I got a $100 Amazon gift certificate from Kerry for Christmas (thank you Kerry!!), and for half a second I was tempted to blow it immediately on Kindle titles from authors I already follow. After thinking about it, I instead sent out a tweet asking for suggestions. One of them came from @Merecal …

“Weird name” I thought to myself, but I didn’t yet understand. I went to the site and saw a full list of books – many by authors that I follow, and many of them not yet available. I looked at the titles and saw ‘bindings” specified as Hardcover and Mass-Market Paperback, and I still didn’t understand — I was looking for eBooks, not dead tree. Their misquote of the Foo Fighters song Miracle on the bottom of the page only added to my confusion.

I sent this tweet back to Merecal …

I almost dismissed the site, but then I went back and took another look … clicked a link that took me directly to Amazon’s pre-order page for that book, saw the Kindle pre-order link on the page … then I had my a-ha moment, and went back to the Merecal site to register.

Merecal stands for Media Release Calendar, and it’s not just for books. They also let you know about upcoming release dates for Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, Music and Video Games. When you register, you are able to set your preferences for emails and your interests.

I can go through, select my favorite types of books (or DVDs, games, etc) …

And then check my favorite authors (or titles) in a category for future notification …

I can see that I will be spending quite a bit of time on Merecal selecting my favorite authors, but that time should be rewarded by future notifications as titles appear.

Here’s more info directly from Merecal.

I’m sure that Merecal is getting some kind of affiliate percentage from Amazon for book sales, but I certainly don’t begrudge them that; they are providing a service that I find valuable.

Check out Merecal, and tell me what you think.