Emdashery Blog

Authors a-buzzing--

Shelf Awareness is a e-newsletter that I receive, and that I actually enjoy reading. It's geared toward booksellers, but often contains tidbits on books or the industry that I find interesting. Many newsletters I receive are sent by someone who is trying to promote something--often his or her books. I have no problem with that, but so often, the authors don't have enough good content to keep me interested for long.

Not only does Shelf Awareness have interesting content, but it also a tool to promote books. It partners with AuthorBuzz, a marketing service that facilitates authors getting in touch with boosellers, librarians, and readers.

[It allows authors] to offer excerpts, phone chats or visits with reading groups, material for newsletters, info about contests and freebies, mentions of new reviews — anything and everything authors want to buzz directly to the people who buy, read and sell their books.

AuthorBuzz notes will go directly to 330,000 readers, 3000 library systems (reaching over 10,000 librarians) and over 2000 booksellers. All of whom are currently subscribed to both newsletters.

Read more about AuthorBuzz here. Or about Shelf Awareness here.

The tiers of book buyers--

J.A. Konrath at A Newbie's Guide to Publishing tries to breakdown the different categories of book buyers. He makes an interesting comparison to the acknowledged breakdown of technology buyers:

An author named Geoffrey A. Moore wrote a book called Crossing the Chasm, which is all about selling technology driven products. Moore believes that the majority of people who buy a product only do so after the 'early adopters' (15% of the buying public) embrace it. If they do, then early majority, late majority, and laggards (83% of the population) follow suit.

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking this is a pretty good model for the book biz, and explains why some books become major hits and others fail.

While books are sold one at a time, not all book buyers are created equal. There are tiers of importance.

Konrath categorizes book buyers into: 1st Tier: Diehards; 2nd Tier: Heavy Users; 3rd Tier: Casual Users; 4th Tier: Johnny Come Latelys. As usual, he's very detailed and quite thought-provoking. Check out the rest here...

What does it mean?--

Publishers Weekly recently reported on a survey conducted by the advertising firm Spier New York regarding publisher and author Web sites. The survey found that:

18% of readers have been to a publisher's Web site, while 23% of readers polled have visited an author's site. The survey, based on a sample of 813 readers, did not ask if readers bought a book from either site.

Well, I sure wish they asked if readers had bought a book. Also, 23% seems like a significant number. But having visited "an" author's site? Not so much.

More:

Not surprisingly, the younger the reader, the more likely that person visited the Web. The survey found that 35% of readers under age 35 had visited an author's Web site and 21% of respondents in that age bracket had been to a publisher's site.

Now, those are the important numbers because of the unstoppable trend they foretell. More readers will expect some form of peer-to-peer access with their favorite authors.

The survey also included this little tidbit just in time for the Christmas season:

The Spier survey also found that 50% of those asked said they had purchased a book as a gift within the past year. Twenty-eight percent bought a book online as a gift online, while 89% said they bought a book at a retailer. "What these numbers show is that consumers continue to feel that books are one gift that has universal appeal," said Tom McCartin, president of Spier New York. According to the survey, 86% of those who purchased a book as a present bought at least two books.

I suspect that 28% number goes way up for the under-35 crowd. In a world where so many people already have "everything," a book still makes a great gift.