TIP: Start your own book club - online

Some books are tougher than others as candidates for book clubs. 

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace would qualify. Fans of the books, unwilling to be the pariahs at their own book clubs, have formed an online book club to scale the 1,000-plus page book. Readers gather at 75-page benchmarks every week for three months. Community, complex discussion, and the thrill of suffusing one in a worthwhile book. 

So, why not start an online book club of your own? If you think of it, your Reader Guide is one step forward to your own online book club. But make the content matter, and follow-through. Peruse the structure of the Infinite Jest site in its straightforward blog format:

• The last 10 Posts

• Archives

• The last 10 Comments (many in the wonderfully DFW loquacious way)

But the site's searchability is what Ms. Obie Joe likes best. The search box rocks, but the categories section is particularly astute. 

TIP: Cultivate your live line cranks

The news was startling: President Kennedy was reported shot during a motorcade in Dallas. Walter Cronkite of CBS Evening News was having trouble finding a clear phone line for an outgoing call. In the newsroom, he picked up one of the lines, but a caller was already live. From his autobiography, A Reporter's Life:

I reported (ed: can you imagine how many times that word appeared in his book?) that she had reached our newsroom. 

"I want to complain," she complained, "of your having that Walter Cronkite on the air at a time like this, crying his crocodile tears when we all knew he hated Jack Kennedy."

With all of the outraged dignity I could muster, I told her: "Mrs. Llewellyn-Arbuthnot, you are speaking to Walter Cronkite, and you, madam, are a damned idiot."

One of the first jobs a J-school grad gets is triaging the calls from the newsroom's live line, be it newspapers, radio or TV. What happens on the journey from live line to the news editor is an expression of what was wrong with traditional media, and why Ms. Obie Joe has trouble shedding tears for newspapers who refuse to update themselves to the new media. As in, allowing, and welcoming input from their audiences. The type of derogatory comments and dismissive responses from editors who received the message slips from the live line exampled the 1,001 reasons why traditional media lost their audiences. 

Many authors and publishers snapped on to blogs and other social networks as a way to reach out. But regardless of your format, watch your live lines. Treat those who e-mail you, leave comments, and generally reach out with a welcome mat. Many times their feedback and accolades will fuel your own literal lifeline. Granted, sometimes the life lines -- comments, generally -- do get out of hand. The battles among commenters have been brutal for Stephenie Meyer, Haven Kimmel and Jacquelyn Mitchard, and each has either frozen or shut down the participatory parts of their sites in the past year.

But if you are willing to start your line, push that Cronkite button. Gently.

Why Friends & Family need to show the love

In the attic of the former home of the Obie Joe, sat a box of PartyLite candles. At double the normal retail cost, Ms. Obie Joe bought these hallowed candles because she was at a party of friends all engaged in loving the PartyLite.

There's been a long-running debate whether books and/or authors would benefit from traditional advertising. Arguments against include: too difficult to do justice to a book's complexity; book audiences are too niche to risk wide advertising; ads depend on namebrands, only known quantities like Jodi Pincoult go. Plus, advertising is not the same as marketing, which are the tasks most suited for books. Think. When was the last time you saw an ad -- in any of the standard media -- for Avon, Amway, Personal Chef? These brands depend solely on the exploitation, uh, invitation, skills of friends and families. This method is not to be underestimated; Obama's presidential campaign was cited as Internet savvy. Perhaps. Internet was the tool, but Friends & Family was the campaign.

You know your Friends & Family love you, and your book. As your book premieres, give them a nudge to show it. After you send out a postcard via online and mail about the book, shout to your people to do these tasks:
• Request the book at your local book store and/or library. The request will prompt an order, and in some cases with libraries several copies.
• Boost your book to book groups via local bookstores, or readerscircle.com, and libraries.
• Post a review on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, shelfari.com, goodreads.com, or anywhere that takes reader reviews. Speaking from Obie Joe experience, e-opinions are powerful motivators for a new reader.
• Leave an anecdote, cheer, or good wishes on the author's blog, facebook, or elsewhere.

On the postcard, or flier, help your Friends & Family out by including:
• Publisher's name
• ISBN number
• Order information (if self or small published)
• Contact information, w/ reminder that author is available for any event, in-person or electronically.

And...of course, you can always ask ya Friend/Family to host their own book party in your honor. Promise them a pink Cadillac if they sell 1,000 copies.

Teachers and your book

As recommenders and buyers, teachers are the bunch worth cultivating. Unfortunately, they can be an elusive bunch, reticent to provide direct contact with their classrooms and core curriculums. Too often teachers are asked by authors to do in-classroom presentations; that might work if you're an author with acclaim, but for most authors, a teacher's interest needs to be attracted in other ways.

In a recent BookExpo discussion recounted on Shelf Awareness, several tips on building relationships with teachers, were suggested by Kristen McLean, American Booksellers for Children:
• Subject-based book talks with teacher-only invites at libraries and bookstores.
• Offer teacher in-service.
• Form creative partnerships with local schools. As in, a course on Sioux Nation, taught over span of weeks, involving several authors.
• For bookstores, create an in-store education information center.
• Spearhead buy-local programs using attractive discounts and delivery systems.

Shelly Plumb, owner of Harleysville Books, in Pennsylvania, noted that children's books are her bestselling category for which she has developed several programs:
-- Participation in the Pennsylvania State Certification Program and offering PSCP courses to teachers. (Most attendees are private or parochial schoolteachers.)
Establishing eight types of book fairs for schools, from preschool through middle school.
-- A contest with schools where they earn "book bucks" and a prize goes to the school that's read the most books.

Ms. Obie Joe really loved how the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur worked with parents to originate a book fair to counter the mass market titles and "gimmicky things" offered through Scholastic Book Fairs. That kind of book fair may be modest in profit, but big on profits in goodwill and name recognition among teachers.

What? I can't do book promotion for free?

Book people, because of their affection for literature and ideas, tend to do a lot of free work when moved. And that's cool, because many of us are both beneficiaries and philanthropists (thank you, Michelle, for my latest book edit!).

But sometimes it goes too far, as it does in many service sectors. Just because you adore what you're doing doesn't mean you have to tolerate the attitude that it's not worth much.

Bella Stander of Book Promotion 101, sent the apt link of how many Vendor-Client relationships go.

Beware the duck-handled umbrella!

As fellow blue collar workers, parents, and of course, book promoters, this anecdote of a book appearance gone awry prompted much laughs.

The temperament of author Alison Uttley didn't quite match the sentiment of her classic “Little Grey Rabbit” children’s books.

MobyLives, the blog for Melville House Publishing, caught the best part of a anecdote from Uttley's publicist:


"...the release is also prompting some who worked with her to come forth with their own stories about her that are even juicier. For example, in a remembrance at the Fotolibrarian site that’s worth reprinting nearly in full, Gwyn Headley recalls:

When I worked for Collins (the predecessor of HarperCollins) I was detailed to accompany Alison Uttley to the Children’s Book Fair at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster. She was a sour little old woman, with no small talk, and I was clearly merely a minion.

But I was quite good at publicity, and I’d arranged for everyone attending the fair to be invited to COME AND MEET ALISON UTTLEY. At half hourly intervals the PA system hollered out ‘ALISON UTTLEY!! LITTLE GREY RABBIT AUTHOR!! HERE AT 12!!’

Teachers were whipping their charges into a state of frenzy. Me, I just wanted to sell some books.

We’d placed Uttley on a curtained daïs, and on the dot of 12 the curtain rose. A howling crowd of excited children stormed the stage.

As Uttley hadn’t bothered to listen to a word I’d told her, she was completely unprepared for this. Dimly she perceived an overwhelming mob running at her and with British pluck she unhesitatingly grabbed her duck-handled umbrella and waded into the attack, felling infants right and left.

The kiddies paused, briefly regrouped, then broke up and ran off, screaming in terror. Uttley strode among them, lashing out freely."

Tweeter is the super blog?

In reading the hash tags from the first 140 characters conference, held this week in NYC, Ms. Obie Joe is struck by the possible over-enthusiasm for the Twitter as a building and disrupter in promotion campaigns.

Twitter works not because a new brain wiring distills our attention span into further squashed increments. Rather, Twitter works because, at its best, it provides a consistent stream of information, or with authors, observations that feed into a story. People leave 4,000 and counting congrats on dooce.com when the newest participant is born because her blog has reliably produced content for years.

Online is the fancy tool, but really, people, we keep returning to the same thing used for eons to transfer and translate information: the narrative.

"The fin de siècle/industrial revolution gave us stream of consciousness, the nuclear age gave us post-modernism, and now the information age has produced what? Writers need to experiment with narratives across media in the same way that alternate reality games have experimented with the video game." (@chapmanchapman Ryan Chapman, Macmillan Internet marketing manager)

Use Twitter -- absolutely -- but don't forget the story.

Strategize for the scatter

Everybody's online, huh? You might be hearing that from your publicist, publisher and friends.

Certainly, the range of options seem so vast as to start hitting anything that moves.

Moving the cane to the tip of his boot, Mr. Obie Joe would remind you to not chase, but to strategize. Perhaps your book, or your personality, would not match a Twitter campaign. There are authors who work with "only" a web site. Think through your choices, and then commit fierce. Few things are as disappointing as a blog with no entries. Or a web site with just a landing page. Or a Facebook page with no friends.

A few steps at the dance:
• Familiarize yourself with all tools.
• Determine the typical time commitments for each tool. Twitter is daily, blog tour is intermittent, and so on.
• Use tools to track your progress: how many hits, your search engine position, direct feedback/comments on your sit, etc.
• Coordinate original content. Use you Author Q&A for a blog tour; send a blog essay for a press release; and so on.

Online publicity changes the game from traditional marketing is that you, handsome you, chase the consumer in a way that engages them over the long-term. Not for the one-time product buy. Many of Mr. Obie Joe's people work with us not just to sell their book, but to to build their career so their next book sells, too.

Another way social networks sells your book

There's a general sense that the participation in social networks sell books in a vague, sort-of by association way. Feeding into the "you have to hear it 8 times before you buy the new detergent" advertising theory.

Sure, it can't harm to put a jpg of your book cover on your Facebook, or to troll for other Facebookers who love the same things you do, therefore lining up to buy your book.

There are several social networks for professionals. These are proving to find profitable products for their members. Recently, one of Obie Joe's authors, a physician, was approached to direct a CME course in partnership with Sermo and a respected medical school. His book would be included as well as compensation for his presentation.

TIP: Which to choose first: general or niche audience

When putting together a marketing plan, the first task (besides budget) is figuring out who is your audience. Not necessarily who your reader is -- wonderfully, one could make the case none of us really knows what type of reader will find our book -- instead, what audience most interested in the book promotion tasks. Who will show up at your book reading? Who listens to your radio interview? Don't always assume the reader and the interested party are one and the same.

Why choose one? Why not develop a marketing plan to include both? Well, sure, except an author does risk diffusing the sharpest aspects of their platform, issue, and book. Instead try these steps:

1) Choose your buddies: Niche or General. Remember that the one not chosen will get its turn later.
2) Develop tools, venues and goals specific for the side picked. The Today Show for the General; Popular Mechanics for the Niche.
3) Go do.
4) As you go do, take notes of the places suited for buddy left waiting. In a hotel lobby, see the niche magazines. In your readings, get the name and number of the Polish dancing organizer for later contact for their e-ail lists, events, publications.

Ms. Obie Joe has a preference to pick the General buddy first, because it gives her time to develop new places and tools exclusive to the Niche. But with Fiction titles, it is a challenge to pick General first, unless the author has a killer author platform (hopefully not literally). In Fiction, Niche (the Author's hometown, quirk of personality, etc.) always pushes first.

Which ones would you prefer?