The Association of American Publishers has announced that it is collaborating with the American Library Association, Friends of Libraries USA and Library Journal to launch "Authors@Your Library." The new service aims to encourage publishers to include libraries on their author tours and to assist librarians in booking authors for library programs. It will be a free, searchable Internet database that will give publicists information they need to find library venues for their author tours and events and give librarians information on who to contact to get authors in their library.
The database will be an outgrowth of "Authors on the Highway," an online service announcing author engagements throughout the nation, which is already available through the Web sites of Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal. "Authors@Your Library" will also be accessible through the sites of the three publications, but there are no plans for the service to be hosted at a site of its own.
According to Francine Fialkoff, LJ editor and member of the team responsible for starting the database, the main goal of the new service will be helping libraries make contact with publishers. This has been difficult in the past, Fialkoff said, because many publishers have not traditionally considered libraries as the ideal settings for book promotion. "The inability of librarians to get authors into libraries has been a bone of contention for a long time," Fialkoff said, adding that if regional book vendors were invited to sell books at these events, it would likely be a boon for publishers seeking local recognition for their titles. "What's really valuable on a frontlist title is to have a local bookstore do the selling," she said, "because then the title has a chance to make regional bestseller lists."
The temporary "Authors@Your Library" Web site can be reached at www.ala.org/publicprograms/authors@yourlibrary and is presently set up so that libraries and publishers can input their contact and venue information into the database. The final version of the service is expected to be available some time this spring.
