working on this -- hung up on the tech piece and, oh yeah, my day job. But I think it is a worthwhile project to pursue.

[Maw Books]

After your comment, I was curious to see how many come from my home state.

My home state comes in #7 as the most visitors to my blog. Within my home state, my particular city (I'm thinking my neighbors!) comes in 1st. In the past year, that is almost 7,000 visitors via 103 cities and 3.14% of my total traffic. For this area, I think 7,000 is significant. I haven't blogged about a lot of local stuff, but this year I want to highlight more bookstores, book signings, author events and panels. I'd be curious to see how that changes things up.

[drey]

I think this is a wonderful idea. I was just wondering how to promote the events that take place at my local library, and a local bloggers group could help there. Also, how to promote reading, in general...

I recently started a group here for Wisconsin bloggers, but so far I think it's still just me. Depending on how many people there are, organizing by something other than state, but not down to the city level (for those who want to remain more anonymous...

& Ann - I'm from K.L.! =)

[chrisbookarama]

Great idea! I know I'd love to review and feature more authors from my local area.

Christina

[Callista]

I think this is a wonderful idea. I've been reading about the Utah Book Bloggers who all got together and I'm jealous. I've been trying to find book bloggers in Canada and especially in Ontario (where I live) but it's hard since they don't all list where they live.

As amy says not everyone would want to be listed of course, or at least listed all the way down to city, You'd need a way to be able to be listed in province or state only and not city. So since I live at as Windsor, Ontario, Canada, I would be listed under all three or if I only wanted to, under 2 or 1.

[Dave Rosenthal]

Ann, great idea. I was trying to figure out a way to let bloggers in the mid-Atlantic area know about the CityLit Festival on April 18 at Baltimore's main library. Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. is the featured speaker at what always is a great event.
It would be great to meet up with fellow bloggers there -- I'll buy the first round of drinks! If you get this database up and running in time, I'll make use of it. In the meantime, anyone who's reading, consider yourself invited and let me know if you can make it.
Details of the festival are at http://www.citylitproject.org/index.php?q=node/251

[Ann Kingman]

Thanks, Dave. Sounds like a fantastic event, and this might be the impetus I need to sit down and figure out how to do this. This is exactly the type of thing that I had in mind when I had the idea.