Twenty literary bloggers have joined together to form the Litblog Co-op (LBC). The LBC will have a book selection each quarter with the first selection taking place on May 15th, 2005. Los Angeles blogger Mark Sarvas, who runs the Elegant Variation blog, came up with the idea. A recent blog entry on the LBC website describes what a litblog is:
In some ways the litblog is still a reactive genre -- we get many of our
stories by noticing what's in the news, and declaiming whether we're for
it or against it -- but one of our more significant strengths lies in our
ability to react to what is missing from the usual media coverage of
literature and the publishing industry. As mainstream book coverage,
particularly the coverage of new fiction, contracts, blogs can present
a new forum to address books and authors that aren't getting noticed
elsewhere. Or maybe they do get noticed, but not nearly enough. One
hates to say "midlist," but that term has become shorthand for what
Marjorie Braman of HarperCollins identified on another blog as "the
kind [of book] that is necessary, but for which there might not be
a huge demand." She adds, in the context of describing that sort of
book as gourmet mustard in comparison to generic mayonnaise, "Those
who do have a passion for it are very particular."
