We’ve added a couple of new link categories on the right. Here’s what they are and why we’ve added them:

Books Coming Next Month — When you’re ordering far in advance, it’s hard to remember what’s coming out next month. These lists help you stay on top of the big releases for the month. They are also useful for deciding which titles need to get rush processing.

Books in the Consumer Media – You need to know what reviews are influencing your customers. This is a convenient roundup of what is being reviewed in the major consumer media.

While we’re at it, let’s explain the rest of the links:

Books of Fall ‘08 — Previews — These magazine and newspaper previews are a good way to look ahead to the season. Since they are compiled by the editors of major books sections, these are the titles likely to be getting review coverage. We’ve also compiled all the titles into “Mashups,” with ISBN’s for the books’ various formats.

Books of Spring ‘09 Preview — The Association of American Publishers is currently running a series of Webcasts of editors previewing books coming January through April. The link is to an Excel file with ordering information for all the titles.

Books to Movies — Obviously, movies bring readers to books and you HAVE to know what’s in theaters now as well as what’s coming down the road. And, obviously, you need to get a flavor of the movies. What better way than watching the trailers? Movies are arranged by release date, with links to the trailer (“Boss, it’s research, REALLY”). At the end of the list, are links to our lists of tie-in titles. Some libraries have used this list to create “Read the Book Before You See the Movie” lists. 

Download Publishers Catalogs — Publisher catalogs are invaluable for spotting which titles will be heavily promoted and for finding titles that may not get reviews (like new editions, embargoed and special-interest titles).  Here, you can download the current catalogs directly. For previous seasons, go the the “Publishers Catalogs” listings on the left, under “Pages.”

It’s great to see how many new readers are coming to the site from our link on Unshelved this week.

We’re also gratified that our “old readers” keep coming back. It’s fascinating to see the creative ways librarians use EarlyWord. Here’s some of the things we hear:

• EarlyWord reminds me to buy audio and large type formats of titles that become popular; I don’t always have that information available when I first order a title
• I use the “books to movies” information as basis for a “Read the Book Before You See the Movie” section on the library’s Web site
• EW helps me focus on books getting heavier reserves than expected
• It’s great to have the catalogs all in one place; they give me insight into which titles publishers will be promoting heavily
• It’s helpful to see what’s getting reserves in other libraries. Our community doesn’t do a lot of reserving, so we can’t use that as a guide for what we need more of. 

If you just found us via our ad on Unshelved, welcome. As a long-time reader of Unshelved myself, I admire your taste.

Now that you’re here, please take the time to check out what EarlyWord has to offer:

• Links to download publisher catalogs — browse the winter/spring ‘09 catalogs to see what publishers will be promoting and to uncover books that meet your special community needs. You can download directly, from the links on the right, or go to a single list.

• Publisher Contacts — links to publisher services created specifically for librarians and to library marketing staff.

• Bestseller List — Highlighted on the right, links to current national and speciality lists.

• Consumer Book Coverage — links to the latest reviews in one convenient place.

• Movies to Books — upcoming and current movies with tie-in title information, plus links to trailers at the right (they’re not even a guilty pleasure; it’s part of your job to stay on top of movies that bring new attention to books).

• The “Give ‘em What They Want” blog, highlighting books on the rise (the AP wrote about Joe Biden’s book today, but there’s another book that actually got more of a bounce because of Bidne’s nomination), word-of-mouth bestsellers and review quotes you can use in readers advisory work.

• Seasonal overviews. To the right, you’ll see the Books of Summer Picks. The fall list have just begun to appear; we’ll soon begin putting together our Fall Reads Mashup.

If you like what you see, you can sign up for our RSS feed (see the button to the right).