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.

[Amy]

Yes this is a wonderful idea. I never answered your email, but I'd be happy to include region as part of BBAW registration.

One potential pitfall could be for people who want to remain anonymous?

[Maw Books]

The Utah book bloggers are already organized! We are here on the ning at http://bookblogs.ning.com/group/utahbloggers and we recently had a party together with a special guest author and two booksellers. See it here: http://blog.mawbooks.com/2009/01/12/the-utah-book-bloggers-bash/

It was our first and it was a BLAST! Huge benefit to organize geographically. I'm glad we did.

I'd love to get more involved with some of the things you mentioned.

[S. Krishna]

I think this is a great idea as well.

[Marta Hoelscher]

I'd be willing to help

[Bermudaonion]

I think this is a great idea. I was in our big indie bookstore the other day and asked why they don't update their website. They told me the site is dead and they don't know how to take it down. I've recently discovered that we have another indie store and I plan to check it out tomorrow.

[Kat]

Hi Ann:
I think it's a really great idea. My first response is maybe it'd be good to do the organizing via Facebook somehow. I'm still acquainting myself with FB, but the one thing I know it has going for it is traffic and easy ways for people to connect. The other feature/option that would be wonderful would be a searchable database of bookbloggers by region and interest. (and, i could help w/ getting an app written for this if you wanted to have it available somewhere online).
I know a lot of Arizona book people who could benefit by becoming involved with this sort of "organized" regional book blogging network. Most of them are not bloggers, but should be working to involve bloggers in their publishing outreaches. I also think the ability to see which bloggers are writing about what kind of books locally (breakdown by genre within region) would be invaluable to a lot of regional and niche publishers who are promoting regionally. As a marketeer, the ability to plan and send galleys to bloggers via region and specialty would be a huge boon - and then having an added feature like feedback, planning blog tours, events, etc. = this could be incredibly good for books!
Let me know how I can help!

[S. Krishna]

I think we should shy away from Facebook - I know a lot of people (myself included) who try to keep their blog friends and "real life" friends separate (not that blog friends are any less wonderful than real life ones!)

I think the database idea is a good one!

[Amy]

Yes please don't do it on facebook. I am one of those people who try to keep those two lives separate! A database would work!

[chrisbookarama]

Ditto!

[Nancy]

I think it's a great idea. I remember that discussion and at the time I thought, "I really don't want people in my area to know I blog." That's because I have a tendency to tell stories about my daily life and who knows if I'd end up inadvertantly offending someone. We only have one independent bookstore, very small and with limited hours. I'm not sure I'd do them much good but maybe it would be fun to connect up with booksellers elsewhere in the state. Our biggest city is just 50 miles away.

[Ann Kingman]

I think the anonymity factor is certainly a consideration, and of course, there are degrees of anonymity as well -- if you want to remain incognito on your blog, but if publishers have your name and address, for instance, that's one way to handle it.

It would be nice to have some means of listing the blogs and locations, but having a "contact through site" link to reach indiivdual bloggers without exposing their email addresses. Of course, I'm not a programmer or coder, so I have no idea what is possible.

[Darby Lohrding]

I think this is a wonderful idea!!!
Please keep me updated, I'd like to get to know some of the other bloggers that live around me.
Thanks
Darby