Announcing TwitterLit!
The secret project I've been working on here in the lair is now ready for public scrutiny! I've created a new site, TwitterLit.com.
What is TwitterLit? Twice a day, at about 12:00 AM and 12:00PM GMT, I'll post the first line of a book to TwitterLit -- without the author's name or book title, but with a link (to Amazon.com) so you can see what book the line is from. Why? Because it's fun! It's just a little literary teaser twice a day. The first lines will, meanwhile, be available for subscription via RSS and -- and this is the exciting part and the reason for the site's name -- to Twitter.
There is also a highly customizable TwitterLit widget available for posting on your own site, should you want to. You can see my version of the widget in the sidebar at TwitterLit.
There are already three first lines posted at TwitterLit -- I started out with a particularly appropriate quote, I thought. Please do click over to the site to see what it's about.
Tags: books, first lines, Twitter
Posted by Debra Hamel on April 30, 2007 | 
I am a Follower of you on Twitter. I tweeted this, and Follow it. I don't grok Twitterfeed, however.
If Twitterfeed simply enters a blog post URL as a tweet, automatically, with no title of post, it's a dumb idea.
Posted by: vaspers the grate | April 30, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Howdy, Vaspers. I'm not sure why you think that there's no title of post. In fact, the headlines for my blog -- with TinyURLed permalink -- are regularly twitterfed into my Debra_Hamel Twitter account. TwitterFeed will take the title from your feed and its associated link and automatically post to Twitter. Plus you now have the option of including the snippet of content (up to your character limit) that comes after that or not including it, or adding a prefix to the title (e.g., BLOG: Title). It's in fact extremely convenient.
Posted by: Debra Hamel | April 30, 2007 at 05:45 PM
Thanks for explaining that Debra. I love your TwitterLit idea, am a greate lover of books.
Buying Mallarme's new book Divigations today at B&N.
Big fan of Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Rilke, Robbes-Grillet, Maurice Blanchot, Twain, Poe, Hawthorne, etc.
Posted by: vaspers the grate | May 01, 2007 at 11:34 AM
I see a great collection of Loeb's in your picture above.
Give some good first lines from your fav Loeb's so I can expand my collection and give you credit!
LOVE THE TWITTERLIT!!
Sam
Posted by: Sam Harrelson | May 01, 2007 at 09:15 PM
So you not only lived in North Haven, you studied classics???
Posted by: Debra Hamel | May 01, 2007 at 09:27 PM
TwitterLit got mentioned in the Powell's Books Blog:
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=2040
"Anyway, don't ask me why, but here's TwitterLit. God save us all."
I guess this falls in the "any press is good press" category.
Posted by: Tom | May 02, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Well, it sounded to me like he is more hostile to the idea of Twittering/constant communication than about TwitterLit per se. So I'll take it.
Posted by: Debra Hamel | May 02, 2007 at 11:09 AM