Technology
Thursday, July 26th, 2007It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Where You Know
So says Ted Smith, Research Fellow at CNET Networks. Ted has posted three short video clips investigating how people influence others online. In a previous post, I talked about finding the story that causes others to talk about your book (or anything else for that matter.) Ted expands on this idea by looking at what [...]
Monday, July 23rd, 2007The Internet Is Falling! The Internet Is Falling!
You blew it, it’s too late. You should have started blogging five years ago. The Internet is going down because it’s too popular and populist. How do I know this to be true? Because Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast interviewed Jonathan Zittrain about some of the ideas in his forthcoming book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop [...]
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007Dude, Get a MySpace page!
BookExpoCast has released the audio from last month’s seminar on MySpace for authors and publishers. With over 100 million users, you have to be aware of MySpace and what it offers for folks in the book industry. MySpace has a unit that specializes in books and you can check it out here. You can download the [...]
Friday, July 13th, 2007Catching the Buzz – Part 2 of 2
Why is Harry Potter so popular in Salt Lake City? Is that the first city that comes to mind when you think of Harry Potter? Me neither. But it has to be true because Google said it’s true. At least that’s what Google’s keyword trends software told me. You can check it out for yourself here. Go there and [...]
Thursday, June 28th, 2007Want to read a good book? Go to the movies.
Most really, really great books make lousy movies. It seems that the poetic elegance of great writing has the ability to create images in the 8 inches of imagination between our ears with a vivid, psychic richness that a 100 foot screen and Dolby surround sound simply can’t match. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. It simply means that we [...]
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Can an author build a website for free?
Every author / book / publisher needs to have a website. If you’re flush with money, you can certainly find folks to help you create one. Some companies specialize in author websites but even their minimalist website will set you back $2,500. If you have all the PR and advertising money you need and still have some left [...]
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Don’t have time to write a book? What about a pamphlet?
BookExpoCast released an interesting session about pamphlets. You can download the MP3 for free here. You’ll learn a little bit about the history of pamphlets but more importantly, how they can be used now and in the future. Why is that important? Well, we live in a sound bite culture and if you want to [...]
Monday, June 18th, 2007PR 2.0
Everyone in book publishing knows that PR and publicity are important for book sales. As I mentioned previously, if you are interested in selling books today, you must understand how online social media are changing the very PR ground underneath all us (read Brian Solis’ manifesto here.) Embedded in Brian’s manifesto is a link to a post by [...]