Author Author

This will be the last Author Author post. As of today, our new site, The Book Studio, has launched. 

It’s all good news, really! Author Author was a blog-with-benefits; The Book Studio is a true destination, including search capability, Twitter feeds, and all-new author interview videos.

I’d like to take a moment to tell you about those videos. Our previous interview setup was produced in a Flash studio, meaning we had just one camera. Our new videos, like this one with bestselling thriller author Linda Fairstein, are taped on a fully staffed set, the same one where Gwen Ifill tapes “Washington Week.” The WETA Studio crew deserves a big shout-out for making our brand-new videos a success — thank you to Charlies, Mary Frances, Glenda, Matt, Dar, Deborah, and many others (please forgive me for not knowing everyone’s names) for all of the work you do.

I’d also like to take a moment before we say good-bye to Author, Author! and thank my team: the WETA.org Office of Digital Media (Pam, Mark, Jess, Elizabeth), WETA supporters (including, but not limited to, Joe, Polly, Dalton, Mary, Mary Kay, Anne, and Michael), and Suzanne, my tireless and committed and supersmart talent booker and associate. You all, as they say, ROCK. I’m privileged to be able to work with you on this new iteration of our project.

All of our Author Author videos will be available here: http://www.thebookstudio.com/video, so you won’t have to say goodbye to our original content — just the old name!

I look forward to welcoming all of our previous readers to The Book Studio. As always, we welcome your comments, suggestions, and feedback of all kinds. Thank you for helping us to keep book content and media alive here at WETA.org!

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Yes, according to various pundits, blogs are So 2005. Or even So Over. I say nay. I don’t think blogs are dead, but blogs are changing — just like everything else in the media. 

It used to be that a “web log” (for those who still don’t know that that’s where the word “blog” comes from; believe me, there are more of you than you think, and there’s no shame in not knowing!) was one person’s ramblings (at AOL, they began as “AOL Journals,” for example). It was a functional form, meant to allow a web user to capture their daily ramblings online. Early blogs — from those that quickly died natural deaths on to those that still exist today, like the hugely popular Dooce — were about one person’s voice and consciousness. 

The good ones (the aforementioned Dooce; wish she would write more and fiddle with her design less for example) work like neverending stories. Perhaps a better comparison would be to serialized novels in the Dickensian vein, or early radio soap operas. What will So-and-so do next? Did that really happen? What a great anecdote! Etc.

Group blogs came along circa 2006 (Weblogs Inc., with its popular Slashfood, was early in the game, although of course Gawker had been making progress in that vein already), and quickly became like fun little tabloids, filled with specialized departments, recurring features, and lots and lots of photos. IMHO, the Gawker Empire sites were much better in their older format, where some spots got more real estate than others. The diversity made my click-finger itchy. Now I just scroll past everything.

But a funny thing happened on the way to O’Reilly Conferences. People started to realize something that I’d realized in 2006, when I started the first Blogging Book Club: Blogs are a terrific way to form, shepherd, and grow community. Most devoted blog readers will now tell you that the Comments sections on popular sites like The Huffington Post and Jezebel are more entertaining and informative than the posts they follow. 

Of course, this was when the collective Internets got their collective knickers in a twist about Web 2.0. For those of you who have never heard that term (and why innocent civilians, as opposed to web programmers, should know it is not clear), “Web 2.0″ refers to community-generated content. In other words, the hoi polloi are storming the bastions of the press! 

Thank goodness. I’ve talked often about how everyone needs an editor, and I believe that (NB to my colleagues: Anyone want to edit me? Please?). But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to corral user-generated content so that it’s clear which sections of a site (or blog) are edited by “professionals” (read: Someone who has a stake in the advertising and promotion) and which are contributed to by “amateurs” (read: people who are often much smarter than the “professionals”). 

Tomorrow: What’s Next? Web 3.0?

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Good morning, all! We’re this much closer to the launch of The Book Studio. 

To keep myself out of trouble until the new site is live, I’ve decided to try something Completely Different for a giveaway. I’ve got just three copies of Dara Horn’s new novel All Other Nights available, but instead of having you just leave comments here, I’m going to have you take a walk on the Twitter side if you’d like to nab one of those copies.

The three books will go to three random responses from the first 30 to send me a “tweet.” I certainly understand if you aren’t interested in signing up for Twitter, and I’ll have plenty of “regular” giveaways coming up in the next couple of weeks for my loyal readers. This one is Twitter-specific, however. 

My Twitter “handle” is thebookmaven, and you can find me here: http://www.twitter.com/thebookmaven. Just send me a message (a “tweet”) saying you’d like a chance at All Other Nights. 

Thanks for trying out something new with me!

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Long-time readers can skip most of this post if they like… I’ve been blogging as “The Book Maven” since August 2004, when my then-boss at AOL asked me to start a blog and choose a name for it. At the time, the book of the moment was Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, in which he talks about different kinds of people (e.g., “connectors”) including “mavens.” When this site becomes The Book Studio next week, I’ll still be The Book Maven here, on my more personal blog, and maybe somewhere else, too (must keep you guessing!).

I liked the concept, but I also loved the word. It’s Yiddish, and means (as I’ve mentioned in the past) both “expert” and “freak.” It makes sense. After all, the more specialized one’s knowledge in a single area, the more one tends toward freakishness. In a good way. A bookseller once described me as “the self-titled Book Maven,” which I suppose was meant to be disparaging. How dare I deem myself an “expert?” 

I was thinking more of the “freak” side, you see, when I chose that moniker. 

One of my regular blog entries in all of the places I’ve blogged has been to ask readers “What’s on your nightstand?” I can’t stop it now. As my daughters (AKA “The Mini Mavens”) squawk whenever we try to skip a stop on our annual Cape Cod vacation: “It’s a tradition!” 

Of course, there are new ways to ask people what they’re reading, now. I can ask on Facebook, and this morning, I asked on Twitter and got a slew of replies from the early-morning tweeple (I’ll have to “re-tweet” my question later, for the office Twitterers). But on Twitter, at least, responses are severely limited. I thought I’d ask here, so that anyone can leave a list as long as they like of the book stacks by their beds. 

What’s on your nightstand? I really want to know, as much now as I did nearly five years ago.

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In an exciting announcement, a spokesperson for “Masterpiece” from PBS said that starting next year, the decades-old beloved series will cease covering classic works of literature and instead focus on today’s new classics — graphic novels.

“To tell you the truth, we’re completely bored with the classics,” said Cholmondeley Rodriguez, spokesperson for WHAH, the heretofore unknown PBS station in Poughkeepsie. “All those bonnets, carriages, and British accents? They don’t fit with today’s consumer’s needs.”

What does fit with those needs, Rodriguez says, are graphic novels. “We want to introduce the faster storytelling pace of modern graphic novels. We’re working on a completely authentic version of Watchmen right now. None of that Zack Snyder superficial stuff. We didn’t simply build an Owlmobile; we went back in time to make sure we constructed it only of materials that Alan Moore could have envisioned during the 1980s.”

Projects in development include Hellboy, starring Hugh Laurie; The Dark Tower, starring Colin Firth; and The Sandman, starring Derek Jacoby. All female characters will be portrayed by Helen Mirren. 

There has been much jockeying for the coveted position of “Masterpiece!!! Graphix” host. Rodriguez admits that great consideration was given to Neil Gaiman, but the host will be Michael Palin. “He’s still under contract for an unfinished series about soccer hooliganism and its effects on Cotswolds gardens, so he’s cheap,” says Rodriguez.

Happy April Fool’s Day from Bethanne!

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