Ha, ha, ha. Ahem.

"We'd like to publish it, do nothing to promote it, and watch it disappear from the shelves in less than a month."

TIP: Cloud compute your next novel?

The shazam speed of success for the free, online publishers like scribd.com and issuu.com have inspired many to post full copies of their zines, manuscripts and books.

There's another reason why authors looking to increase their fan base might consider using these sites. Say you're a writer fascinated by the Gilded Age ruins, you can bet many share your fascination (like Ms. Obie Joe). Use these sites to post elements of your book in progress. Think of it: what could be cooler than posting the latest finding in your research? For nonfiction books, posting research bit by bit is akin to Dickens' posting chapter by chapter the rivets of Nicholas Nickleby.

For finished books, authors should definitely post a chapter of their book, as well as post links or aspects of other works that influenced your book.

When musicians and singers are interviewed about their latest work, the first question is often about the influences of other artists and other art. Given that books and authors are suspectible to even more infuences, here's your chance to draw in your fans with similar connections.

(Obie Joe's preference? Both sites are easy to use, but scribd.com is a bit better suited for visual, and has more visitors to boot).

Twasn't the name, it was the game

One of the more unique aspects of the hit book, The Convenant with Black America, edited by Tavis Smiley, are its back pages. These resemble the last pages of a program from a high school graduation: pages and pages of names. Each name resembles a thumbprint of someone who helped to include valuable, and from the ground up, stories in the book. People contributed through many forums: church seminars; black literature study groups; writer edit sessions and political discussion coffees.

Thanking each contribution in the book may have been seen as unusual or generous, but Ms. Obie thinks it was a savvy investment. Including each name inspired each name to become a champion of the book. After the book was published, each contributor was encouraged to host a Convenant party. Across the country, there were hundreds of these parties to discuss the ideas, and to buy the book.

While this book was certainly one of the biggest successes for small press Third World Press, publisher Haki Madhubuti must have sensed the buy-in was already there. In its first month of release, over 300,000 copies were sold.

For those authors and publishers, particularly in nonfiction, make sure to not forget your first customers: those in the book. Some audiences are right there waiting; look no farther than your own address book.

Her name means commerce

She's two sides of same coin. Found without request. Runs on sweetheart setting until wrong car or any dog crosses her path. Shares her couch with generosity. Misunderstood like the rest of us.

TIP: Candy makes them stickier

On one of those ridiculous hot days when brains are sodden, Ms. Obie Joe listened to campaign staffers worried about getting coverage of the next evening's rally.

"Send every newsroom a cake. Preferably sheet cake, with the time, date and place spelled out in perfect icing," said Ms. Obie Joe.

"Cake? What does cake have to do with moving them tomorrow?," said the earnest staffer.

Ms. Obie Joe, having worked in many a newspaper newsroom, knew the arrival of cake shook the staff awake. We'd descend upon the cake, curious or hungry, and before the knife sliced many pieces, you can bet a few of us knew the date, place and time (as picked up a copy of the news release).

True, the cake trick worked a bit more effectively for a nonprofit's event rather than a political event (maybe a bottle of whiskey would be better suited), but the truth is the same. Sweets are sweet.

At your next book signing, put out a bowl of candy -- make sure it's the good stuff, not the Dollar Store lead filled junk -- and watch as many more stop by to take a look at the book. Our advice may seem simple, but it's an extension of how each Author can approach any event: with an appreciation for the fans and those yet to be your fans.

TIP: Share your bookstore's blog

One of the more wonderful parts of generating content to connect with your audience -- via blogs, e-mail newsletters, podcasts and perhaps all of the above -- is the creativity to find new homes for the same content. Trading with other author blogs is one standard source, but Ms. Obie Joe counsels to find unconventional, or un-obvious (can that be a new word?), source:

• Bookstores blogs. In anticipation of her appearance at Book Passage bookstore in California, Meredith Norton (Lopsided: A Story About Breast Cancer) posted an entry not entirely relevant to her book, but very much so to Meredith's world view.
• Expert blogs: Given the specificity of his book's topic -- concierge medicine -- Dr. Steve Knope could easily jump from one blog on CM to another (and did). But given that CM is a response to the crisis with primary care, Knope found other places within expert blogs in primary care, nursing, senior health, etc.

More later...it's Friday, and the hours are once again outmatched by the tasks....

Read-aloud words assault?

An earnest suitor, riding on the crosstown bus in New York City, reads aloud to his beloved. While she is besotted with the caress of his words, many on the bus register outright hostility. Why is reading aloud akin to hoisting a blaring boombox on that same bus?

Robert Gray was on that bus, and he shares our curiosity. While the bus situation was a bit extreme -- reading aloud like that is more of a performance than a shared pleasure -- there does seem to be divides in the literary community on standards of reading aloud. In poetry, there is a segregation between what Mr. Obie Joe calls the "slow" or formal poetry readers versus the spoken word poets whose words reflect both the paper and the poet.

Then there the readers, often nonfiction, who depend on a colloquial, barstool approach. Each anecdote they tell seem like a great story. Rick Bragg is like that, though he is also an unusually good reader of his own books, too.

The worst? Those who read with an affected or theatrical voice. Look, unless you have the silky smooth of Chip Kidd, just read in your regular voice. Like the suitor on the bus, leave it at home.

Be an early adjuster: cell phone your next novel

For publishing to survive -- not by cost cuts, but by attracting new customers -- the stories and insights will have to go in places beyond paper and ink.

Why are we book lovers so afraid of new technology? Why is there the sense that another technology displaces the importance of the story? Perhaps the dread comes from the last go-around with a new technology: movies. We all know how well those literary translations worked out.

Ms. Obie Joe has been reading with great amusement of the Dickens-type of storytelling in Japan. There, over 86 Percent of Japanese high schoolers are great readers of the modern novel -- on their cell phones. The novels are delivered, in many cases at no additional costs -- in segments. Interestingly, just as a book's sales shoot after a movie version is released, many teens buy the book version. Not so surprisingly, 10 of Japan's print bestsellers in 2007 were based on cell phone novels--successfully selling about 400,000 copies each.

Mr. Obie Joe was intrigued at the saturation of the cell phone novel; beginning in 2002, the first edition came from by Yoshi who wanted to experiment with a new market for Deep Love: Ayu's Story. The book was an instant success, and beget print books, cartoons, and a film. Each installment is Twitter-length, 70-140 words, with segments timed for delivery several times a day. (Always with cliffhangers, one supposes).

Not only does this prove technological advances will help publishing, these also reach the so-called "nonreader," ages 10-20.

No one is asking any of us who love books to be an early adopter for technology, but at the very least, let's be an early adjuster for the technology already here.

Back from bacteria

Now that each Obie Joe member has emptied out the pharmacy, we're in good health. Returning to the joy of surveying publishing and the promotion therein.

Good Books blog rewards readers

Even though Ms. Obie Joe can sometimes squirrel a skeptic's eye at books of spirituality and so forth, she greatly celebrates the effort to establish niches for readers of genres. Writers and fans of romance and sci-fi have always managed to generate numerous blogs to filter what new books are coming out, and how they relate to other older titles.

From HarperOne, a house that publishes titles in religion, spirituality and personal growth, a new blog, Good Books in Bad Times. As the founder of the blog, associate marketing director Laina Adler said the blog includes titles from all publishers on those topics (including those from self-published market?)

Good to see a publisher interested in rewarding readers of a genre with collaboration possibilities.