For those of you who've heard of WIRED cover girl Julia Allison, it is a marvel the speed and agility of her entrance into traditional and online media.
So what does this have to do with books, says Mr. Obie Joe to Ms. Obie Joe? Well, for those authors who wish to sell their books via personality and author platform remember this: for as much we love online marketing to cultivate and keep an audience, especially via blogs, Facebook and MySpace, nothing beats face to face when building a new relationship, market, or media stream.
When Allison -- with no discernible skills, talent, or products -- moved to New York in 2004, she went online. Set up a blog about her shopping, her boyfriends, her vacations. Predictably, her site hits were countable. Given that her goal was to become a cult figure, she needed not only readers, but people to talk about her and her musings. "Discover a niche, position herself at its choke point, and stay there until people start to notice."
She wanted gawker.com to be her friend. She tried every castle window: sent tips, links to her articles, left comments, e-mailed the editors. The turning point, though, was as low tech as it gets. Allison crashed the Halloween party thrown by Gawker's owner, Nick Denton.
Shazam. Gawker wrote about her, sometimes unkindly, sometimes with respect. But all publicity is good publicity.
Allison's choice for a face-to-face was brilliant. "Timothy Ferriss, whose skill at reaching bloggers helped turn his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, into a best seller, says it can be effective. "It's a matter of ensuring you have the channel with the least competition," he says. "Email is by far the most crowded channel, followed by phone. The least common is in-person."
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