Books, Blogs, and Beyond

Digital Literacy is an Essential Part of Literacy

By Tom Collins

Yvonne and I had a wonderful dinner last night with our friend and client, Sybil Stershic, and her husband Mike. Sybil found us a quiet little Italian restaurant in Canandaigua, NY, Casa de Pasta, where the food and service were excellent ...

But I digress ... it's a part of the enjoyable conversation we had last night, combined with Gord Hotchkiss' Search Insider piece that hit my inbox this morning, The New Speed of Information, I logged in to write about.

Is Social Media the Best Hope for "Publishers" to Survive?

By Tom Collins

Our friend Toby Bloomberg has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking post on how social media and publishers are interacting to sell books. She includes results from a survey that asked the question, "Where did you hear about the book you're reading?"

The #1 answer is (not surprisingly) "Friends." But if you add up all the online sources that can be classified as social media (blogs, websites/review sites, Amazon recommendations/reviews, Twitter, blog promotions/tours) the total is nearly double that of "Friends." And if you consider some bloggers as friends, or if some of the respondents thought "Friends" meant Facebook, the results may be even more dramatic! ;-D

The combination of friends and social media blew away bookstores and libraries and left traditional advertising a not-worth-mentioning afterthought lumped into the "Other" category.

So is social media going to help save publishers? Or is it part of the Publishing 3.0 (r)evolution that will empower authors and readers to connect directly and make traditional publishing irrelevant? I've already left my comment on Toby's post and urge you to go dig into her insights ... and add yours.

Promoting Your Book in 2009

By Yvonne DiVita

It's not as hard as you may think. And, it's not as easy as you may think. But, in the end, it's after your book is completed - and published - that the real work begins. Regardless of how you published it, you are still the best person to market your book.

With the publishing industry changing so rapidly - big publishers cutting back on manuscripts, small publishers closing their doors, even POD companies cutting back on personnel, some people may think this is not a good time to write and promote a book.

They would be wrong. Write your book.

Typewriter to Bookstore video: Blogging a Higher Art Form?

By Tom Collins

Wondering why your book took 30 years to get published? How Second Life avatars fit into your book marketing plan? What makes author blogs "a higher artform" — as well as "far more lucrative" — than book publishing?

The helpful folks from the MacMillan Digital Marketing Team explain all (found via Guy Kawasaki's Tweet):

As with most humor (they are joking, right?), there are grains of truth and a serious topic or two in there, so perhaps we'll return to this another time.

Books, Blogs, and Beyond ... Publishing 3.0 ...

What's that all about?

Well, that's what we're going to explore in this blog, pulling together threads from our earlier separate blogs. From 140 characters on Twitter to 300 page hardcover books ... a blog as your social media base camp ... a book as your business brochure ... what does "publishing" mean in our continually evolving digital world?