We are excited to  announce today that we are one of the first online retailers to integrate the newly launched Google Book Search API into bookrabbit.com.

These features include linking directly with  Google customers’ library system of reviews and ratings, as well as  harnessing the power of the Google Book Preview - an ambitious project to scan every book in the world. Ultimately Google’s API will allow BookRabbit users to search the entire contents of books rather than just the title and author of works. 

Check out any product details page now to see this in action!

We’re excited to announce that Bookrabbit has been awarded the “Web User Silver Award”  in WebUser’s Social-Shopping category. They call us the “essential bookmark for bookworms”, and  make particular reference to the friendly community - so big thanks to everyone for making the site such a success!  Check out this weeks issue on sale today in all good newsagents.

 Bookrabbit

Alive & Hopping

There have been many changes at Bookrabbit.com and now that the dust has settled, what are Bookrabbit’s plans ?

After various adjustments to the e-commerce model, including the move to becoming an Amazon affiliate, the Bookrabbit site should become financially sustainable.

Some of the new features that Bookrabbit users can expect to see in the very near future are: 

• Bookrabbit Calendar

An event calendar that will allow users to add historical events, famous battles, author’s birthdays, book events and the like. You will be able to start discussions about these events and link a book or book category to them. 

• Bookrabbit Groups

Members will be able to create groups in Bookrabbit. Not just a reading group but any kind of social group. You will be able to create private or public groups and have your own threaded discussions as well as add group events to the calendar system. Independent Booksellers will even be able to link this to their bookseller profile where they can display their stock. 

• Bookrabbit Map

Integrating with the Google Map system, members will be able to place map pins on the global map that are linked to books, categories, events, profiles etc. This could be a whole new way of looking for relevant books – for example if you go off travelling around South East Asia, you would be able to look at the Bookrabbit map and find books that are related to the region. The possibilities are endless, you could link a famous battle from the Bookrabbit Calendar to the actual site of the battle itself on the map… perhaps you run an archaeological society and you plot on the map sites you have been involved with and create book categories that are about those very sites ! 

• Community Recommends

Now that Bookrabbit has been running for a few months, we have enough data to generate book recommendations based on books that have been reviewed and rated by the community itself ( as opposed to just what books have been sold or books we would like you to buy ). 

• Top 10 Lists

Bookrabbit will have a dedicated section showing statistics of every nature… from users with most bookshelves to books most talked about… 

• Community Empowering

Bookrabbit will be appointing a team of community moderators and super moderators. As well as to acknowledge their valuable contributions to the community so far, this is to give them more power to help the Bookrabbit community grow.

• Bookrabbit Games

We have several games in design which we intend to release on the bookrabbit site. One of them will be a book quiz engine, those of you familiar with the ‘Neverending Movie Quiz’ on Facebook will immediately know how that will work. The other 3 games are ‘top secret’ at the moment but they will be ‘multi player’ in nature and will involve creating poems and short stories co-operatively. 

• Delivery Charge & Going Green

Okay, so we have removed free delivery for all books. However we are offering free delivery still on orders over £10. Reasons are fairly obvious, in that despatching books that cost £1.99 means we are selling the books at a loss… too many of these and there would be no more Bookrabbit site… But you can look at this another way – it does mean a reduction in paper wastage: packaging, despatch notes etc. Incidentally, Bookrabbit are ‘green’ conscious, for every server that we use to host the Bookrabbit site, a tree was planted to help towards neutralising the carbon emissions created by the server. 

• Last but not least…

Obviously we would like the Bookrabbit community to grow and to help us to do this we are going to be running a scheme whereby users getting 5 or more friends to register on Bookrabbit using the Friend Inviter facility will be sent a free book ! ( Terms & Conditions will apply )

BookRabbit is going well, and we want to invite a few more people to join the fun. With a view to that we’ve decided to make a fantastic offer.

We’re going to give away 1,000 books - free, no strings, not even charge for postage.

If you’ve not already registered, to get your free book you have to upload a picture of your bookcase and tag at least five books. Simple as that. We’ll then select a book we think you’ll like and send it to you.

No strings, nothing. Just you get to try the site, get a book and hopefully like both enough to stick around.

So - give it a go and tell your friends! We have 1,000 books to give away, but it’ll be first-come-first served. Full details at BookRabbit.com/free

BookRabbit.com’s philosophy is mirrored in a study by Scholastic out June 11, 2008, they report that two-thirds of kids age 9-17 who go online have extended the reading experience via the Internet. These online reading extenders say they learn what other people think about a book, learn new things about an author and connect with other readers. Also kids and teens aged 5-17 agree with the statement; “No matter what I can do online, I’ll always want to read books printed on paper,” and 62% of them surveyed say they prefer to read books printed on paper rather than on a computer or handheld device.

The 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report™

(conducted by Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, and TSC, a division of Yankelovich, a leader in consumer trends research), also found that those who go online to extend the reading experience, by going to book or author websites or connecting with other readers - are more likely to read books for fun everyday. (Connecting with other readers is what BookRabbit.com is all about)

Heather Carter, Director of Corporate Research said “Despite the fact that after age eight, more children go online daily than read for fun daily, high frequency Internet users are more likely to read books for fun every day. That suggests that parents and teachers can tap into kids’ interest in going online to spark a greater interest in reading books”

“Kids are very forward-thinking about ways technology can complement book reading,” said Kristen Harmeling, Senior Researcher at Yankelovich. “They envision a time when most books are read digitally and when they can tag and share parts of books with other people online, making online reading a gateway to social activities; yet they still want printed books.”

One of the key reasons kids say they don’t read more often is that they have trouble finding books they like – a challenge that parents underestimate. Kids who struggle to find books they like, are far less likely to read for fun daily or even twice a week. Parents are a key source of book suggestions for their children, but nearly half of all parents say they have a hard time finding information about books their child would enjoy reading, and especially parents of teens age 15-17 (62%)

BookRabbit provides that solution, only it works for adults too