Of Twain and Twitter

The University of California Press wants your help. Which cover do you think it ought to go with for Autobiography of Mark Twain, forthcoming in November 2010? “We are looking for a cover that makes you look twice and captures your interest,” the press says. (My first impulse was to go with the cover on the right; then I decided the one on the left was more arresting, if quietly so.)

UC Press announced the poll via its Twitter stream today. It’s not news that scholarly publishers have been trying out Twitter and other forms of social networking as a way to catch readers’ attention and promote what they publish. It’s been interesting to see their different approaches, though, and try to gauge what’s working and what is not.

Some presses just push out links to news about their books and authors. Others serve up tidbits of information—a literary quote here, a publishing statistic there. Some have become unexpectedly good sources of news about publishing, e-books, libraries, and scholarly communication. Some show a little extra-publishing personality from time to time. (Maybe there’s a Chia pet-scholarly publishing connection I don’t know about.)

I can’t play favorites but I’d be curious to hear what readers think of presses’ attempts to catch their attention on Twitter. Do you follow any scholarly publishers? Which ones, and why?

If you haven’t been following university presses on Twitter and want to sample what they’re doing in that space, here’s a list to get you started. It includes some scholarly publishers that are not university presses per se, and doubtless there are some presses whose Twitter streams I haven’t discovered yet. If you know of twittering presses that are not on that list, feel free to share.—Jennifer Howard