There are many advantages of buying books online, including saving time, money and gas. But it also means that you don’t get to head down to your local independent bookstore and spend time chatting with booksellers and other readers. You might miss out on some great recommendations (and not just from those shelves that employees put together touting their favorite publications). Even the larger publishers have noticed that there needs to be a better way for bookish folks to communicate online. And now they have created a brand new website that not only allows readers to connect with each other, but to their favorite authors as well.
Some of the largest book publishers in the world, Simon & Schuster, the Hatchette Book Group and the Penguin Group, have joined forces to create Bookish, a site touted to be the “one-stop, comprehensive online destination designed to connect readers to books and authors.” It’s not a site to buy books, but rather a site designed to help you discover them.
"Bookish was created to serve as a champion of books, writers and, most importantly, readers," Bookish CEO Ardy Khazaei added in a statement. "Ultimately, we seek to expand the overall marketplace for books, and whether a book gets into a reader's hands via Bookish's e-commerce partner or another retailer, everyone — from the publisher, to the retailer, the author and the reader — wins."
The site will feature excerpts, interviews and reviews, and features a cross-promotional deal with USA Today. The site has been in the works for almost two years, and has recently had to tread lightly after the three publishers involved in the creation of the site were involved in a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged price fixing of e-books.
Right now, Bookish features a variety of fun content, ranging from reviews pulled from the humor site The Onion, to interviews with authors like Michael Connelly and excerpts from upcoming works. There is a lot of great material out there for book lovers, but perhaps this site will serve as an aggregator for news and information about books from these large publishers. If it helps get more people reading quality books – and keeps these authors churning out more material – then it will truly be a success.