Press Room

Our online community, redroom.com, was founded in 2007 by CEO Ivory Madison. Madison previously founded the Red Room Writers Society, a brick-and-mortar writers’ community in a historic mansion in San Francisco, which can be found at red-room.com.

While only four writers signed up for Madison’s original "Red Room Writers Studio" back in 2002, by 2007 hundreds of authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners, had joined forces to launch redroom.com, the online home of the world’s greatest writers.

Press Releases

Barack Obama Becomes a Red Room Author
Senator Obama Joins New Social Networking Site for Writers and Readers

San Francisco, CA - February 12, 2008 - Today, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate, and author Barack Obama joins a group of the world’s most successful and interesting writers at redroom.com, dubbed “a literary MySpace” by the San Francisco Chronicle.

» Read Full Press Release

Red Room in the News:

March 10, 2008

Vanity Fair features redroom.com in the April edition’s “The Cultural Divide” section:
“Imagine an interactive literary hub where you can check out authors, browse books, read blogs, listen to readings, or find out about upcoming events in your corner of the world. Redroom.com, a compendium of all things writerly, features luminaries such as Maya Angelou and Khaled Hosseini, and debut novelists including Patry Francis.”
Reading Room

March 6, 2008

San Francisco Peninsula Gentry Magazine forecasts that redroom.com will bring thousands together to bond over literature:
“A San Francisco-based website is bringing all your favorite authors together in one room. Best of all, they want you to be there, too.”
Reading, Writing, and the Red Room

March 5, 2008

Content and creative industry website MediaBistro reveals that social networking has reached the next level:
“Writers of all levels and aspirations (like ‘leader of the free world’) come to the site to meet, discuss, debate, find encouragement, and even hawk upcoming work.”
Hey, How’d You Build an Internet Hot-Spot for Authors, Ivory Madison, CEO, Redroom.com?

February 18, 2008

Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News highlight Red Room’s high profile authors, including presidential candidate Barack Obama:
“One of the latest writers to join is Barack Obama, author of The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father and, oh, a presidential candidate.”
Big names behind online writers community

February 16, 2008

The Oakland Tribune hails Red Room’s local SF Bay Area authors:
“Novelist Amy Tan, author of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, blogs weekly there. Poet Ishmael Reed graces the homepage with an essay about boys reading in his Oakland neighborhood. And Terry McMillan and Maxine Hong Kingston all helped to get it going.”
A place online for writers to social-network

January 8, 2008

The San Francisco Chronicle calls Red Room “a literary MySpace,” an idea whose time has come:
“One of the more ambitious online communities for writers to date and perhaps the most timely, aiming to capitalize on the current potential for profitability of social-networking sites.”
Literary Web site Redroom a new chapter for authors, book lovers

December 07, 2007

VentureWire praises Red Room’s vision and appeal:
Red Room launches “a social network and Web tool for writers ... and a roster of A-list authors ... The site allows authors to easily set up their own Web sites and update them ... as people can do on sites such as Facebook or MySpace.”
Red Room Gets $1.25M for Author Social Network

December 05, 2007

Red Herring describes the advantages of a site that “gives authors complete control.”
“While other social media sites ... are focused on readers sharing reviews and bragging about the size of their libraries, the Red Room gives web-shy authors an easy place to promote their work, list book tour dates, blog, post podcasts and videos of readings, and communicate with fans and other authors.”
Writer Site Red Room Flicks Switch

Industry Blogs

February 26, 2008

In an interview with publishing industry blog PersonaNonData, Ivory Madison reveals:
“The platform gives unknown authors a chance to promote themselves and be part of a larger conversation with a larger audience ... we’ll provide the same important service for lesser-known writers that MySpace did for bands.”
Five Questions with Redroom.com

February 22, 2008

USA Today’s Technology Live blog talks about Red Room’s newest members:
“Maya Angelou, Salman Rushdie, Clive Barker, Amy Tan and Barack Obama all recently joined the same social network ... Red Room, a slick new online enclave of literary types."
Obama joins social network

February 16, 2008

International arts, media, trends, and lifestyles web magazine Instaplanet sees redroom.com as an “encyclopedic global online community for writers and their readership”:
“Redroom.com is a pragmatic response to the well-established fact that many authors whose primary focus is the printed word are strangers to self-promotion via the Internet. The Red Room site provides a forum for viral marketing on the www."
Seeing Red at Redroom.com

January 8, 2007

The University of California Press Blog describes how Red Room is the right place at the right time:
“There’s a definitely a niche to be filled in connecting avid readers with books and authors.”
Roll out the Red Carpet for Authors

December 27, 2007

Technology news blog Profy.com applauds the site’s design and purpose:
“Elegant ... well crafted, both in appearance and its intuitive utility ... It brings the literary landscape – which, for many, is an arena tapped only as an observer through bookstores and public libraries – a touch closer to the reader; and vice versa."
Red Room, Network for Writers and Readers Alike, Goes Live

December 07, 2007

Venture Beat explains why Red Room has excellent potential for profitability:
“While Facebook, MySpace and their ilk get most of the press, niche social networks are gaining ground ... Red Room is part of this trend, and it seems well positioned to exploit its niche because it’s giving a community without much tech savvy an easy way to start marketing itself."
Social network for writers attracts celebrity authors, raises $1.25M