Yet more on this litblogging thing

the Observer’s Hepzibah Anderson wonders if bloggers can really make or break books. Or at least, does so for the benefit of the paper:

Exactly what sells books

remains mysterious, but one tried-and-tested method is the

word-of-mouth recommendation. The world’s oldest marketing tool, it’s

slippery as the truth and impossible to fake. Or so we all thought.

Lately, however, American publishers have wised up to the arrival of

the so-called ‘bloggerati’, a network of cyber bookworms whose blogs

are signed by the likes of Moorish Girl, Book Dwarf and Four-Eyed

Bitch. These are not havens for kinky librarians but online reading

journals – digital marginalia on books they’ve loved and loathed,

supplemented by cut-and-paste montages of mainstream reviews. In tone,

they offer the same abrasive mix of passion and gunslinging opinion

that makes the political bloggers so refreshing.

Despite

the book-group boom, reading remains a solitary pursuit and, like all

things online, blogs offer a sense of community. In May, that community

grew stronger with the birth of the Litblog Co-op, a virtual collective

whose 22 American members will single out four new books a year,

beginning with Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories. Bloggers have been the

making of titles like Sam Lipsyte’s Home Land and, depending on how

lucrative it proves, a Co-op endorsement could yet rival that of Oprah

or Richard and Judy.

Um…what?? I mean, that would be nice, and I’m sure the entire LBC would love to wield that kind of power, but it’s early days yet.

Also nice to see Charlie Williams quoted about ads and blogs not mixing terribly well.