And Then There Was This....

Excuse me for a moment while I bask in the awesomeness of this NY Times article that name-drops me IN THE FIRST LINE! (breathe Lori, in... through the nose, out... through the mouth, you can do this)

The article's focus is Goodreads - as a leader in book discoverability; its ability to build community across the reader-author-publisher-spheres; and its presence as a platform for promoting new books. And I'm featured because of this itty, bitty little group I run over there. You may have heard of it? The Next Best Book Club? OK, who am I fooling...

In all seriousness, I was incredibly flattered to be included and was really shocked to see more than a passing mention of me and my group. As some of you might know, The Next Best Book Club began as a call to readers - I was on a mission to find the next best book and I needed to know where to find it. What better way than to ask what people were reading, right?

And this is really what the article is all about. Discovering books through one another.

Discovering Goodreads helped me discover books I may not have otherwise run across. Within the group, we trusted each other to take and make recommendations. As the years passed, and I became more sure-footed in the land of small press and indie publishing, I began to look at TNBBC more as a platform to intermix readers and the authors of the books they were reading. Today, rather than using TNBBC as a personal search engine for the next best book, I'd like to think that - through this blog and the Author/Reader Discussions I host within the group - I'm returning the favor by helping my members discover THEIR next best book.

Anyhow, here's to Goodreads! Because without them, TNBBC would not exist and my obsession with literature would never have grown so far or so strong. And here's to the members of TNBBC - old and new, past and present - because you are what made the group what it is today. And here's to the NY Times, for thinking that both of us were worth talking about! This pretty much made my day.

If you'd like to read it, here's the link to the article.