One Book, One Twitter hopes to gather "a zillion" readers

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Book nominations are now being accepted for One Book, One Twitter, a potentially "massive, international book club" formed by Twitter users. Through midnight EST on Tuesday, users are invited to make or vote on nominations for the first book to be read as part of the Twitter-wide campaign.

One Book, One Twitter is the brainchild of Jeff Howe, a contributing editor for Wired magazine and author of (and coiner of the term) Crowdsourcing. Howe proposed the idea on March 18 on his blog and shortly thereafter began collecting book nominations. As of March 26, American Gods by Neil Gaiman was in the lead, followed by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell's 1984.

Howe offers the following guidelines: The chosen book must be "1) widely accessible; 2) translated into Swahili, Welsh and a zillion other languages;" and 3) appealing "to the broadest and most international audience possible."

One Book, One Twitter is inspired by reading campaigns organized by libraries in Seattle, New York, and other major cities. It is not, says Howe, a book club in the sense of "an attempt to gather a more selective crew of book lovers to read a series of books and meet at established times to discuss." The idea, rather, is "to get a zillion people all reading and talking about a single book."

Nominations will be accepted through Tuesday, when the top six titles will be shortlisted. The "One Book, One Twitter advisory board" will add four more titles, and on April 12 and for two weeks after, voting will be open to select a winner.

Follow Jeff Howe on Twitter: http://twitter.com/crowdsourcing

The hashtag for One Book, One Twitter is #1b1t.

To nominate or vote for a title, visit http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/03/one-book-one-twitter/.