The team behind BookGeeks have set up a new site, BookHuggers, which aims to raise the profile of Independent Publishers. Packed with articles on great writers, extracts from upcoming books, a tour of independent bookshops around the country, news and interviews, this website is doing interesting things to bring together some of the best writing and publishing from the UK’s leading houses. If you have some time, dip into the book trailers or the audio interviews. It’s also worth taking a look at the Book Doctor feature. You can submit questions to a ‘mystery medic’ who, with the help of Indie Publishers, can answer any book-related query...
The Book Seer is another new site, but here the focus is on recommending to users what they could read next. It’s a simple question and the website is designed in a clear and focused way. The site uses Amazon and LibraryThing recommends to produce a list of titles. The problem with relying on Amazon is that the recommended titles are sometimes quite predictable. I put in MOTH SMOKE by Mohsin Hamid and The Book Seer replied with THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini, A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES by Mohammed Hanif and THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. I would have loved a list of titles that linked to my favourite read in a more interesting and varied way.
