Using online treasure hunts to promote books is nothing new. But Tor Books is taking that marketing strategy to a new level in its effort to promote the October 11 release of Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams,the penultimate installment in his bestselling Wheel of Timeseries. Instead of simply creating a contest and inviting fans to enter, the house has enlisted fan sites, along with Jordan's audio and graphic novel publishers, as official partners in the Web quest that will run August 2—October 18 at www.knifeofdreams.com/registration.php.
Tor is betting that by inviting various groups to design and produce the clues in the contest, they will have more incentive to promote the book to their user bases. Red Eagle Entertainment will contribute the Web page with the first clue, which will coincide with the July debut of its comic book tied to New Spring,the prequel to Jordan's series. Prominent fan sites such as Dragonmount.com, Silklantern.com and Encyclopaedia-wot.org (which receives up to 300,000 page hits per month) will also deliver Web pages that will be used in the hunt, as will Audible.com and Audio Renaissance (which, like Tor, is owned by Holtzbrinck).
"We have a huge and loyal fan base who re-read all of the novels in the series before each new book comes out," explained Tor publicity director Elena Stokes. Playing off of that zeal, each clue will relate to one of the 12 books in the series, starting with New Spring and working chronologically up to Knife of Dreams. So far, the series has sold more than 12 million copies in North America. Knife of Dreams will launch with a one million—copy first printing.
The quest is structured to accomplish several goals: to refresh interest in the entire line of books; to motivate affiliates to market tie-in products by giving them a participatory stake; and to tap into fans' desire to play a role in a larger affinity community. "People like being asked questions they can answer and seeing that their participation is counted," explained Prestin Austin, founder of Clotho Advanced Media, a Web design firm that monitors Internet trends. "They become brand ambassadors by latching onto an otherwise diverse community that couldn't exist to this extent in any other avenue of brand communication."
