The 10 books to read before you die meme
So I wanted to do a 10 Books To Read Before You Die meme, I have never hosted or really participated in meme’s before but I was thinking it might be kind of fun to read what we each think is the best ten books to read. So just grab the button from the code, write your post, and come back here to Mr. Linky and add your ten books. Easy peasy. I am going to put mine up later tonight here on the blog, this is ongoing for whenever anyone sees it and wants to add theirs just add your link. No time limits.
Do Bloggers make a difference in sales
Traditional Internet, and Social Media Marketing
A lot of questions have been raised lately on whether book and lit blogs drive any sales, of course they drive some sales, then the question remains now many sales do they actually drive. Its kind of hard to tell. There are ways to know if your review copies are going to bloggers who will drive maximum sales. A lot of factors go into online marketing.
I have been reading a lot of discouraging comments from book publicists lately online. Perhaps the one that struck me the most absurd was from Avalon a subsidiary of Harper Collins. The publicist said it was her belief book blogs were unhelpful due to the fact that Amazon and online sales were still only a small margin of their total sales. The question to ask yourself is, have you ever read about anything online and then went to a store to buy it, or are all your online findings also online purchases?
You have people who strictly buy from online recommendations, but let us focus for a minute on the average buyer and marketing trends, also how the internet, social media and blogs can affect sales when partnered with traditional forms of advertising.
For example lets say you are a new author and have penned a fantastic fiction on the world’s end in 2012. You have a publisher and a publicist and they are using traditional media to sell your book. They have taken ads in all the relevant magazines, even online banners on relevant sites. Let’s go as far to say they have your book trailer on the 2012 movie previews, and you got reviewed in Entertainment Weekly. Your book is doing pretty well, by no means a best seller but you see a continued rise in purchases from week to week. Then it slopes of and maintains a good amount of copies sold weekly in traditional bookstores and online. Your publicist works to find blogs that relevant to your book, ones who have a following for this type of fiction. She doesn’t just send your book to any blogger with little to no following raising their hand wanting a copy. The relevant bloggers who have an audience, be that even if it is small review your book. This carries some amount of street credit. Just because the NY Times likes your book doesn’t mean people always believe it is great. Word of mouth has always been the best form of advertising and in the end book blogging is word of mouth. Bloggers are honest in their opinions and the readers of the blog trust what the blogger puts to them. Is this going to create millions of sales and buy that house in France you always wanted to retire to, probably not, but it is going to breathe life back into a stagnate product and create a social media buzz. Then people begin to talk about your book at their online platforms, just regular people who like to read. Now if the publicist cannot do relevant research on where your book fits and sends it to bloggers whose readers care nothing about this genre, the results will be less than before.
New Marketing Trends
How many of you search online for reviews and information about a product you want to buy? Be it a cell phone, a car, or even a travel charger for your phone. Marketing studies show that the average person first makes the decision online for the product they will buy, or have a good idea of 3 to 4 similar products before walking into the store. The days of the high pressure sales person are done, especially in the generations behind is this tactic is no longer working. People are able to search and make informed decisions on their own to what products they bring into their home. A hypothetical example, Joan wants to buy a new cellphone. She isn’t that great with electronics so she goes online and asks her friends via social networking, what phones are good for me if I want to send email and are easy to use. She is told to look at Blackberry, iPhone, and Palm Pre. She then starts her internet research, she decides she wants a real qwerty keyboard, that narrows it to Palm, and Blackberry. She sets back to her research and realizes the Blackberry doesn’t support wifi and she likes the fun Pandora application on the Pre. Social networking just sold a $300 phone and the advertising was free! Betty wants a new book so she stops by Borders on her way home. She is browsing the fiction section and just cannot decide, she has read all the NY Times best selling list and doesn’t know what to pick up next. She sees a copy of Neil Gaimen’s Neverwhere on the shelf, and the name of the author and the book pop out at her. “I have heard of this somewhere”, she thinks. She reads the back of the cover and takes the book home. She heard of this book while browsing fiction book blogs. Did book bloggers just buy Gaimen that Corvette, no probably not even a cheeseburger, but they created the chance for this author to gain a new fan who will then pass on the word to all her friends what an awesome book she found on the way home from work last week.
Is it worth it?
Do I think book bloggers are going to change the advertising world? No not immediately, but I do think when using the proper outlet for any form of advertising your sales will improve. It is up to the people who hold these review copies to do their research and send the books to relevant blogs and explain what they want and need from the blogger. This is a free form of advertising minus the cost of the book, you are not paying this blogger for the hours it takes to read the book and for the time spent writing the review. Its cheap, its easy, its word of mouth, just do it.
Ways to spot a good blog
You found 10 relevant blogs for your book but only have 4 review copies, how do you possibly narrow down the field. There are quite a few subtle things you can look for.
- Is the front page of the blog clean of images, easy to navigate and look pleasing to you?
- Does this blogger have his niche or are the reviews all over the place with scattered reviews along with life stories about their dog?
- Read a review or two, would you buy a book based on this persons recommendation?
It really is that simple, book bloggers are relevant but I doubt they are going to make you millions, there are good and bad bloggers out there just as in any field and in the end its up to you how much time and research you put in to finding a fit for your product.
Top 5 reasons to blog about books
Today the top 5 is going to be related to a blog I read over at The Story Siren blog. I think it is important before you open a book blog, that no matter how glamorous it seems there is a lot of hard work involved also. Me I am behind at least 3 reviews and 6 books to read just at this moment in time. This has to be done for your deep love of reading and pseudo existent marketing skills.
- The first reason to start a book blog should be your complete and utter love of books, whether it is all books or a niche such as YA or Fantasy. Finding your niche and designing your blog around this is important. My personal niche is YA, Fantasy, and True Stories. These things fascinate me and I absolutely love reading these stories.
- Be honest, don’t bash books but find constructive ways to say why you didn’t exactly like them also say why, why the book didn’t engage you in the way you thought. If you want to blog the main question people want answered is why. Why did this book rock or why was it not so good>
- Publishers are fantastic, another good reason to start a blog. I started mine and worked at it a couple of months before I started the twitter and Myspace and Facebook and all the social marketing aspects of having a blog. The main thing people need to see is content and that the content is relevant to what the blog is about. Don’t use this space to blog about your adorable dog, or those rascally kids of yours. It’s really not needed, focus on books and putting up great reviews the incoming hits will increase along with publishers who like your style and want you to review their books. Do not under any circumstance accept books you will not or do not want to read and review or books that do not fit the niche and style of your blog., instead let the publisher know in an email back what your blog is about and what type of books you look for.
- The community of bloggers, in my links section that is new here because I am still sorting everything out, are some really good bloggers whose styles vary but are all good reviewers. Look to these people for advice and just to see what they have going on at the moment. The community of book bloggers is not an easy nut to crack, they want to see that you are serious and know your stuff, and are making a genuine effort. They are very helpful and if you feel stuck on anything most likely one of these lovely ladies will help you out.
- Lastly, make sure you can commit, if you can blogging about books can be such a rewarding experience. Introduce you to book fans and bloggers around the world with similar interests. There can be awesome conversation and some good advice and news out there, do not be discouraged if things don’t work out immediately, internet things come slowly and the more you learn the better your blog will be in every aspect.
That being said happy blogging, I am new to the book world myself just a few months but have a lot of internet blogging and marketing experience from other areas of expertise and used these sites to handle the initial push for this blog. If you have other properties use them to your advantage when possible. If you have any questions or comments or if I missed anything or need to elaborate more on a point please let me know.
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