Quora is a website where people can ask questions and get answers from the community. In some ways, it’s similar to LinkedIn Groups, where members ask a question and others respond. In other respects, it’s like Twitter, where you have followers and see a feed of the latest questions scroll up on your home page.

Beyond that, I haven’t quite figured it out. I find it difficult to use (I know I’m not the only one) but maybe it’s because I haven’t spent enough time exploring it yet.

Authors, are any of you using Quora and finding it a great way to talk to people? What tips can you share?

The idea: take selected tweets, gather them all on a single web page, then share them with your followers in a familiar newspaper-style format. Paper.li is an app designed to do just that.

Lots of people are using it. If you’re on Twitter and haven’t yet received one of these daily newspapers, you probably will soon. But is Paper.li a new and helpful tool that you, too, could use? Or is it just another waste of Twitter time?

Let’s take a closer look.

What Is It?
Paper.li “newspapers” are generated from lists of people on Twitter or a Twitter hashtag.

The Paper.li engine pulls the tweets of all the people on the list you specified into a web page that looks something like a newspaper layout. The software automatically sorts content into sections, such as technology or health, much the same way a print newspaper has sections. If a tweet has a link to a website or a video, that linked content is pulled right into the newspaper.

Once your Paper.li newspaper is created, you can choose to tweet about it to your followers. Here’s where things get tricky.

The Complaints
More and more people are using Paper.li and are tweeting their followers every 24 hours about the latest edition. It’s an auto-generated tweet and it’s the same every day. If you’re following a person who’s publishing a Paper.li newspaper, you’ll get this tweet whether you’re interested in his paper or not. As a result, some people are complaining that Paper.li is spammy.

Another complaint I’ve seen about Paper.li: It imitates an archaic form of communication that’s slowly dying. In other words, why make your tweets (new media) look like a newspaper (old media)?

When Could It Be Useful?
I see a few different reasons why a Paper.li edition might make sense:

• Your audience isn’t on Twitter but you know there’s information circulating there that could be valuable to them. You cull the best tweets and present them with a daily web-based digest.
• Your audience is on Twitter but finds it overwhelming. They don’t visit frequently and when they do, they can’t find what they want. Again, you cull the best tweets and present them with Paper.li, a daily web-based digest.
• Your audience enjoys reading a newspaper. They appreciate Paper.li’s format and find it easy and intuitive to navigate.
• Your audience is strapped for time and would appreciate a curated selection of content on your topic, rather than scrolling through a long tweet stream.
• You audience is on Twitter but doesn’t follow all the people within your newspaper, nor do they want to start following them. They read your paper periodically to catch up on content they normally wouldn’t see.

I’m sure there are more. (Leave a comment if you have another.)

Lesson #1: Paper.li isn’t for every audience, but could be phenomenal for some.
Don’t publish a Paper.li newspaper just because you can. First, make sure it fits and could offer value to the people you want to communicate with.

I decided to experiment by creating my own daily Twitter newspaper.

I based my first paper on a list of people in the Highspot book trade directory. What I hoped to get was a gathering of relevant and valuable publishing industry content. What I got instead was a newspaper that had hardly anything to do with publishing, and a lot to do with politics, food, and television shows.

I tried again with a different list out of the directory. This time I got a lot more book-focused content.

Lesson #2: Build your newspaper carefully.
Presumably, you’re publishing a Paper.li newspaper around a specific topic or theme. It might be self-publishing or women in finance or pitbulls. If people are going to find value in your paper, the content needs to be tightly focused on your theme, and that means you need to be building your paper around people who you know tweet consistently on your theme.

If I was going to use Paper.li as a tool to communicate with my followers, I’d start by custom-building a Twitter list whose sole purpose was to form the basis of my newspaper.

The Bottom Line
If used thoughtfully, Paper.li has the potential to be helpful to certain audiences. First, decide if the people you want to speak to would appreciate a Twitter summary. (You might even use Paper.li to bring Twitter content to a whole new audience segment.) If the answer is yes, curate the content carefully so it’s focused and helpful.

Do you publish or read a Paper.li newspaper? What’s your take?

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!

Twitter chats are an excellent way to interact, learn, debate and discuss with others in the publishing and writing community.

What Is a Twitter Chat?
Chats are public conversations that take place on Twitter at a scheduled date and time. Often a discussion topic is set beforehand, but sometimes the floor is open to whatever participants wish to talk about.

Anyone can listen or contribute to a chat. No registration is required.

Each chat is given a hashtag, which is an agreed-upon name for the chat preceded by the pound sign (#). The hashtag is how you follow and contribute to the discussion.

How to Listen to a Twitter Chat

1. Use the Twitter search page and enter the chat’s hashtag. This will pull up all the tweets for that chat.
2. Set up a new column in TweetDeck using the chat’s hashtag as a search term. Again, this will pull up all the tweets for that chat.
3. Use an app such as TweetChat.

How to Speak During a Twitter Chat
Simply add the chat’s hashtag to the end of your tweet. That’s it!

This is an example of me speaking during a #followreader chat:

@jennifertribe: Current e-readers lack “sexy” factor. iPod took off bec/ it was beautiful AND functional. People wanted to be seen with it. #followreader

Twitter Chats for Authors & Publishers
There are a number of regularly scheduled Twitter chats for writers, authors, and others in the book trade. I’ve listed them alphabetically.

Know of other chats that should be listed here? Please tweet or email me the info and I will add it.

~~

#editorchat

When: Every Wednesday at 7 – 10 pm Central Standard Time
Hosted by: @LydiaBreakfast (Lydia Dishman)

~~

#followreader

When: 4 -5 pm Eastern Standard Time
Hosted by: @charabbott (Charlene Abbott) @katmeyer (Kat Meyer)

~~

#ISBNhour
A chat about book identification systems and industry best practices. Targeted primarily to small publishers and self-published authors.

When: Every Friday at 12 – 1 pm Eastern Standard Time
Hosted by: @ljndawson (Laura Dawson)

~~

#kidlitchat

When: Every Tuesday at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time
Hosted by: @gregpincus (Greg Pincus) @bonnieadamson (Bonnie Adamson)

~~

#litchat
A chat about books. Heavy focus on fiction. Often brings in authors to guest host the chat and answer reader questions.

When: Every Monday, Wednesday & Friday from 4 – 5 pm Eastern Standard Time
Hosted by: @litchat

~~

#platformchat

When: Monthly though the day varies; follow the hosts for announced dates
Hosted by: @thewritermama (Christina Katz) @merylkevans (Meryl K. Evans)

~~

#writechat
A chat for writers. Julie kicks things off with a question but everyone is encouraged to share whatever is on their mind about “writing, life, and this creative journey we all share.” / More info at http://blog.writingspirit.com/twitter/

When: Every Sunday at 12 – 3 pm Pacific Standard Time
Hosted by: @WritingSpirit (Julie Isaac)

~~

If you’re an author or publisher and still aren’t sure if the whole Twitter thing is for you, a couple of new resources may help demonstrate the value it can deliver.

Last week I was interviewed by Kirk Biglione, a digital publisher and new media consultant, about Twitter and the book trade people who are using it. You can listen to a recording of that interview.

Kirk has also put together a short video presentation that explains how Twitter is like the best cocktail party you’ve ever attended, and how authors and publishers can use it to their advantage.

If you’ve been a hold-out, now is the time to join the Twitter party. It’s probably different — and better — than you think. Look me up at @jennifertribe and say hello. Let’s start a conversation.

The Twitter Book Trade Directory has moved to www.BookTradeDirectory.com.

Please update your bookmarks and links.

If you’re an author, you should be on Twitter. If you don’t know what Twitter is, it’s time to learn.

You’ve probably at least heard of it by now — the service has about 6 million users and is growing every day — but maybe you haven’t taken the plunge. You’re not sure what it’s all about or aren’t convinced of its benefits.

If that’s the case, make it a goal in 2009 to get started. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool. You get 140 characters to answer the question, What are you doing?

People share news about what they’re working on, what they’re learning, conferences they’re attending, people they’re meeting, books they’re reading, food they’re eating. OK, that last one isn’t really all that important, though people do tweet about it. People tweet about anything and everything under the sun.

Why Should You Care?

• Twitter is an amazing way to meet people and participate in conversations on an endless array of topics. You can start to “follow” people in the publishing industry, as well as potential readers, and begin building relationships with them. I’m active in several social networking venues but the people I meet in Twitter are usually people I have not, or could not, meet anywhere else.
• You’ll see an endless stream of as-it-happens news, be led to wonderful websites and blogs, get sneak peeks of products and content in development, and hear what people think about what’s going on in the world.
• You can tweet about new blog posts you’ve written, upcoming book signings, or your latest podcast. You can tweet about the chapter you just wrote, or the free download you just made available.
• You can ask questions and instantly get responses. The Twitterverse is a friendly place and people like to help and share their opinions.

These benefits only scratch the surface of what Twitter can do. You’ll need to try it to get a sense of just how powerful it can be.

Getting Oriented
Here are some basic pointers to get you oriented:

• Everyone has a Twitter handle. The protocol is to refer to people as @TwitterHandle. For example, my Twitter handle is jennifertribe so I am referred to as @jennifertribe.
• You can talk to other Twitter users by starting your tweet with their Twitter handle. If you tweeted @jennifertribe Wow, Twitter is cool! I would see that message in my Twitter stream. It becomes part of the public conversation so others can view it too.
• You can send private messages to other Twitter users. These are referred to as DMs (Direct Messages). To send a DM, you start your tweet with d TwitterHandle.
• Linking to websites you’d like to share can eat up valuable characters, especially when the URLs are long. So use a URL shortener such as TinyUrl.com or is.gd
  
• It’s considered good form to pass along interesting news from other tweeple (people on Twitter) instead of just talking about yourself all the time. RT is the Twitter shortform that means “retweet” or “retweeting”. It indicates that you are re-stating someone else’s tweet. Always give credit to the person you are retweeting. For example, here’s a tweet I made a few days ago:
  RT @booksin140 Hotel turns forgotten books into library for guests. Surely more hotels do this? http://tinyurl.com/67gmyb
  It tells people that @booksin140 made the tweet first and I am passing it along.

@jennifertribe’s Recent Publishing Tweets
Here is a selection of my tweets from the last couple of weeks. In addition to showing you some sample Twitter content, there is lots of good publishing-related information contained in all the links. You can follow me on Twitter to receive information like this as I post it.

Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan (yes, THAT Algonquin) offers guests loan of Kindle device and free e-book with each stay http://is.gd/ckoN about 2 hours ago from web

Facebook group to support Pages bookstore: http://is.gd/c3sa. See letter from city councillor in discussion area. 7:59 PM Dec 16th from web

Why am I just learning about this? Pages bookstore in TO is in trouble. Rent is doubling: http://is.gd/c3qx 7:57 PM Dec 16th from web

RT @booksin140 RT @mdash A look at literary agents in Canada, from the National Post: http://is.gd/bFkx 11:07 AM Dec 16th from web

RT @booksin140 Hotel turns forgotten books into library for guests. Surely more hotels do this? http://tinyurl.com/67gmyb 11:01 AM Dec 16th from web

RT @CanMediaLayoffs Canadian magazine industry is optimistic on weathering tough economic times. http://bit.ly/8188 10:29 AM Dec 16th from web

I’m loving this idea of curated subscription http://is.gd/ba9A 10:02 AM Dec 11th from web

If you haven’t bought your Amazon Kindle yet, you’re out of luck until Feb. (Say what? Not re-stocking for holiday sales?) http://is.gd/aTUL 4:56 PM Dec 9th from web

RT @sarahw Improvement in Canada’s book publishing climate http://is.gd/aQel 9:39 AM Dec 9th from web

RT @booksquare post with great comments about ebook prices. Publishing people, note how real customers think: http://snurl.com/7nwtz 3:44 PM Dec 8th from web

McMaster U in little ol’ Hamilton, ON has a POD Espresso Book Machine — one of only 9 in the world. Who knew? http://is.gd/a5Ur 3:12 PM Dec 3rd from web

9 cool gifts for authors and self-publishers: http://is.gd/a5wi 2:27 PM Dec 3rd from web

A new article in Publisher’s Weekly points out yet another potential casualty of the high price of gas: author readings. Bookstore owners are concerned that crowds won’t come out to hear authors speak if the price of gas goes much higher.

Already the publishing industry has been feeling pinches over gasoline shortages. Most notably, the price of paper has shot up this year, and the cost to ship books from printer to warehouse to customer is climbing also.

Yet a solution does exist, and smart authors are using it already: technology. A whole universe of media — from podcasts and viral video to live chats, blogs and Twitter — can be used to promote books and interact with readers far and wide. It’s low-cost and easy on the environment, too.

For marketing, virtual seems like a no-brainer. But how about on the production side?

The New York Times reports that among publishers at Book Expo America a couple of weeks ago, the feeling about e-books was “unease.” Seth Godin points out that publishers are missing the forest for the trees:

“The fastest-growing, lowest cost segment of the business, the one that offers the most promise, the best possible outcome and has the best results… is causing unease!”

Sales of electronic books are rising, thanks in part to the emerging popularity of Amazon’s Kindle reader. After just 8 months on the market, Kindle sales account for 6% of Amazon’s volume in books where electronic and print versions are both available.

So are we seeing the final days of print books? Not quite yet.

Many people still say they far prefer reading a print book over an e-book. Even among kids under 17 — the one group who you think would embrace a digital book — nearly two-thirds still prefer print versions.

So what’s a publisher to do? Know your market and what they want. Be open to changing tactics where it makes sense and can save you money. And keep your eye on the oil. Maybe the decline in fossil fuels will be the tipping point that pushes reading into the digital realm.

I’ve always been a fan of getting straight to the point. Being brief, being concise. Yet I’ve never been a big fan of Ernest Hemingway’s terse and minimalist style. Until the day I read about his 6-word story.

The exact details of how this story came to be are a bit sketchy. Most sources say it was a contest or challenge that Hemingway took up. A handful say he bet his round-table cronies (William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dororthy Parker et al) that he could write a novel in six words – no more, no less.

Whatever the circumstances surrounding the story’s generation, the result was astounding:

For sale: baby shoes. Never used.

A complete and compelling story in just six words. They are six words that stay forever etched in my memory.

I thought of them the other day as I went to create my next 140-character Twitter post. I wondered how long it would take someone to launch a Twitter writing contest to tell a complete story in 140 characters. I didn’t have long to wonder because the very next day I heard about this contest over at Copyblogger.

The six-word story contest, the 140-character contest and others like them are all about writing fiction. What if you brought the same paucity of words to non-fiction?

Could you write an “all you need to know” guide in say, 25 words or less? I throw down the gauntlet to non-fiction writers everywhere.