Readers might be checking out a new site. Even though there’s cat picture or two, BuzzFeed has created a new section dedicated to readers – BuzzFeed Books.
BuzzFeed Books launched Monday, according to Poynter, but it’s not being run by any specific editor or writer of the popular site.
“We’re running it kind of informally because we already had a ton of book content on BuzzFeed and now it’s just the space for that to live,” Summer Anne Burton, the site’s managing editorial director, told Poynter on Tuesday.
She added: “Pretty much everyone who works here is a reader, so it was a natural fit.”
There are no plans to have a dedicated book staff, according to Poynter. It will likely not have traditional reviews, but lists and features.
The idea was born from a May post on BuzzFeed, “65 Books You Need to Read in Your 20s.” That post was “liked” more than 38,000 times on Facebook. The post was also viewed nearly 1.5 million times, according to the stats on the page.
Perhaps BuzzFeed is on to something—anything that generates plenty of attention for a website should be exploited. And anything that gets people talking about books and reading is never really a bad thing either. BuzzFeed tends to grab a younger audience on the web, maybe it will even create a new reader out there.
