TIP: Don't cheat when trolling for readers

While yesterday's post about Mr. Ritchie seemed a bit out of place, and even though one of the Obie Joes shares his grin, the real reason we stuck our nose into his business was for an experiment.

Turns out our hypothesis was true: feature a celeb on your page, and your web traffic goes up. Even if said celeb has nothing to do with the flavor of your blog or site. Yesterday's statcounter.com for this blog count quadrupled.

For those wanting to increase traffic, you could use celebs, but such contact is fleeting. To build true, consistent traffic, you want readers who like you, your book, your topics.

Light for the day

About a decade ago, we shared Mr. Ritchie's sentiment.

OH! Something for your Friday

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/14636

Love this! Great to listen to in the background.

I can think of a half-dozen authors who need to be kidnapped and placed in front of just so.

Any one else have experience with this format?

Frankenstein, uh, lives again

Book authors should be so lucky to have a character like Frankenstein live on as a name and representation of certain ideas.

Plus, Frankenstein got his author, dead for over a century, a booking in a hip L.A. bar. Ms. Obie Joe loves the contrarian mix of the "Dead Authors" event: a performer impersonates an author, with commentary on current events, and reading of works.

Ms. Obie Joe's only suggestion would be to match a Living with a Dead Author; the two could share a similar vibe, subject matter, or even just similar looks (well, why not? Who wouldn't want a double bill of the high-hair twins, Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Twain?)

Wanted: a financial book

These are interesting times, especially if your book is about finances, the war or politics. Any other book? Not such interesting times, at least when it comes to the competition for media bookings.

The past few months have given all book publicists fingertip calluses as we struggle to find media bookings in one of the most memorable news cycles Ms. Obie Joe has ever seen. The tip sheets we get from journalists used to have 5-7 genres (finances, health, parenting, cooking, etc.); today, we're lucky if financial only takes up 20 of the 25 journalist requests. 

TIP: To PDF your clips, or not?

After a bit of time you'll have a section for the press appearances. Book reviews, feature articles, and radio/TV interviews, your community association newsletter.

For those press appearances in print, you have a choice on the format featuring these articles. The most familiar format are the links. But, if an author is technologically adept, Ms. Obie Joe recommends the PDF version. Too often links expire, or reference another article, but the PDF can be perpetually viewed on your site. See this site for an example. 

What a coincidence dancy!

You ever noticed the helpful nature of the 1-star and 2-star reviews of a book on Amazon? Not only do these reviews take delight in detailing the many flaws of a book, they go the extra mile, and suggest other books. Whose worth of course, is much better than the book reviewed. Ms. Obie Joe would classify this as a less-than-scrupulous book promotion method. 

(BTW, this book here, Lopsided, most certainly does not deserve anything less than 5 stars. Whether you're a survivor or not, this book's mix of humor, education and outrage is compelling. Plus, is that book cover not one of the best EVER?)

TIP: Your Google Alerts whisper secrets

Many authors seek that standard measure of success: a media hit. An article in a major magazine, spot on a TV show, or radio interview. Fine and well, just don't forget the other media: online. As in online content, and online references to mainstream media.

To see who's telling your secrets, of course, Google Alerts is your best tool.

A wonderful measure of success is how often your book, your name, or your attachment to an issue appears in Google Alerts. Particularly in the midst of a push for media, online and otherwise.

Google Alerts can be a bit messy, and to avoid flooding your in-mailbox, Ms. Obie Joe recommends:
• Sign up
• With each sign-up, make each term as specific as possible, and with quotation marks:
-- Book title
-- Your name, particularly with initials
-- Title of an article relevant to your book
-- The name of your site and/or blog.

Also, make sure to choose "comprehensive" for the type of Alerts; you never know if a media hit will come from news, blogs, sites, or groups.

Most of us choose once-a-day Alerts; but if you know you won't respond to a Alert frequently, set aside a time once a week to go through the Alerts to see which ones need a response.

Who has the best voice?

Each time Ms. Obie Joe drives through the tunnel under the Baltimore Harbor, on her way South, she thinks of Haven Kimmel. Now while any thoughts of Ms. Kimmel are welcome, rather it's the memory of Ms. Kimmel's audiobooks. The distinctive voice of Ms. Kimmel (think combination of North Carolina twang, stretched by Indiana flats) read She Got Up Off the Couch, and A Girl Named Zippy. There's this one story in She Got Up the Couch, where Haven's mother races to a university President's Tea, dressed in clothes 20 sizes too large, and on a bike not her own. As we listened to it, whatever we were looking at become seared with the memory of that passage.

Now that's what a good audiobook is capable of. And given that the sales of audiobooks are one of the few sectors in publishing with huge gains, there'll be more of us appreciating the vivid ride. Except, those audiobooks that fall short. Or cringe. I guess, when in doubt, go with the Read by Author designation.

What is your favorite audio book? And how can we inspire Mr. Obie Joe to lend his fine voice to the same?

Computer literacy will never replace book literacy

Libraries, like many other public spaces, should offer grand designs to support grand ideas. Walk inside the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue, and you glide with a purpose.

In the main branch in Obie Joe's hometown in Baltimore, there's this beautiful, 60's-style reference desk to greet all visitors. Well, used to be. Recently, Ms. Obie Joe walked into the main branch in Baltimore, and saw the desk now dwarfed by approximately 100 computers (not even Macs!), with dozens slaving over clicks-upon-clicks.

No surprise when your library director, one Ms. Carla Hayden, freely admits that:

BC: Isn’t it interesting that you’re talking about computers, but the library is full of books.
CH: What’s interesting is that when we talked about libraries in the past, books were the main vehicles for getting information and also for entertainment, but definitely for information, and now it’s beyond books in terms of getting information. Most of the entertainment types of literature are still in book format, like Harry Potter.

Hayden then goes on to describe how her library system now emphasizes the ease of the digital: free DVDs, filling out government forms online, using the computer as a replacement to a doctor, and every way except this point: that a library fosters ideas via guidance to a literacy not considered by the patron.

Small wonder this library director picked "Solutions and Delights" as the logo. Of course.

Deep, deep, sad, sigh. Since when is a library, ideas, books, literacy about delights?!

(Photo credit. Look! Desks with no computers!)