Michael Koryta throws out first pitch!

Here's a great book marketing idea, and I'm so glad it features the fabulous Michael Koryta. The question remains, however,  Will Mike have his own baseball card?

From Shelf Awareness:

In an unusual book-and-baseball promotion, the first 10,000 fans 18 years and older at tonight's game between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y., will receive a free e-book edition of The Prophet by Michael Koryta, who will also throw out the ceremonial first pitch. The giveaway is part of the Yankees' New York Times First Pitch Series and is sponsored by Little, Brown and Hachette Book Group, which calls this "the first e-book giveaway ever at a major sporting event."

Fans will receive cards with a promotion code. On Bookshout, the publisher's redemption partner, fans can enter the promotion code and receive the e-book, which can be read on a desktop, mobile phone or tablet.

"Reading today takes place in so many places--at home before bed but also in line at the grocery store. Why not during the seventh inning stretch?" said Heather Fain, senior v-p, marketing strategy, Hachette Book Group. "Hachette is always looking for new ways to engage readers, introduce them to writers they haven't tried, and make it easy to always have a great book on hand. Working with the Yankees allows us to challenge the notion of what is and isn't the 'right' time to read."

 

L..A. Times Book Awards

"In a scaled-down awards ceremony on the fifth floor of the L.A. Times building, the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded last night with as much enthusiasm and humor as any of the more grandly produced affairs of recent years.

Leading for humor was Terry Pratchett, who accepted his prize for young adult novel by video. The tape showed Pratchett leaning back in a chair, books to one side and a stiff, somewhat cranky cat on the other." Read the rest of this article and all the winners and nominees here.

Michael Koryta was the winner of the mystery/thriller prize for Envy the Night. He said he'd been nervous about the possibility of having to speak before the crowd, but as he arrived he "had the opportunity to meet a lifetime hero, James Ellroy -- and now you all don't seem so scary."

Read the Michael Koryta interview at Mystery Readers International At Home Online.

Mystery/Thriller nominees:
Colin Harrison, The Finder
Simon Lewis, Bad Traffic: An Inspector Jian Novel
Nina Revoyr, The Age of Dreaming
Tom Rob Smith, Child 44