The Bus Stops Here: C-SPAN2's Book TV Heads Out to Meet Readers

Book TV is hitting the road. On Saturday, September 24, C-SPAN2's Book TV Bus will kick off its debut tour at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. (http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/). From there, the Book TV Bus will head out to visit book festivals, local libraries, and bookstores in conjunction with local cable affiliates, which air the programming.

The Book TV Bus -- outfitted with a live production studio and cable casting technology -- will look to bring attention to the network's unique weekly programming focusing on nonfiction books. As part of its tour, Book TV Bus representatives will regularly interview local bookstore owners, asking them about the history of their store and the popular non-fiction books patrons are buying. These brief spots will air on Book TV.

From Saturdays through Monday mornings weekly, Book TV presents 48 hours of programming dealing with the publishing industry, nonfiction books, and authors. In 2004, nearly one thousand individual nonfiction authors were featured in 2,400 hours of Book TV programming. C-SPAN2 is available in 77 million households.

In a press release, Connie Doebele, executive producer of C-SPAN2's Book TV, said, "We're eager for Book TV to get on the road, visiting communities where nonfiction readers and our viewers live. Whether a reader is interested in biographies, political, public affairs, or historical works, we want nonfiction enthusiasts to know that they have a home at Book TV. The Book TV Bus will help us get that message out while enhancing our coverage of local bookstores and libraries."

The Book TV Bus Schedule http://www.booktv.org/BookTVBus/ has over 25 stops, beginning in Washington, D.C., and including the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, Tennessee; Texas Book Fest in Austin; the Sarasota Reading Festival in Sarasota, Florida; and ending on November 20 at the Miami Book Fair.

Additional stops will include other literary events and venues. Visitors to the Bus will get a tour of the state-of-the-art studio set and interactive demonstrations about Book TV programming and the production of the show. Bookstores, libraries, and other event organizers who wish to host a Book TV Bus visit should contact Steve Roth at C-SPAN via e-mail at [email protected] or phone (202) 626-7970. -- Nomi Schwartz