The long-tailed book tour

Some of us at Obie Joe Media got our starts as magazine writers. Every month we wade through dozens of magazines, and often the torrent of words washes over us without much impact. Sad to say.

One article was the exception. Written in early 2005 by one of our favorite editors -- Chris Anderson of Wired -- the article really stopped us cold. We even went to the trouble to cut-and-paste it, on the computer, and thumbtacked it to the bulletin board.

For booksellers, "The Long-Tail Theory" gave new insight into the way readers find new titles. The way we saw it at Obie Joe Media, it meant the playing field was equalized for every book. It used to be one thing to build audiences, mostly through hype and paid advertising. Today, you promote a book via the participation, and building, of a community around the book. A friend’s (actual or virtual) recommendation means more than any other ad or hype you saw elsewhere. Find the niche of your book, connect to a community who adores that niche, snuggle in, and your book just found an audience.

“This is the difference between push and pull, between broadcast and personalized taste. Long Tail business can treat consumers as individuals, offering mass customization as an alternative to mass-market fare,” writes Anderson.

Which is our roundabout way to say we are all very thrilled to pass along our recommendation for www.BookTour.com. Not only is Anderson involved, but a fellow Baltimore hometown guy who is generous with his time and creativity -- Kevin Smokler is also on board. Some of the principal concepts of the Long-Tail Theory are there:
Help Me Find It
Make Everything Available
Particularly for our authors new to this game, BookTour.com is going to be the chocolate on the pillow while on that long journey to find and engage audiences. For readers, too.

Characters come alive

The strength of book clubs to create buyers, and loyal fans cannot be underestimated. A decade ago, the Mr. joined a book club directed by two professors of English at Loyola University. While open to suggestions, for the most part, this husband and wife team were so eager to get through several dozen titles they'd been dying to bring to enthusiastic readers. We began with C.S. Lewis, Graham Greene, and Walker Percy, and then the pace and complexity quickened as we segued to authors we'd never heard of.

Mr. Obie Joe admires the surefootness of those book club directors with the intent to push their readers to embrace someone, and subjects, outside their average curiosity.

Intriguing to read of the book club envisioned by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Of course Obama is far from the first to flog their books as campaign tools, and using book clubs as a step-up from the campaign candidate coffees is intriguing. The Mr. is amused to hear "characters" from Obama's book will visit with the book club. (Can one be a character in a nonfiction setting? Just wondering).

Mr. Obie Joe loves the idea, and the interest, via the Obama’s book club campaign, and hopes that after the phone call from the candidate, his campaign, and his characters, those book clubs will continue.

Books, American Idol style

Just over a year ago, Mr. Obie Joe was collecting books to send to New Orleans to refurbish the libraries of a few schools. The call went out for the collection of children's books, primarily, but Mr. Obie Joe wouldn't say no to a few other books.

One donator asked Mr. Obie Joe to pick up the donation. Upon arrival, Mr. Obie Joe saw dozens of mid-size boxes stacked on the front porch. All of the books inside were paperbacks: romance, mystery, and other mass market titles.

"These all yours?" inquired Mr. Obie Joe.

They were, until Mr. Obie Joe took them to New Orleans. Curious, Mr. Obie Joe asked the enthusiastic reader how she determined which books to buy, which old authors to support and which new authors to try. She depended on a variety of word of mouth techniques: online forums; her book club; water cooler conversations; and book jacket blurbs. Whose opinion mattered the most to this reader who spent nearly $200 monthly on books? Someone like herself.

Given the recent intrigue over Simon & Schuster's decision to partner with Media Predict to "use the collective judgment of readers to evaluate book proposals," (says James Surowiecki in The New Yorker), Mr. Obie Joe wonders if we're letting conceit overrule reality. The truth is we've not taken enough advantage of the rich resource of the public's view of books, before and after publication. Their opinions do matter. We've seen that to be the case of those books that find enormous readership, and response, with online marketing campaigns.

It's not a question of imitating America Idol; rather, it's jut an expansion of the most valuable tool books have: word of mouth.

Me no promote?

Of course authors should do what they do best -- daydream, research and write their next book.

But how much responsibility should an author have for their book once the book goes to market? Some authors take to the promotion and marketing of their books with enthusiasm and creativity long after the first edition expires.

Other authors find the prospect hideous.

Obie Joe noted a comment by Kathleen O'Hara in an editorial about the downturn in book customers in the Peterborough (Ontario) Examiner, and the resultant push to have authors use their time and creativity for more promotion, particularly with social networking. "I must confess that I am one of the multitude of hopeful novelists, and I'm beginning to find today's ultra-competitive, multimedia environment very daunting. Facebook and YouTube are not where I want to flog my work and myself. Perhaps, I need to attend the Paris Hilton School of Self-Promotion."

Hmm. Tapping his cane, Obie Joe wonders if authors leery of promotion could consider that social networking is just an updated form of conversing with one's audience. The conversation between author and reader is a valuable one; often such contact inspires writers to new junctions in their plots and characters.

Plus, the writing on a blog is writing, and any writing keeps the pump primed.

The infinity of eight

The number 8 lying down changes into the symbol for infinity. Maybe that's why so many advertisers their stock in the adage: "It takes an average 8 views of something (product, book) before a consumer is motivated to try that book, or product."
Perhaps. Maybe Obie Joe is just lazy, or unimaginative, but he thinks a conversation can happen with just one appearance.
Say a knitter is at a wool and thread store, and she sees a new book about knitting. The presentation for this new book is perfect: the book is positioned near the cash register, with a notecard from the store's owner clipped to the cover. A discount is offered, too.
Does that knitter need 8 times to see that? And then buy the book?

BookTV's new design

Saw the crisp new design for C-Span BookTV shows: www.booktv.org.

Liked being able to see the Archives as easily as the promos for the upcoming shows. Given the content of many of these shows, Obie Joe was really looking forward to accessing past shows via RealPlayer or iTunes. However...we have not been able to figure out how to access these shows.

Perhaps BookTV can take a cue from www.thisamericanlife.org -- in multiple formats, shows are there for the clicking.

Controlling one's content

We've been working with a new client who wants to gain greater control over her book's online marketing potential (as in, life beyond Amazon). She had a web site, which was OK in look and content, but the site lacked the most critical component to selling your own book: an e-commerce portal. If a reader on the site wanted to buy the book, he was pointed to other online vendors, Amazon or Borders. While there's nothing wrong with those sales, why shouldn't authors instead capture their web site visitors and make them buyers exclusive to the author?

Adding a PayPal or other shopping cart button is easy to do. Even more effortless if an author uses a blog format for their web site. Most authors don't need to develop a web site from scratch. Instead, Obie Joe recommends using a template from blogspot, or WordPress and go. Many of these templates can be customized with the latest in e-commerce tools for just a few hundred dollars.

Even better is the ease in which authors can update and control the content of the site themselves. Having that ease makes the task of responding quickly to a marketing potential -- say, an article about the rise in YA vampire novels -- successful.

Not invading our shores, apparently

As usual, the combination of our friends Bella Stander and Galleycat inspires giggles for the wryness of the sentiment.

She'll Wait for McEwan to Come Out on DVD
Most everybody else may be all excited about how Powell's Books and Ian McEwan have reinvented book promotion with that short film about On Chesil Beach, but Bella Stander ain't impressed. After watching an online trailer for the film, she dubs it "icky-sticky treacly," and doesn't think much of McEwan's ability to read his own fiction out loud. She also quotes an author interviewed for the WaPo article about the film, who wonders aloud, "at what point... does it feel like an infomercial?" Me, I was feeling a little more generous after watching the trailer—I thought it looked like a low-budget documentary from the Ovation Channel. And while it might be an acceptable compromise for somebody like McEwan, who hates "the three-week stab around the United States and the 25 media escorts," I have my doubts about this being the mainstream future of book promotion.

(And what is it with all these foreign novelists looking for ways to get out of doing U.S. book tours? First Margaret Atwood invents a robot arm to sign her books, and now this. The way things are going, Julian Barnes is probably going to unveil hologram generators so he can do in-store appearances for his next book from his living room.)
(from www.galleycat.com)

Just bring yourself

One other note about the BEA Book Expo: In retrospect, we see we spent too much time on the preparation of company materials. In many ways, all you need is your business card, your gregarious manner, and the reconnaissance on the person you're meeting.

Pantheon to Pages and People

Just returned from Mr. Obie Joe's visit to the BEA Book Expo in New York City. Given it was our virgin visit to the Book Expo (previous incarnations had us there as journalists), we had no expectations. Except to say hello to old and new friends. We had been advised to map out a dead-certain strategy to cover the numerous booths, programs, author signings and presentations. How we tried, but we were soon dazzled and redirected like greedy children inside the Wonka Chocolate Factory.

So we concentrated on gathering catalogs, business cards, and some books (BTW -- what was with the miserly handouts in the children's booth?). The networking became giddy at a certain point in the overheated Javits Center: in the span of one hour, Mr. Obie Joe asked Nora Ephron about her neck (we know, cringe city), chatted about viral marketing with Jane Friedman, cajoled a book from a Kensington Books rep, and had the most interesting conversation with author Abigail Thomas.

The previous day we attended the programs for African American titles. The genre is wide, with titles from self-published authors to major houses all competing for the same space. It's about the hustle, not the hype, so the programming was refreshing for the content on tools on promotion, marketing, and bookstore negotiations. More, though, more, is needed. Mr. Obie Joe thinks next year's AA programming could include commentary on the status of the political voice in AA literature, the explosion of YA titles, and integrating street lit promotional techniques to standard titles. (Ms. Villaroasa...give us a call)

Next year in L.A. we promise to stay more than just the day-and-a-half we had. And to stay on task.