Wow! That was fast. Bookmarks Magazine came today. That's 4 days after you mentioned it...and I live in a small west coast town! Mail service is certainly getting faster these days for mags. I read the first couple pages while walking in from the mailbox.

Hi Jon - Just got the e-mail about the new issue. It sounds great and I can't wait to get it so I can dig into it!

I have a thing about great first lines in books. Could do something with that, or a play on "great pick up lines" as in pick up a book. We can start our own literacy movement!

I was exploring Cafe Press, and most of the quotes listed above are already available on a large variety of items. I think Lisa's idea of using Bookmarks' own tag line would be great. I also second the book journal idea and they are one size fits all!

Kelly wrote: "Jon,
I bought my husband a goodreads.com t-shirt from Cafe Press last year for Christmas and he loves it! I know he would love one from Bookmarks magazine too. The shirt won't last forever, but I..."
Did you have to special order the tee shirt or is it in stock? Thanks

Great suggestions, Lisa! Here are some of my favorites.

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." -Mark Twain

"Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore?"-Henry Ward Beecher

Jon, I order from CafePress often and am satisfied with the results. I agree with Kelly that the quality compared with price was fine. I purchase t-shirts and coffee mugs from them often. The mugs are a bit steep, but they have unique items, so I'm willing to pay it for gifts.

I'll second both of Lisa's ideas on quotes. The Alcott quote is something that could be said about me and a few of my friends!

"She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." - Louisa May Alcott
and
Bookmarks Magazine "For Everyone Who Hasn't Read Everything"

I'd love these on a hoodie, mug or tote. I especially like the tote idea for the Bookmarks statement, because it would make a great gift with a copy of the magazine and a book tucked inside.

"The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go."
— Dr. Seuss

I love this quote and would especially love it on a shirt for my son.

Hmmm ... well, let's pretend for a minute that a few more folks endorse CafePress.com. If we're going to crowdsource this, let's crowdsource it! :-)

Are there quotes from books that stand out to people as being something you'd like to see on a t-shirt? Is this the kind of topic that would interest people and perhaps we should start a separate thread?

Regarding fair use rights ... anything from before 1922 or so is completely available to us. One or two sentences from books since then are probably okay. More than that becomes a judgement call, but feel free to mention suggestions. Of course, more than one or two sentences wouldn't work on a t-shirt anyway ...

It'll be interesting to see what comes to folks' minds. Yet another product we were doing when we first started were greeting cards with passages from old books on them. Finding the right passage for the occasion was tough! I must have a few of those around here somewhere ...

Jon

Jon,
I bought my husband a goodreads.com t-shirt from Cafe Press last year for Christmas and he loves it! I know he would love one from Bookmarks magazine too. The shirt won't last forever, but I still thought the quality compared with the price were reasonable.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Kelly

Jaime wrote: "Lynn wrote:
Just a note on the T's though...I'm tall and I hate it when T's come in too..." Ha! That's funny. I'm just the opposite. I'm short and the long ones look ridiculous on me."

This summarizes the problem exactly! How many different variations would we have to do to give folks what they'd like, and how large a run of shirts do you have to do to make it economical?

When we did this a few years ago (like, 6), we used cafepress.com, which lets you print one tshirt at a time. The benefits: people can choose the type of tshirt (or canvas bag) that they want, and we don't have to move our desks around to make room for 100 boxes of tshirts. The cons: frankly the quality wasn't quite as good as you'd like. It wasn't iron-on bad, but they definitely used a printing technology that gave slightly sub-par results. Also, for these one-offs, the price isn't cheap.

Has anyone here used cafepress.com recently? And now that you see it, do you want to go off and try making your own shirts? :-)

I would LOVE to do this kind of stuff, but it's a challenge for us w/r/t inventory, etc. So I am curious about the latest cafepress quality if anyone knows...

Lynn wrote: "I'd certainly get a Bookmark's T shirt and tote. Not sure about other things though, it would depend on what they were.

Just a note on the T's though...I'm tall and I hate it when T's come in too..."

Ha! That's funny. I'm just the opposite. I'm short and the long ones look ridiculous on me. I have to wear them only for pajamas. I can't get them in a smaller size because I am of average size and can't fit into a small.

I'd certainly get a Bookmark's T shirt and tote. Not sure about other things though, it would depend on what they were.

Just a note on the T's though...I'm tall and I hate it when T's come in too short, so I hope you'd go for a quality T with a bit more length than some, if you do this.

Stephanie wrote: "Could you do t shirts with famous book quotes on them? What kind of process would that be? That could be fun. "

OOOoooo.....I would LOVE that. They would make GREAT gifts, too!

Could you do t shirts with famous book quotes on them? What kind of process would that be? That could be fun.

I would love to see some Bookmarks merchandise. I'd definitely purchase totes and shirts!

I'd but Bookmarks merchandise especially tee shirts.

Stephanie wrote: "Maybe part of the proceeds could go to a literacy program. My husband and I are all about charity. We give every year - always to one specific one in December, and then a few others throughout. Tha..."

Hmmm ... a nice idea as well and good motivation to get something going ...

Maybe part of the proceeds could go to a literacy program. My husband and I are all about charity. We give every year - always to one specific one in December, and then a few others throughout. That could be kind of nice.

I would totally buy a Bookmarks-designed journal for keeping track of the books I want to read from the magazine. The cover of the journal could be a fun collage of magazine covers used so far. The pages could be set up with issue number and month, how many stars the book received, etc.

I would also buy a Bookmarks tote bag, since I ALWAYS need a bag when I go to the library. In the summer, sometimes I use TWO bags. My husband laughs when I come home with 30 books, then stares in awe when I actually read them all. :)

My library distributed reusable totes two summers ago, but I would buy one to support Bookmarks, especially if it had a neat design.

Just my input.

Katie and Lisa,

Ah, what to do about those older issues. They were laid out with a different software package than the one we user now (with completely different style names, for the typographic geeks among us). Which means translating them to our new software and getting then into Web format would require a bit of work. The kind of work that sends people scurrying if you mention it out loud.

Reprinting them would be crazy expensive, so that really isn't an option.

So, I say "Boy, I'd like to get them up online." But I can't promise anything. NOT the answer you wanted ... ARGH! Sorry about that.

Jon,

I, too, would change little about the magazine. I would buy Bookmarks-specific "stuff"; I'm a shopper and to have trinkets around reminding me of what I love. I would read literary-scene news -- details of worthwhile places to travel to if only to sip coffee and visit bookstores! A lot of used/independents have websites now; you could expand their markets, even, by listing their website along with their profile. I missed the Brooklyn Book Festival but hope to head to the Boston Book Fair -- might you profile or preview events like that? Finally, I, too, am looking for many of the back issues Lisa is missing; will they become available? For now I've asked Santa for a bunch of the ones you do have available for order. I only had to leave a few copies of the order form around the house to make my point!

Rambling. . . must sleep!
Katie

Jon,

I discovered Bookmarks at Barnes & Noble several years ago and have been an avid fan ever since. My collection began at Issue 17. I recently ordered back issues of the first 16 issues, or what you had in stock, and was thrilled when they arrived to my home yesterday. WOW! That was quick service. It makes no difference to me if these book reviews are now of older books, I still enjoy them. This was an early happy birthday to me treat.

I wonder if you plan to archive issues: Premier, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, and 12? They are the only ones not presently on your website. Selfishly, I'm most interested in the Premier and Issues 3 and 4, since these are the only ones I don't have some access to. In the meantime, I'll keep scouring the web to see if someone has the few issues I don't own.

Thanks for making my day yesterday!
Lisa

Bookmarks Magazine wrote: "The Giller Prize longlist was just announced. Hmmm ...."

Hmmm... indeed! The Giller short list is being announced tomorrow. And no, Atwood doesn't count. She is always profiled somewhere and might, possibly, be too huge for her own good. Let's hear it for the lesser-knowns, the underdogs, the newcomers!! :)

Thanks for the consideration Jon.

Lisa wrote: "Hi Jon,

I'd love to see Bookmarks sell logo coffee mugs, sweatshirts, reading journals,etc... I'm sure some of us book nerds would love to buy it and advertise for you!"

Walking advertisements ... I'll take that! Back when we first started, I was excited about doing a line of shirts/bags advertising fictional businesses from novels. We did make up and sell a shirt for "Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Optometry" from The Great Gatsby. We only sold a few, and I couldn't tell whether

* Our female readers weren't the t-shirt wearing crowd
* It was a bad idea
* The design didn't work
* We were too small at the time
* Some combination of all of the above

We did make it available on canvas bags too. Hmmm ... I'll noodle on this. Bring on the ideas as they come!

Jon

Jennifer wrote: Pick Canada, eh?

And I'm assuming the fact that we're covering Margaret Atwood in Nov/Dec doesn't count as she's huge already? :-) That's fair, actually. Yes, we don't do a great job seeking out Canadian fiction. The Giller Prize longlist was just announced. Hmmm ....

Hi Jon,

I'd love to see Bookmarks sell logo coffee mugs, sweatshirts, reading journals,etc... I'm sure some of us book nerds would love to buy it and advertise for you!

Hi Jon!

First, let me start by saying how much I love your magazine. It is such an awesome resource and I look forward to and savour every issue!

Concerning the possibility of profiling a different country or countries in an upcoming issue, it is a great idea. I am also doing the reading challenge (mentioned above) but have been actively seeking out international fiction for the past several years. Any feature that expands the TBR list is cool with me.

Now, being Canadian, I would certainly endorse the previous poster's suggestion to shine a spotlight on Canadian writers and Canadian fiction. We have a tremendously deep pool of talented writers producing amazing works. We are so much more than Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro (who totally rock in their own right, of course). Our literary successes are celebrated each year through such awards as The Giller Prize, The Governor General's Award for Fiction and The Writer's Trust Awards.

I am currently enamoured with Lisa Moore - check out her novels Alligator, Open and February; Michael Crummey's new book Galore, along with a couple of his previous works The Wreckage and River Thieves; and Joan Clark and her novels: An Audience of Chairs, Word For Home and Road to Bliss. Clearly I am having a thing for writers from "The Rock" (Newfoundland) at the moment, but the national possibilities are endless. We're vibrant, diverse and eclectic here in Canada. Plus, we tell great stories!


Pick Canada, eh?

PS ~ I don't know any of the writer's I've mentioned, nor do I live in Newfoundland. Just going through a regional phase and a bit excited about it!

Any of the Scandinavian countries, elsewhere in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South America, Central America.... any of those would be good ;-) That's a bit facetious, but I do really like reading stories set in locations or by authors from many different countries.

Sweden. In recent fame of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I have been reading a bunch of swedish crime/suspense authors. Might be a good tie-in to all the Steig Larsson press. Henning Mankell and Asa Larsson are 2 great Swedish authors, but there are tons more.

I would be very interested in Eastern European countries, especially Polish and Czech authors. Milan Kundera is great, but I would enjoy getting to know other authors from this region.

In my search for Hungarian authors or books set in Hungary, I came across Tibor Fischer and Sandor Marai. Both have written novels that interest me, but I'll probably read the one about the basketball players. A former patient of mine, wrote a book about his experiences in Budapest during World War II. It was a deeply moving book and put me in awe of this quiet, unassuming man.

Under the Frog A Novel by Tibor Fischer - short listed for the Booker prize
Embers by Sándor Márai
The Kid From Budapest by J.A. Somori - I have written the only Goodreads review of this book.

India and Africa, any country.

While many of my students don't realize Africa is a continent, I just want to make it very clear that I do, and I love reading books about any part of Africa. ;)

OK, we're finalizing the Nov/Dec issue and have a bunch of pieces already written for Jan/Feb 2010. So we targeting this for Mar/Apr 2010. I think I'd like to look at one country in a 2-page or so article. We'll start with that format and see how it feels.

Hungary is interesting ... any particular countries that people would like to see?

Lisa wrote: "I'm participating in "The Seasonal Reading Challenge" group, which includes several tasks to read books either written by foreign authors or set in other countries. I enjoyed looking for books to ..."

I really like those ideas, Lisa!

I'm participating in "The Seasonal Reading Challenge" group, which includes several tasks to read books either written by foreign authors or set in other countries. I enjoyed looking for books to meet these tasks. For instance, one task was to celebrate Octoberfest and read a book by a German author or set in Germany. Another was to celebrate Hispanic heritage and read a book written by a Latin American author. I think topics like these would make great regular feature articles. Introduce a little bit of foreign trivia and follow it with some suggested reads.

Another idea would be to do an alphabetical list of countries with writers from each country represented. I think this could be similar to your greatest historical, mysteries or seafaring books articles.

Another task requires me to read books which take place in countries that correspond to my initials. One of my initials is "H", so I researched books that take place in Hungary. (I hosted a Hungarian exchange student last year, whose dream is to play college basketball in the states.) I found a popular Hungarian novelist, who happened to write about two Hungarian boys who played basketball. I can't wait to read the book. It's exciting to discover new authors and books this way. I remembered there was a Hungarian novelist featured in a fairly recent Bookmarks issue and was set on choosing that book until I came across the basketball novel and chose it for sentimental reasons.

There are lots of ways to incorporate the different countries idea.

Hi Jon -I just wanted to throw in my two cents to agree with Stephanie and say that I'd like to see some Young Adult books that cross over to adult. The idea about different countries -- perhaps books from other countries or books set in other countries?

Stephanie wrote: "Just throwing stuff out there tonight."

Throw away, Stephanie! :-) I appreciate all the suggestions, and not just in a "thanks so much for your feedback" way.

Young Adult: Yes, I like this idea. We used to do more Younger Reader coverage ... but frankly not a lot of people cared. So this might be a fun way to combine audiences.

By the way, we just finished up our Guilty Pleasures article for the Nov/Dec issue and will be sending it to the printer next week. Thanks to everyone in the group for the help!

Country Idea: I like this idea too and I want to think more about where to put it. Does it take the place of an author feature? Or is it a nice way to spice up our What One Book topic feature ... hmmmmmmm

That's the great thing about this group and a small magazine ... you will see your ideas in print! eventually ... :-)

J

I would also love to see novels from around the world featured in issues. India. Spain. China. Latin America. I could name about a dozen more. I love the author spotlight, but I think this would be a neat spotlight too. Maybe I am alone in this, I don't know. Just throwing stuff out there tonight.

Jon -

Have you ever considered featuring young adult lit that adults would really enjoy? As a high school teacher, I have seen my students read a lot of fluff, but there are some genuinely fantastic YA titles coming out. I have been eating them up and I know many other adults have as well - both CherylAnn and I run YA reading groups for adults (hers is more free-form, mine is a challenge based off of the book The Ultimate Teen Book Guide, but many of the books overlap.

I think the key to what makes YA lit so enjoyable (and I refer to the good stuff, not the fluff) is that YA books are fast-paced and often deal with difficult subject matter. They are hard to put down. Those of you that have read The Hunger Games know exactly what I mean. I can breeze through a YA book in a night or two and feel good for adding another book to my read list. Nerdy, I know.

This comes from someone who didn't really read YA lit as a YA, but now loves it! (The Hunger Games is a recent favorite. I also loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Speak, Crank, and Glass just to name a few more.) I have also been hearing amazing things about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Just a thought!

I agree on the big pictures. It seems so...obtrusive. The magaine is not a tabloid. That being said, I LOVE the magazine. I cut out and put in an envelope the books I want to read. I like the also by the author for that reason. I don't use the between the covers section. Even when I am too busy to read, Bookmarks keeps me in touch with books!
I enjoy looking through old issues just as much as I like new ones. Depending on life at the moment, different books catch my interest. Because I read most of them on the Kindle, I am not able to browse as easily as in a bookstore or library. Bookmarks is my tool for browsing, then I can quickly find it for the Kindle.

You know, I didn't really think about this topic until now, but I don't care for the large author photos either. Since we subscribe to the magazine because we are all obsessive readers, I can see how too many photos/too large of photos would be off-putting. I would rather have more to read than more to look at, although I do like the small cover photos for reference (which are throughout the magazine).

Kelly wrote: "sometimes I think it's the HUGE photos that put me off a bit too"

Thanks for the kind words, Kelly - and you're the second person who recently told me the author photos were too big. That's funny for me to hear with fresh ears ... we were trying to be very "magazine-like" by featuring those big photos, though I used to think Book magazine made a mistake by putting authors on their covers. They're not necessarily the most photogenic folks ... not that there's anything wrong with that. So maybe we're making a similar mistake, echoing celeb magazines in a way we shouldn't be... hmmmm ...

Jon,
I read those bizarre reviews on Amazon and was rather surprised. How could someone make it through an entire issue without seeing anything they want to read? Talk about picky!
My husband and I LOVE Bookmarks and we are thrilled when it arrives. Like most people, we love the reviews, but we also read the book club profile every time. Lots of magazines publish book reviews, but no one profiles book clubs. It's a great addition. Most people don't ever get to see themselves in a national magazine or to just see average, ordinary people who love to read.
I think the author profiles get a little long and I rarely read them (this is so shallow, but sometimes I think it's the HUGE photos that put me off a bit too).
I would love to see profiles of bookstores or novelty items for readers. Eventually, I think you'll have to cover the Kindle/e-book issue in a longer article.
But even if nothing changes ... we'll keep reading.

-Kelly

Lynn wrote: "Can you add time to the clock? ;-) That would really be great. "

Thanks a lot for the kind words and your thoughts, Lynn. As far as time on the clock goes, I tried getting less sleep ... that seems to be counterproductive over the long run.

OK, I think for the next issue I might drop that "Between the Covers" section and see if anyone cares. Everyone would rather have an extra review, right? I originally put the "Selections" section in there because I wanted something that would be easy for bookstores and libraries to clip out and post up somewhere. Good for them, good for Bookmarks awareness! I don't know how often that actually happens ... but I'll fantasize that it does and keep the page around :-).

Just picked up the new Kindle DX ... haven't played with it enough to have a real opinion how it compares to the smaller Kindles. The PDF support is disappointing, though ... you can't seem and a lot of PDF text is still to small, even though the DX has a bigger screen ...

Hi Jon - I LOVE Bookmarks and have subscribed since soon after it began. This is one subscription that I won't be stopping soon! As to your earlier questions about the magazine...

I'm not very interested in reading the author spotlights and mostly skim this section. Maybe have only a short listing of their works.

I like the book club page. I find it interesting what other groups are reading. I'm in two groups myself, so I occasionally mention at those meetings things that other groups are reading/doing.

I'm not interested in reading about the literary scene in various cities, but a short article on an established great bookstore would be good...as long as they were spread around the country and not just east coast! Perhaps by state or something... I'd surely nominate Powell's in Portland, OR! When traveling, I'd try to check into some of these stores.

"What One Book" is a section I either read thoroughly or skip, depending on the topic. So I vote for keeping that one.

"Year in Books" is interesting and so is "Have You Read?" Of course, the "New Books Guide" is the best!

The "Bookmark Selections" and "Between the Covers" are ok, but redundant. And I like "Coming Soon", and like when you note that a book is coming out in the theater.

My only problem (if you can call it that)with this magazine is that it gives me too many "to read" books and not enough time. Can you add time to the clock? ;-) That would really be great.

I received my latest issue today, and I already went through with my highlighter. There are SO many interesting titles in this issue. Good thing I am OFFICIALLY ON SUMMER BREAK as of today! And GOOD THING my MA project was accepted on Friday, so now I am done with EVERYTHING! The library better look out!

Monday morning ... last week's book reviews are safely linked in our database:

http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/book-re...

and this week's book assignments have been handed out. Oh, and the July/August issue left the printer in Ohio on the mail truck last Friday. A good feeling.

Thanks to everyone for the continued kind words about the magazine. Of course, I don't think our detractors would bother joining this group, would they? :-) Instead, those people leave bizarre reviews on Amazon.com. Why does that person get to affect our star rating?!?!?

Joycenclyde wrote: "Two questions ..."

Joyce, I don't *think* that we included any 3-star books in our year end "best of 2008" books in our Nov/Dec issue. If we did, I'd be curious to know which they were! There were, if memory serves, some 3-star books in our big round-up of everyone else's "Best of 2008" lists in our Mar/Apr 2009 issue. Checking now ... The American Wife was on three critics' best-of-the-year lists, but we had it as a 3-star book. Perhaps that page's title is a bit misleading, as it's really based on a tally of the other critics' lists.

As far as Selections goes, our writers offer up their nominations, then Jessica and I sit down and pick our final 10. We do try to go for a mix of books, both in terms of genre and style, so it's good to the final decisions centralized. Plus I'm a control freak, so there's that. :-) Think of it as a curated, consensus-oriented, "staff picks" list. As long as Jessica and I pick it too.

Jon, As I've mentioned before, I've read more consistently good books in the two years since discovering Bookmarks than in the most of the years before. I love it. Of course the main review section is the meat and first read. For me the idea that a number of different widely read people are in agreement that a book is top quality is a much better indicator than any one reader or critic. After that I like to check "what one book". There are so many areas (non-fiction) that I'd like to read more in but randomly hoping to find a really good book on say, Abraham Lincoln, is kind of foolish. Bookgroups, I don't really care.

Two questions: In your 2008 Best Books some of the items were just three star. Were you trying to represent as many categories as possible? Selections, how do you arrive at those? Every staffer gets a pick or vote of some kind?

Love turning on discriminating readers to Bookmarks at the library where I work. They come back and thank me so I'm passing that on to you. Joyce