Monday, February 13, 2012

How I Got Into Publishing, B&N vs Amazon, and Pinterest!

As I mentioned last week, the CBC Diversity Committee blog is up and running. I'll be posting again this week at some point, but last week I posted about "How I Got Into Publishing," check it out here. As Editor Nancy Mercado said on Twitter, it seems that the path to publishing lies in bookselling, as that is how both of us got our start. See Nancy's post here. Coincidentally, we were both booksellers at B&N. I've said on this blog before that I'll always have a soft spot for B&N because I worked there, even when B&N was demonized for putting independent bookstores out of business. It's strange to see B&N depicted as the "good guy" by most in the battle against "evil Amazon." You probably all saw the news from a week or so ago that Amazon made a deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to print books from their publishing arm, and bookstores, including B&N, all announcing that they will not carry those books. For an independent bookseller's perspective, check out Josie Leavitt's post here.

Truthfully (as I've said before on this blog), for the sake of publishing, and books, and the market, I hope that all of these retailers will continue to coexist and thrive, but these are strange times indeed.

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In other news, it's seemed that Pinterest has become my new social networking obsession. I joined last week, and already have a few boards up, including one for the Books I've Edited. I love Laini Taylor's board for Daughter of Smoke & Bone. And apropos of the CBC Diversity Committee, check out my fellow committee member Stacy Whitman's many boards of diverse children's books. It will be interesting to see if Pinterest sticks around, and how people use it. I'm also using it to tag recipes, products, and wedding stuff. Are any of you on Pinterest? Do you find it useful?




1 comment:

Tina Cho said...

I use Pinterest and thought how great it would be to market your book here. Your followers will see it and could repin, etc...

It'll come in handy some day when I have my own picture book :)