Literary Web site Redroom a new chapter for authors, book lovers

Salman Rusdie will be in conversation with Michael Krasney, 8p.m. at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, June 18, 2008. Salman Rusdie will be in conversation with Michael Krasney, 8p.m. at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, June 18, 2008. Photo: Edward Guthmann, Liz Hafalia/SFC Photo: Edward Guthmann, Liz Hafalia/SFC Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Literary Web site Redroom a new chapter for authors, book lovers 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

Ivory Madison, serial entrepreneur, doesn't want much from her latest venture, Redroom.com. Not much, that is, except to build it into the Internet's premier site for authors and the discussion of books and ideas.

Redroom.com, which premiered Dec. 21, is one of the more ambitious online communities for writers to date and perhaps the most timely, aiming to capitalize on the current potential for profitability of social-networking sites. It features 150 authors (with 400 more to come), ranging from Amy Tan and Salman Rushdie to Edinburgh Castle Pub owner Alan Black; Graham Leggatt, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, who moonlights as a sci-fi writer; and local mystery writer Cara Black.

Whereas publishing houses tend to put the bulk of their promotional efforts into big-name authors, Redroom.com puts writers of varying success on an equal footing, providing each with a Web page and blog. The site is meant to appeal to readers, authors, booksellers and publishers as a kind of one-stop shop for biographical information, book reviews, blogs, video and audio content and author appearances. It's a virtual place where "midlist" authors in particular, who are watching their books get knocked off store shelves with alarming speed, can network and promote themselves, much as emerging musicians do on MySpace.com.

There's a philanthropic component as well. Authors designate their favorite charities or nonprofits, and a portion of the revenue generated from page and ad views goes to good causes.

"I want it to be a household name, where people start when they're looking for an author, a book or what people are saying about current ideas or events," said Madison over lunch at Absinthe, a few doors down from Redroom's tasteful offices in San Francisco's Hayes Valley. "Because we have the writers, we have the potential to be the smartest conversation on the Web."

Overly ambitious? Perhaps. But Madison is undaunted, in part because of her professional history.

As a high school dropout from Mill Valley who went on to own her own coffeehouse and restaurant, start a chapter of the National Organization for Women in New Orleans and earn a law degree, Madison is accustomed to making unlikely things happen. While in law school five years ago, she laid the foundation for the Web site by forming a writers' group, the Redroom Writers Society, and developing its membership from four to 400 writers. She also works as a consultant, coaching executives in leadership and management skills.

Some 10 percent of Redroom Omnimedia Corp. is owned by private investors, whose ranks include venture capitalists and investment bankers as well as publishing industry executives such as Nion McEvoy, chairman of Chronicle Books (not affiliated with The Chronicle); Internet guru Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; and writers with good fortune and the financial means to invest, such as Robert Mailer Anderson, author of the novel "Boonville."

All writers join the Web site for free, and soon readers will be able to have their own free pages, too. Publishers also will be invited to have free Web pages on Redroom.com, with Chronicle Books serving as the Web site's first test case. Madison has collected $1.25 million in venture capital for the business and has hired a staff of 15, and anticipates raising $2 million more in the coming months. She said she expects to break even in 2008 and make $15 million in gross revenue in 2009.

Newmark , who reads 50 books a year, mostly murder mysteries with a historical bent, looked at Redroom's business plan and was impressed, especially because he saw they were doing "something that no one else was doing," he said.

"One way to be exposed to the world is by reading," he added. "Anything that can be done to promote writers and reading is a good thing."

Anderson is drawn by Redroom's goal, which he described as "becoming the definitive, encyclopedic reference for writers, as defined by writers, which I think is different from Amazon.com defining writers in terms of the commerce they can garner from them, or the anonymity or carelessness that goes on in Wikipedia."

Anderson also likes the sense of community the site is trying to foster, despite its limitations.

"I prefer the four-martini lunch with writer friends," he quipped, "but given my kids and everything I've got to do, Redroom will suffice."

As the Internet becomes more important to the book industry, publishing houses are increasingly focusing on viral marketing, creating book-related videos and individual author sites, doing outreach to bloggers and even releasing books for downloading on the Web.

Last year, publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux released on the Internet all the contents of a long book on innovations in science and technology.

"I don't know whether anyone read all of it, but there were people who subscribed to all of it," said Jeff Seroy, the company's senior vice president of publicity and marketing. "We felt it enhanced sales."

The publishing house, as part of Macmillan, will participate in a new Web plan, to go into effect later this year, under which every author published will have his or her own micro-site. "That's because search-engine optimization is the single most important way to promote books on the Internet," Seroy said, referring to a computer user's search for an author's name, book title or subject.

Another possible advantage for Redroom is that many authors who remain attached to the printed word do not excel at online self-promotion.

"I don't think they should be obliged to create a sort of mom-and-pop shop for themselves," said McEvoy, of Chronicle Books. "And I think this makes it a lot easier for them to maintain a presence without learning HTML or paying the craftiest designer they can find to come up with the trippiest page. It's a sort of simplification of all that that should be helpful for them."

Biographer Brenda Webster, who lives in the East Bay, is pleased with Redroom's author-page format and the support she's received from its staff.

"They're absolutely helpful, especially to older people like me who are not up to the technological challenge," Webster said. "I find them remarkably attentive and helpful and cheerful and nice. In the book world, this is quite a shock. For midlist writers, you do not find people breaking their necks to help you have a beautiful page on a Web site."

Then there are authors such as Tan who are so well known, they don't need Redroom but who have joined in solidarity with other writers and because of the philanthropic component of the site.

"What's not to like?" said Tan, who shot to fame with the 1989 novel "The Joy Luck Club" and who recently wrote her first blog on Redroom - a self-described "virgin-blogger moment" about a ski trip and the importance of word games. "Redroom said they would maintain a free blog and give money to charity. I just thought, 'Well, yeah, sure, I'll do that.' "

But will an author site full of blog posts and links to book reviews attract a sizable audience? Edward Mathias, managing director of the Carlyle Group, a global private-equity firm in Washington, D.C., and an adviser to Madison, thinks it has a shot, because of her energy and vision.

"I've been involved in hundreds of deals, and I don't know if I've met an entrepreneur with her background and what she's accomplished," he said. "You don't know in situations like this is, is it viral? Will it catch on? If you want a good jockey, she seems like the person."