Archive for December, 2009

DailyLit Books Make Great Freebie Gifts

We’re down to just one week for you to finish your Christmas shopping. But don’t panic! DailyLit books make great freebie gifts for those hard-to-buy-for folks on your list. Choose a book your friend or family member would like–or one you’d both like to read, so you can form a mini-book club–and select the date and time you’d like the book to start being delivered. Then you can enter a gift message that will show up in each installment of the book, reminding your loved one of you long after the holiday is over. No lines, no hassle, no rush–and it’s all for FREE. Why not give Pride & Prejudice, or Madame de Staël (Diane von Furstenberg’s favorite summer book), or Shoes, Bags, and Tiaras, or A Christmas Carol, or one of our 600+ other books?

Winners of the November Reader Challenge

Thanks so much to all who participated in our November Reader Challenge. It certainly wasn’t easy to choose three winners–there were many great entries–but here are our three favorites. Congratulations to mir777, mountaingirl, And agedcheddar! You’ll each receive a copy of Mollie Katzen’s new cookbook Get Cooking. (And remember, December’s  Reader Challenge is open right now–visit the Reader Challenge forum to enter.)

Here are the winning stories. Enjoy!

mir777:
“Martha, your potatoes souffle is simply divine,” Leticia murmured through a mouthful of marshmallowed sweet potatoes.
“Divine?” Martha burst into tears.
Raising a languid eyebrow, Letitia stared, puzzled, at Martha.
Martha, breathing deeply, replied, “I know about you and my husband.”
Harold crushed the Parker House roll, that he had just fetched from the basket, in his clenched fist and began to sweat.

mountaingirl:
No more questions about my job, cat, or horrid roommate. I will jump from my corner chair, thrust myself over yet another dry turkey, grab my mousy hair and scream my head off. But Charlie is smiling more, and Cara actually helped cook. The corner chair’s not so bad really.

agedcheddar:
Every year I put two extra place settings at the table for my Mother and Brother. It’s my way of saying that they may be gone but are certainly not forgotten. Last year was no different. Midway through the meal my five year old Granddaughter says, “Bubbe, you need to give the lady some more turkey”. No sooner had she spoken those words when her twin brother says, “And that boy needs more milk”. I was too blind to see but the eyes of five year olds are much more keen!

Gotham Gal Named Special Guest Contributor to DailyLit’s Book Channel

I am delighted to announce that Gotham Gal is our new special guest contributor on DailyLit’s book channel.  One of the benefits of running a company is that you’re able to tap people whose tastes you respect, with recommendations that you’d take.  In fact, by having Gotham Gal recommend particular books, it saves me the trouble of asking her in private about books that I should read.  Check out her gothamgal.com website if you have a chance; it’s a fun read. You can see her first column for DailyLit’s Book Channel here and sign up for the channel–full of recommendations and excerpts–here.

Your Questions Answered

Here’s the first of a series of blog posts answering questions you left for us on our recent reader survey. If you think of other questions you’d like to see answered please send them to us at support[at]dailylit[dot]com!

I would enjoy longer selections…the pieces of the story that come are so short…could you opt to have longer ones?
You can opt to receive installments that are two times or four times as long as the “normal” installments, which are 1000 words each. Just click on “Manage the books you’re reading” link at the bottom of any installment, click on “More” next to the book title, and then set “Installment length” to your desired length. And of course, you can always use the “send next installment immediately” link that appears at the bottom of each installment.

Thanks for the wide variety of book topics! I was curious if you ever do anything strictly visual [eg an art or architecture book]?
We’re getting more into images these days. Check out our Wikipedia Tour: Masterpieces of Western Art and our Shoes, Bags, and Tiaras series from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

I keep getting missed installments! What’s up with that?
I love this concept but for some reason, the two times I’ve tried to read a book via DailyLit, I don’t get all of the installments. It’s rather sporadic. But, I’ll keep trying because it’s such a cool idea.
Emails sometimes don’t appear because they’re blocked by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), company spam filter, or they’re trapped in your own spam folder. First thing to try is to check your spam folder. If they’re not there, they may be trapped at a higher level: there are a lot of aggressive spam filters out there that block messages even before they get to you (hence they don’t even show up in your spam or junk folder). First try resending installments to yourself as described in our FAQs. If you do receive some installments and not others and cannot even resend the missing installments, then you either have to have your system administrator whitelist books [at] dailylit [dot] com or you need to use a different email account. If you are only missing installments occasionally, then you might choose to view installments online.

Question of the Week #54: Happy Birthday Ms. Austen

Jane Austen’s birthday is this week (December 16). What would you give her as a birthday gift?

Tell us in our Question of the Week forum.

Sara Nelson Named Special Guest Contributor to DailyLit’s Book Channel.

I’m thrilled to announce that Sara Nelson is our first guest contributor for DailyLit’s Book Channel. Sara is the author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time. From 2005 to 2009, she was editor in chief of Publishers Weekly and is currently the Books Director for O, the Oprah Magazine.

Sara is one of the women I admire most—she’s smart, genuine, and, with her refreshingly direct voice, will be sure to tell you what’s on her mind. She’ll be recommending books we should be reading (or at least know about). Check out her first column here—and receive her series (for free) by signing up for DailyLit’s Book Channel.

DailyLit News: December 2009

Note from the CEO
DailyLit is now 100% free! That’s right. You heard me. It’s a new era for DailyLit—we’ve ditched the books for pay but will keep our focus on offering you the highest quality books and stories. And with the holidays upon us, remember, you can send any DailyLit book or story (maybe one with a holiday theme?) as a fun free gift to your friends (with your own personalized message in each installment). And if you go away, you can temporarily suspend your book and have it automatically resume for when you get back.
Happy Holidays!

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
sdanziger[at]dailylit[dot]com

DailyLit: Now 100% FREE
We’ve been listening to our readers, and it’s clear that you most appreciate the books we’ve made available for free. So starting now, every book, story and series featured on DailyLit will be 100% free. We’ll be relying on sponsors to help support DailyLit so let us know of any sponsors who may be interested at sponsor[at]dailylit[dot]com. And please pass it on—DailyLit books are now 100% FREE!

New! Book Channel
DailyLit Selects—our series of excerpts from new and noteworthy books—is becoming DailyLit’s Book Channel. We’ll be featuring pieces from special guest contributor Sara Nelson, author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time (and former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, currently the Books Director for O, the Oprah Magazine). And we’ve also got book recommendations from “Gotham Gal”, hailed as the “woman around town.” All free, of course. Read it.

DailyLit’s Big Read: A Christmas Carol
The choice for this month’s Big Read is a natural. Join us in celebrating the season by reading Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. Need I say it? It’s FREE. Read it.

New Reads (All Free!)
—The Book of the Shepherd: Just in time for the holidays comes The Book of the Shepherd, a parable for modern minds that comes “highly recommended for anyone interested in personal spirituality.” Read it.
—New story by Laurel Dewey: In Anonymous, the third original Jane Perry story, the heroine encounters a woman with a harrowing story to tell—and a mystery that runs far deeper than Jane at first realizes. Read it. (Missed the first two Jane Perry stories? Find them here.)

Reader Challenge—Guest Judge Anne Rice
With the holidays upon us and angels getting their wings in re-runs of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” this month’s creative challenge centers around angels. In exactly 50 words, tell a story of an encounter with an angel. Anne Rice, whose book Angel Time recently debuted, will be our guest judge this month. She’ll select her three favorites, each of whom will win a signed copy of Angel Time. Post your encounters in our Reader Challenge Forum no later than 11:59pm EST on December 31st.

Take Our Survey (you could win advance copy of major novel)
We need your help in supporting our move to be 100% free. Please take our short reader survey, which will help us attract new books and sponsors to our site. To sweeten the deal, we’ll be giving advance reader copies of internationally best-selling author Henning Mankell’s new book, The Man from Beijing, to five people who complete the survey. Take the survey.

Holiday Reads on DailyLit

The holiday season is in full swing, so why not get some cheer by email with one of our holiday reads.

A Christmas Carol (DailyLit’s Big Read!)
The Little Match Girl
The Gift of the Magi
The Night Before Christmas

And don’t forget designer Diane von Furstenberg’s gift to you this holiday season: acclaimed biography (and one of Diane’s favorite books this year) Madame de Staël.

Question of the Week #53: Holiday Classics

It was during this week in 1965 that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered–and it’s been a holiday classic ever since. What are your favorite holiday stories? Share yours in our Question of the Week forum.

Pausing Your DailyLit Books for Holidays

The holidays are one of the busiest times of the year. So even though DailyLit comes in bite-sized pieces, you may not be able to find those five minutes in your jam-packed schedule these days. To make things easier we’ve built a feature on DailyLit that allows you to suspend your books and set a date for them to resume automatically. So if you’re traveling over the holidays or are just too busy with family (and food!), click on the “Suspend” link at the bottom of any installment then pick the date you want your book to resume. Your book will pause until your days are back to normal. Just one way we’re trying to help make your holidays happier.

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