Book News: A Literary Merger

I still haven't quite decided how I feel about this news, especially since it was just broken today. It may be my biggest dream come true or my darkest nightmare come to life. It's hard to say right now, seeing as I don't know how everything is going to play out and what may develop. But here is what I know:

Two of the most popular book websites online are getting married.

From Publisher's Weekly: 

Amazon has acquired Goodreads.com, a Web site featuring user-generated reviews of books. The purchase comes amid mounting rumors that Goodreads, which CEO Otis Chandler launched in 2007, might start selling books directly from its site. 

Goodreads, which is one of the most popular among a raft of sites created as a book recommendation engine--members are directed to titles by seeing what their friends are reading, or have recommended--does not currently sell any books, but many in the industry saw it as an ideal sales outlet.

The details of the sale were not disclosed, neither were the details of what will happen to Goodreads' format in the long-term, though it was mentioned that Goodreads would remain independently controlled. What I will admit is exciting about the merger is that Amazon's lists of self-published and international books will be more readily available to Goodreads users.

By joining the Amazon family, the Goodreads team will be able to invest more in the things that our members care about. We’ll also be working together on inventing new services for readers and authors. As part of this, we’ll be increasing the size of our team over time, and will be able to add lots of great new features that members and librarians will be excited about!

I can’t make this clear enough – we plan to continue growing Goodreads and investing in making it a great community for librarians, and everyone else.

We said in our blog post that our team gets out of bed every day motivated by the belief that the right book in the right hands can change the world. Now Goodreads can help make that happen in an even bigger and more meaningful way as part of the Amazon family. 

Like I said, I'm not sure how to feel about this union, but I guess I'll have to live with it one way or the other. I'll never give up my Goodreads! But, still...

For the full story, Click Here. Until later! Have a good weekend everyone!