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Welcome to Smashwords! Smashwords is an ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers, agents and readers. We offer multi-format, DRM-free ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device. For readers, Smashwords provides an opportunity to discover new voices in all categories and genres of the written word. Once you register, the site offers useful tools for search, discovery and personal library-building. Each week we add new features based on feedback from members.

Libraries and big six publishers are at war over eBooks: how much they should cost, how they can be lent and who owns them.  If you don't use your public library and assume that this doesn't affect you, you're wrong.

"Publishers have spent a lot of time and money building their own company Web sites with fresh information on their books and authors. The trouble is, very few book buyers visit them. In search of an alternative, three major publishers said on Friday that they would create a new venture, called Bookish.com, which is expected to make its debut late this summer. The site intends to provide information for all things literary: suggestions on what books to buy, reviews of books, excerpts from books and news about authors. Visitors will also be able to buy books directly from the site or from other retailers and write recommendations and reviews for other readers." As of early August 16 2011, the site is not ready. However, you can enter your email address to be notified when it goes live. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/books/publishers-plan-a-joint-one-stop-book-site.html?_r=1&src=recg

Great ideas for publishing books- especially for children (and children's book writers)

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

An Easy Way to Make Online Booklets

There are some good services on the web that will turn PDFs into books and booklets and some services that will even allow you to create embeddable booklets online, yet few are quite as simple to use as Simple Booklet. Simple Booklet is a new service offering free online booklet creation and publishing.

Having completed four years worth of "Best of" lists for picture books, I was finally inspired to compile a list of the  best middle-grade and chapter books I have read in the last year. Maybe I didn't want to be forced to pick any favorites, or maybe this was the first year that I felt like I had actually read enough newly published books in a given year to compile a fair list. Either way, although I remain dedicated to working through that massive pile of older books that I want to share with my readers, I am very excited about this list and passionate about all of the books that made it on to this list. If you were to encounter me in my workplace and ask me about any of these titles, I would gush, most likely somewhat embarrassingly, about any or all of them, if you gave me enough time. 

If you are 16 or under and like to write stories or poems, this site is for you. KIdsWWwrite publishes writing by young authors and offers you a chance to share it with the world. Read stories and poems by other young authors or submit your own writing for publication on the site.

Some of the text below applies to the 2013 event, but the site's URL stays the same year to year. "World Book Night 2013 is a celebration of literacy by publishers, bookstores, libraries and individuals who love books and reading. On World Book Night 2013, 25,000 'book givers' will each give away 20 copies of a specially-printed, not-for-resale WBN edition of book they have read and loved (from a list of 25-30 titles selected by librarians and booksellers) to complete strangers - people who may never have owned a book of their own. To promote this literacy event, libraries and bookstores - as organizational participants in the event - form a nationwide advocacy and distribution network." Last year was the inaugural event, which happens on April 23rd. If you want your library to participate as a distribution center, fill out the attached application by October 1, 2012. Specific responsibilities of official participants are outlined in the application. The deadline on the form indicates September 1st, but according to discussions on ALAConnect, it was extended by a month. Sign up for the mailing list to learn when applications go online annually: http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/component/forme/?fid=3

The Giving Tree Narrated by Shel Silverstein

"The Awards target innovative and content-rich programs and websites that augment the classroom curriculum and improve teacher productivity, providing parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational excellence. Some selection criteria are academic content, potential for broad classroom use, technical merit, subject approach and management system. Winners are selected from titles submitted by publishers around the world."

Online flyer resource.

This was taken as excerpts from Melissa Dalton's post on Libs-Or: Oregon Poetic Voices (OPV) is a comprehensive digital archive of poetry readings that complements existing print collections of poetry across the state and is funded by the Library Services and Technology Act FFY2010. The state of Oregon possesses an unusually high number of nationally recognized writers, a very high proportion of whom are award-winning and otherwise notable poets. Additionally, there are active communities of emerging poets around the state, and poetry is regularly taught in the English curriculum of most Oregon schools. Until Oregon Poetic Voices began in 2010, there was no publicly accessible archive of recorded poetry by Oregon poets that could be used to maintain a record of poetry in performance, which is a vitally important aspect of interpretation and a valuable teaching tool. The Oregon Poetic Voices archive currently publishes over 200 prominent and emerging Oregon poets, including their biographies and poem texts alongside their recordings, and will soon feature historic performances recorded by KBOO, Fishtrap, and the Mountain Writers Series. There are also resources for educators, including curriculum guides and links to information about teaching poetry. http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/libs-or/2011-July/010664.html

Recognizing the need for poetry in our lives, the Oregon Poetic Voices Project (OPV) has begun to create a comprehensive digital archive of poetry readings that will complement existing print collections of poetry across the state.

Information in quotes was taken from Ann Scheppke's post on Libs-Or. The website "is the culmination of more than two years' work by staff at the University of Oregon Libraries, in collaboration with the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a number of state agencies and stakeholders" and was partially funded by an LSTA grant. Users have access to "historical materials originally published by Oregon journalists between 1846 and 1922. The website includes more than 180,000 pages of digital content drawn from historic newspapers that include the Salem Capital Journal and the Portland Oregonian." K12 lesson plans are available, although that section is still being developed. http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/libs-or/2011-July/010667.html

"The National Academies Press has announced that all PDF versions of books that they publish are now downloadable to anyone free of charge. This includes a current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press." There's a section devoted to the subject of education.

"Empowering Learners advances school library programs to meet the needs of the changing school library environment and is guided by the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action. It builds on a strong history of guidelines published to ensure that school library program planners go beyond the basics to provide goals, priorities, criteria, and general principles for establishing effective library programs." This book can be ILLed from the Oregon State Library: http://www.oregon.gov/OSL/LD/school/index.shtml#Requesting_Materials_from_OSL_.