AOL Launches BV Books

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 1/9/2006

In the latest initiative to make books more a part of its offerings, AOL has launched BV Books on its Black Voices channel. "Books have been buried," said Black Voices editor-in-chief Nick Charles. "We're now going to devote an entire subchannel to them." BV Books is located under the entertainment button on the BV site along with TV, movies and music.

According to Charles, BV Books will focus not only on books by black authors and about black culture, but on books that "can ignite conversation." The site launched this weekend with Star Jones, who is promoting her book Shine: Spiritual Journal to Finding Love. Jones is writing a blog for BV Books during her book tour and AOL is also providing a link to Jones's Coaches segment. A q&a with Paul Beatty, author of Hokum, also appeared, and an interview with Michael Eric Dyson, author of the upcoming Come Hell or High Water, will be posted later this month.

Charles expects the BV Books page to include audio options (speeches by Martin Luther King Jr are set for January 16), bestseller lists and a range of other book-related features, including excerpts and opening lines of books. The site will also link to places where the books can be purchased.