Promoting Books Through Web 2.0
According to Internet marketeers, Web 2.0 (Web two point oh to some, Web two dot oh to others), the so-called second generation phase of Internet use, is the most efficient route for anybody who wants to get publicity online.
Are they right? Does it work for writers? How can you tell? Orna Ross has been commissioned to find out.
Social networking (through Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al.) and what you might call blog/podcast/video networking (through the likes of Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, YouTube and Blog Catalogue), are allegedly the Big New Thing in Internet publicity.
As Stephen Fry says in his Dork Talk column in The Guardian, that probably means that “people who watch My Family have now heard of it and are at last aware of the difference between downloading and uploading”.
“Ouch!” says Orna Ross, who is dipping a wary toe into Web 2.0 waters for the first time on behalf of writers everywhere. “I don’t watch My Family but I am prepared to test whether a writer can garner readers by hanging out on social networking sites and shameless self-promotion on Web 2.0 sites.”
To that end, Orna has joined Facebook (one friend so far… thank you, Karen!), Blog Catalogue and will soon be joining a variety of others and uploading details about Font and her novels onto them — and reporting back on her findings.
“It feels strange and kind of humiliating to be ‘poking’ people I don’t know, saying ‘Will you be my friend? Would you like to read my book?’,” she says. “But hey, humiliation is good for the soul and what’s more important is to see: does it work?”
Watch this space. And in the meantime, let us know your own experiences. We’ll pass them on.
Happy Writing!
3 Responses to “Promoting Books Through Web 2.0”
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February 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Hi Orla,
welcome to web 2.0 world. I think you’ll find that it does work if you are patient.
You should register with irishblogs.ie as well.
Registering for comments though is usually frowned upon. You want the commenting to be as free flowing as possible. I registered with you and was able to access your admin by the way. I don’t know if you intended that. A bit of a security risk.
Neil Gaiman promotes himself through blogging http://journal.neilgaiman.com/.
I learnt this on one of irelands most popular blogs
damienmulley.net.
So it can work I guess.
I would recommend Stumbleupon bookmarking social network too. Its a great resource for artistic content. Check out this stumbleupon blog by a corkman
http://hapax.stumbleupon.com/. Its a fascinating world if you can learn to find your way around it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Thanks siopaeile, as you can see we are newbies here at Font! Certainly didn’t intend our admin to be accessed and have no idea how that happened. Interesting point on the registering for comments - we’ll disable it. And thanks for the tips — it’s a whole new world. And really exciting.
many thanks for your interest
April 5th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Greetings Font International,
I truly believe with the birth of Web 2.0 web publicity for authors could not be easier1 But as siopaeile so perfectly states, it’s a lot a work and does require patience and a willingness to stay connected with the social connections you make online regularly. But that is not so hard with all of the great social media out there. I’ve been involved with web publicity for authors since 2004 and love it. So welcome to the world of online book promotions!