Archive for the ‘Publicity’ Category

DailyLit News: January 2010

Note from the CEO

I’ve been thrilled by your enthusiastic response to DailyLit and how much you appreciate our making all our books and stories free. Now it’s time to share the love. Tell 5 friends about DailyLit—pass on the word at dinner, forward installments to your colleagues, or mention DailyLit to moms at pick up. You can also now use your address book to invite your friends to read along or publish to your Facebook page. Thanks for spreading the word!

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
sdanziger@dailylit.com

Berlitz Spanish Lessons

Ever wanted to learn Spanish? Enjoy our daily, complimentary Spanish course created exclusively for DailyLit by Berlitz. Available only through May 1st. Read it here.

DailyLit’s Big Read

January is the month of Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday, so in his honor this month’s Big Read is his short story “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” It’s the world’s first-ever detective fiction—without Poe’s Auguste Dupin there might never have been a Sherlock Holmes. Read it here.

Reader Challenge

It’s a brand new decade, full of possibilities and hope. This month’s reader challenge taps into that optimism. Complete this sentence: “What I wish for the world in 2010 is….” And remember, one complete sentence only! Share your wishes for the world—literary, political, imaginary, whatever—in our Reader Challenge Forum.

New Feature: Invite a Friend

Don’t go it alone—invite your friends to join you. Now, when you start reading a book on DailyLit, you’ll be able to instantly publish what you’re reading to Facebook, Yahoo, and other sites. And if you open up your address book, you can invite any number of friends to join in one big read-along.

New Short Fiction from Laurel Dewey

Laurel Dewey’s compelling heroine Detective Jane Perry returns in this fourth original piece of short fiction. Here Jane investigates a suspicious death and uncovers secrets she could never have imagined. Read it here. (And find three other pieces by Laurel Dewey here.)

Make 2010 the Year of The Book

Always wanted to read Anna Karenina? Moby Dick? Pride and Prejudice? Make this the year that you finally tackle The Book—you know, one major classic you ought to have read at some point in your life. Take it one day and one installment at a time—you can do it! Check out our Classics for inspiration.

Your DailyLit Story

Thanks to everyone who took our reader survey last month—we loved reading your feedback (and your kind words about DailyLit). We’d like to feature stories about your experience with DailyLit and what you’ve been able to accomplish so if you have a story to share, please email us at support@dailylit.com.

DailyLit Announces Move to All Free

We are thrilled to announce that DailyLit is now 100% free. Starting now, any book, story or series featured on DailyLit is being made available for free.

DailyLit has always been about responding to our readers – any feature we’ve launched or change we’ve made has been in response to readers’ requests. We’re now listening to our readers once again, and it’s clear that they most appreciate the wonderful books, stories and installments available for free.

DailyLit depends on the support of sponsors to continue to offer high quality books and stories for free. We’re thankful for such sponsors as HarperStudio and Random House as well as Diane Von Furstenberg (who’s giving the gift of her favorite book, free through January). If you’re interested in our sponsorship program, please contact me at: susan[at]dailylit[dot]com.

With the support of our sponsors, we’ll do our best to continue to present series of the highest quality and will strive to continue to earn the reputation we’ve recently received as the #1 Book Website (as selected by The Sunday Times).

Spend Black Friday Online with DailyLit

It’s Black Friday–either the best or worst shopping day of the year, depending on who you ask.

If you’re not one for crowds and stampedes, why not check out some of DailyLit’s books to see what would make good gifts. We’ve got selections from Mollie Katzen’s new cookbook Get Cooking; Gary Vaynerchuk’s inspirational Crush It! Cash in on your Passion; and many of this season’s most notable books in our DailyLit Selects series. You might get some great gift ideas from our contemporary collection–which you can order from Amazon with just a click. (You can gift our books, too–completely free.)

And with all that tryptophan from yesterday’s turkey still making you feel tired, this may be the your best option for shopping today.

Happy Thanksgiving from DailyLit

To all our readers and friends: Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you all have much to be thankful for this Turkey Day. Here’s a lovely ode to Autumn from John Keats, for whom the English literary world is certainly thankful.

TO AUTUMN.

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Five More Days to Enter Reader Challenge

Before you head off for the Thanksgiving holiday, remember that you only have until the end of Sunday–November 29 at 11:59pm EST–to enter this month’s Reader Challenge. We’re asking you to imagine a fictional holiday gathering and describe—in no more than 50 words—a character, conversation or event at your holiday meal. We’ll pick three winners, each of whom will receive a copy of Mollie Katzen’s new book Get Cooking.

So hurry–submit your entries in our Reader Challenge forum before the food coma sets in and the sales start.

Darwin’s “Origin of Species” Turns 150

It was exactly 150 years ago today that Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a work that sparked a firestorm of controversy that continues even today. Using the observations he made during his famous voyage to the Galapagos 1830s, Darwin re-imagined the processes by which life comes to be–including the lives of modern humans. On the Origin of Species is considered the seminal work of modern evolutionary biology and its impact on society at large is hard to understate. What better time to revisit this transformative book than its 150th birthday? (And you can read it free on DailyLit!)

Upload a Profile Picture — And Be Entered to Win John Grisham’s New Book

To make our community a little friendlier, join us for some facetime here at DailyLit.  Help us out by uploading a personalized profile picture. Your face, your cat, your favorite painting–doesn’t matter what you choose. And everyone with a personalized picture uploaded by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, November 22nd (that’s TODAY!) will be automatically entered to win one of five copies of John Grisham’s new book Ford County.

DailyLit Readers Had a Literary Halloween

In our Question of the Week before Halloween we asked if you’ve ever dressed as a literary character for Halloween (or would like to) and encouraged you to send us pictures if you had. Here are two of our readers who took the plunge:

Here’s Asparagusqueen as a very dapper Edgar Allan Poe (check out the Raven in her arms):

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and emilyyoung–complete with fake nose-ring–as the edgy Lisbeth Salander from Steig Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire:

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Thanks for sending in the photos! Hope you–and all our readers–had a happy Halloween.

DailyLit News: November 2009

Note from the CEO
It’s facetime here at DailyLit!  Upload a picture on your profile page and be eligible to win a free John Grisham book. It’s also time to thank Diane Von Furstenberg for sponsoring one of her favorite books of the year, Madame de Staël, now available for free on DailyLit.    And it’s time to launch our “Big Ideas” channel with inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuck, named one of this year’s most influential men.  We’ve also got free daily tips from Grammar Girl (secrets out — I love grammar!) and a new feature that allows you to automatically resume your books when you want to take a break for the holidays — just in time!

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

Diane von Furstenberg Brings Favorite Book to DailyLit for Free
Iconic designer Diane von Furstenberg has a holiday gift for you: one of her favorite reads this year is now available on DailyLit for free.  Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman is a fast-paced biography that tells the glamorous, dramatic story of a woman who was a true force to be reckoned with. Vogue Magazine called it “a timely mediation on female power and an inspiring profile of one woman’s courage.” Thanks to Diane and the publisher, it’s free through the end of January. Read it.

New! DailyLit Kicks off “Big Ideas”
“Big Ideas” is designed to inspire you with new ideas for both work and play.  Kicking off this new channel is inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book Crush It! Cash In on your Passion.  He grew his family’s wine business and became a national industry leader, landing him at #18 on AskMen.com’s list of 50 most influential Men of 2009. Read it–FREE.

DailyLit’s Big Read: Short Story by John Grisham
Bestselling author John Grisham just released his first ever collection of short stories, Ford County–and we’ve selected one as this month’s Big Read. “Fetching Raymond” is a simple, powerful story about a day one family knew was coming but still can’t face. Read it–FREE.

Reader Challenge
As bestselling author Daniel Pink wrote, exercising your creativity leads to personal and professional success.  With that in mind, and holiday dinners fast approaching, this month’s reader challenge asks you to imagine a fictional holiday gathering and describe–in no more than 50 words–a character, conversation or event at your holiday meal. Share your mini-stories in our Reader Challenge forum. And to sweeten the pot, we’ll select three winners, each of whom will receive a copy of Mollie Katzen’s new book, Get Cooking.

New reads
–Grammar Girl: She’s on the scene to make grammar easy and fun with her “quick and dirty” tips.  We’ve got a selection from her new book that will make you a better writer. Read it–FREE.
–Jane Perry Returns: In a second piece of original writing, Laurel Dewey’s inimitible heroine Detective Jane Perry returns to DailyLit. Get into her head with “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover,” a blog entry by the detective. Read it–FREE. (And if you missed the first installment, “An Unfinished Death,” read it here–FREE.)

Pause Your Books for the Holidays
You’ve always been able to suspend and resume delivery of your books using the links at the end of any installment. Now, with the holidays coming up, when you want to suspend your book, you can set a date for it to automatically resume.  Just click on the “suspend” link at the bottom of any installment to set it up.

Upload Your Picture Now–You May Win a Grisham Book
To make our community a little friendlier, join us for some facetime here at DailyLit.  Help us out by uploading a personalized profile picture. Your face, your cat, your favorite painting–doesn’t matter what you choose. And everyone with a personalized picture uploaded by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, November 22nd will be automatically entered to win one of five copies of John Grisham’s new book Ford County.

Diane von Furstenberg brings Madame de Staël to DailyLit for Free

Iconic American designer Diane von Furstenberg read Madame de Staël this summer and enjoyed it so much that she wanted to share it with readers everywhere. Just in time for the holidays she’s worked with us and the book’s publisher, Atlas & Co., made it available for free on DailyLit–her gift to you. The book tells the true story of Germaine de Staël, an 18th century aristocrat who, besides begin a prolific writer and ardent supporter constitutional rule, was a notorious séductrice who enjoyed affairs with many of the most powerful men of her time. Although she was exiled during the last two decades of her life, to the end she remained a force to be reckoned with–a rare feat for woman of the age. Her story is glamorous, exciting, and inspiring–Vogue calls it “a timely mediation on female power, and an inspiring profile of one woman’s courage.” And you get it for free. The paperback makes a great gift, too, and is available on Amazon.  Our thanks to Diane von Furstenberg and Atlas & Co. for giving the book to DailyLit readers.

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