Setting Higher Standards for theBookStandard.com

By Nathalie on February 4, 2005 2:52 PM

Earlier this week, I asked readers to send in their initial reactions to VNU’s newly launched industry news site, thebookstandard.com. In the hours that followed, tumbleweeds rolled by, crickets chirped, and not one reader sent in comments.

The next day, I asked someone in the book business if her office had subscribed to VNU’s new website. “Yeah, we got a letter about the site,” she said. “But nobody had never heard of it, so we tossed it.”

VNU, it seems, is doing a horrendous job of publicizing itself. Every misstep it could take, it has. Despite its tie-in with Nielsen BookScan (also owned by VNU), and its constant citings of BookScan data, thebookstandard.com looks — and feels — like a low-budget, clip-art-dependent website. Or, to use a shopper’s logic: If PM is Bloomies, we’re calling VNU’s site Dillard’s.

But, since we’d all like more & better book news, GC’s come up with three simple ways VNU can improve its stock, selection, and window display.

1. Strip the phrasing of sexist implications, and repeat as often as necessary: Readers won’t buy the cow if they’re getting milk for free. Display some subscription-only features on your homepage, or explain — again, on the homepage — what extra features you’ll supply subscribers. (Phrases like “provocative insight,” “expert analysis,” and “breaking news” only inform readers of your writers’ love for vagueness.)

2. Ditch the cutesy front-page charts. I don’t care to know the top five selling books-about-friendly-female-werewolves. Offer charts based on real numbers instead, and watch annoyance turn to swooning.

3. Ditch the commentary. Let JSF talk about his writing process in the Forward. Assign A.J. Jacobs unpaid confessionals at mediabistro. And, before you do anything else, GET RID OF THE BOOK BABES. Even your web editor, by the looks of it (see screenshot, left), thinks they’re wretches.