One of the first so-called “virtual book tours” gave life to a book about death. In spring 2003, science writer Mary Roach appeared on about a dozen blogs and Web sites to promote her upcoming book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She spent two weeks writing pre-pub commentary for bloggers and answering questions from their audiences. By the time her book came out, a corner of the Web was humming about Stiff and its charming author, which helped make Roach’s book a surprise bestseller—all without her having to leave home.
This was well before we had the tools we have now to amplify the voice of the author to readers and vice versa: no Facebook, no Twitter and few ways for an author to create an online presence other than a regular writing gig or a personal blog. Today, Neil Gaiman has more than one million followers on Twitter. Goodreads.com has about that many people stop by each month to refine their “currently reading” lists and share their “to-be-reads.” Authors can now visit book clubs via Skype, host contests on Facebook and garner between-book publicity on Twitter. Booksellers have set up shop on the Web. And e-books have gone from fantastical predictions to reality. All of these innovations are windows into demand: the appetite for books, who wants them, how they want them, and what they want from them, has never before been this knowable.
Two important things have changed since Mary Roach undertook her innovative virtual marketing campaign. First, authors now think nothing of test-driving ideas and chapters on their blogs to attract readers, who could then be invited to readings and lectures. And second, this now-visible demand tells us that, at any one time, there are authors looking to meet readers and readers looking to meet authors. What they need is a matchmaker.
It was during this blaze of social media that we launched BookTour.com, a free directory of every author and literary event happening in America. With BookTour.com, we hoped to offer a one-stop shop for readers to learn which authors are appearing within driving distance of their front doors. Had we stopped there, however, BookTour would simply have been one more LibraryThing, Digg or MySpace vying for users’ attention. Instead, we choose to share our data. In other words, author tour information can be entered once at BookTour, then reposted to other book-friendly spots online. This layers in a viral effect, because the more places that allow readers to interact with this information, the more they spread it to their friends and colleagues—and the more this ancillary layer of book lovers will multiply the effect.
It all comes down to serving the dedicated book fan. Today, that fan has almost unlimited options online, yet they choose to spend their time and money on books. We should use the Web to empower that passion. So far, however, the book industry has remained tied to the idea that everything a publisher touches should be as proprietary as the words inside a book—cover art, author photos, cataloguing taxonomies and, despite our company’s efforts, tour information. Publishers place these bits of ephemera on their own Web sites or in their office databases and are sometimes unwilling to share them freely. It’s rightfully theirs, of course. But if GoodReads, Book Glutton, BookTour or whoever wishes to build a company around bibliophilia, around the act of proclaiming a love of reading and books, why not find a way to assist?
Publishers should welcome companies like BookTour.com stacking businesses atop theirs. Together, they could unleash multiplier effects by relying on readers to spread publishers’ marketing messages. By embracing the inherent virality of the Web, publishers can unshackle themselves from their often self-imposed confinement. And when they do, everybody wins.
More articles from PW's Viral Issue:
The Viral Loop by Adam L. Penenberg
The Networked Agent by Kate Lee
The Listening Game by Megan Zabel
Sharing Is Caring by Ellen Archer
Creating Your Viral Loop on Twitter by Rachel Sterne
Blogging as Multiplier Effect by Adam L. Penenberg
Soapbox: Where Ideas Go to Die, Not Spread by Seth Godin
