• Chat with Me on LibraryThing: From now until next Friday, August 1, I’m participating in my own LibraryThing Author Chat. Which basically means that any LibraryThing member is free to post questions to the author in an open forum, and I’ll answer them. Somebody please log on and ask me something so I can prop up my frail, stunted ego.
• SFFWorld MultiReal Review: Rob Bedford of SFFWorld has given MultiReal what can only be called a rave review. Remember that this is the guy who called Infoquake “THE science fiction novel of the year, if not the past five years,” and said that “the genre might not be quite the same after this book.” So I’ve been looking forward to what Rob has to say. Excerpt:
  

  MultiReal is on par with the previous volume for Edelman’s ability to change the game a bit and still maintain what made Infoquake such a great novel; his growth as a writer is most evident in the characters themselves. If anything, MultiReal may be a bolder novel… MultiReal is also not a “treading water middle book” of a trilogy… it really drives home much of what Edelman was setting up in the first volume and leaves the reader eager for the next volume. David Louis Edelman has crafted another winner with MultiReal… I for one can’t wait to see where Edelman takes the conclusion of this [thus far] spectacular trilogy.

• Listen to My “Key to Publishing” on Audio: The popular podcasts Adventures in SciFi Publishing and I Should Be Writing are jointly holding a Keys to Publishing Contest. Not only will they be giving away copies of Infoquake and MultiReal, but they’ll also be giving away books by my buddies Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Sean Williams, and Kay Kenyon (as well as Brenda Cooper, whom I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting). As part of the contest, they asked the authors to contribute short audio pieces on the key to getting published. Here’s my contribution, on I Should Be Writing 94. The whole podcast is worth listening to, but for reference’ sake, the intro to the Keys to Publishing sections starts at 3:40, and my audio piece runs from 4:50 to 7:36.)
• Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist Contest Winners: Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has announced the winners of their MultiReal giveaway contest, which ended up being an Infoquake/MultiReal giveaway contest. (In case you’ve forgotten, Pat called Infoquake “one of the very best science fiction debuts I have ever read.” And he hasn’t reviewed MultiReal yet, so I’m very interested in making sure he’s happy. Can I FedEx you a pillow, Pat?)
• POD People Review: Chris Gerrib of POD People has reviewed MultiReal and given it a rating of 10 out of 10. Says Chris (a self-published SF author in his own right):
  

  MultiReal is a deep book, full of plots and counter-plots, with a stunning vision of the future. It manages what seems to be impossible, making the act of computer programming exciting, while reflecting on the nature of government and business. This is high science fiction at its finest.

  Which prompted this amusing reply from one baron_waste on the LiveJournal mirror of the article:

  In ten years, that book is going to be as embarrassingly dated as any 1950s “Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World” story. I mean, look at it. Maybe he won’t care — royalty checks are their own currency, in the literal sense of the word — but this ain’t exactly The City and the Stars you’re describing here.

  Fine, baron_waste. Not only do you pick on my book, but you make fun of the title for my next book, Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World. See if I care.

LibraryThing has a program called LibraryThing Early Reviewers, wherein certain publishers make review copies of their books available to LibraryThing members. All you have to do is sign up for LibraryThing, go to the Early Reviewers Request List, and click the big “Request It!” button next to Infoquake. If you’re selected, you get a copy of the book, which you are then theoretically supposed to read and review on the site.

Of course, it’s by no means a sure thing. As I write this, there are 20 review copies of Infoquake available and 186 reviewers requesting them. That’s five fewer requests than Dali & I by Stan Lauryssens, which is being turned into a movie starring Al Pacino. So all we need to do is overwhelm LibraryThing with requests, and I have it on the highest authority that Pacino will drop the Dali & I film and star in a cinematic adaptation of Infoquake instead.

Really! Would I lie?

I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’m a big fan of LibraryThing. I’ve spent hours and hours tweaking my LibraryThing profile, adding books to my catalog, and just browsing around other people’s shelves. I’ve spoken with Tim Spalding, LibraryThing’s founder, and he’s taken the time to respond to e-mails of mine and feature me on the LibraryThing blog once or twice.

So I felt a little like a cheating spouse when I responded to someone’s invitation to sign up for a Shelfari account last week. But it was actually much easier than cheating on a spouse, because I didn’t have to go through that whole tedious seduction and getting-to-know-you routine. I exported my whole LibraryThing catalog in about three clicks, and imported it right into Shelfari. In a way, it was like moving in with your mistress and skipping straight to the seven-year-itch all in one shot.

Here are screen captures of my catalog on LibraryThing and Shelfari, side by side. (Visit my shelf on Shelfari.)

After noodling around with Shelfari a little bit, here’s a synopsis of my thought process:

1. The name “Shelfari” is incredibly lame.
2. Shelfari looks slicker than LibraryThing.
3. Shelfari is more user-friendly than LibraryThing.
4. LibraryThing is fairly slick and user-friendly in the first place.
5. So why would I switch to Shelfari?

The big difference between LibraryThing and Shelfari is that LibraryThing caps its free accounts at 200 books; Shelfari doesn’t appear to have any limits. But keep in mind that the LibraryThing rates are eminently reasonable. $10 a year for all you can catalog, or $25 for a lifetime membership.

Oh yeah, and Shelfari has a Facebook application. (I see that LibraryThing is testing out MySpace and LiveJournal widgets, which is cool, but IMHO they need to get cranking on a Facebook app.)

But there’s a huge amount of functionality that LT has which Shelfari doesn’t seem to have. I went browsing through “my shelf” on Shelfari and discovered that my copy of Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends doesn’t have Silverstein listed as the author, only as the illustrator; and despite the fact that there’s an “Edit” link next to Edition Details, there doesn’t seem to be any way to edit that information. I was able to change editions to one which does have the author listed… but this one doesn’t have an illustrator listed. LT, by contrast, lets you edit book details to your heart’s content and upload custom covers that the whole community can use. Does the system think that “J.D. Salinger” and “JD Salinger” are two different people? Easy enough to fix that in LibraryThing.

This community focus is one of the things that makes LibraryThing so appealing. It’s kind of like — well, a library. It’s really, really easy to import and export your entire catalog so you can use it in other applications. Put it on your blog? Tie it in to your Firefox? Access it from your cell phone? No problem! If there are inaccuracies in the catalog, everybody pitches in to help fix it. If you read through the help menus and fine print, you’ll see quirky little bits of humor that give the site some attitude. “If the buzz page doesn’t convince you,” says a little blurb on the LibraryThing home page, “you cannot be convinced. Go away.” There’s a lack of commercial focus that’s very reminiscent of that library feeling. Come on in! Put your feet up, hang around as long as you like, buy some of the books on the Community Used Book table in the back if you’d like, but no pressure.

Of course, there are downsides to the public library. LibraryThing seems to go down more often than most other Web 2.0 sites I’ve seen (except for the chronically hapless MySpace). It’s not uncommon to find bugs and layout quirks. Every once in a while, you’ll find something not working with a cheerful little “we’re working to fix things” message. Oops, the plumbing’s leaking over in the corner again! Don’t worry, we’ve called the guy to fix it, he should be here in the next hour or two. Just try to steer clear of it in the meantime, ‘mkay?

Shelfari, by contrast, feels more like a corporate-owned bookstore. Like something a bunch of guys from Microsoft and RealNetworks would put together and then get funding from Amazon for. And if you poke around in the About Us sections of Shelfari for a few minutes, you’ll see that that’s exactly the case. If you’re wondering why Cory Doctorow breaks into hives whenever you say the word “Shelfari”, it’s because the president and co-founder of the company was in charge of DRM for RealNetworks. (Read Shelfari’s Management page.)

Poking around in the About Us sections of Shelfari reveals that these folks expect to sustain this site through Amazon referral fees, which seems pretty unrealistic to me. If you dig around the LibraryThing site, you’ll see several ironic references to the wads and wads of cash they pull in from Amazon referral fees. Meaning “we don’t expect to set the NASDAQ ablaze with this kind of revenue stream.” True, LibraryThing doesn’t exactly push people to buy books off of Amazon — they cheerfully funnel people to any number of sites, including book swapping sites like BookMooch and ReadItSwapIt — but they’ve got a much larger user base than Shelfari at the moment. Shelfari claims that they’re not going to accept advertising either.

So let’s do the math here: no membership fees + no advertising revenue + minuscule referral fee income – hosting fees, bandwidth fees, programming costs, overhead and salaries = remind me again how you intend to stay afloat after the Amazon money dries up?

For the moment it’s pretty clear which service gets my vote as the more functional, useful, and friendly place to be. Luckily, there’s no reason why I can’t maintain accounts on both for the moment. It’ll be interesting to see how Shelfari grows and develops over time.

So imagine my excitement when I discovered LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is basically a connected online database of your library. Search the database for books you own and add them to your digital library. Rate them, review them, tag them, comment on them, choose the cover and edition you own. See who else owns them, see what books other people who own them like. Track a user’s recent purchases or reviews with an RSS feed. (If you’re curious, you can view my profile or view my catalog.)

You might be thinking that Amazon already has some of these features. Yes it does, but that doesn’t make LibraryThing redundant. It seems to me that LibraryThing holds about the same relation to Amazon that a brick-and-mortar library holds to your local brick-and-mortar bookstore. Amazon tries to get you to pad your shopping cart at every turn by pointing out related items, add-ons, and discounts; LibraryThing is more concerned with building a book community where people with similar tastes can connect.

That doesn’t mean that LibraryThing is a non-profit. Clicking on book covers does take you to Amazon, and I presume that they get a cut of the sales in return. And the free cataloging of books only extends to the first 200 titles; to catalog an unlimited number of books, you need to pay $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime. LibraryThing just doesn’t shove the commercial upgrades in your face like Amazon does.

This lack of commercial pushiness may be LibraryThing’s best feature. As a result, the interface is clean, easy to navigate, and doesn’t clutter your browser with pop-up windows or ads.

You’re just left with… book-geekity fun. It’s like snooping through thousands of people’s libraries all at once.

The contents of a person’s library tells you a lot about the person herself. Does she own a lot of weighty contemporary literature? Escapist adventure novels? Tomes on politics and economics? A little of each? What would you do if you spotted Chapterhouse: Dune, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and Clown Skits for Everyone sitting side by side on her shelves? (You could do what I did. Reader, I married her.)

More than that, the disposition of a person’s library tells you a lot about the character of the person herself. If you were to look at my library, for instance, you would see that many hardcovers are snugly encased in clear plastic Brodart covers, and there is nary a creased spine or a dogeared page to be found. I go out of my way to buy matched sets of books. You would conclude that I’m an anal retentive son of a bitch, and you’d be right.

I keep all my titles segregated by subject (science fiction, general fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc.) and alphabetized by author. Each author’s works are sorted chronologically, with the occasional exception for numbered series. (Though may God have mercy on your soul if you suggest to me that The Magician’s Nephew is the first book in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series instead of the sixth.)

LibraryThing lets book geeks like me fully engage their OCD tendencies, which is reason enough to buy in. Now I can sort, organize, catalog, and compare to my heart’s content in a safe online space.

Stop reading and go sign up already so I can start snooping in on your lives too.

(Update: Just before posting this, I discovered that LibraryThing actually plugged my book Infoquake on the official company blog, and listed me as one of 20 initial LibraryThing Authors. Thanks! Hope I can return the favor.)