Would you like to see posts by authors recommending their favourite female authors?

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, but before I go ahead with the project - as it will take me time to set up and requires me asking others for time and effort - I want to know if you, my readers, are interested in this idea.

I'm thinking of asking authors to recommend 2 or 3 of their favourite female authors.

It keeps coming up that people in SF/F/H read more men than women and I'd like to help change that.  A few months ago SF Signal did a Mind Meld post for Women in Genre Month entitled: Who are your favorite women in genre?  While it brought out some great responses, I was somewhat disturbed to realize that only female panelists were included, as if only women read (and thereby can recommend) female authors.  I'd like to have a mix of male and female authors give recommendations.

I'm thinking of making it a once a week feature, with each author having their own post to recommend others.

Is this something you'd like to see?  Please leave a comment or vote on my poll (if you're reading this on an RSS feed, please click through and vote).  I'm also interested in if you'd just like suggestions by male authors (for those men who want other men's opinions) or the opinions of other bloggers and/or industry professionals.

*** After talking to my husband and mentioning that I felt a bit uncomfortable only asking for recommendations of books by women (because it does feel a bit like reverse sexism, even if I'm honestly interested in the answer) he suggested asking for recommendations of authors or books that haven't received the recognition they deserve.  I like this idea better, as it opens the field to more inclusive recommendations.  Why shouldn't J. A. Pitts, who has an urban fantasy series with a lesbian protagonist, not be mentioned simply because he's a white dude?

So, let me ask you again (and I'll add it to the survey - you can now vote for more than one category, if you'd like me to query other bloggers and industry professionals as well), if I go ahead with this, would you like to see only recommendations of books by women / female authors or should I rephrase it to include anyone authors feel have written awesome books that need a signal boost?

Do You Like My "Upcoming Books" Posts?

I've added a poll to the side of my blog asking the above question.  Indigo, the site I use for my upcoming books posts (here's one, if you don't know what posts I'm referring to), has change their site to the extent that it will be impossible for me to get the information I need from it.

I therefore have two options.  I can:
a) stop doing them
b) find a new source (Amazon?)

When I first started doing these posts I grabbed the info from each publisher's website.  Obviously that was both time consuming and created incomplete lists (as there would always be smaller presses I missed).  Using the Indigo site let me get Canadian releases for books, as well as catch a lot of the lesser known books I otherwise missed.  Of course, using Indigo, I still miss a lot of self-published and small press authors that Indigo doesn't deal with.  I'm not keen on Amazon as it's slowly eroding my career as a bookseller (as is progress in the form of ebooks, and big box stores like the one I work at, so I can't lay too much at their feet) - but it does make me less inclined to use them, though they're the most logical source to switch to.

So I ask you, do you like the posts?  Should I find an alternate way of getting the publication dates?  Or do you use SF Signal's list or one from another site?

Please vote on my poll and let me know if you find the posts useful or if I should retire them.

Do you like the publisher list at the side of my blog?

While setting up tomorrow's post (where I mention a few new small presses) I realized how long my publisher link list is at the side of my blog, and wondered if it's getting unwieldy.  Do you like the list?  Do you use it?  I've done it up as a page to see what that would look like, adding the publisher blogs and SF/F links as well.  If I keep the page, I'd add a more prominent link to it at the side of my blog.  What I want to know is, which do you, my readers, prefer?

I've set up a poll to record answers, so if you're reading this on an RSS feed, please click through and choose a response.