Tag Archives: books

2020 Summer Reading

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Wondering what to read this summer? New novels, timely nonfiction, classic beach reads, new books from favorite authors…

The Best of Summer reading lists are rolling in and full of great suggestions. We’ve compiled the links to the top media lists to make the search easy. Check them out:

Bustle
The Most Anticipated Books Of Summer 2020

Buzzfeed News
29 Summer Books You Won’t Be Able To Put Down

Elle
The 30 Most Anticipated New Books Of Summer 2020

Entertainment Weekly
The Summer’s 30 Hottest Reads

Good Housekeeping
The 25 Best Beach Reads to Add to Your Summer Reading List

Harper’s Bazaar
The 14 Best Summer Books to Read in 2020

Lit Hub
The Best New Books to Read This Summer

The New York Times Book Review
2020 Summer Reading

Oprah
28 of the Best Beach Reads of Summer 2020

People
The 20 Best Books to Read This Summer

PopSugar
The 25 Books You’ll Want To Read This Summer

Refinery29
The 25 Books You’ll Want To Read This Summer

She Reads / Bookshop
The Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020

The Atlantic
20 Books to Read in Quarantine This Summer

Thrillist
15 Books We’re Excited to Read This Summer

Time
45 New Books You Need to Read This Summer

Today Show
16 Highly Anticipated Summer Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down

Travel + Leisure
The 20 Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020

Vogue
The 22 Best Books to Read This Summer

Vulture
29 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer

Washington Post
20 Books to Read this Summer

Be sure to purchase your next beach read from your favorite local indie bookstore! Bookshop.org   |   Indiebound.org

The Way We Read Now

The Way We Read Now

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We know what is essential. Yes, liquor stores are classified as essential services under the Tri-State Workforce Reductions Order. But we also know that books are essential.

With the closure of libraries and bookstores, and Amazon de-prioritizing books for shipment, avid readers are hungrier than ever for suggestions as they make the most out of the new normal.

Which kind of reader are you?

Take Verso’s quiz to find out which reader archetype you resemble.

 

 
 

 QUIZ 

Books We Love in the Time of Coronavirus

 

 
 

1) When I return home with arms full of toilet paper, sanitary wipes and hard liquor, I like to curl up with something like: 

  1. STATION ELEVEN (Imaginative fiction depicting an Earth ravished by plague.)
  2. THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT (Historical fiction with strong characters struggling to survive in the face of irrationality and betrayal.)
  3. TOUGH TALKING COWBOY (Can romance blossom on Wild Rose Ranch?)

 

 
 

2) When I reflect that even the best television hammers and lengthens my brain waves into a state of placid inertia, I crack open a copy of: 

  1. THE FIFTH RISK (It turns out that the “Deep State” is actually just experienced public servants trying to get their jobs done.)
  2. JOHN ADAMS UNDER FIRE (The lawyer who would become our second President faces crises of patriotism and ethics.)
  3. PRISONER OF NIGHT (The author reveals that, sometimes, being a vampire can make you feel bad.)

 

 
 

3) As soon as I realize that my home is as clean as it is damn well going to get right now, I gratefully rest my eyes upon:

  1. CAPITAL AND IDEOLOGY (A renowned economist writes more than 1,000 pages about why life is so horribly unfair.)
  2. THE GIFT OF FORGIVENESS (Anecdotal evidence suggests that it may be possible to be less enraged.)
  3. PETE THE CAT: THE GREAT LEPRECHAUN CHASE (Pete the Cat embarks on a great chase that concerns leprechauns.)

 

 
 

4) If social media has sucked away time, and I am no longer certain whether I wake or sleep, then I attempt to restore an iota of sanity with:

  1. EDUCATED (Evidence to support a theory that education could still have meaning.)
  2. THE MAMBA MENTALITY (Techniques and practices for becoming less of a clumsy dolt.)
  3. THE OUTSIDER (Terrible things happen that are merely fictional.)

 

 
 

5) Death is flapping musty, bat-like wings over all I cherish. Luckily, I’ve been awaiting this opportunity to read: 

  1. BECOMING (A kind, intelligent person works hard at doing good things.)
  2. THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ (A few people strive to remain human in harrowing circumstances.)
  3. THE MAGA DOCTRINE (A competent president with excellent ideas manages the greatest country in the world with aplomb.)

 

 
 

NOW give yourself 30 points for every A answer, 20 points for every B answer, and 10 points for every C answer.

130 – 150 points: You are the ENGAGED READER who reads books to improve your connection with reality. I am sorry.

100 – 129 points: You are the IMAGINATIVE READER who seeks out-of-the-box solutions to persistent problems. How’s it going?

50 – 99  points: You are the HAPPY READER. Godspeed.

0 – 49 points: You are the NON-READER. You have done something wrong and you are probably why we’re here in the first place.

Thank you for participating!

Please mail your results to:
VERSO ADVERTISING QUIZ
79 Madison Ave, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016.

(No reason, we just like mail.)

 

 
 

 STAY   HOME.

 

 STOP   THE SPREAD.

 

 READ   BOOKS.

 

This crisis makes us think about what we value and why we’re here. Be good to yourself and to others.

Here are a few advertising suggestions:

Print outlets — including those with strong book coverage like The New York Times and NYTBR, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Harper’s, The Atlantic, New York Review of Books and The Week — are 85-95% subscription-based. So they are landing weekly or monthly in the homes of people seeking entertainment, information, and recommendations!

News! Radio! News radio! NPR, Apple News, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM. The audience for news has never been greater than right now and when you need to get away from the news, cooking, fitness, parenting, tech, and culture are all targetable, for example through Spotify.

Podcasts. Of course.

Cancelled tours. Changing pub dates. Books launching right now. We’re here to help with geo-targeting, targeted newsletters, trade advertising, regional ads, digital and display ads; campaigns small, medium or large.

Because, as we all know, books are essential.

Get in touch with any questions or requests. We’re here for you.

 
Get in Touch ‣

 

 

 

Next to Now for October 28

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YOUTUBE VIEWING HABITS

YouTube is getting longer term views. The average viewing session on YouTube is now 40 minutes. That data point comes from a Google post about winning the customer over before s/he enters the store. While it’s written for larger brand advertisers—make-up, CPG, and cars—there are good takeaways for book advertising from the post.

#youtube #video #streaming

 

ON DATA AND “THE GIRL”

This isn’t advertising, but it’s such a rich analysis of book trends that anyone who loves books and data will find it irresistible: Acclaimed novelist Emily St. John Mandel writes a clever and nuanced post for Five Thirty Eight on publishing’s recent obsession with using the word “Girl” in titles. She looks at how many of the eponymous girls are actually girls (and how many are women), how many are written by women, how many are missing or lost or undead, and reports that we not yet reached peak “Girl”:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gone-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-on-the-train/?&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gone-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-on-the-train/?&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

 

HOW’S YOUR CAMPAIGN DOING? ASK A BOT

There has been a fair amount of press on how brands are starting to use bots to buy pizza, call an Uber, or book a flight, and a good bit more about the potential for new advertising platforms using bots on messaging apps like Kik and What’s App. Now, an article in Marketing Land points out new bots that help you measure advertising campaigns by integrating directly with such platforms as Facebook and Google or with existing third party servers such as Media Math and Sizmek.

#bots #AI #metrics

 

IAB STANDARD UNITS ARE DEAD. LONG LIVE IAB STANDARD UNITS.

Once upon a time, the IAB tried to tame the Wild West of internet advertising by introducing three standard units that would work across most sites: 300×250, 728×90, and 160×600. For a few years, all was well in advertisingland. But the advent of tablets and the new dominance of mobile devices soon began to mean more and more sizes. Then the native ad boom kicked in and things got wilder than ever—to the point where a single campaign can require more than ten different size ads, each with its own maximum file size, preferred file type, and timing. Even the IAB can see that it’s time to revisit the standard unit. If you want a say in what ad sizes are next, the public comment period is now open. 

#iab #standard

 

…OR ARE CUSTOM BANNERS THE NEW FUTURE?

On the other hand, an article on Digiday looks into the proliferation of custom units on such sites as the New York Times and Quartz, and wonders if the days of the standard banner are truly numbered. There’s a tension between the custom banners that perform better than the standard units, and the need for standard units to function with programmatic platforms.

#custom #iab

 

 

 

Fall tree photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Verso Reader Survey: In the News

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PaidContent reports on our latest Reader Survey:

“E-reader usage is growing beyond a group of early adopters, but new stats suggest that consumers are also increasingly resistant to buying an e-reader.”

The article does a good job of putting the Verso Survey results together with the latest numbers from Bowker/BISG.

eMarketer considers the Verso survey together with their own research and suggests there might be limits to the future growth of the e-reader market.

Our Survey provides a snapshot of consumer attitudes from December 2011, and over the past four surveys provides into the ways book-buyer sentiment and behavior have been shifting over the past three years.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Winter Institute.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Digital Book World.

Click here for links to news reports related to the latest Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior presented at Winter Institute and Digital Book World. Click here for a report from the survey presented at Tools of Change.

Also, check out Library Journal‘s report from Digital Book World, “A More Optimistic Unconference,” which noted “a markedly different psychology among the Big Six,” and remarked that “the all-important data to buy into a new, bigger picture [of the publishing ecosystem] is compelling.”

 

2011 Survey Links

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We are grateful to Digital Book World for allowing us to present the latest survey results at their 2011 conference. Some of the results were more than surprising and the news was picked up throughout the industry and around the world.

Click here to read Publishers Weekly on what the results say about the role of libraries in discovery of both print and ebooks.

Click here to read Library Journal on our survey’s implications for “the ebook lending gap.”

Click here to read Shelf Awareness on our presentation at Wi6 and the “Hybrid E- and Print-Book Market.” …And here to read Shelf Awareness reporting on how Verso’s survey complemented other research presented at DBW by Bowker and iModerate. …A few days later Shelf Awareness reported again on the hybrid market, going deeper into the implications of the survey.

Click here to read Bookselling This Week on the common themes that emerged from all the surveys presented at DBW.

And during his weekly #pubQT chat on Twitter, @RonHogan mentioned some of the results: