Here’s a good, new example of how authors and publishers can utilize social networking to help market their books:
Thomas Nelson is putting out a call for reviewers. The publisher has launched a program called Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers, allowing readers to register at a Web site in order to receive a free copy of a select book for review purposes. At the site, http://brb.thomasnelson.com, which is now live, there are currently nine books available for review. For its part, Nelson requires potential reviewers to write 200-word reviews and post them both on its blogger site and on Amazon.com.
The idea for the program, according to Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt, came from his own blogging. After Hyatt started talking about two books on his blog, Stephen Mansfield’s The Faith of Barack Obama and Lynne Spears’ Through the Storm, he noticed a number of readers and fellow bloggers wanted to discuss the books. In August, Hyatt offered free copies of Mansfield’s book and the move generated over 100 online reviews. Now, with this program, Hyatt wants to generate similar reactions. “Good or bad, we want people online talking about our books.”
Other publishers and individual authors should consider how to adopt a similar program like this for their books.
Another similar site that lets people blog about Christian books is
FIRST Wild Card
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FIRSTWildCard/
I’m friends with Beth Vogt. We are in the same writers group. She speaks so highly of you. Her time with you had brought much success to her ministry. Someday, I hope to be able to glean from your wisdom firsthand. For now, I’m trying to learn secondhand from Beth. Stuck searching for that tagline.