Togather

"By working with Togather, companies also find out which of their customers have the clout in their community to serve as effective brand ambassadors. The whole model is to drive demand driven events, Kessler explained. He said, “We are really focused now on using digital tools to drive effective offline engagement.”

Baratunde Thurston, CEO of Cultivated Wit and author of How to Be Black; and Tanner Colby, author of Some of My Best Friends are Black previewed their Togather event this week with Soledad O'Brien, discussing race, identity, and the persistent color line on Brian Lehrer's show this morning! Catch up here if you missed it, and get your tickets here!

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It's official: we broke a world record for the most book clubs visited by an author in a single month! 

77 book clubs in 31 days. Jennifer Miller and Togather teamed up with hundreds of the most awesome readers in the country and now we can brag about it: we've made book club history.

They said it was crazy, but we did it! And it was awesome. Check out Jen's video recap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyssSt15rko

...and see what others had to say about it: Check us out in The Washington Post, Bookstalker and Galleycat.

From the Trinity book group in Nashville, TN... (here's hostess Rosanna Anderson "wearing" Gadfly!)

...to Mashable HQ in NYC

...Gadfly traveled the country (sometimes with the help of Skype...) and tomorrow marks the successful last day of the first-ever book club tour. 

Now, a note from Ms. Jennifer Miller herself:

Wow! It was a long month, but you helped me visit a whopping 77 book clubs in 31 days. I'm pretty sure ours is the number to beat! I can't tell you how amazing and gratifying it has been to talk with so many thoughtful readers about Gadfly--and to learn so many things about the novel that even I didn't know! (Seriously, I feel so much smarter after talking with you all!)

Two important details before I sign off: This September, I'll be holding the drawing for the book club prep school pack; three clubs will receive a special care package from me as a thank you for helping me set the world record. Finally, if you enjoyed Gadfly and had fun talking with me, then tell your friends! I will happy skype with any group who wants to chat about the novel.

Best Wishes and Happy Reading!

Jen

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Thanks to all of the amazing readers who joined us on this journey! We made this for you:

Tonight:

Join us as Brooklyn Brewery founder and former AP foreign correspondent Steve Hindy interviews photojournalist Michael Kamber about his career and his mission to create the most comprehensive collection of rare eyewitness accounts of the Iraq War to date. Both men will reflect on the often shocking and sometimes heroic actions that journalists undertake in trying to cover the war, as they discuss the role of media and issues of censorship.

Ticket includes admission and a free Brooklyn Brewery beer. All proceeds from the events in this series benefit RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues).

Kathleen Grissom's debut novel, The Kitchen House, was released in February 2010, to acclaim and modest sales.  But then last year, almost two and a half years after it was published, The Kitchen House hit the NYT bestseller list, and it got there in an innovative way: Grissom set out on an innovative, intimate new kind of book tour. She visited and called book clubs all over the country, talking to readers about her book.

We reached out to Grissom to ask for her advice about outreach and events, and to get the firsthand story of how she built her unique success.

It’s National Library Week! Team Togather loves libraries (though let’s be honest, who doesn’t?). As we were sharing some of our favorite library moments today, we thought it'd be fun to share them with you, too.

Jessie:  When I was a freshman at NYU, I went to see a panel of Czech authors discuss their latest books at the NYU library. Most of them had written about life during and after Prague’s famous Velvet Revolution and their experiences living in Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War. Their stories about Prague’s tumultuous history and unique culture inspired me to study abroad there in the spring of my sophomore year.

Taylor: Living and attending college in Boston for the last 4 years, The Boston Public Library Courtyard was always my go-to spot whenever the slightest hint of warm weather arrived in the city. It's the perfect urban oasis where the likes of Harvard professors, wide-eyed freshman, and tourists from all over the world can all be spotted enjoying the lavish gardens while cozying up with their favorite book. Although I admittedly never read anything while hanging out here, some of my prime people-watching (an activity I take very seriously) was done in this quaintly nestled retreat in Downtown's bustling Copley Square. Especially during these last few days, I can't help but to get a little nostalgic for my favorite library in my favorite city.

Dana: I was in a teen reading club at my local library the summer before 7th grade. It was a pretty small group, and one of the girls commandeered our first meeting and made us look up ghost stories on the internet instead of talking about the book. I was kind of mad at her for derailing the whole thing but didn’t see her again. Two years later, we had an English class together and have been best friends ever since. She’s still obsessed with ghost stories.

Emilio: There is really nothing else like the library, at least not in the neighborhood I was raised in. In our small working class enclave, more than an hour into the Bronx on the red line, it is a place where the local youths hang out hang, their parents still at work, where the chess players, hunched over their rooks and pawns, complain loudly about said youths, and the young mothers drop of their kids, because in their words, “they’re your problem now.” Occasionally people even read. I’ve worked at this library for as long as I can remember, and it's been like a second home to me.

We're really looking forward to a new online series coming your way from the lovely writer, crafter, and handmade advocate, Kelly Rand. As someone who successfully turned their passion project into a lucrative small business, Kelly knows a thing or two about pursuing a career as a self-employed artist and the risks and rewards that follow. During each session in her series, we'll hear from different creative guests on their stories of success, change, fear, failure and innovation across a number of industries and backgrounds.

To kick off our “Work It” series, Kelly will host an interactive discussion on April 30th about what it takes to make it in the crafting biz. The chat will feature Grace Dobush, fellow entrepreneur and author of The Crafty Superstar Ultimate Craft Business Guide. Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower, a print-on-demand fabric and wallpaper company, will also join us to discuss the ins and outs of setting up shop, spreading the word and defining smart goals. The trio of crafters will provide useful insights and tips for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.

You might not know her as Kate Tkacik, but if you're involved with Tumblr’s library scene, you’ll know her by her username, thelifeguardlibrarian. In 2011, Kate began to build a network of librarians on Tumblr, now known as Tumblarians. In addition, she is a 2013 Library Journal Mover & Shaker and a contributor to Library Journal.

We spoke with Kate via email about building the Tumblarian community; why it started, how it grew, and all of the great things that have come (and will continue to do so in the future) from connecting such a widely spread group of people with just a few hashtags.

The next in our series of Togather team book reports comes from Client Services Coordinator Michael Mannheimer, who read Pauls Toutonghi's Evel Knievel Days.  Pauls is based in Portland, but has upcoming travel dates all over the west and midwest this summer. Maybe he wouldn't mind stopping by a bar or bookstore in your town -- why not ask? 

It's been a while since I read a novel that I really connected with, but the main character of Paul Toutonghi's second novel Evel Knievel Days and I have a lot in common: we're both slightly OCD, passionate about playing the right old country song on the dive bar jukebox (everything is always OK with Patsy Cline by your side), and constanIy overwhelmed by our FEELINGS. Evel Knievel Days tells the story of Khosi Saqr, a nervous kid with a voracious imagination who is just a little too smart for his small town upbringing. Khosi lives with his single mother in Butte, Montana, a tiny mining town known mostly for being the birthplace of the daredevil biker whose namesake festival gives the book its title. Khosi eventually works up the courage to travel to Egypt in search of his long-lost father, but the book isn't a coming of age novel as much as it's about how a city, a physical place, can shape your identity.

I love how Toutonghi constantly keeps you guessing where Khosi will end up. His descriptions of earthy, rustic Montana and the bustling city of Cairo make you feel like you're right there with our hero, tagging behind him as he navigates narrow streets and greets tourists as the guide of the Copper King Mansion. It's also a great book for anyone who really obsesses over food—Khosi's mother, Amy Clark, is the best Egyptian chef in town, and her cooking is sometimes the only thing keeping these characters from falling apart. 

We've already gushed a bit about our excitement for novelist Jennifer Miller's mission to set a world record by meeting with 100 book clubs in a single month. It's definitely ambitious, and maybe a little bit nuts, but she's already almost halfway to her goal!

Our team tallied up the count this morning and we're blown away by the progress she's made in just a few short weeks. With a few local events on the East coast, and a bunch of video chats with groups in other areas of the country, we're seeing supporters pop up all over the map -- in Nashville, Plano, Duxbury and Richmond, to name a few cities, as well as right here in Brooklyn. 

And to be honest, we shouldn't be surprised. Jen pulled off some creative (and thrifty!) book promo stunts when The Year of The Gadfly came out in hardcover last year, including selling copies of her book and giving away free cookies at novelade stands on the sidewalks of New York City.

Here at the Togather office, we've all been reading books by Togather authors. Here's our library outreach coordinator Dana Skwirut's report on Liz Moore's novel Heft, which makes us want to create a book club event with Liz, stat. 

I’ll admit it. Heft made me cry. 

It’s hard to explain why without embarking on a tl;dr journey that is ultimately too TMI for even my high school livejournal account, let alone a very public place like this. It’s also hard to explain without giving too much away. Also, I don’t even like admitting that it happened.

Heft is the story of Arthur Opp, an obese former academic who has not left his Brooklyn home in nearly a decade, and Kel Keller, an all-star high school athlete living in Yonkers. Kel is the son of one of Arthur’s former students, Charlene, who sets the story in motion by calling Arthur, who she hasn’t spoken to in nearly twenty years.