This Week in Book Sales and Marketing

Is book marketing and sales a dragon for you?

It’s Friday and here, in no particular time line order… my reporting and cheeky opinion about this week’s news in book sales and marketing.

If you have something you think should be included in this list, like a book marketing campaign that really helped your sales, or get publicity, email me using the contact form above, and I may include it in my weekly biased and random list.

I’m really impressed with urban fantasy and young adult author, Rachel Vincent’s book trailer contest: repost her book trailer link and be eligible to win a cool prize from her. You’ll have to go to her site to check it out. Her contest is only 2 days old and she already has 135 comments. How’s that for viral? I’m just saying…

The venerable Mike Shatzkin ruminates on how publishers need to become business-to-consumer oriented (b2c) instead of busines-to-business oriented (b2), like they have been, and cited Harlequin as the example of how publishers should run. His quoted source, smart man Markus Dohle, CEO of Random House, says

“he was ‘convinced that publishers have to become more reader oriented in a marketing and trend finding/setting way rather than in a direct to consumer selling way.’ “

Yeah. Finally. Like I said, smart man.

I posted about the tension of learning to sell a book even before it’s written in this raw little post, just the other day. More reveals to come in future posts.

PublishingPerspectives.com, a project of the German Book Office, a subsidiary of the Frankfurt Book Fair, spotlights e-book publisher, Wattpad. A juicy quote:

“Wattpad says social networking is becoming increasingly important for generating interest in ebooks.” What I said! Agree?

Which tool will win in the hearts and minds… of students? The Kindle or the iPad. According to the Financial Times, e-books fail the classroom test. But I think it’s the Kindle that didn’t man up for the job. At least that’s what reporter, Paul Taylor, shared.

I’m sure there’s more out there… I just didn’t stumble upon it in my daily grazing.

Like I said at the top, if you spot a success in book marketing that has enhanced your book and/business sales, or got you some awesome publicity, send it to me, and I just may include it here. Next week, and so on.