Reading NextReads newsletters to find the books that are just right for you or your patrons is about to become quicker and easier. Starting with the January 2018 newsletters (which will start landing in YOUR org in early December), we’ll be launching a new, more skimmable layout for our custom annotations.
Easier to read
We’ll still keep providing the plot summaries, appeal information, and other valuable content that you’re used to seeing in NextReads newsletters, it’ll just be in a format that’s easier on your eyes, and faster to skim – with bolded categories, you’ll be able to get right to what’s important to you, whether it’s the plot, the atmosphere, or where the book falls in a series.
Easier to edit
Do you want to add information that’s relevant to your particular community, or remove content that isn’t? It’s easy to add or remove entire sections without having to worry about whether the annotation still makes sense.
Want to add books without writing an annotation? Just add “What it’s about:” to the publisher-provided content. And if you do want to write your own annotations for the books you add – well, you can either use our categories (commonly used ones will be posted to the LibraryAware/NextReads Help pages) or have fun coming up with your own.
Best practices
We’ve set some rules for ourselves, and if you’re creating your own book-based newsletters (or editing the NextReads ones), you might want to consider applying them:
- We’re going to use at least two categories per book, to catch the eye, keep reader attention, and call out the most relevant information. The simplest way to create an annotation will be to write briefly on the plot (“What it’s about”) and the appeal (“Why you might like it” -- talk about the tone, the writing style, the setting, or the humor). Then, you can follow up with series information, suggested read-alikes, or media mentions (“Series alert,” “For fans of,” “Book Buzz,” and so on).
- We’re also going to keep the length of the annotation about in line with the image of the book jacket – this will help keep reader attention moving in the right direction without overwhelming them. And while we will be using a lot of the same categories for consistency’s sake, we reserve the right to create playful custom ones when the need arises.
We hope that you’ll be as happy with these new annotations as we are – but if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time. (Oh, and by the way, the content that we don’t create here – the New York Times and LibraryReads newsletters – will continue to reflect the original content creator’s style.)