Archive for the ‘Book Marketing’ Category

To Fake Review or Not – That is the Question

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

An interesting comment made by media and communication guru Seth Godin in a recent blog – the blog was focused around the poorly constructed analysis of Kindle reviews presented by a Times blog post – that was not the bit that got my brain churning – it was the following comment – “Amazon reviews never reflect the product, they reflect the passion people have for the product”. He supports this claim with a comment commonly made by Jeff Bezos, that most great products get 5 star and 1 star reviews on the basis, that anyone passionate enough about a product is not going to give it a three star review.

Makes perfect sense – especially when you add all those 5 star reviews given by ‘pseudo’ customers [read author or publicist] and one star reviews written by competing authors and publicists. Don’t get wooly on me – of course they do it. It’s why I don’t illicit reviews for my books on Amazon – probably stupid, considering that most people don’t know that most of them are false, and that they certainly do support book sales – its just that I can’t stand to be associated with anything false. I would rather just concentrate on putting out a quality product and market through channels with higher integrity.

Check out Seths Post – always a good read!

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New Review Guidelines by FTC Confusing at Best

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] has revised its guidelines around endorsements and testimonials – online and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Bloggers - Their statement appears to judge statements by bloggers, even on person blogs as an ‘endorsement,’ or sponsored message – if the blogger has received any merchandise and been asked to review by an advertiser. In such instances, the connection must be disclosed.

Amazon Reviews – “reviewers” posting to sites like Amazon after receiving a free review copy also need to disclose that information.

Publishers - who “sponsor endorsers either by providing free products [ either directly or through an agent to generate positive word of mouth and drive sales need to advise endorsers to make the necessary disclosures and to monitor their conduct in respect of these endorsements.

The FTC admits its “guides” are “interpretations of the law aimed at helping advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act” rather than binding law, and the burden of proof is on the Commission. Fines of up to $11,000 per violation.

IMO – I can’t see that monitoring the Web and enforcing these new guides will be easy, and at best the new rules are confusing, ambiguous and likely unenforceable.

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Posted in Book Marketing, Media Industry News, ePublishing | No Comments »

Amazon Slams Author Reviews

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

I have just received an email request to pass on a warning about Amazons latest actions against book authors reviews.

Amazon is currently reviewing and deleting any book reviews that are signed by authors, using or adding their own book titles. It is common practice for authors to sign their articles and reviews with signatures that include e.g……author of ‘The Logical Organization’, with a link to their book sales page.

According to Amazon, this is in breach of their participation guidelines…: “Please know that our participation guidelines don’t allow customers to promote their own titles in their reviews.”

Amazon requires that you use your real name and that’s it. Anything more and your reviews, blogs etc will be deleted.

They have also recently made changes to the Amazon Connect program. You are no longer permitted to add the book link supplied by Amazon directing tracffic to your own book title’s Amazon page.

There will be no notice of these actions by Amazon – so please review the review publishing guidelines carefully and amend any past review signatures and resource boxes. This rule also applies to any comments you leave on a book review.

I can understand that Amazon may be keen to reduce the amount of self interested marketing going on in their reviews, however, when an expert takes the time to add a review, adding their book title helps others recognize that expertise, and legitimizes the review.

I guess its the same with everything, all of us suffer from the black hat actions of a few.

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New Ebook Formats Driving Ebook Growth

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Gone are the days when PDF ebooks ruled large. With over 500,000 Amazon Kindle ebook readers sold in the USA alone, 400,000 Sony Reader PRS-700′s in the US and UK and over 30 million Apple iPhones across 80 countries it is no wonder that the demand for ebooks is currently surging. One publisher reports selling twice as many ebooks as conventional print books.

The key learnings here for digital publishers are:

  1. That the ebook market is taking off on a second generation growth
  2. Ebook readers are driving new format requirements

On itunes App Store alone, ebooks represent the 4th highest download after games, entertainment and utilities.
Digital Publishers must now become more focused on the different reader experiences through these new media viewing devices. The PDF no longer meets the requirements of small screens where functional requirements include:

  • Compact single file
  • Simple layouts
  • Reader friendly format – mobi, AZW, ePub, PDF
  • Reflowable text*
  • Scalable images

*expected in 2009 PDF versions

The good news is that, in spite of prior studies indicating that customers were only willing to pay on average $15 for an ebook version of a $30 print book, consumers have not demonstrated the degree of predicted resistance to paying the same price for ebooks as the print versions. Many recognise the additional value of convenience that electronic formats provide. Sales of ebooks were up 100% December 2008 over the previous year.

The bad news is that the areas of Digital Rights Management [DRM] remains unresolved, but if we are to take lessons from the music industry we need to be realistic as to the ability to enforce such standards. DRM generally constrains a book format to a particular reader device, likely to look some publishers into complete production and distribution constraints. This is neither good for the business or the consumer.

However, the ebook market is still in its infancy, and this is the best time to gain market share.

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Posted in Book Marketing, Digital Media, Publishing, ePublishing, ePublishing Security | 3 Comments »

Book Marketing Tips From Successful Authors

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

I have just been listening to a few podcasts of interviews carried out by Get Slightly Famous Author Steven Van Yoder. These are well worth listening to – they cover:

  • Book Marketing – interviews Steven has done with various high profile organisations, including BNet This offers some great tips on marketing your book online.
  • Networking with Dr. Ivan Misner, founder & chairman of BNI – listen for his VCP formula for converting contacts into profit streams
  • New Media – with Rick Calvert of BlogWorldExpo.com comparing the traditional media withnew media and predictions of where he things the two streams will be in 5 years time

This is not high level theory. These accounts are from are real people, telling about new ways promote themselves and their media to multiple channels.

Listen Get Slightly Famous Audios

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