As I mentioned yesterday, there is definitely a strong trend towards making publishing a television commodity. Book Television is holding the annual International 3-Day Novel Contest on Canadian National Television.

From BookTelevision’s website: “The broadcast winner will receive a $5000 cash award as well as a week-long mentorship at a prestigious Writers Guild of Albertaworkshop and publication in WestWord, one of Alberta’s premiere writing magazines.”

Deadline for submission of applicantions is June 15th, 2007 and is only available for Canadian citizens. Click here to read more about the contest.
I’m eager to see how this plays out, and to see the impact it has on the publishing world.

The Touchstone Books division of Simon & Schuster has teamed up with Media Predict to create Project Publish. This project is designed to identify who will have the next best book.

This is a good call to anyone who has a book they’d like published, or would like to keep an eye on potential author’s in order to see who might be the next best thing (and stock up on their novels).

To be frank, I think it’s an interesting idea but I don’t think it will generate the response they’re looking for. It seems like an attempt to capitlize on the “Reality” theme through the web. You can read more from the New York Times’ press release or from Media Predict’s Project Publish web page.
I think this is positive move to help authors gain more exposure to their work - I’m just undecided as to whether or not this will increase the literary bar.

Alibris has setup a program specifically for book sellers to sell their inventory through their system and partners. Alibris has also expanded it’s distribution for sellers to also include Borders. This will take place early in 2008 according to the Borders website. Be sure to go to their corporate site however as borders.com will load up an Amazon.com storefront until the switch over.

In addition to selling your books through the Alibris website, they will also be available for sale at these company sites:

• Barnes & Noble and its subsidiaries and affiliate companies
• Books-A-Million
• Borders
• Chapters/Indigo
• Ingram, and others

Click here to read more about the Alibris Book Seller Basic Program

Click here to read the announcement of change from Borders