In the Wall Street Journal Jennifer Maloney previews a new site, suggesting Literary Hub Is a New Home for Book Lovers, which: 'aims to carve out a central online space for books'.
This 'Literary Hub' is scheduled to go live 8 April and -- scroll down -- given the "partners' involved (a really nice mix) should be able to offer some interesting content.
Apparently:
On the one hand it seems worrisome that this is: "a website styled as a Huffington Post for the literary world -- a one-stop shop of bookish aggregation"; on the other hand ... maybe that's the way to go. I am a fan of aggregation, after all. (Of the Huffington Post -- less so: it's an almost unlink-to-able site, save as an example of how not to do something --; on the other hand, it seems to be 'successful' in page-view/financial terms, which is certainly more than most content- (and, especially literary-content-)sites can say, so, yeah, a model that, on that level, is worth imitating.)
Given how poor publisher-sites are at presenting themselves as go-to destinations -- in part because they simply don't have the (news-)content (or the energy to collect/present (news-)content sufficiently regularly and frequently) to entice readers to drop by, other than when they're looking for specific book-information -- Melville House, who put a lot of effort in, being among the few exceptions -- there's certainly potential here. Still, I have to see it to believe it ......
(Grove Atlantic is apparently taking the lead here ('Created by' Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature, the site states) which might also be some reason for concern, at least from a functionality perspective: they publish great books, but their own site is a busy mess of a stand-out (and not in a good way) among the many near-unusable and unlink-to-able publisher sites out there ....)
This 'Literary Hub' is scheduled to go live 8 April and -- scroll down -- given the "partners' involved (a really nice mix) should be able to offer some interesting content.
Apparently:
Focusing on literary fiction and nonfiction, it will present personal and critical essays, interviews and book excerpts(Maloney observes parenthetically; "Organizers are still discussing whether it should publish its own book reviews".)
On the one hand it seems worrisome that this is: "a website styled as a Huffington Post for the literary world -- a one-stop shop of bookish aggregation"; on the other hand ... maybe that's the way to go. I am a fan of aggregation, after all. (Of the Huffington Post -- less so: it's an almost unlink-to-able site, save as an example of how not to do something --; on the other hand, it seems to be 'successful' in page-view/financial terms, which is certainly more than most content- (and, especially literary-content-)sites can say, so, yeah, a model that, on that level, is worth imitating.)
Given how poor publisher-sites are at presenting themselves as go-to destinations -- in part because they simply don't have the (news-)content (or the energy to collect/present (news-)content sufficiently regularly and frequently) to entice readers to drop by, other than when they're looking for specific book-information -- Melville House, who put a lot of effort in, being among the few exceptions -- there's certainly potential here. Still, I have to see it to believe it ......
(Grove Atlantic is apparently taking the lead here ('Created by' Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature, the site states) which might also be some reason for concern, at least from a functionality perspective: they publish great books, but their own site is a busy mess of a stand-out (and not in a good way) among the many near-unusable and unlink-to-able publisher sites out there ....)