by Malena Lott
Sorry. I couldn’t help myself with that headline. Blame on my daily life as a marketer and advertiser. I’m always looking for the sparkly object to promote to my client’s target market. In the case of Book End Babes, we do have a lot of new on the horizon. You may have seen some tweets asking for more bookettes and book dudes. We’re switching to a once a month post per blogger format and leaving some spaces open for author guest posts. We’re also going to restructure the site and fold it neatly into the fold of the Athena Institute properties – my branding, creative and multimedia firm I founded in 2006.
It just makes sense that with the wild west of publishing these days I’d mesh my worlds. I hope that readers and authors will love what we’re doing. The indie multimedia division, Buzz Books USA, is going strong, with the recent announcement of new team members (publicist Cyndy Hoenig, senior editor Mari Farthing and communications manager Dani Stone) and writing contracts for new authors in several categories.
In addition to providing blogging opportunities for authors, we’ll also be adding advertising space and creative services for writers and businesses. I’m going to be honest and say all the “badvertising” I see being offered on the Internet made me want to offer a higher quality solution. Branding matters.
You’ll also be seeing more multimedia in the way of workshops, videos and podcasts. The Hive with Buzz Books just completed our first interview with film critic Phil Bacharach. You can listen to it here and will be able to get a feed through iTunes. Next week our guest is our own film to books bookette Michelle Langston who is a film publicist.
Yet the mission of BEB remains unchanged – get people reading. Talk about great books. Inspire new ideas and thinking. Reading makes us more empathetic, smarter and not quite so bitchy. Hey, it’s science! I’m going “behind the scenes” at BEB, but I’ll be posting once a month and relishing in getting to be a part of this savvy book community. Dani is taking the reins at BEB and long-time bookette Heather Dearly (and new Buzz Books author) will be the co-editor. Heather will handling our 4 monthly Top Picks. I know they’ll catch me when I fall, which I’m eternally grateful for. 
I’ll leave you with a bookish gift – a free promo that ends Monday for my short story, Snowflakes and Stones, available on the Kindle. It’s from the winter anthology, Sleigh Ride. I’d love to hear what you think.
Stay tuned for our trumpets and ‘tinis, announcing our new look and new book bloggers.
Real babes read books. (gals and guys!)
xo,
Malena
