I want more RSS and I want it NOW, Daddy!

February 18, 2009 10:07 AM

Is there a site that offers an RSS feed (or something similar) of new book releases?

This may not be an actual site or application, but this is what I am looking for:

I'd like to be able to upload, search for, and select a list of my favorite authors. Then, I'd like to receive an RSS notification (or tweet or email) every time one of 'my' authors has a book coming out. Bonus points if it'll link you to amazon, bn.com, or your favorite online retailer so you could click through to buy the book.

I do a lot of reading, and I really like to stay on top of the latest offerings of my favorite authors. But, searching through the online bookstores for these books is tedious. Especially since I just compiled a list of over 40 authors that I like to read regularly.

I know there are lots of book applications, but I'm wondering if there is something already out there that does this. If not, does anyone want to take a stab and making this an iphone app? :)

(As an aside, they should do this for actors, musicians, and movie directors too).

Thanks!

posted by batcrazy to computers & internet (7 comments total)

(just because I know someone'll find it useful - Soundamus does this exact same thing, except for music instead of books, and is pretty handy, if somewhat "noisy" [e.g. I may have only listened to one Beethoven track, and that three years ago, but I'll get notifications of new Beethoven discs for the rest of my Soundamus-related life])
posted by ewingpatriarch at 11:14 AM on February 18

This seems to do what you want, but I haven't played with it at all, since you need to subscribe. I might check it out, though -- seems like a useful idea!
posted by cider at 11:46 AM on February 18

Another option you have for music (not books) is itunes - you can setup an "artist alert" and it'll email you when new music shows up.
posted by olddogeyes at 12:11 PM on February 18

Some of the major publishers are introducing RSS feeds about their biggest authors. You might try checking that out as well as the individual websites for those authors. Granted, that's not one RSS feed, but I don't know that you'd have any luck finding one RSS feed that you could tweak to only feed you information about particular authors.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 12:25 PM on February 18

"Crap I missed it" is pretty close for books. I just signed up for it so I can't tell you how well it actually works but it seems based on Amazon bestseller lists. However, you can drill down to specific categories so it seems like a good approximation.

It also does TV show episodes, albums (although their artist signs ups seemed to slammed at the moment), and even sports scores.
posted by DarthDuckie at 12:27 PM on February 18

I think Amazon will email you about that sort of thing. Not sure if they have RSS or not yet.
posted by COD at 1:28 PM on February 18

Releasecaster
posted by timepiece at 2:39 PM on February 19