We’re really chuffed that we’ve been invited to speak at the Galley Club this Wednesday. The Galley club is a social organisation for all involved in publishing and book production.

So what are we going to talk about? Well, there’s so much more to your online presence than simply running a Twitter account, setting up a Linkedin page and building a Website.

Last week there was a bit of a furore in the publishing world after a Guardian journalist Ewan Morrison slated social media promotion by self published authors, basically saying that as a promotional tool Twitter and Facebook etc were overrated and authors should focus on writing books, probably. I know that was a rabid paraphrase, but do go read the article if you want specifics because it’s interesting and incendiary, which are two of the best things an article can be.

On BookMachine over the past couple of weeks it was all Fitba, Shades and Gray as Cargo announced three new signings, there were 6 Questions for Jon Reed and we asked Should Children’s Books Come with Age Certifications?

In the news it was announced They’re Making Another Hobbit Film Now, and while Steidl launches book-scented perfume, Fifty Shades beats Harry Potter into submission on Amazon.

We had a guest post from Kathy Meis on why It’s a Brand New World, and if you find yourself in Edinburgh over the festival period, do amble along to BookMachine Edinburgh – 17th August.

There are quite a few authors around the world who have sold a lot of books on their own when they didn’t with publishers, and rather than seeing this as their own success, they see it as their publisher’s failing. They may go on to say how they can teach publishers about how to make an author into a millionaire, if those publishers were to listen. There are probably books on this very subject out there right now, ‘How to Promote Your Novel’ and so forth, by self-proclaimed gurus of the subject.

Can’t say there’s been much news this week – no big mergers to report, and no-one has invented the Next Big Thing to save/destroy publishing, which leaves me discussing something rather close to my own heart. Something I see all too often when I’m trawling Twitter, or browsing pins, or trying unsuccessfully to suppress a rage-induced hernia while posting on Facebook.  Something more horrifying than a Justin Beiber fan and more plentiful than 50 Shades of Grey knockoffs.

If, like me, you spend a lot of time on the internet (like… y’know… enough to clock when adverts change on the same web pages) you will probably have noticed the intense ramping up of aNobii activity across all digital channels recently. In the past two months, their online advertising reached the level of intense saturation usually reserved for dating websites – displaying as gates on pirated videos before you watch them, weird sidebar ad placement on forums, promoted tweets, heaps of whacky Pinterest boards… and so on.

So given the company launched in 2006, why now?

I saw that donut meme about social media for the first time last week and had a good laugh at the reductive accuracy of the whole thing and then another good laugh at the expense of Google+ (who I love dearly for their attention to detail, but can’t find a decent use for) and I was all ‘what the hell is Pinterest?’ and then I looked it up and realised it was like a mini Tumblr, and I was all ‘why would I care at all about this?’ and then I kept looking at it and I was all ‘hmm… wait a second…’. And then I requested an account.

It was inescapable. This was the week that Google+ took off on its way to becoming the planet’s fastest growing social network. It’s worth taking note then of 5 Things Small Businesses Must Know About it, even if you’re still asking yourself, Should publishers care about social media?