Dear winways,
Welcome to the March 2015 State of the Thing! The start of spring brings with it our Annual Edible Books Contest, plus we've got a handful of new and revamped features that have already made my reading life much better. This month's newsletter will be a little short, as I'm in the process of getting myself moved across the country (coming your way, Seattle!). Don't worry, I'll still be here at LibraryThing—just not at LTHQ.
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4th Annual Edible Books Contest
Every spring, LibraryThing members across the globe cook up some truly amazing literary treats. Our Edible Books Contest is now in its fourth year, and I can't wait to see what everyone is going to make this year!
Create a dish inspired by your favorite book, author, character, or even the LT logo, and you could win some awesome LT swag. One grand prize winner will win $50 worth of books from Sherman's Books and Stationery here in Portland, ME.
The deadline to submit your creation is 6pm Eastern on Sunday, April 19th. At that point, LT Staff will meet to choose the winners. Come share your ideas on Talk in the meantime!
Check out our blog post for details on the contest. Once submissions start rolling in, you'll find them in the EdibleBooks2015 gallery.
Drag and Drop Catalog Style Editing
Editing the way you display Your Books information is now much easier, with the ability to drag and drop fields, rather than adjusting five or six drop-down menus just to add a new field in the middle of things.
You can still save up to five different display styles (A-E), with a maximum of 14 fields in each style.
You can see details on the blog, or take it for a test drive yourself by heading over to your Settings page. Come tell us what you think on Talk!
More New Features
Your Call Number System. LibraryThing has long featured space for Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal Classification data as part of your book info. Now, we've expanded this to make room for many other classification systems, like Universal Decimal, BISAC, Harvard-Yenching, as well as leaving room for custom classification systems. You can see details on our blog, or test it out in Your Settings. Join the discussion on Talk.
Default Style for Visitors. Going hand-in-hand with our updated catalog style editing, we've also revamped the way default catalog styles work for visitors. Members have long been able to set a default style for visitors, but this used to be a click-to-view option. Now, your chosen default style is what others will automatically see when viewing your catalog. You can see more details here, and adjust your default style for visitors on your Settings page. Your feedback is welcome on Talk!
Talk of the Thing
RSI Party. If you're on Talk frequently, you've probably already noticed that there's been a lot of activity over on the Recommended Site Improvements group. That's because Kristi is currently working on making a list and tracking site improvement and feature requests, so that they don't get buried on Talk within a few hours. If there's a pet project you'd like to see us working on, check out the existing threads and lend your support!
List Five Books Parlour Game. Can you name five books with "game" or the name of a game (board, card, children's, all are fair play) in their title? Come join us on talk if you're game!
Free Books: Early Reviewers
You are not currently signed up for LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. You are missing out!
Early Reviewers offers free books to members—about 100 titles a month! Since 2007, we've given out over 160,000 books. The catch? Publishes want your honest review. How you review a book won't help or hurt your chances of winning books in the future, but not reviewing your winning will.
» Sign up for Early Reviewers
The March batch of Early Reviewers books contains 3,545 copies of 131 different titles. The deadline to request a free book is Monday, March 30th at 6pm, Eastern. Look for the April batch around the 6th.
The most requested books so far from the March batch:
More free books: Member Giveaways
At any given time, there are hundreds of books available from our Member Giveaways program. It's like Early Reviewers, but isn't limited to select publishers—any author or member can post books. Request books, or offer your own!
Hot titles this month
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
- The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
- Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
- The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
That's it for this month! I'll see you all in April.
Questions, comments, ideas? Send them my way.
—Loranne (loranne@librarything.com)
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