Big Publishers Join Blog Talk Radio

by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 8/6/2008 7:04:00 AM

BlogTalkRadio.com, the blog and social networking site that functions like an Internet radio station, is starting to attract big trade book publishers. HarperCollins and the Hachette Book Group are the latest publishers to set up a Blog Talk Radio site and John Wiley used BTR to feature its authors during the L.A. Book Fair.

Inspired by a family blog started by BTR Founder and former telecommunications executive Alan Levy, BTR was launched in 2006 and attracts nearly 2 million listeners a month. It provides an online platform and switchboard technology that allows users to field phone calls, upload music and effectively run a live radio show that can be archived. The service is free to users, and makes its money by selling advertising.

While any individual can launch a BTR radio program, BTR also offers a “station” infrastructure that allows large organizations to create an online radio network around their content and their authors and creators. HarperCollins has created Authors on Air, an online network featuring Harper authors discussing their books on a variety of on-air interview shows. The station concept allows large publishers to aggregate their content and their authors and present them directly to the public in the manner of TV or broadcast facility. Such authors as Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Kimbla Lawson Roby and Paulo Coelho have appeared on AOA shows. Virginia Stanley, Harper’s director of library marketing, hosts a show called Library Love Fest and Authors On Air also features radio shows on romance, urban fantasy and other categories.

Wiley, Levy explained, broadcast live interviews with its authors from the L.A. Book Fair this year and simultaneously hosted the material on its on own website. Levy also pointed to new BTR stations created by Columbia Journalism School and Golf.com. In fact, Levy says BTR has so much book and author content the site is organizing its own book channel that he hopes to launch by end of the year.

“We launch about 500 new BTR sites every day and we’ve broadcast over 110,000 segments since we began,” said Levy. “Book and magazine publishers are taking a hard look at us. Book content just works really well on BTR.”