We could get a consumer to try a product, but if the product sucked, the advertising would just speed up it’s demise. With today’s technologies, your bad product or false promises will spread faster than ever. You might try to fool some of the people s…

We could get a consumer to try a product, but if the product sucked, the advertising would just speed up it’s demise. With today’s technologies, your bad product or false promises will spread faster than ever. You might try to fool some of the people s…

We could get a consumer to try a product, but if the product sucked, the advertising would just speed up it’s demise. With today’s technologies, your bad product or false promises will spread faster than ever. You might try to fool some of the people s…

…

We could get a consumer to try a product, but if the product sucked, the advertising would just speed up it’s demise. With today’s technologies, your bad product or false promises will spread faster than ever. You might try to fool some of the people s…

We could get a consumer to try a product, but if the product sucked, the advertising would just speed up it’s demise. With today’s technologies, your bad product or false promises will spread faster than ever. You might try to fool some of the people s…

Glad to hear we got you thinking.

The technology might be new, but the principles are universal.

1. Have something worth talking about

2. Tell people who know people.. and care about the message

Glad to hear we got you thinking.

The technology might be new, but the principles are universal.

1. Have something worth talking about

2. Tell people who know people.. and care about the message

I stumbled upon your blog and found this an interesting read with interesting comments. If I am reiteratting things you have said before – my aplogies – the post and comments got me thinking.

The great thing about a good book is the reader experience it generates and the relationship that the reader has with the characters and the author – albeit from a distance.

What the web (1.0, 2.0 and the emerging 3.0) has provided and will provide is access to a potentially large number of people in an interactive/engaged way. Bringing a 1,000 people to a site is not a difficult thing to do. Getting them to come back, and stay, and engage is a lot more difficult – especially if you have a mediocre or bad product; or a website that delivers a sub-par experience. Just having people show up is not enough anymore because of the choices they have online and off-line. That is what TV and the radio does and to a degree newspapers and magazines. What the web did was deliver greater choice and web 2.0 delivered an opportunity for an engaged experience.

For an author to add to a book experience by creating extensions online, is a very smart thing to do as it extends awareness from the standpoint of audience and time. It keeps the author or the book in the game, bubbling online and/or front of mind. Once it is online, it is always online – it never goes away. Always available and findable via search engines. That is not the case with Television or Print or Radio. That is the beauty of marketing online and the Long Tail.

Why not engage in a way that allows an author to add to the mythology or extend a story or answer questions that were not answered in a book? Or use a presence to start seeding anticipation and excitement about a next book.

I firmly believe that EVERY author should have an online mouthpiece. Yes a Blog and/or FaceBook or other community site page that is appropriate for their audience. That is “going where the readers/people are”. It is not enough anymore to just “push” information as in PR release. One has to engage. It needs to be a 2 way dialogue.

Having an author visit a local Barnes and Noble to engage 30-130 readers is one thing. Having hundreds to tens-of-thousands engage online through a live “video-chat” reading or Q&A and having that available in perpetuity on their site and on video sites like youtube, is quite another. It is important to be accessible to fans when, where, and through the medium of the fan’s choice. By so doing, one can extend the relationship that happens vicariously through a book to a deeper level of engagement that potentially feeds a fan base for subsequent books.

1. Getting visitors to a site is one thing.
2. Getting them to the site and then having them engage with you is great – and even better if the experience results in them telling their friends
3. Getting them to engage with you and tell their friends & then buy your product and tell their friends about the product – that is web 2.0 marketing Nirvana and that is what a lot of the excitment and fuss is about. It is about the power of a many-to-many relationship where an author’s community of fans becomes a de facto extension of a marketing and PR department.

Sure not everyone is online – but a huge number of people are. And it is not just young people. People will find you if you put yourself out there. They always do whether you like it or not. I was with a Search Marketing Specialist recently that siad something that struck me as quite remarkable. He said that if you are over 18 years old and you live in the US, it is highly likely that you have been googled based on his research! If you have not googled yourself –
1. you will be surprised at what is out there
2. know that someone else most likely has.

And more importantly for an author who is selling themselves as a branded product, one really should be aware of their brand online. Like a credit report, inaccuracies do need to be cleaned out from time to time.

Yes – you are right – it is just common sense. Go and “join” the people where they are and once joined, lets all “go forth and multiply” the message.

Thanks for getting me thinking!

I stumbled upon your blog and found this an interesting read with interesting comments. If I am reiteratting things you have said before – my aplogies – the post and comments got me thinking.

The great thing about a good book is the reader experience it generates and the relationship that the reader has with the characters and the author – albeit from a distance.

What the web (1.0, 2.0 and the emerging 3.0) has provided and will provide is access to a potentially large number of people in an interactive/engaged way. Bringing a 1,000 people to a site is not a difficult thing to do. Getting them to come back, and stay, and engage is a lot more difficult – especially if you have a mediocre or bad product; or a website that delivers a sub-par experience. Just having people show up is not enough anymore because of the choices they have online and off-line. That is what TV and the radio does and to a degree newspapers and magazines. What the web did was deliver greater choice and web 2.0 delivered an opportunity for an engaged experience.

For an author to add to a book experience by creating extensions online, is a very smart thing to do as it extends awareness from the standpoint of audience and time. It keeps the author or the book in the game, bubbling online and/or front of mind. Once it is online, it is always online – it never goes away. Always available and findable via search engines. That is not the case with Television or Print or Radio. That is the beauty of marketing online and the Long Tail.

Why not engage in a way that allows an author to add to the mythology or extend a story or answer questions that were not answered in a book? Or use a presence to start seeding anticipation and excitement about a next book.

I firmly believe that EVERY author should have an online mouthpiece. Yes a Blog and/or FaceBook or other community site page that is appropriate for their audience. That is “going where the readers/people are”. It is not enough anymore to just “push” information as in PR release. One has to engage. It needs to be a 2 way dialogue.

Having an author visit a local Barnes and Noble to engage 30-130 readers is one thing. Having hundreds to tens-of-thousands engage online through a live “video-chat” reading or Q&A and having that available in perpetuity on their site and on video sites like youtube, is quite another. It is important to be accessible to fans when, where, and through the medium of the fan’s choice. By so doing, one can extend the relationship that happens vicariously through a book to a deeper level of engagement that potentially feeds a fan base for subsequent books.

1. Getting visitors to a site is one thing.
2. Getting them to the site and then having them engage with you is great – and even better if the experience results in them telling their friends
3. Getting them to engage with you and tell their friends & then buy your product and tell their friends about the product – that is web 2.0 marketing Nirvana and that is what a lot of the excitment and fuss is about. It is about the power of a many-to-many relationship where an author’s community of fans becomes a de facto extension of a marketing and PR department.

Sure not everyone is online – but a huge number of people are. And it is not just young people. People will find you if you put yourself out there. They always do whether you like it or not. I was with a Search Marketing Specialist recently that siad something that struck me as quite remarkable. He said that if you are over 18 years old and you live in the US, it is highly likely that you have been googled based on his research! If you have not googled yourself –
1. you will be surprised at what is out there
2. know that someone else most likely has.

And more importantly for an author who is selling themselves as a branded product, one really should be aware of their brand online. Like a credit report, inaccuracies do need to be cleaned out from time to time.

Yes – you are right – it is just common sense. Go and “join” the people where they are and once joined, lets all “go forth and multiply” the message.

Thanks for getting me thinking!

You are right.

I love all the things they are calling Web 2.0 and any author not using these strategies is going to get left behind.

I know as I get older, it’s easy to say “that is just for the kids”.. and the new technologies are not explalined well.

Basically. It’s just common sense. Go where the people/readers are. Today that’s online.

You are right.

I love all the things they are calling Web 2.0 and any author not using these strategies is going to get left behind.

I know as I get older, it’s easy to say “that is just for the kids”.. and the new technologies are not explalined well.

Basically. It’s just common sense. Go where the people/readers are. Today that’s online.

But…

It’s been my experience that most authors (the vast majority, actually) are completely missing the boat here. To mix metaphors, the train is pulling away from the station and most of us who could really substantially benefit from Web 2.0 are not on it.

In your review of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” you point out how it’s easier than ever for authors to reach people *directly*, build an online presence, and create a bestseller. But most authors aren’t doing this, unfortunately.

The focus is still on things like how many review copies can I send out today, when a better use of time and resources would be to focus on how can I get 1,000 extra visitors to my website today.

The scope of sites that encompass “Web 2.0″ are actually so much more than just the social networking sites. These are sites that are highly respected by Google and other search engines, and give authors a platform for their work that wasn’t available even 12 months ago.

For example, I’ve had sites ranked in just a few HOURS that generated thousands (literally) of visitors in just two days — and I wasn’t selling or promoting a thing. That kind of power shouldn’t be ignored by authors who want to speak directly to people who would be interested in their books.

Now, the example above was a real home run, and not every attempt at using Web 2.0 is going to be as successful. But with a smart approach, and by learning to think like an Internet marketer, it’s completely possible for an author to go from 0 to 500 (or 1,000 or more) visitors in as little as a few weeks, and to literally build an online empire faster than ever before.

This is the key component most authors are missing — at least in my opinion.

I’ve put up a free guide to this on my new blog at http://www.TheRichAuthor.com

Thanks for the great work you do here. I look forward to hearing what you and your other readers have to say.