Todd Lawton and Jeff LeBlanc, the cofounders of Out of Print, have launched an app that brings together books and social media.
Out of Print, an established literary themed apparel company, brings consumers wearable works of literature, offering men, women and childrens clothing as well as accessories and gifts. Purchases made to Out of Print help to “promote literacy in underserved communities: each purchase helps to fund literacy programs and book donations to communities in need. It also supports the authors, publishers and artists who made these iconic works an integral part of our lives.”
“We see Litsy as an extension of Out of Print’s mission to get people talking about books and starting conversations,” Lawton said. Litsy exists as a sort of amalgam of the current giants of social media, combining elements of Instaram, Twitter and Goodreads into a one-stop-shop for everything book-ish. “What we wanted to do was take the best, the most fun aspects of other social media platforms and back it with an amazing book database.”
Launched last April for iOS and September for android, Litsy has already garnered a large enough user base to be the new go-to platform for short-form mobile social media conversations about books.
With Litsy, readers can build “litfluence” based on the books they have read. Users have the option to post short reviews, blurbs or quotes (Twitter-style), upload bookish photos (Instagram-style), rate books they have read (Goodreads-style), and to follow others and see what they are reading via live feed (Facebook-style). Each post must link to a book, which keeps the site and posts on-theme. The app can be used to find new reading material, to connect with the literary community, or simply to keep track of what they are reading – the books they have read, liked or disliked, the books they are reading or books they want to read.
“We always want to return the conversation back to books,” Lawton said, “and using Litsy should be like walking into a great bookstore and seeing the wall with the staff picks and the shelf talkers. That is what we were trying to translate in a digital sense.”
The founders hope that Litsy can bring together a variety of publishers, bookstores, and authors who could potentially use the platform as an extension of their social media marketing. With this app exists the opportunity for the pre-publication promotion of new new books, the ranting and review system for released books, and the chance for users to share and suggest books to others.
For those of you who already follow our instagram account @thewandererlitjournal, you should try Litsy for an optimized experience. You can download Litsy here for iOS or here for android.
Litsy is a place to share and discover your favorite books with your favorite people.
The Litsy community is a groundswell of passionate readers, authors, celebrities, and more. Share bookish moments with Quotes, Reviews, andBlurbs. Measure Litfluence to discover your “bookprint” in the world. Explore recommendations from readers, not algorithms.
Oh yeah, want to organize your reading list? Our app has stacks for that, too.
It’s fun. It’s simple. It’s all about the book. Sign up and get a little Litsy.
MANDY'S READING LIST 
It’s hard to believe that I just now joined Goodreads. And it looks like I’ll need to join in on this app too!
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