I’ll be reading from A Field Guide to the North American Family this Saturday, as part of New York’s 20th annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair. The Indie Author Read-a-Thon runs from 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., and I’ll probably only be reading a couple of short chapters from the book; I can’t recommend that anyone schlep to 44th Street just to see me. That said, I had a blast at this book fair last year, trolling the beautiful wares of such publishers as Akashic Books, New York Review Classics, and Gingko Press. You know… the kind of books that don’t lend themselves to the Kindle. I emerged $40 poorer, but with half of my Christmas shopping done. My favorite find? An anthology of scam emails from Africa. So: Come for the books… stay for the reading!
The Promotional Train Chugs Along
Blog Drop: Welcome to themillions.com
We have some exciting news today. I've long pined for the perfect url for The Millions and now we finally have it. From now on, The Millions will reside at www.themillions.com.Long-time readers will know that this is in fact the fourth address that the site has had over the years, but I can assure you that themillions.com will be the last. I think the name befits a site that has long outgrown its "blogspot" roots. Plus, it's very easy to remember.While links to themillionsblog.com will redirect to their themillions.com counterparts indefinitely, we encourage you to update your bookmarks and any links you may have that point to The Millions. We believe that the move has gone smoothly, but if you see anything awry, please let us know. Thanks for your support!Update: No update to your RSS feed subscriptions necessary. RSS subscribers will continue to receive our posts.
Introducing The Millions’ “Books and Reviews”
Today we're unveiling an exciting new feature at The Millions. Over the last seven-plus years, we have written about thousands of books. Knowing that people like to dig through the archives to read about the books we've covered, we've tried to create ways to make that easier, but until now our efforts had proven unwieldy to use and to manage.
So, in an effort to solve this problem once and for all, we've spent several months putting together a new section that we are proud to show off today: The Millions Books and Reviews.
That main page is an exercise in serendipity. Hit refresh and ten new random books will appear that have been mentioned on the site at some point in our history. Click on any one of those covers and learn more -- or hit refresh again.
If you are looking for something more specific, browse by author using the alphabetical navigation at the top of the page. From those pages you'll be able to click through to any book and view The Millions' coverage of that book.
You may notice that in some cases we have more than one listing for a book -- this is because over the years we may have linked to more than one edition of the book (paperback and hardcover, most commonly).
We hope you find this new feature useful. Before I let you go check it out, I just wanted to thank our many readers who have supported the site. This support has allowed us to continue to innovate with features like this new section and hopefully provide a great experience for readers looking for book coverage online.
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Another book news feed
NPR has created a nice collection of audio RSS feeds (podcasts) by topic and/or program. Among them is a feed for segments about books. I've added it to the Book News via RSS collection of book news feeds. Here's the whole collection.
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[CLOSED] Help Wanted: The Millions is Looking for an Intern
This position has been closed.
The Millions seeks an extremely part-time intern or interns to help out around the virtual office with a couple of specific tasks. This is an exciting opportunity to get to know the literary internet and engage with a readership that boasts a laundry list of influential, brilliant folks in publishing, media, and academia -- not to mention the most engaged, avid readers you’ll find anywhere.
The gig:
We are looking for someone who can help us with a few specific things for 1-2 hours per week:
Maintaining our (already extant) prize calendar and writing very short paid prize posts (i.e., announcements of shortlists and winners of major literary prizes), averaging two posts per month
Working with our social media editor to schedule gems from The Millions’ extensive back catalog and populate an archive of social media posts
Scheduling a handful of weekend “Curiosities” and Tweets
You are:
A voracious reader with a solid knowledge of contemporary fiction
A culture vulture and up to date on the literary/arts issues of the day
An engaging writer both under and over 140 characters
Very organized, responsive, and able to make the most of your time with not a lot of oversight
More details:
The Millions has no dedicated office, so this is a remote position and can be done from anywhere in the world.
The internship does not come with a stipend. However, prize posts are paid, and you will have the opportunity to pitch and write pieces for the site and be paid as a staff writer.
To apply:
Please send the following materials to [email protected]. People of color are strongly encouraged to apply.
Resume
Three sample Curiosities.
Twitter account(s) you use; any Facebook pages you’ve had the opportunity to run; your Tumblr, blog, etc. (Essentially, show us that you have experience using these tools, even if it’s just your own sparsely followed, but very entertaining Twitter account.)
The deadline is Tuesday, August 22. We look forward to hearing from you!
Image credit: Flickr, brizzlebornandbred
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Your Destiny and Ours: How Readers of The Millions Are Changing Our Story
We can now see how our readers might one day insulate us from the forces being unleashed by massive companies. But we aren't there yet.
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