Social Network for Bibliophiles announced

By April MacIntyre Mar 8, 2011, 23:20 GMT

The digital eBook retailer All Romance eBooks (ARe™) opened the virtual doors of its ARe Café today to the public, finally revealing the new reader-centered social networking area integrated with the existing All Romance™/Omnilit™ retail sites.

Now there is a website devoted to the world of bibliophiles, including readers, authors, bloggers and publishers.

While the Café functions much like Facebook and other social networking platforms, the ARe Café™ offers much more information, news, events, videos and podcasts from every corner of the book world.

The site features areas for eBook tips and help, for visitors to see what the most popular book bloggers are posting, what events their favorite authors or fellow readers are attending, and news, videos and podcasts from the book world gathered from all over the web and compiled in one place for easy viewing with a click of a mouse.

The information added from the All Romance/Omnlit retail site iallows visitors to see in real time the last book purchased, as well as the latest reviews posted by fellow readers.

The Recommended Reads column, one of the most popular features in ARe’s Wildfire newsletter, will now have a permanent home in the Cafe. All of the columnists’ Top Picks, recommendations and reading lists are conveniently archived under the Books tab in the Café.

Social aspects within the Café include discussion forums found in the Groups area, and a Featured Author section where readers will find interviews with favorite authors. Visitors can also participate in the monthly book club led by Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blogger Sarah Wendell, and receive rebates on the featured book.

Once a visitor has set up a free Café account they can connect it to their Twitter and Facebook. Users can Tweet comments and Like topics. The Café Facebook and Twitter integration feature allows members to elect to push status updates out to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, all from within the Cafe.