Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog

Celebrity Merchandising

While browsing through a local Borders store I noticed a special shelf in the sports section.  The shelf display read "Mike & Mike Picks" and it featured a handful of books, presumably some of the favorites of Greeny and Golic from ESPN's Mike & Mike in the Morning.

I'm a big fan of the show so I couldn't stop myself from spending a few extra minutes giving these books a good looking over.  Then it dawned on me.  What a brilliant idea, but why isn't Borders doing more of this?

Why aren't there a couple of shelves in the politics section, say, one for Bill O'Reilly's picks and another for Rush Limbaugh's?  How about one in the cooking section with Giada De Laurentiis's favorite books?  The possibilities are endless.  And just because every one of these celebrities also has a book or two (or more) of their own, don't assume they wouldn't recommend others; after all, Greeny has a book of his own too and yet he's part of the Mike & Mike combo.

The idea isn't just limited to celebrities...it could be built around other brands as well.  For example, "Sports Illustrated Picks" for sports books or "Expedia Picks" for travel guides.  Again, there are a lot of interesting ways to build this out.

So what's in it for the celeb or the brand?  First of all, visibility.  It's certainly not a bad thing to have the "Mike & Mike" name in Borders, reminding sports fans of the radio show.  Secondly, there are other cross-promotional opportunities.  Borders could (and should) feature these "picks" lists on their website, include links to the celeb/brand and insist on reciprocity; after all, it's also good for Borders to get visibility on the Mike & Mike site as well as any others they'd enlist.  Finally, if that's what it takes to get some of the big names involved, I think the bookstore should consider giving the celeb/brand a small cut of the transaction, especially if part of the deal calls for that celeb/brand to help promote the Borders name.

I'm curious to see whether this becomes nothing more than a one-time deal limited to Mike & Mike or if Borders will leverage it into a broader promotional vehicle throughout the store.

Author Mary Jo Foley in the News

The buzz surrounding Mary Jo Foley and her new book, Microsoft 2.0, continues to build.  Our group just published this exciting new book and it's been fun watching all the press coverage Mary Jo has been getting for it.

In addition to the videos from Fox Business that I've embedded below, Mary Jo has also been recently interviewed in The Washington Times and Wired.  The Wired article is particularly entertaining.  Be sure to read it if you're curious to hear Mary Jo's thoughts on how long Ballmer will stick around, what she believes Microsoft's biggest challenge is and why the failed Yahoo acquisition is a good thing.

By the way, the evolution of Microsoft in the post-Gates era didn't end when we published this book, of course.  That's why Mary Jo has also launched a companion website for the book where she'll provide updates and perspective on future developments.

Popcorn and Book Videos

As a fan of both Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist I'm convinced I need to read an upcoming title called Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies.  I enjoy these books that talk about hidden trends in the economy and everyday products.

The author, Richard McKenzie, also created a video trailer for the book which I've embedded below.  I'm seeing more and more authors and publishers investing in promotional videos for their books.  This one is pretty simple but it's extremely effective; now that I've watched it I feel like I know more about the author and his book than if I would have simply read through a book description on Amazon, for example.

I plan to read Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies and will post a follow-up review when I'm finished.

The Next Lencioni Book

I've read every book Patrick Lencioni has ever written and I always look forward to the next one.  The Three Signs of a Miserable Job seems like it came out so long ago (even though it was just last August!), so what's the next Lencioni hit?

I discovered the answer to that question while sitting through a Wiley sales conference presentation earlier this morning.  The book will be called The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family and it's due out in September.  What a great idea!  I've learned quite a few valuable lessons from Lencioni's business/management books and I can't wait to read his wisdom on family life.  Btw, he's not just a business expert; he and his wife are also raising four boys, so his family insights come from right in the trenches!

The sales conference key title session also featured presentations on many other noteworthy upcoming titles.  Here are the ones that caught my eye and will be on my "must read" list:

In Search of the Obvious, by Jack Trout (October) -- Trout is another one of my long-time favorite authors.  I particularly enjoyed many of his earlier books that he co-authored with Al Ries.  The subtitle for this one is "The Antidote for Today's Marketing Mess."  Sold!

The Noble Lie, by Gary Greenberg (September) -- This one is described as "a controversial look at how we too often turn to science to resolve moral questions it can never answer."

The Cool Factor, by Del Breckenfeld (October) -- This book is all about partnership marketing and the author is Director of Entertainment Marketing at Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the name you see on so many guitars, amps and other gear.

Literary Video Interview with David Woodard

Literary Video's tagline is "Creating Multimedia Content that Sells Books."  I discovered this service last month and exchanged a couple of e-mails with David Woodard, Founder and Creative Director.  With the ever increasing importance of video in the publishing world I jumped on the opportunity to do a blog interview with David.  Here's what he had to say about Literary Video and what they're up to:

JW: You had been working for a publisher in Nashville for awhile and decided to launch this new business venture, Literary Video.  What's your vision for the business and what drove you to create this start-up?

DW: Working in book marketing for eight years taught me many things, but one of the most impressive things I learned was that the best salesman for a book is almost always the author. There are exceptions to this, but by in large it is true. That is why when the bigger books release (think John Grisham, for example), these authors pop up in various media like The Today Show, Good Morning America, or even Oprah or People Magazine. No one can sale the story like the author can.

The internet and the proliferation of video online gives publishers and authors new and relatively inexpensive ways to reach their audience. According to USAToday, "Book videos are increasingly common and, publishers say, essential." They are the new book cover.

Literary Video has come into existence to help publishers and authors not only develop multimedia content, but multimedia content that sells books. We feel our background in book publishing and marketing gives our clients an advantage that a generic video production house can't give offer. We not only facilitate the creation of content but help mold the content in a way that sells the project most effectively.

Changes in the marketing structure of the publishing house for whom I had been working gave me a unique opportunity last fall to exercise not only the skills and knowledge I had learned but also the contacts and network I had cultivated the last eight years in the industry. Literary Video was born.

JW: Success here largely depends on how many eyeballs see each video, right?  With that in mind, will Literary Video also help show authors how to increase the exposure of their videos?  If so, are there any details you can share?

DW: You are right in that like any advertising collateral, impressions are key. A book video is not an end in and of itself, but a part of a greater strategy. However, book video offers a more intimate "experience," and, it has the capacity to become viral. Book videos are marketing by offering content and not interruption. 

But just as posting a web site does not guarantee visitors, creating a video doesn’t automatically assume viewers; you have to have a bigger marketing strategy in place. However, there are sites, like YouTube, BookVideos.TV, & ChristianReader.TV that people visit in order to find video content. A compelling video posted to the right places can find an audience. This is where Literary Video becomes not just a content producer, but a partner in distribution strategy as well.

JW: I'm a big fan of widgets and it would seem they would represent a useful vehicle for getting videos out on as many websites as possible.  Are you looking to offer widget functionality for Literary Video?

DW: Incorporating video into widgets represents the cutting edge of video distribution. If done right, it not only offers a compelling way to present the video in an easy to use fashion, but also creates a "portable" marketing collateral that can become very effective in viral and grass roots marketing efforts. In other words, if a viewer can forward the widget to someone else, or even take the widget and embed it in their own blog or website, then the widget has become portable. This can also be effective in sales efforts, as book retailers can post these widgets on their e-tailing sites and product pages.

If a client desires to use widgets, Literary Video can develop the content, widget, and help strategize for the most effective use of the widget.

JW: What are the most innovative and interesting elements of some of the better book trailers/teasers that you've been involved with?

DW: I can think of three that I thought exploited unique dimensions of books that would have been lost in traditional advertising efforts.

My Go to Bed Book is a charming children’s book in the tradition of Good Night Moon. It was originally published in the 1950s. B&H Publishing Group released a 50th anniversary edition in the fall of 2007. The backstory as to how this edition came to be is in itself a very charming story. We created a mini-documentary telling this story called The Story Behind the Book, as well as an e-Galley for the book.

Squat is novel written by first time novelist Taylor Field. Taylor's personal story as a pastor running a mission in New York's tough lower East Side is the inspiration and backdrop for this novel. Think Rent meets The Passion of the Christ. The colorful world of Manhattan's Alphabet City is a major character of the book itself. Squat Movie is a mini documentary (embedded below), shot on location in the east village with Taylor as our guide, bringing the landscape and the real life people that inspired this tale. Squat Movie was awarded the bronze Telly Award for 2007.

Biblical Barbie is a fun book trailer that emphasizes entertaining content over hard selling. Making fun of stereotypes, the video is just fun, with a soft sell for the book The New Eve at the end. It is viral marketing at its best. We partnered with stop-motion film maker Greg Pope to create book video that entertains first, and sells second.

A Plea for Personality in Book Advertising

This INDEX // mb blog post offers some perspective on book ads and how they've lost personality over the years.  The key point is that most book ads these days feature the cover and not the author.  Actually, now that I think about it, I'll bet I've seen dozens and dozens of book ads in USA Today, BusinessWeek and countless other newspapers and magazines over the past six months...and I can't recall the specifics of a single one.

One of my favorite phrases is "unique and memorable."  If something is unique and memorable it's bound to stick with you.  I can't tell you the last time I saw a book ad that was unique and memorable.

It's interesting to look at the Paper Cuts blog post INDEX // mb links to as well as the related slide show of 1960's-1970's book ads.  The author photos really do add personality to the various ads.  I guess that's one of the reasons I've always liked the cover design for our WROX imprint; even though the WROX cover template is consistent from one title to the next, the author photo element helps make each cover that much more unique and memorable.

Borders Concept Store Opens in Central Indiana

Today was opening day for the new Borders concept store in Fishers, Indiana.  Technically speaking, the store is located in Noblesville, but it's so darned close to my house that I'll be referring to it as "the Fishers Borders."  As an admitted book nerd I couldn't avoid visiting the store over lunch today.

If you missed this earlier post, Borders is in the process of opening a series of new outlets with more of a high-tech feel.  The first thing I noticed when entering the Fishers store wasn't so much the technology kiosks as it was the dramatically improved book merchandising approach.  Like most stores, bestsellers are on a variety of front-of-store displays; but this particular layout seemed to be much more open and inviting, not just a rack of face-out titles.

The tech kiosks are all clustered together in an area that's nicely set off from the books and CDs/DVDs.  You'll find stations where you can buy customized CDs, research genealogy (and buy a book about your family name), get help with your digital camera/music player or explore the world of self-publishing with Borders partner Lulu.  They've also set up a special website to help support these new concept stores, which you can find here.

Borders also recently announced plans to focus more on bestsellers and face-out displays.  The change is noticeable in the Fishers store, and I mean that in a good way.  Even though the store's footprint is on the smaller side and they're clearly carrying less titles than the typical superstore, the browsing experience felt different from what I've come to expect in the typical big-box store.  In other words, I liked it quite a bit and plan to visit it regularly.

P.S. -- For those of you in central Indiana, even though the store is already open, the "official grand opening" is slated for the weekend of May 9-11.  According to the brochure I picked up today there will be several author signings, demos and other great reasons to stop by for the grand opening festivities.

Daemon: A Lesson on Leveraging the Community

I don't tend to read novels but the story of this one caught my eye.  It's called Daemon and it's an interesting study in what an author can do to build momentum for their book.  Wired recently ran a short article about it here.

The author, Daniel Suarezes (who reversed most of those characters to "Leinad Zeraus" for credit on the book) tried the same old agent-to-publisher route but couldn't generate interest.  He wound up taking matters into his own hands and got some key bloggers and other influential names interested in it.  Next, he and his wife created their own publishing house, Verdugo Press, and are selling it as a print-on-demand title.

Although Bookscan numbers are still pretty modest the book currently has a very nice Amazon ranking (in the 1,500's), so the grassroots efforts are obviously paying off...and the Wired article doesn't hurt either!

So if you're an author, what steps have you taken to drive excitement for your book from influential people with huge platforms?  Even if you have a small platform you can always work to leverage other people's platforms.

"The Secret"...Again

I'm pretty sure I made my thoughts on The Secret pretty clear with this earlier post.  The bottom line: It's a scam.  A joke.  A cheesy ripoff of The Power of Positive Thinking.  I don't see how anyone could have misinterpreted my opinion.

Earlier today, however, I got an e-mail from a fellow representing Evan Carmichael, whose website headline reads "Motivation and Strategies for Entrepreneurs."  It seems Evan is publicizing a page of "The Top 50 Blogs Posts on The Law of Attraction In 2008" and my review of the book is...wait for it...wait for it...#1 on the list.  Huh?  Did he not read my review before including it in this list?!

That's right.  If you click on that link you'll find 49 posts that hype this "Law of Attraction"...plus one more link to my scathing review.  Gee, you'd think the "Law of Attraction" would somehow take control and knock my negative review out of the list.  Actually, I figure by the time you click over there Mr. Carmichael will have already taken care of that.  If it's no longer #1 on the list you'll have to take my word for it...

SharedBook Interview with CEO Caroline Vanderlip

SharedBook is the underlying technology provider for a number of great new content offerings.  I've stumbled across them several times in the past year when I've researched services like Blog2Print and eGuidebook.  With all the exciting new initiatives they've been involved with I figured I could learn even more by interviewing one of their executives.  Caroline Vanderlip, CEO, graciously agreed to answer my questions -- here's what she had to say:

JW: SharedBook seems to be the engine behind many of the newer e-content services I've come across recently.  What's the overall vision for SharedBook and the products you've already released?

CV: We believe SharedBook offers a disruptive enabling technology that has the potential to expand the way people think about publishing in the 21st century. Using our platform, any business or consumer can publish personalized print media on demand.

SharedBook works with traditional publishers, web sites and other types of companies to maximize the long tail potential of existing materials. For example, traditional publishers can use the platform to allow readers to add personalized elements (Random House) and to publish customized anthologies. Web sites (Allrecipes.com, ProfessionalTravelGuide.com) and other types of companies (Regent Seven Seas Cruises) can re-purpose their existing content to suit the individual interests of their customers.

JW: Your website refers to your "reverse publishing platform."  What exactly does that phrase mean for SharedBook and your product line?

CV: I’m glad you asked. We spent a lot of time in the last year working to raise awareness for the concept of "reverse publishing," which simply means publishing online content in print format, or Web to print publishing.

There is a tremendous amount of content available online today, much of which now appears on the Web first. In fact, I recently read that IDC estimated that in 2006 alone, the amount of digital information created, captured and replicated was approximately 3 million times the information in all books ever written.

Since launching our first data integration project with Legacy.com, the Legacy Commemorative Guest Book, in November 2006, we have seen a growing interest, from businesses and consumers, in publishing personally-relevant Web content across a variety of categories. SharedBook currently offers reverse publishing solutions in the book publishing, food, memorial, sports and travel industries, among others.   

SharedBook’s Reverse Publishing Platform automates the book making process, enabling consumers to produce a book dynamically with just a few clicks. Users can choose to preview and purchase a book immediately, or personalize it further by adding their own text and photographs.

SharedBook’s application is also fully collaborative, enabling users to invite family and friends into their private and secure book making space to contribute their own content. Anyone invited into the space can also publish a book if they like. 

SharedBook also provides an extensive range of personalization options. For example, users control which content flows into their books, the placement of text and photos, and the inclusion of comments, notes and annotations.

JW: What are one or two of the most important lessons you've learned from your customer base after releasing some of these products?

CV: We really have two customer bases: the partners that integrate with us and offer the product under their brands and the buyers of the product. From our partners, we've learned to keep the product offering and the solution simple. Make the product offering as easy to understand as possible and then market its uniqueness frequently enough so people begin to understand that they can create something here never before imagined. From our buyers, we learn which content and features are most appealing, some of the product features that they would like to have added in the future, and how satisfied they are with the final product.

SharedBook conducts customer satisfaction surveys every month and while we have an increasingly high level of satisfaction, we know that we need to evolve as the market for our product and capabilities becomes more mainstream.

JW: What's the goal of the SharedBook Open API and can you tell us about any interesting third-party applications that have been developed using it?

CV: SharedBook’s API is available to enable any third party, business or consumer, to integrate data into SharedBook’s platform for on-demand output.

Most recently, Steve Murch of BigOven.com, a social network about food, used SharedBook’s API to develop the BigOven Cookbook. Using one of the wrappers that are available to developers, Steve was able to produce working results within a few hours and had a market-ready solution in less than eight weeks. BigOven.com is the first company to offer multiple ways to connect to SharedBook. Users of the social network about food can create cookbooks from the Web site or from BigOven’s award-winning desktop recipe software.

SharedBook’s API also formed the basis for Create-A-Cookbook from Allrecipes.com, which launched in November. The application enables cooks to automatically publish collections of their favorite online and personal recipes in professionally-printed book format. Users can choose to purchase the cookbook once a preview of the finished book product is created, or to personalize it further by adding notes to the recipes, and the stories and photographs that make the foods special.

I am not sure if you are aware of this, but the Blog2Print blog printing widget was also built using SharedBook’s API.  Some of our own developers created the widget shortly after we introduced the API to demonstrate how easily an application could be created.

There are several additional third party examples in development now that we expect to announce by the end of Q2.

JW: How do you see your business and the products you're developing evolving in the coming years?  Are there any noteworthy projects you're working on that we should keep an eye out for down the road?

CV: This is an exciting time for SharedBook. Our business has grown significantly in the last 18 months. We added partners in eight different content categories in 2007, and expect to announce as many partnerships in 2008 if not more.

We're currently working on projects that will introduce reverse publishing to several new categories including gardening and magazine publishing.

We envision a time in the not so distant future when consumers will be able to publish any of the online content they need, regardless of the topic, in the format they choose.

The custom cookbook publishing solutions for Allrecipes.com and BigOven.com and the Pocket Guidebook for ProfessionalTravelGuide.com illustrate how it's already possible to create your own book for a particular topic today.

We believe this is only the beginning of a new era in publishing.