News – Book View Cafe

I was just a dropped a line by some people at Book View Cafe. I have never seen it before but it has listed in its group of contributors some familiar names; not to mention it has Ursula K. Le Guin listed and though she doesn’t know it, Ms. Le Guin is my girl! We often use hyperbole to describe our favorite anything but Le Guin is a bonafide legend.

Let me stop gushing and give you the scoop:

BookViewCafe.com makes fiction easily available for free

Ann Arbor, MI – November 15, 2008 – Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, and Laura Anne Gilman are among the writers offering their fiction for free on BookViewCafe.com. The new website promises something new every day and most of it unavailable elsewhere. The project currently includes twenty-four professional authors.

Book View Cafe represents a new approach to publishing made possible by the Internet. While most of the fiction on the site will be free, authors will also be offering expanded work, additional content, print versions, or subscriptions for a fee.

With sales of ebooks skyrocketing and the advent of new technologies such as TextOnPhone and Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader, it appears that the book publishing industry may be in for a shakeup similar to that experienced by the recording industry. In recent years, independent musicians have been taking their work directly to fans, and it’s working for them.

Member Ursula K. Le Guin points out, “given the deteriorating climate of print publishing, the Café seemed like a great experiment to be in on.”

Nebula Award-winner Vonda N. McIntyre expands on that: “I’m delighted to be involved in an innovative project with a talented group of writers. I’ve experimented with offering readers access to my work on my website and have been pleased with the results. In addition, it’s a lot of fun to get direct feedback from readers.”

Author and former editor Laura Anne Gilman says, “Book View Cafe will allow readers to get their reading fix – and discover new authors – easily and quickly. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, and one I’m excited to be part of.”

The diversity of Book View Cafe’s authors guarantees something for just about everyone. “Book View Cafe will make sure the readers get the stories they want, when, where and how they want them. We are the library in your back pocket,” says Project Manager Sarah Zettel.

Readers can access new content by visiting the website (http://www.bookviewcafe.com/). RSS feed and an email announcement list will eventually alert readers to new content. In addition, Book View Cafe will be partnering with TextOnPhone to make content available via iPhone and iPod. Daily posts by the authors to the group blog creates an ongoing virtual book conference where readers and writers can interact. Book View Cafe can also be found at social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and at LiveJournal, Blogspot, and Wordpress.

BookSpot Central is all about free fiction from quality writers so definitely worth a look as long as they stay off my turf and we don’t have to have a good old fashioned book brawl outside of the Cafe. My copy of Anathem can take heads off!

We aren’t called the BookSpot Mafia in some corners of the publishing world for nothing!

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About Jay Tomio

...Jay Tomio is the co-owner of BSCreview and BSCkids--check out Jan-ken-pon, his time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column. You should probably become his disciple through twitter @JayTomio. More fun awaits at the Vogue Immunity and at Spiff Six Shot