EarlyWord

To begin with, I did not know anything about EarlyWord. Now, barely two weeks after I start using it, I can say it is certainly one of the most valuable resources I discover yet with this training, the other one being Publishers Weekly. First, I signed-up for the weekly newsletter. For the last two Friday, I received the EarlyWord newsletter and at a glance, I can learn about the main events and news from the publisher world. So far, my favorite section is “Ready for Next week” about the most expecting titles in all genres. The format is simple and effective. By clicking on the title, you are redirecting on the Edelweiss website, a cross-publisher catalog service, where you can find anything you need about the author, publisher and press releases. Also on “Ready for Next week”, you can read reviews from different websites and form a pretty good idea about the book.

As a librarian, I wanted to find out who created and keep the website alive. The source of the information is as important as the content, no!!! Well, I could not be more surprised. The founder and editor is Nora Rawlinson. Few clicks later, I realized she used to be the head of collection development here at BCPL from 1979 to 1988 under the directorship of Charles Robinson. She even published the well-known article “Give ‘Em What They Want” (click here to read the article) in reference to the new collection philosophy of those years. Incidentally, we are also using that same title for our new strategic plan X. After a stint as editor for the Library Journal and 12 years as head of Publishers Weekly (two very good sources of library information), she started her own website, EarlyWord.

On the website itself, there is many useful resources. For my previous post, I focused on science-fiction websites and found out that Locus was perhaps the best of them. Because EarlyWord does not limit itself to one genre and has so much resources, it is a very excellent one-stop shop for any questions about reader advisory. In fact the subtitle of the website is News for Collection Development and Readers Advisory Librarians. It included a ton of lists: list of awards, list of Best-Sellers, list of Book Coverage and media attention, list of Movies & TV based on Books, list of Publishers’ Catalogs, etc. I also like the left hand sidebar called Categories. Each article from the archives can be found by date, by also by categories or genres. This option just simplifies the search and make us discover new articles about new topic.

I will definitely keep reading the EarlyWord newsletters, because they are a good and short summarizes of the publishing world news. It is not a website to use on the spot with a customer, like Novelist or Book Seer are (if you like that you would also like this), but EarlyWord keep us inform and up-to-date with the actuality.