About Red Room

Red Room made history by launching the only online bookstore that breaks down the “retail wall” between authors and readers. If you’re an author, Red Room shares its retail profits from your book sales with you, at least doubling your income, and connects you directly with all of your book buyers, something no other retailer in the world does. See how we do it. If you’re a reader, when you buy books on Red Room, your favorite authors appreciate it and want to meet you!

Red Room is a community founded around the idea that writing transforms individuals and sometimes whole societies—whether you’re a writer or a reader, you’re part of something special. It’s a platform built for the future of publishing, an ecosystem where you can have a home, find friends and colleagues, and participate in the marketplace. Red Room is a social hub, a place to discuss and buy books in every genre, and a destination for exclusive content that will entertain and inspire you.

Causes We Support is a vital part of Red Room, as it shines a spotlight on organizations effecting change around the world. Because our authors are also socially minded, we also profile the nonprofit/charity groups significant to them. Red Room has donated to more than 500 charities selected by our community.

The original Red Room Writers Society headquarters in San Francisco, circa 2002.

The Red Room Writers Society was founded by Ivory Madison, in a 1904 mansion in San Francisco. Four people signed up for Madison’s first “Writers Studio” in 2002; by 2008, hundreds of authors, including Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winners, had joined forces with her to launch Red Room (redroom.com). Today, Red Room is a diverse, global community, with thousands of authors and millions of readers. And this is only the beginning.

Thousands of published authors, famous and almost discovered. Professional journalists. Publishing professionals including editors, agents, booksellers, and librarians. Aspiring writers. Seriously devoted readers. As of this writing, our youngest member is 14 (in India), our oldest is 96 (in Berkeley, California). We screen new members and use real names, so whomever you meet, they are likely to be friendly, civilized people. Meet the Red Room team now.

Most importantly, we connect authors and readers. If you’re an author, become a Premium Member and we’ll become your favorite online bookstore ever for sharing our profits with you and finally letting you access your customer base. If you’re a reader and buy books online, please buy them here—our authors appreciate the extra income and the chance to meet you. Here are some real life examples:

Become a “Red Room Author” and start promoting your books. Build up your author profile with books, audio, video, blog posts and more—create your online home. Get a recent review featured on our homepage—just let us know. Opt-in to Red Room Royalties and Red Room Relationships for each of your book titles so Red Room can share profits and customer data with you. Create custom thank-you notes that get automatically sent to readers when they buy your books on Red Room. Watch new customers get automatically added to your “Connections” as they purchase your books. Get checks in the mail—15% of your book sales—mailed to you by Red Room (in addition to what your publisher pays you). Buy yourself something pretty with the extra money. Do a book giveaway through our newsletter and reach thousands of new readers. Get a comment from one of your literary heroes and re-read it several times. Gather the email addresses of readers who want to be on your mailing list. Get an offer from an agent trying to steal you away from your current agent. Ask us to tweet about your upcoming reading. Have a hundred people show up for your reading and at least a dozen say they found you on Red Room.

Write a blog. Watch your Red Room dashboard obsessively to see how many people read your blog. Oh wow, thousands! Much more than on your website or other blogging platform. Write a blog about this. Ask for advice and feedback on your writing. Read the blogs of published writers and listen to their podcasts for tips. Find a mentor. Hire an editor. Get an offer to write for a promising-sounding literary journal. Meet a literary agent who likes your manuscript but asks for a minor rewrite. Craft extremely intelligent comments on the blog of someone sort of attractive and get totally distracted from finishing your novel. Blog about how hard it is to write a novel.

Find what book to read next and buy it from Red Room. See that your purchase benefits the author and decide you’re part of a very cool vanguard of book shoppers on Red Room. Receive a thank you note from the author whose book you purchased, and then a personal note from them asking what you thought of the book. Read brilliant, original blogs by your favorite authors. Send a private message to your favorite author or comment publically on his or her blog about how brilliant he or she is. Find the most reliable author and book information on the web because our content is author-generated. Discover your new favorite author you’d never heard of, who has created a hilarious video. Find out this new author is reading at an event tonight in your town. Run into another Red Room members at the reading.

We will help you secure the clients and contacts you need to be successful in the literary realm, including discovering new talent and promoting your own business. Set up a Member Page to join other literary industry professionals in the Red Room.

With our Clubs feature, we provide you with the group functionality you need to have an effective home on the internet, as well as a method for recruiting new members (temporarily on hiatus). Encourage your members to set up a Member Page to connect with each other.

Information on Red Room is the most reliable author and book information on the web because our content is author-generated. Start your research! See the full list of Red Room authors and even create your own Member Page.

Red Room was named after both a real place and a literary tradition. The Red Room is a small, elegant parlor in the White House where intellectual, artistic, and political victories have been quietly won. For example, Franklin Roosevelt did not initially allow female reporters at his press conferences, so Eleanor Roosevelt held her own press conferences at the same time, for the female reporters, in the Red Room. She was sure to make news, so the male reporters started attending, and the President eventually had no choice but to allow the female reporters at his press conferences in order to get the media’s full attention. This tradition of civilized revolution on behalf of disenfranchised voices and causes is carried on in the modern-day Red Room.

The Red Room is also the name of four different literary works in different genres, by very different authors, spanning a century. One of these works, written by H.G. Wells, is about confronting fear itself, alone in a small room—a relevant allegory for writers, whether writing a novel or marketing a novel. We conquer the fear and get all the great readers and writers in the same room, Red Room, for what one reader called, “my dream cocktail party, but you can show up in your pajamas.”