{"id":271,"date":"2005-07-29T16:17:11","date_gmt":"2005-07-29T16:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=271"},"modified":"2005-07-29T16:17:11","modified_gmt":"2005-07-29T16:17:11","slug":"when_blogs_band_together_3_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/29\/when_blogs_band_together_3_the\/","title":{"rendered":"when blogs band together 3 – the litblog co-op"},"content":{"rendered":"

“when blogs band together – a new hybrid form”<\/a> – examining the phenomenon of multi-blog publications<\/strong>
\n\"lbc.jpg\"<\/a> Launched this May by Mark Sarvas, author of Elegant Variation<\/a>, the litblog co-op<\/a> unites 21 literary weblogs “for the purpose of drawing attention to the best of contemporary fiction, authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.” The LBC blog devotes its energies, and intermittent posting, to “Read This!”<\/a> – a quarterly endorsement of an obscure or undeservedly ignored book, intended to expose important works that the mainstream press has ignored.
\nFor as long as it has existed, the lit blogging community has sought to countervail the steadily shrinking coverage of books in the media, but it’s not at all clear whether their impact is felt beyond limited circles. “Read This!” seeks to amplify the strongest recommendations, resolving the bloggers’ voices into one crystalline note of praise that, hopefully, people will be unable to ignore.
\nThe first volume to receive the LBC imprimatur is Kate Atkinson’s “Case Histories,”<\/a> a literary riff on the traditional crime novel. The choice was by no means unanimous. Some complained that the book was not sufficiently needy of promotion, seeing as Atkinson’s previous novel, “Behind the Scenes at the Museum,” won the Whitbread award, and “Case Histories” is published by Little, Brown – not exactly a fringe press. But in the end, the opposing camps were reconciled (allowing the “minority opinion”<\/a> to vent itself) and agreed to throw their collective weight behind Atkinson’s book. We have yet to see whether the endorsement will have any affect on the book’s sales (inclusion in Forbes’ “Best of the Web”<\/a> certainly won’t hurt), but when enough influential voices start talking about the same thing, someone is bound to listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Launched this May by Mark Sarvas, author of Elegant Variation, the “litblog co-op” unites 21 literary weblogs “for the purpose of drawing attention to the best of contemporary fiction, authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[2198],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","tag-book-books-reading-literature-publishing-press-media-blog-blogs-blogging-litblog-blogger-litblogcoop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}