BookTour Now Featuring Events @ Indie Stores

Readers looking to connect with authors can now find events at indie bookstores participating in ABA's E-Commerce Solution on BookTour [1], the website founded by Chris Anderson, Kevin Smokler, and Adam Goldstein.

In an announcement this week on the BookTour Blog [2], Smokler noted that it was always the trio's intention to feature "the breath of author-related events throughout the world" but a major part of that -- "events at neighborhood and homegrown bookstores" -- was, until now, difficult to do just because independent bookstores are all different. Now, however, "thanks to some hard work and amiability on both our parts, BookTour is proud to announce a partnership with IndieBound [3], the nation's largest representative of independent booksellers." Events featured on ABA E-Commerce Solution websites are now being added automatically to the BookTour database. And, on BookTour's author and venue pages, when an event is taking place at an indie store, consumers will have the option of purchasing the book directly from that store.

Additionally, since BookTour shares its data with the social networking sites GoodReads [4], Upcoming [5], and Zevents [6], events listings at participating E-Commerce stores will reach even more readers.

BookTour was founded in 2006 by Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail (Hyperion); Smokler, the editor of Bookmark Now (Basic) and creator of the Virtual Book Tour; and Goldstein, the author of several volumes of the Missing Manual computer book series.

In May [7], ABA announced similar indie events feeds with LibraryThing Local [8] and MyHound.com [9].

Booksellers who do not want their events included in the feeds can opt out of the program by removing the check in the "Share Store Events" box on the "Preferences" page of the store's E-Commerce administrative site. Questions about the program should be directed to staff@bookweb.org [10].