The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
you really should trademark that word. not everyone knows you invented it.
speaking of which i have a new one coming out in a few weeks. if you send me your mailing address i will be happy to send you an advanced copy. no strings attatched.
Jeff- I’ll be at the conference and plan to stop by your talk.
Re using blogs to promote books, I point out Seth Godin’s blog for All Marketers are Liars entitled Liar’s Blog. Here he continues the conversation started by his clever book by adding fresh examples and reader feedback. I also like how his blog contains a permanent introductory post up top, giving new visitors instant context. Not certain how long he’ll maintain this sub-blog for. His main blog is at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog.
On his main blog, you’ll see mention of the recent Business Blog Book Tour that he participated in. In effect, Godin was invited to blog at another site for one day and interact with the blog’s creator and readers. Great way to spread the book’s message (and help stimulate sales), plus it benefits the other bloggers by giving them free, fresh content.
Blogs and books is a no-brainer.
Write something on your blog, keep on adding to it, in little bite size cunks (i.e. blog posts).
Do it long enough, and if enough people see it and like it…. after a few months, expect to find a publisher’s e-mail sitting in your inbox.
Yes, I am speaking from personal experience:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html
Remember as you are attributing Freakonomics success to blogs the book has had a lot more publicity than the blogosphere including appearances on everything from “The Daily Show” to the “The Today Show.”
Plus according to a link in the article you referred to:
http://www.thebookstandard.com/bookstandard/news/publisher/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000911964
Freakonmics benefited from positive pre-publication reviews such as Kirkus Reviews and release-date reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and others [including the NY Times]. (The NY Times, Time Magazine and The WSJ are incredibly powerful drivers of book sales. Ask any publicist.)
Freakonomics also got a boost from a similar [paid] campaign launched by a company that has styled itself as a buzz-getter. As part of a 12-week marketing blitz engineered by Boston-based BzzAgent, Inc., advance copies of the title were mailed to a thousand possible supporters.
This book has much more paid PR than most. Sure blogs are a part but who’s to say how big a part?
There’s a whole lot of traditional MSM publicity for this book. Google it before you jump to any conclusions.
Agree with Laurence and others about the cause of Freakonomics success. The blog campaign was one component of a larger marketing blitz. I myself got an advance copy through the publisher’s First Look program that gives free galleys to registered users in exchange for providing feedback (and, hopefully, creating buzz). It’s also worth noting that it’s a quality, insightful book with a catchy title. A book must first be compelling before it can harness the blogosphere or traditional channels.
Clarification: I definitely think blogs can put a book on the radar screen. I believe Malcolm Gladwell has attributed the success of the Tipping Point to folks on the Internet discovering it. However, it was the example of “Freakonomics” I was questioning. As other commenters have noted, it got every publicity bump known to book publishing, except, perhaps a Oprha plug….it would be a hard example to use to isolate the impact of blogging, is what I was pointing out.
In general, book publishers are notoriously bad marketers. I do strongly agree they should be going after bloggers (advertising on blogs as well as sending review copies) in the categories of the books they publish.