The Directory of Book Trade People quietly slipped past its first birthday on Sunday. When I launched the directory, I never could have imagined how it would grow. I don’t know how many listings were in the directory originally — certainly it was less than 75, maybe even as few as 50. Today there are 836 entries in 21 different categories, and more being added all the time.

Thank you to everyone who has used, tweeted, recommended, blogged, talked about, added to, edited and otherwise helped this directory develop into the resource it is now.

For the last several months, I’ve been mulling over ways to improve it, but I’d love to hear your take. What can we do to make the directory more helpful and easier to use?

I was initially excited about the Twitter List feature that was unveiled this past fall. I had planned to turn each category into a separate list. That plan fizzled when I discovered that Twitter limits both the number of lists you can have, as well as the number of people within each list. So for now, the directory continues to exist here, on our website, in its original form.

One thing you may not know is that we created some direct URLs to make referencing and linking to the directory easier. Typing in www.BookTradeDirectory.com takes you straight to the list. The companion directory of book authors on Twitter can be found at www.AuthorsWhoTweet.com. (That directory celebrates its first birthday in February, and is up to 539 entries.)

So tell us what you’d like to see for the Book Trade Directory in 2010. We at Highspot are looking forward to another year of connections!