Archive for March, 2009

Question of the Week (3/30/09): Favorite Poems

This week will see the calendar turn from March to April, and April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate, we’d like to know what your favorite poem is. Please share it and the reasons you love it in our Question of the Week Forum.

DailyLit’s New Big Read: 3 Short Reads by Edgar Allan Poe

We’re happy to announce DailyLit’s new Big Read–3 Short Reads by Edgar Allan Poe. When we asked you to suggest authors for our next Big Read, a number of you mentioned Poe, the famous master of horror (by the way, thanks for the suggestions!). Since there are so many great Poe stories (and we couldn’t decide on one), we figured we’d choose three famous short ones: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Raven. You can read all three in just 7 installments–one week’s worth of reading. Come join the Big Read and experience Poe with thousands of others!

DailyLit’s 50 Word Challenge

I recently read Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind (great book, by the way), which explained that storytelling is essential for professional success and personal fulfillment. As an exercise to spark your creativity, he offered this challenge: write a 50-word mini-saga, which is an extremely short story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s exactly 50 words (no more, no less).

Since DailyLit is all about short bits of lit, we thought we’d hold our very own 50 Word Challenge. So, get your creative juices flowing and come up with your own 50-word mini-saga. Once you’re done, post it in our 50 Word Challenge Forum so we can all enjoy reading them. We’re up for the challenge. How about you?

All a-Twitter

We’ve been working hard to make reading on DailyLit even more social and fun. I’m thrilled to announce that you can now link your DailyLit profile with your Twitter account. With our new automatic tweeting system, your followers on Twitter can now be kept up to date with all your activities on DailyLit. They can follow you as you begin a book, join in your discussions, and even help you celebrate when you finish a book. To get started, head to DailyLit, log in with your username and password, and click on the “Link Your Profile to Twitter” link. And don’t forget, DailyLit is on Twitter too–follow @DailyLit to get the latest news as it happens. We’re all a-Twitter!

Survey Says…

We’ve done several reader surveys over the past few months, and we wanted to share the results with you. It turns out that you have diverse interests, with a majority of you being heavy readers (58% have read over 10 books in the last 12 months). We were surprised by how many of you read your installments at home (76%). Also, over 50% of you read your installments at the office (a number of you mentioned that you like the fact that your boss thinks you’re reading work-related emails when in fact you’re reading books). And a few of you admitted to reading your installments during meetings! Here are some specific results:

How much do you read?
40% of you have read between 1 and 10 books in the last 12 months
25% read between 11 and 20
21% read between 21 and 50
12% read more than 50 books
(And they say people don’t read anymore!)

Why digital?
47% of you like digital books because they’re lightweight and easy to carry
60% like them because they’re environmentally friendly
63% like them because they are less expensive than printed books

Where do you DailyLit?
76% Read DailyLit at home
52.9% read at the office
2% read during meetings (naughty, naughty!)
14% read in-transit
13% read in bed

What else do you like to do?
95% like reading
70% like films
62% like movies (like films, but with more explosions)
62% like traveling
53% like sleeping/general laziness
51% like cooking (in related news, baked goods are always welcome at DailyLit headquarters…)

What kinds of books do you like to read?
77% literary fiction
50% non-fiction
39% sci fi
39% thrillers
28% educational

Question of the Week (3/16/09): Why do you DailyLit?

I started DailyLit because I wanted a way to enrich my life in just a few minutes day in between running from work and helping my kids with their homework. I was wondering what drew you to DailyLit and how it’s affected your life. Visit our Question of the Week forum to let us know.

Question of the Week (3/10/09): Favorite Female Writers

It’s Women’s History Month, and to celebrate, our Question of the Week is all about women in literature. Tell us who your favorite female authors are in our Question of the Week forum .

Question of the Week (3/2/09): What Should Be Next Big Read?

Welcome to March! The month’s first Question of the Week is also a special CEO edition. Which short story should be the next Big Read? Let us know!