Library Thing Early Reviewers

The Library Thing Early Reviewers Program (LTER) is an initiative in which Library Thing (LT) teams with select publishers to provide review copies of books to readers whose libraries indicate an interest in the topic or nature of the book.

Library Thing is an online book-cataloging application with – as of March 2009 – over 650,000 members who have cataloged thirty-seven million books. Each month, participating publishers offer a minimum of fifteen review copies for any title for which they wish reviews from this book-loving membership.

LT members who sign up for LTER examine each month’s listings and request books they want to read and review. Typically, anywhere from 150 to more than 2,000 LTER members request any given title. Any books they receive are supposed to be reviewed within a reasonable length of time and a review posted on the LT site. LT’s position is that it doesn’t require any particular kind of review – favorable or unfavorable, long or short, etc. – in order for the member to remain in good standing in the LTER program but some kind of review should be filed by members wishing to retain good positioning according to the logarithm LT uses to select those members to receive books.

LOVED ME ONCE was listed in the July 2009 publisher batch, with a notation that twenty review copies were available. Five hundred and eighty-six members requested a copy. LT provided ArbeitenZeit with the list of winners on 4 August 2009. The twenty copies were mailed 6 August 2009 to LTER members in California (4), Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois (2), Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Virginia.

© 2009, Gail Hewitt. All rights reserved.

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