Party Hopping

Between blockbuster book releases and a new eReading tablet around every corner, fall is a busy time for the digital publishing industry. To celebrate the season, GalleyCat and eBookNewser will host a free party in New York City tonight.

The party is happening at Tonic Bar & Restaurant at 727 7th Avenue in Times Square at 6:30PM. It’s a great place to mingle with editors, writers, readers and app makers. I will be hosting the event. Follow this link to RSVP.

GalleyCat has more about the party: “The party will also celebrate the launch of the Publishing App Expo, our December 7-8 conference showing writers and publishers how to share their stories on tablets and other mobile devices. Our speakers include novelist John Green, Wattpad content partnership manager Nina Lassman and Time.com general manager Craig Ettinger.”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

This is terribly last minute, but there’s an eBook reading tonight that could be interesting.

Several authors will be reading from works that were produced by digital only publishers. Readers will include Lynne Tillman from Cursor, Jim Hanas from Joyland Press, Ben Greenman from Electric Literature, and others.

The event is sponsored by Kobo is sponsoring, and according to my source a Kobo eReader will be raffled off.

You can find out more on the Facebook page.

Spend this evening where the wild things are: at the first birthday celebration or The Rumpus, the online culture rag funded by author Stephen Elliott. It’s happening in New York City, co-hosted with HTMLGiant. To get you psyched, here’s a video from last year’s party for The Rumpus‘s initial launch:

Here are all the details about tonight’s party from our sibling blog GalleyCat: “We find it appropriate to celebrate our fitness for survival in the age of the interwebs and to kick off a great new year with an evening of literary and musical offerings in grand Rumpus style. The multimedia evening will feature readings by a line-up of literary stars… WHERE: Broadway East, where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side. 171 East Broadway (nr. Rutgers). View Map. Kitchen will be open with a light menu of snacks. WHEN: January 21, 2010 7:00pm-10:00pm, $5.”

This also seems like the perfect time to pontificate for a moment on the growing importance of magazines like The Rumpus–independent online literary and culture publications, also including The Millions and Guernica–which is not only producing a huge quantity of book and art reviews, but aggregating like crazy, providing context and authority on a seemingly out of control, and certainly out of context, Internet world. If books are going digital, it is these magazines that will cover them. So get yourself to that party tonight.