An author of a romance novel spurred fading sales by making personal appearances at book clubs.
Shors is the author of “Beneath A Marble Sky,” a romantic novel about the building of the Taj Mahal. The book got decent reviews, but didn’t sell much until he added a note to the paperback edition. “I came up with the idea of putting the letter in the back of the paper back, with my e-mail address, and inviting book clubs to invite me to their evenings,” Shors explains. That was 200 book clubs ago.
The authors of “WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future” tried to hack the publishing system by getting people to buy the book at Amazon at exactly the same time. The goal: Make it the number one book, if just for one day.
It is possible for a relatively small number of people to time their purchases right and, for a short period of time, drive the book they wish to support up the charts…every other bookseller, reviewer, producer and store manager will hear about Worldchanging, and our odds of getting the traction we need to bring worldchanging ideas into the public debate will dramatically increase.
Did it work? According to one commenter, the book got up to #12 but that’s as high as it went.
Mirko
on 22 Nov 06With all that is available on the Internet nowadays, it is only natural for authors to find new ways of marketing their books, otherwise they will be lost in the noise.
WorldChanging is actually a very good book. I ordered it just a day before the announcement but otherwise I would have waited :)
Sandro Paganotti
on 22 Nov 06I actually found more effective the second way you wrote in this post. The first one has one drawback. If you wrote a very poor book no one is going to read on your back of the paperback :)
Leah Jones
on 22 Nov 06I learned about all of the strange Amazon politics when a good friend published her first novel this year. One thing that Amy did to support her book was a blog tour. She visited a wide range of blogs and participated in interviews. All of the blog stops are on her website at
http://guthagogo.com/press.html
Tom
on 22 Nov 06I suppose the Amazon charts could be based on weekly or monthly sales rarther than per day, which might explain why it only got up to #12. Nice hack though
Sinker
on 22 Nov 06Amazon Charts are one of the publishing industries great mysteries. They aren’t just compiled per day, but instead in real time. So if you spike a big batch of sales in, say, a one-hour window, sure you’re going to move WAY up in that time period, but you’ll settle back down soon afterwards. It’s questionable if anyone watches them so closely that a short-lived blip would register in the ways that the WorldChanging folks expected. They probably got more press for the stunt than for the sales numbers.
Leah
on 22 Nov 06Sinker,
What I found out, is that you can’t read at certain bookstores unless you’ve had a certain author ranking on Amazon.
If you are below 750,000, you can’t read. If you are between 750,000 and 200,000, you can read, but you have to be booked with another author. If your ranking EVER goes above 100,000, then you can use that number in your press kit.
Plus if you get into the top tier—let’s say the top 100 then you descend more slowly than other books.
And it is based on individual sales, so if Person A bought 40 copies on one order it counts the same as Person B buying 1 copy.
Sinker
on 22 Nov 06what bookstores are you talking about here? Having done a fair amount of work in this field, I haven’t heard of bookstores deciding on readings based on Amazon sales numbers…
Martin Ringlein
on 23 Nov 06Did anyone notice Andy Clarke’s Competition: Win a Transcending CSS iPod Shuffle?
Thought this was a clever and interesting way to promote a book.
John S. Rhodes
on 25 Nov 06There are several says to promote a book that more people should be using but they don’t. Here are some examples.
1. Use MySpace. Build up your friends, announce the book, provide free sample chapters, give interviews, reach out and touch those friends.
2. Social bookmarking. Hit all the major sites and post a link to a special, free, or secret page on a web site. Make it something really special.
3. Flickr it. Release all kinds of pictures of the author. If the plot includes exotic locations, like the Taj Mahal, get pictues and post them. If they are from the author, wonderful. If not, ask readers to submit their pictures.
4. Do some article marketing. Pull some subplots from the book and write little “articles” for readers. Post them to article directories. In the author bio, include links to the book’s MySpace page, the books blog, the author’s home page, and so forth.
I could go on and on. I’ve been helping more and more people promote things like this and it isn’t that hard when you start to think about the objectives. The tools are available for making it big time. You just need to know when, where and how to focus.
Amy Guth
on 25 Nov 06These are all great ideas! I was reluctant to try MySpace but was pleasantly surprised with how willing people are to claim books and authors as “friends” and it’s useful in sort of hand-picking target audience members. I have one account for myself and one for my novel. I use the broadcast feature to post about readings, etc. and find it to work well. Also, the MySpace groups are helpful.
MeetUp, while not a marketing tool, does boast many book club sort of groups. Also, I have found LibraryThing and Shelfari to be really great, too, if you add similar books to your virtual sheves.
Justin
on 27 Nov 06I’m a big fan of this guerrilla publicity technique. Presenting oneself as an ‘expert’ and expressing a willingness to come speak to groups is always great marketing. This can be applied in a number of arenas; figure out what you are good at and offer yourself as a resource to different organizations. Even if the topic is not directly correlated to what you are promoting, you can always work it in or meet contacts.
Peter Hentges
on 28 Nov 06Bruce Schneier, noted cryptography and security expert, tried the same Amazon hack to get his latest book, Beyond Fear, in Amazon’s best-selling ranks. His effort was hampered by the email of his “Cryptogram” newsletter announcing the effort being delivered sporadically and later than the targetted time in many cases. Still, he charted the success of his efforts and saw the bump.
This discussion is closed.