Future Perfect Publishing

Web technology is playing an ever increasing role in publishing.  Authors use blogs to create books and generate buzz; websites are a key part of publishers’ book marketing and sales strategy.  But your blog or website isn’t much good if no one knows it’s there.  Generally, people discover your site through search engines.  That’s why it is important to learn the techniques - collectively referred to as search engine optimization or SEO - that will improve your rankings in search results and enhance your web presence. 

I decided to ask two SEO experts to help us demystify search engine optimization.  Search marketing consultants Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are co-authors of the bestselling book “Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day” (Wiley, 2006).  Together, Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are Gravity Search Marketing, a consulting part nership dedicated to thoughtful and holistic SEO for clients in a wide range of industries. 

FPP:  Could you provide a good definition of SEO?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  We use a very broad definition: SEO is anything that a website owner can do to improve the site’s presence on search engines. Some use a more specific definition: promotional work or edits to a website that are intended to improve the site’s organic (unpaid) ranks on search engines.

To get a little more specific, when we talk about search engine presence we aren’t referring to rank alone. Sure, it matters that you’re site is ranked well, but it is also important what terms your site is ranking for and how your listings look.

FPP:  In your book, you focus on setting SEO goals for audience and conversions. Could you talk briefly about what that might mean for a blogger?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  A strong foundation for SEO starts with a look at what you’re trying to accomplish with your site. For a blogger, this could be generating revenue via ads or affiliate links, it could be building a reputation to gain consulting gigs, selling a book or other product, or career enhancement. Take a step back and think about this ultimate goal, so you can be sure that everything else you do with your blog is serving it.

A conversion can be defined as a user doing whatever it is you want the user to do. Say you sell impression-based ads - in this case maximum page views is probably a good choice as a conversion goal. On the other hand, if your goal is to build community and credibility so that journalists will call you for quotes, then measuring the number of comments on your blog might be a better metric for you. We even expand the definition of “conversion” to include off-line activities such as phone calls or walk-in customers to a retail establishment. The key is, you must match your measurements directly to your goals.

Once you have your conversions defined and a way of measuring them, you work on tying success back to traffic sources. Which postings and keywords are delivering the highest conversion rates to your blog? Find those mini-success stories within your own blog, and be sure you’re directing further resources (er, time and effort) the same way.

FPP:  Are there special SEO considerations for blogs vs. traditional websites?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  Of course blogs are websites, so certain SEO considerations are the same, namely, the basic tenets of on-page optimization:

• Keywords in HTML page titles
• Well written, compelling Meta Descriptions
• Keywords in page text

However, blogs have some very special considerations. For one, on a blog every posting is a potential entry page from search engines. That means every page on the site needs to have SEO optimization. You might want to set up some basic rules and guidelines - AKA a Style Guide - for your postings.

Next, there’s the important fact that so many visitors to blogs are coming from search engines other than the Big Shots (Google, Yahoo!, MSN). Every blogger should keep a good eye on blog search such as Technorati, Blogpulse, and so on. While traditional search engine listings generally display the HTML title along with page snippets, these blog search engines display various other combos: posting titles, first 100 characters from the post, or other possibilities. They may or may not include the title of your blog.

Another consideration is the constantly changing content on most blog home pages. Your home page is likely to show in search engines, so we always recommend that some non-rotating content (content that doesn’t change) be included on your home page, to help search engines rank and list it properly. A paragraph describing your blog is a great way to cover this one.

Lastly, a major difference in SEO between blogs and traditional sites is what a link-happy environment the blogosphere is. Links to your blog are one of the best ways to increase your ranks in search engines. Yes, it’s a bit incestuous, but these blog-to-blog links work wonders. And the best way for a blog to gain inlinks is to be an active participant in a community of blogs, as well as linking out to other blogs on a regular basis.

FPP:  What are the most important factors to keep in mind when designing a blog, with respect to SEO?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  The major blog authoring tools will generally have an “SEO friendly” option that allows you to manually edit the HTML Page Title & Meta description for each page. Take the time to write a unique title and description for each post.

Then, dig deeper into SEO options. These will vary with your chosen authoring tool, but WordPress for example has many plug-ins that will allow you to improve the search-engine friendliness of your blog. (For some of the best plugins, see http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/11/blogging-how-tos-technical-tips-and-best-wordpress-plugins.html.)  Look for non-dynamic URLs, permalinks for each post, unique HTML Title and Description. Take a hint from the pros and ignore the Meta Keywords tag - it’s mostly a waste of time.

Here are a few basic SEO rules we’ve put together for blog posting optimization:

• The blog name contains keywords
• The blog home page includes a tagline or permanent text describing the blog
• Posts include links to other posts in the body text
• Social bookmarking tags are included
• A feed autodiscovery tag is included
• The posting title describes the content of the post and can be read as a standalone title
• The posting title contains keywords
• The first line of the posting (100 - 200 characters) contains a compelling teaser or summary of the post
• The HTML Title and Meta Description is unique and individually written for each posting.
• The permalink URL is meaningful and readable and contains keywords
• Tags/Categories contain keywords (be sure to include a tag for the overarching subject. For example, most Web Analytics blogs forget to include a tag for “web analytics”)

FPP:  Once a blog is launched, are there blogging practices that will help improve rankings in search results pages?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  Certainly, SEO is an ongoing effort and should be on the blogger’s mind with every post.

To summarize, ongoing SEO efforts should include:

• Optimizing each and every post
• Monitoring status on major search engines as well as specialty blog search
• Active participation in the blogosphere
• A close eye on web traffic and what people are doing on your site (web analytics)

FPP:  It seems that the use of keywords is an important component of an SEO strategy. Do you have some tips on how to select effective keywords?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  Keywords should be on your mind whenever you post. That doesn’t mean you give every post spammy titles like “Cheap mortgages and Cheap Mortgage Deals are Cheap.” Rather, we’re talking about thinking about what terms people might be searching for that are related to your posting topic, and then being sure to include those terms in key locations on your page, within the context of good writing.

If you want to get serious about choosing high-traffic keywords, you can pay a fee for access to keyword research tools like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery, which allow you to find out the relative search popularity of terms. This is probably a good idea for newbies - within a few months you may even gain a good enough sense of keyword choices in your topic that you don’t need the research. There are also some free options for keyword research - you can find links on our site at http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-blogs-tools.html .

We’ll quote Matt Cutts, one of the most well-known bloggers in the SEO world, on incorporating keywords into a post he wrote about changing the default printer for Firefox on Linux (for the full post read here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-writing-useful-articles-that-readers-will-love/ ):

Notice what I did with keywords. I carefully chose keywords for the title and the url (note that I used “change” in the url and “changing” in the title). The categories on my post (”How to” and “Linux”) give me a subtle way to mention Linux again, and include a couple extra ways that someone might do a search-lots of user type “how to (do what they want to do).” I thought about the words that a user would type in when looking for an answer to their question, and tried to include those words in the article. I also tried to think of a few word variations and included them where they made sense (file vs. files, bash and bashrc, Firefox and Mozilla, etc.). I’m targetting a long-tail concept where someone will be typing several words, so I’m probably in a space where on-page keywords are enough to rank pretty well. I don’t need anchor-text for “linux default printer” or similar phrases; in the on-page space, I’d recommend thinking more about words and variants (the “long-tail”) and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases.

To restate this with a little less jargon: you don’t need to repeat words over and over, because each of your posts should target a fairly niche set of 2 or 3 keywords, and there probably won’t be a ton of competition for these terms. Once you have keywords in your mind, include them in various forms throughout your posting text, in the title, and so on as described in the previous bullet list.

One last comment on keywords: thinking of targeting a single word? Forget about it. Single words (unless they’re very specialized) are generally too competitive and not well targeted enough to be good keyword choices.

FPP:  Are there any benchmarks on how much time bloggers should expect to spend on SEO to help establish and build their audiences?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  Well, our book is called “Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day” and we based that on a minimum commitment for a baseline level of optimization with a relatively simple website. For a blogger, SEO practices will mingle with the general writing and marketing efforts for the blog. We aren’t bloggers, but we’re guessing that site maintenance, SEO, blog surfing, promoting, and community-building takes up as much time as researching and writing the actual content of the blog.

FPP:  How do social bookmarking and social networking sites figure in an SEO strategy, if at all?

Jennifer & Gradiva:  They absolutely fit in, if your website’s target audience intersects with the Web 2.0 crowd. One big element of our job as organic SEOs is to help website owners add unique and interesting content to their sites. If you’re successful at building truly buzzworthy content, then you can try to use the social web to your advantage. It helps to know what you want to get out of the social web before you put a lot of effort into it: Are you going for pure branding? If so, set up a branded MySpace page or upload your logo-stamped videos to YouTube. Are you trying to be recognized as an expert on an techie topic? If so, seed your content into Digg. Are you trying to sell refurbished drill bits to manufacturing clients? Yeah… Web 2.0 probably shouldn’t be your highest priority.

Probably the biggest consideration with the social web is to make sure that you don’t run afoul of established etiquette. Building traffic via the social web requires you to get the lay of the land for every site you’re trying to seed so you don’t wind up getting bashed, buried, or ignored. If you come on strong with a heavy promotional hand, it could work against you.

Ever since the e-book made its debut in the 1990’s, there has been speculation about whether and how it would affect print book sales.  There are annecdotal examples, but no systematic measurements that would give a clear indication of their impact.  Recently, Tim O’Reily reported the results of an experiment comparing free downloads of a popular technical book with sales of the print version (see graph at right).  What the experiment revealed is that free downloads had no apparent affect on print sales, positive or negative.  This would be a useful practice to adopt for publishers who are offering both e-book and print book (p-book) versions of titles. 

One factor that makes it difficult to measure how e-book sales impact p-book sales is that there is no industry accepted pricing model for e-books.  There is a perception that consumer expect e-books to cost substantially less than p-books - say $5 or less.  Back in 2001, Foreward magazine, highlighted comments by M. Rose (of Wired magazine) about some niche audience Internet electronic publishing success stories.  She pointed out the strong monthly download volumes achieved by three publishers charging in the $4-$7 range for their offerings.  Unlike consumers, however, publishers have priced more on the value of the content rather than the costs of the media used to deliver it.  An example of this emerged during a panel discussion on e-books recently reported on Palimpsest.  A panelist from Simon & Schuster indicated a book priced at $25 hardcover generally results in an e-book price of $16.99, (comparable to paperback pricing.  

The question is becoming more important because of initiatives like Google Book Search.  In January Google revealed more about its long term plans for Book Search.  The company indicated it wants to not only let users find and preview books online, but also to sell access to scanned copies that can be read over the Internet or via portable devices.  This brings up the inevitable comparison with Apple’s iTunes.  It’s not certain that e-books will ever have the same universal appeal that digital music has achieved.  Reading requires more cognitive horsepower than listening to music.  The extra effort required to read digital books has to be rewarded with features that consumers perceive as value-added - e.g. an information reference that can be easily searched.  Not all books will meet this criteria.  e-books may ultimately turn out to be more like an adjunct to p-books, similar to audio books - useful in certain settings, but never reaching the mass market acceptance that p-books have achieved. 

The question may also become moot if electronic book technology moves away from special readers and onto the printed page itself - e.g. e-ink and digital paper.  Stay tuned!

Categories are the landmarks we use to navigate the bibliosphere and find titles we want to buy.   But any classification scheme is limited by the ambiguity of language and the challenge of an ever expanding set of subjects and genres.  Labels mean different things to different people, and titles often fall into multiple classifications.  A publisher may classify a book one way, a bookstore may shelve it under an entirely different label, and a potential customer may never see it because they expect the book to be located in another section of the store.

Categories are the most familiar ways to find books, but certainly not the only method.  Tagging is a way for individuals to apply their own labels to a title and share them with others.  Tagging is still new territory for many readers, but has the advantage of being a dynamic, collaborative classification system, a tool for recommendations and a scheme for navigating complex metadata all in one.  (See “A social analysis of tagging” - Rashmi Sinha.)  An interesting comparison of the tagging strategies of Amazon and LibraryThing is available on Thingology.  The article highlights the need for a critical mass of tags in order to observe meaningful patterns that are useful to customers.

In a recent post on his blog, Steve Weber compared book finding features on Amazon.  While categories were used more often than tags, neither was used nearly as frequently as “Search Inside the Book” or recommendations based on customer purchasing patterns.  Part of the reason may be due to Amazon’s emphasis on the latter two methods of book finding vs. tags and categories.   The future of book finding may ultimately belong to software that observes how we search for books, tracks what we buy, makes cogent recommendations and shows us excerpts of the best candidates for purchase.   With enough metadata available, we may turn the task of book finding over to “smart agents” - software that does the searching for us.

The American Association of Publishers (AAP) recently reported that e-book sales were $54 million in 2006 up 24.1% over 2005.  They hae been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 65% since 2002.  International sales of e-books, as reported by the International Digital Publishing Forum, (IDPF) were also brisk.  In Japan sales totaled $82 million in 2006, and in Korea the comparable figure was $144 million.  A presentation given by IDPF’s Nick Bogaty at Book Expo America this year, highlighted significant growth in educational and library sales of e-books.  While the growth rates have been impressive, e-book sales are still only a fraction of print sales. 

A survey by the IDPF in 2006 showed that customres wanted:

• Competitive pricing versus print books - Many publishers charge e-book prices that are close to those of print media.  But that hasn’t matched up with customers’ perception of value.
• A larger selection of e-books - Many books are not available as e-books.  Limited selection restricts purchases.
• Format flexibility / interoperability - Different formats between manufacturers, as well as issues caused by digital rights management software has a withering effect on consumer purchases.

Over the years, a variety of manufacturers have produced specialized e-book readers and various software readers have been created for PCs, laptops and PDAs.  This has led to a confusing array of often incompatible formats.  The IDPF,  a standards organization involved in creating a standard reflowable (non-PDF) file format for downloadable digital books, is promoting a standard called OPF / OCS that it hopes will become for the digital book what MP3 is for digital audio.

However, the launch of the iPhone could change things considerably.  There has been some speculation recently that the iPhone may become the e-book reader of the future (see Kassia Krozser’s post “How The iPhone Can Save The Book Business” on Booksquare).  Why?  Several reasons:

• Screen size that allows for comfortable reading
• Wireless, web capabale, multi-purpose device - vs. the single purpose e-readers
• Ability to download PDFs from iTunes
• The iPhone could enhance the reading experience by integrating audio and video into the text

Will it happen?  Who knows since the iPhone is still a new kid on the block.  But it is a distrinct possibility.  It might cause the IDPF to rethink its plans and formats, but it could be the takeoff point for the long suffering e-book which has struggled these many years for an implementation that would ignite consumers imaginations and open their wallets.

Economists are always searching for new laws to explain the structure and behavior of markets e.g. Ronal Coase.  When it comes to publishing (or probably any other information / intellectual property intensive) industry, one such rule might be:  opacicty creates overhead.  What do I mean? 

In the traditional publishing model, authors hide their work from the potential audience until publication, agents screen authors from publishers and the marketing is often blind.  Authors going through agents may give up a significant part of their earnings for both placement of their work and representation.  Because of the inherent unpredictability in this model, authors also surrender potential royalties to publsihers who must account for distribution costs, returns and large production runs with no clear idea of what to expect from sales.  Distribution costs are high and terms are onerous because publication decisions are not based on hard data, and much of the production run may go unsold.  The high percentage publishers surrender to the channel represent the distributors’ safety cushion.  Publishers have to extend their marketing schedules and spend more on pre-publication reviews and other pubicity to try to get titles to sell through when they are released.  This results in market delays and publishers risk losing an opportunity window.  Opacity leads to overhead.

In the emerging world of open publishing, authors build their audiences by exposing their work while it’s being created; publishers use online technologies to find and assess the salability of an author’s work for themselves; and analytics drive production, marketing and distribution decisions.  

Even in the open publishing model, there is some opacity.  In previous posts, I’ve explored ways that publishers could improve margins for production, distribution and marketing.  But what about the process of discovering and signing new talent?  How might this evolve?  It’s a lazy summer day, just before a post holiday weekend.  Time to wax speculative. 

Author title registries and exchanges.  Since the writing process is becoming more transparent anyway (e.g. blog to book), why not have a site where authors can register their work, showcase some or all of it during the development process, and let consumers vote on its future popularity (similar to market sites like HSX)?   Such systems have demonstrated a remarkable accuracy to predict winners.

Automated pitch cards.  Authors working online could automatically make their key audience stats public so that publishers could easily determine the size and makeup of the target market.  Most of the software to do this exists already.  The registry would allow publishers to establish a profile page and set up alerts so that when an author’s numbers reached a critical threshold, they would be automatically notified.

Book rights auctions.  The registry would facilitate book rights auctions between authors and interested publishers - a kind of eBay for authors.  Book auctions are nothing new for established authors with potentially hot selling titles - e.g. see Publishers Weekly deal section.  However, an electronic version might speed the bidding process for authors that publishers wanted to sign and establish the market for a title.  Prices might be more realistic since the bidding would be transparent and there would be data (see above) to ground the bids.

Standardized book deals.  The registry might even help expedite negotiation for authors who are inexperienced (and / or unrepresented) using standardized book deals, with some wiggle room on the terms that are usually most in contention - e.g. royalties, subsidiary rights, copyright ownership. 

Book videos - also referred to as “book wraps” and “book trailers” - are becoming enormously popular.  Publishers of all sizes are beginning to experiment with them as promotinnal tools.  Similar to movie trailers, books videos are typically short 2-3 minute videos which provide a visual synopsis of a title and perhaps feature a brief interview with the author. 

Readers have expressed a lot of interest about book videos recently, so we interviewed Ske Van Raalte-Herzog, producer and co-founder of Expanded Books, one of the largest producers of book videos, to learn more about their creation, uses and cost.  Before starting Expanded Books, she worked at Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing for nine years producing film and television tie-in books for the studio. She has collaborated with nearly every major U.S. publishing house on tie-in books.  Skye is also a literary agent and book packager, and has developed and sold publishing projects under her Libros Publishing Group banner.

FPP:  There are a number of terms floating around - book trailer, book wrap, book video. Has one of these become standard?

Skye:  No, there is not a standard term that we know of. They are all book videos and beyond that publishers are using any of these terms to describe them. As the business matures, there may be a point in the future where it will make sense to come up with clearer classifications, for a trailer or a commercial for example. As of right now, the terms are interchangeable.

FPP:  How popular are book videos are with publishers?

Skye:  As publishers recognize the power of video in general and the amazing reach that’s possible through the web, more are starting to embrace video promotion for their books. At least some of the imprints at all the major publishing houses are using video for promotion and we expect that the smaller publishers and authors will follow suit.

FPP:  Is there an optimal length for a book video?

Skye:  Book videos, like all other videos on the web, should be only as long as they can hold a viewer’s interest, with all the other distractions that are competing for their attention on the desktop. In general, our videos are around 3 minutes, although we have released some that are much shorter and others that are much longer. There is no set length that is standard. What’s important is the content and how long it can engage the viewer.

FPP:  What materials, if any, do you usually have the author provide?

Skye:  We are always happy to work with as many materials an author publisher can provide.  If the book has photographs, we can include those in the video.  If the author has any other visual elements that relate to the book and subject matter, we can use those as well - including video. Depending on the nature of the book, authors provide no visuals to lots of visuals. For novels and books that have no visual element, we try to create some that are appropriate when possible. In cases where artwork is available, our aim is to display it in the video as tastefully as possible.

FPP:  Is it always a good idea for the author to appear in the video?

Skye:  This really depends on the nature of the book and the author’s comfort level in front of the camera. There are some instances where the author is the best person to “sell” his or her book but that’s not always the case.  Sometimes, the artwork can tell the story, other times a dramatization or a short promo would work better. The video should be a fitting reflection of the book and since there are so many different kinds of books out there, there is no one set method of approaching a video for that book. Each video is conceptualized and conceived on a case by case basis, taking into account the subject matter and the wishes of the author/publisher. We try to come up with an approach that will best sell the book-sometimes that might include the author and other times it won’t.

FPP:  What are the key production values for a successful book video?

Skye:  This depends on the nature of the video. In general, we strive to achieve high production values, meaning that they are professionally shot and edited. However,  we have worked on some where the author/publisher wanted a more gritty, viral look and for some books this might be appropriate. The other elements that make a high production value video are the audio  quality, the music, sound effects, additional visual elements to make it interesting to watch, etc. Because we distribute our videos through the major portals on the web, we feel it is important to strive for a certain level of quality.  In addition, a high level of quality is important since it enables us to pursue distribution through other channels such as libraries, video on demand, internet TV, etc.

FPP:  What are the steps in creating a book video?

Skye:  We first speak with the publisher or author about the book and what they envision for the video. We always read the book and either develop interview questions or an alternative creative approach which we work on until it is approved by the author/publisher. We then set up a shoot date with the author or shoot the footage on our own and finally, we put the video together in post production. We deliver it to the publisher/author and they have the opportunity to make changes and then it is finalized and distributed.

FPP:  How long does it take to produce a book video on average?

Skye:  In general, we usually produce a video in 6-8 weeks. We like to have as much time as possible to create visuals and shoot additional footage if necessary. It also takes a lot of time to edit the full length interview down to an acceptable length for the web. Most of our clients give us at least 2 months, however, we have delivered a video in as little as a week - although this is not recommended!

FPP:  Based on the length of video, what should a publisher or author budget?

Skye:  The average cost of a video is about $4,000 - $7,000 and this varies
depending on the shooting location and what is involved in the production - if it is a dramatization, has computer graphics and animation, etc. The cost is determined once the creative approach to the video has been solidified.

FPP:  What are some of the most popular uses of book videos?

Skye:  Publishers are using video in many ways to promote their books.  Their aim is to raise awareness and have an ongoing presence on the web in as many outlets as possible. One of the advantages to a book video is that once it is posted on the web, it is up forever so it can continue to garner attention and streams for years after a book is released. When compared to sending an author on tour, the cost is significantly less and the reach is much greater and longer lasting.

Some of the ways publishers are using book videos are: postings on retailer web sites such as Borders, BN.com, and Amazon, postings on their own web site and author web sites, distribution to the media to aid in booking TV appearances for authors, in electronic press kits, running video loops in major retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Target, for generate presales interest and orders with retailers, distribution to blogs and specialized web sites related to the book.

One of the services that Expanded Books provides is distribution, in addition to production. Expanded Books’ distribution channels include: MSN, Yahoo!, Google Video, iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Revver, Roo, iFilm, Powells Books, Bebo, Veoh, Transit TV, and more. (You can see a complete list of our distribution on the Expanded Books website under Publisher Info.)

FPP:  Where are the best places to post book videos?

Skye:  It’s important to get as wide distribution as possible for the videos and also to post them on sites that are relevant to the audience. For example, we have done several craft videos, for knitters and crocheters and these videos were posted through our distribution channels and they also were posted on craft, knitting, and crocheting web sites and blogs.

FPP:  Do you see any new trends in the creation, distribution or use of book videos emerging?

Skye:  At this point, publishers are still trying out video and gauging how well it
works for different kinds of books. They are also trying out new formats, such as trailers, promos, and longer format videos distributed to book clubs and individuals on DVD. The areas of video creation that will grow are the ones in which publishers have gotten the best correlation to promotion and sales.

We are working with several publishers that are even expanding beyond the web and are producing TV commercials for their books. Because there are so many specialized cable channels available to publishers, the cost of the media buy is now affordable. Also, production of the spots, which used to be cost prohibitive, is more affordable as well when working with companies such as ours.  You can see examples of our TV spots on the Expanded Books website under Publisher Info.

Of course the best way to gauge what is happening with book videos and convince yourself of their power to captivate is to watch a few of the latest from Expanded Books’ catalog.  You can also see a sampling of some of the company’s recent work by viewing their Sizzle Reel (Windows Media format or QuickTime format). 

WARNING:  Books videos are highly addictive!

An earlier post on this blog noted the rising popularity of book clubs and wondered how publishers might better market their titles to this population of book lovers.  Time to consult the experts.  And the expert on such matters is, without question, Diana Loevy.  Diana is the author of “The Book Club Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Reading Group Experience,” published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Books USA.  Her work is the definitive guide to the culture, indispensable titles and best practices of book clubs nationwide. 

Diana leads an editorial and marketing consulting business.  Previously, she conceived, developed and launched the Reading Groups Internet site for Bookspan, the book club division of Bertelsmann and Time Warner.  As editor for The Literary Guild and Black Expressions companion Web sites, Diana created the first of its kind readers’ guide incorporating unique book-related and home entertainment content for club members.  She served as Vice President, Editorial Director of United Media in New York, where she acquired and launched comic strips and features for newspaper syndication, as well as implemented publishing and licensing programs for renowned authors and artists including Dilbert by Scott Adams. Diana lives in Westport, Connecticut with her husband and son.

I recently interviewed Diana about the growth and popularity of book clubs, and how authors and publishers can get book clubs interested in their titles.

FPP:  Can you provide a rough idea of how many book clubs there are in the US and about how many members? Is any data available worldwide? 

Diana:  The best recent estimate I saw - which tracks a more in-depth number I tracked 8 years ago (10 million members) - puts the estimate at between 20-25 million members. Remember, it is only an estimate.  I have not seen
any data worldwide.

FPP:  Is membership in book clubs growing, and if so, what factors do you attribute for this growth?

Diana:  Membership has doubled in the past decade, according to the estimates, I believe for a number of reasons. Book clubs really work as cohesive social groups. There is as much substance in the book discussion as the members want, and it’s an entertainment event for hosts. Between work and families, it is very hard to find time to entertain in the traditional sense. But if you are hosting once a year - assuming there are 10-12 members of your book club as there are on average, it is workable.

I have seen a trend of people joining more than one book club. Each club is different and the reading lists are subtly different.

Other factors include the ease of buying books online, combined with the hands-on, hand-sell approach of the bookstores. Libraries have become more proactive and increasingly helpful to clubs and each community has its own book club resource. Combined with Oprah’s continuing book club selections (you cannot underestimate her influence, even if you don’t read every book) and the ubiquity of email, which makes it possible to organize meetings and send messages to members that enhance the social aspects of the club.

The publishers also go out of their way to develop discussion questions and web support and make authors available. So the atmosphere is right for book clubs to flourish.

FPP:  Are book clubs predominantly fiction or non-fiction?

Diana:  Predominantly fiction, though most clubs will read one or two nonfiction selections a year. There are certain memoirs like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls that are considered must reads.

FPP:  What are the demographics of book clubs in terms of gender, age and ethnicity?

Diana:  Between 75-80 percent women. There are some couples book clubs and mixed gender clubs, but it’s still predominantly women. I’ve observed that age has really diversified over the last 10 years. I have heard of more and
more parent-child clubs, teen clubs and clubs of people in their 20s who use them as professional networking clubs and meet in restaurants. Book clubs comprised of African American members are very popular and many of these clubs pioneered author visits to club, club trips to the theater, websites, regional meetings and other innovations.

FPP:  Have book clubs traditionally been a good venue for publishers and authors to market and sell their books? Do you have an example of this?

Diana:  While the atmosphere is right for clubs to “entertain” marketing concepts from the publishers and authors, it is not easy and certainly not a given.  There is so much competition from the front list (debut authors with great reviews, favorite authors coming out with new books and then there are the surprises) and the back list (classics the club has on its lists, classics that are newsworthy such as Slaughterhouse-Five after the recent death of author Kurt Vonnegut, for instance) or a discovery that may not be on everyone’s list, but will be soon. We’re going to see more multi-media
formats and big production numbers like the film for On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.

So if the quality is there, the marketing might take hold. And then it snowballs. Clubs like to read books that other clubs are reading. This is reflected in the trade paperback bestseller list and on the book club tables at the bookstores.

Early readers such as bookstore people who often lead and organize discussion groups at the store often give early indicators of how a book will be adopted into a club.

FPP:  What is the best way for a publisher or author to discover which book clubs night be good candidates for their book(s)?

Diana:  Very tricky. Clubs usually don’t like to be the subject of the hard sell.  Publishers and authors have to remember that the club members are interested in each other first, the book second. And they look forward to discussing what to read next. Champions of the book have to make good arguments for the adaptation of a book and this can often become very heated, but that’s part of the whole format and success of the book club. The person pitching the book doesn’t have many chances to pitch the same book. If a person comes back month after month with the same title, it becomes a hilarious in-joke.

I would say developing clubs where you have had successes is the best bet for publishers and authors. And it takes time to cultivate clubs.

FPP:  How should a book club be approached? Is there a good print or online reference list of book clubs and contacts?

Diana:  There are no short cuts. Clubs are usually very private. However, books stores and libraries act as regional centers for clubs and sometimes they will have events. I would contact as many as you have time for to create a calendar of book club events and book festivals. The Tattered Cover in Denver, for instance, has a famous bookstore event in January. BookSense is really a dominant force in terms of forecasting book club books, capturing the current sales picture and offering programs for publishers/authors that can be quite effective.

I would also look for other organizations in the community and start cultivating email lists.

FPP:  Are live appearances by an author usually effective? If it is not feasible for an author to appear in person, are there some other strategies to get the book club interested?

Diana:  I know authors who speak to dozens of clubs. It does have some good effect, though each author has to assess the time put in vs. book sale ratio. A mix of public and private appearances, a targeted email list and print/online reviews is best. Every little bit helps.

It is expected that authors manage much of their own marketing and outreach to book clubs. And as I said, there are no short cuts. Word of mouth for access to book clubs is still most effective. And organizing your lists.

FPP:  Is there an advantage to approaching book clubs before the release of a title?

Diana:  Most book clubs already have some idea of the books they will be reading, usually about 6 months out. Plus, clubs like to adopt immediately the “must reads.” Many club members are not waiting for the paperback of A Thousand
Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, for instance. I mean, you can’t read every book, and groups usually have a maximum of 12 per year, and that’s usually less because of holidays or summer when some groups go on vacation.

But there are certain types of clubs - perhaps those comprised of librarians, teachers, booksellers and bloggers - who might like the opportunity to preview titles. It might be worth cultivating such groups of early adopters. But it is not the norm.

FPP:  What trends do you see in the evolution of book clubs?

Diana:  Every day I see new projects by authors, booksellers, publishers, entrepreneurs, even hotels and restaurants that are hosting groups and book clubs. Book clubs are just a fact of life. If these initiatives succeed, there will be more of them. A lot of authors are using My Space, web sites and other web initiatives.

I just returned from Book Group Expo where authors and book club members meet. It was at the San Jose convention center and only its second year.  There were well over 1,000 people there and a very successful event. The group will be expanding to more cities.

There will be more initiatives from entrepreneurs — Chris Anderson has a new web site for authors called Booktour.com for instance. As you pointed out in your blog about meetup.com, you can start with a virtual tour of those club members. It will be interesting to see how the clubs formed on Meetup and other internet-driven meeting sites fare in the long run.

There will be more people wanting to join already existing book groups, waiting lists for some clubs, decimation of others whose members may be in flux (too many members moving, not enough outreach, not enough concentration on the book). In many cases, clubs become too focused on the social, really relegate the book to a minor spot on the schedule and then give it a very cursory discussion. These clubs can be considered at risk.

Traditional reviews and the recommendations of booksellers are not going to go away. If anything, these traditional sources will be more important, if not the only, voices whispering in the ears of club members.

Authors will take on more and more of the marketing responsibilities of their books. And each will have to assess how effective that marketing is vs. the time and money spent on reaching an audience.

More and more book club books are being adopted by high schools, thus ensuring their durability. I think this is a sign of health in the decision making process all along the line, from acquisition at the publishing house to the 9th grader reading The Secret Life of Bees for the first time.

While there will be technological and marketing innovations, some clubs will enter their Baroque phase where they will plan more events, go on ever more thematic trips and spend even more time with one another. And the strict clubs will be more rigorous than ever. Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to choose books - from the bestseller list and from the freshman curriculum we managed to miss the first time around.

Kunati Books has been described by Booklist magazine as “a publisher to watch.”  Kunati has been an innovative force in the book publishing world.  Kunati has successfully combined its focus on edgy and controversial fiction, with cutting edge book marketing.  The company is riding a wave of popularity and has been forced to reprint most of its titles to fulfill increasing demand. 

We recently interviewed Derek Armstrong, publisher and founder of Kunati Books, as well as a popular author, to learn more about his views on book publishing and marketing.  

FPP:  You’re an author, as well as a publisher. What made you decide to go into publishing?

Derek:  I didn’t fall into it by accident. For the last twenty years I’ve been principal of one of North America’s top ad agencies (Persona Corp.). Over the years, we’ve done extensive work for five large publishers. From a marketing point-of-view, we’ve actually led with innovations at Persona, including the invention of the animated novel trailer back in the early eighties. In 1996, Simon & Schuster published The Persona Principle, written by my partner Kam Wai Yu and myself, which became very popular, and led to more publishing clients. It was translated into six languages. My first novel, THE GAME, did the rounds a couple years ago with a big agent in New York, and just at the point where three publishers made offers, I began talks with other writers and creative people about forming our own publishing company. It was actually kind of fun to turn down offers and jump right in with THE GAME as our first acquisition. The “reality TV” humor and making fun of the zeitgeist made it perfect for Kunati.

To answer more directly, publishing and writing are my main passions. Founding a publishing company was inevitable. Plus we wanted to use our creative innovations for our own venture. We love authors. We love great books. We love making a splash and we’re experts in marketing. It seemed natural. We weren’t quite prepared for the literal flood of manuscripts (pun intended). Within six months we hit the 5,000 manuscript mark and realized we had created a monster. We secured a large distributor, opened another office, increased our title release plan and - well, who needs sleep anyway? The astonishing thing is that of these thousands of manuscripts, I would say hundreds deserved to be published. We can only publish a dozen or so a season - and that’s the hardest part of being a publisher. I really dislike the whole “not for us” scenario, especially when you love the books you’re passing on.

FPP:  On Kunati’s site, it states that the company’s mission is focused on “publishing provocative, edgy, fun, quirky and controversial books” and that you avoid classifying your titles by genre. What inspired this approach? Have you met with any resistance from booksellers?

Derek:  An absolute truth in marketing is that a product must be unique, truly unique, to be marketable. If a novel or non fiction book can’t be synopsized as unique in one sentence or two, it’s not for us. Why? Because it’s very difficult to capture a consumer’s attention, and publishing’s an expensive venture. In an ad you have your headline - one sentence. A browse in a bookstore starts with the first sentence on the flap. It’s all about capturing attention. This isn’t as shallow a statement as it seems. For decades I’ve coached my clients - companies like IBM and Simon & Schuster - to differentiate, differentiate, differentiate. The three rules of Persona we called it. So, how could we launch a publishing company without truly emphasizing our differences. This became clearer when we were forced to start turning down manuscripts. How do you decide between a hundred magnificent books? It can’t just come down to prose and character alone. It has to resolve around the “HOOK”. Our hook was defined by the market. Provocative is in. From Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code to the flood of intimate memoirs, controversy sells. This allowed us to differentiate along lines that would appeal to booksellers. After only one season it’s worked out that way. Our first print runs sold out. Libraries in particular order a lot of our books. All major chains and most indy’s have ordered. So the reaction has been quite the opposite of ‘resistance.’ I suppose “resistance is futile.” Our second season was even easier, with booksellers and libraries ordering “sight unseen.”

On the question of genre, it’s just a tired term. Nearly every book is cross-genre. So why do we need these classifications? A good story is a good story. Great characters are great characters. In non fiction, the theme rules and the “question” (the question to be “answered”). How does an artificial category help? For instance, Carol O’Dell’s memoir Mothering Mother could be classified as “personal memoir” but it’s just as much a ‘how to” on living with elderly parents, or on care-giving for people with Alzheimer’s. And it’s as entertaining as a novel. How do you classify any of our books? RABID could be described as “Peyton Place meets the science thriller” (one reviewer did, and gave her a starred review) but it’s also one of the most literary novels I’ve read in awhile. How do you categorize something like that? Some of our novels are being adopted as “recommended reads” by lobby groups and causes. Whale Song is actively buzzing in the “assisted suicide” groups. Bang Bang is as popular with the NRA as with the anti-gun groups.

FPP:  How have you evolved your branding to reflect this mission?

Derek:  Of course there are layers of branding subtleties in all of our executions. Our authors, of course, represent the main anchor of our brand. As I mentioned, we were able to be selective on authors, choosing great new voices with edge and building a “Kunati family” around them. Our authors group - a social online marketing group we formed for our authors-has made Kunati authors friends and family. We meet every day online.

Red, a color psychologically aligned to success and growth and aggression was our pick for our logo. Branding our books with the Kunati red band on the bottom allowed “recall” of Kunati. Even the differentiated name. Kunati is an invented word, and therefore trademarkeable, but it’s derived from two words. Kunata (Icelandic word for Knowledge) and Kunatai, the native hero known as the “lucky hunter.” Hunting for knowledge? Hunting for success? Both. Our covers carry on that “demand for attention” with simple and highly graphic and hip images. Like the now-famous screaming lips with the branded cross on the tongue for RABID. That was as edgy as you can get, and became emblematic of Kunati. And, naturally, our trailers. We invented the trailer in the eighties, so it behooves us to make sure each of our books has a really hip and seriously edgy trailer.

FPP:  What do you feel is the strongest branding component - your authors, titles or Kunati itself? How does Kunati integrate its author / title and company branding?

Derek:  Our authors are the most important by far. They are Kunati. They’re all quite different in voice, theme and what others would call genre, but they’re Kunati in spirit all the way: new, different, edgy. They’re an international group as well, so far U.S., U.K. and Canada. From a marketing point-of-view we’re highly integrated author-to-publisher, title-to-Kunati. We find that unique edge or hook and use that to demonstrate our mission. Our authors are enthusiastic about it. And we meet every day online in our Kunati group, discussing our daily marketing activities, our signings, our successes, what we learned, cheering each other on.

Our Meet the Author feature on our website is very popular, with about 2000 unique visits a day. There, our prospective readers meet our authors via their fun bio, their personal blogs and forum style chatting. It’s very cool. The Kunati authors are the most enthusiastic marketers I’ve ever met, even though their first love is writing. It’s just in the nature of being part of something different, I suppose.

FPP:  Kunati has been very innovative with its marketing. Could you describe some of the techniques - e.g. podcasts and book trailers - you use and rate their effectiveness?

Derek:  Online is very powerful. The great equalizer I call it. I coach our authors to review other novels on Amazon, to blog every day, to reach out to new friends on myspace and youtube aggressively. Some of our best quotes on our book covers, from NY Times best selling authors came from online friendships with authors-to-authors.

Our Meet-the-Author feature on our website is hot. It represents about 1 million collective unique visits so far. Our trailers of course, although as time passes, and everyone does it now, we have to push on and make them even more unique.

The “collective” nature of our author marketing is unique. Instead of going it alone, we do many things together. Then, as each author promotes their activities, they cross promote each other and make new friends along the way. It’s definitely a momentum, viral marketing approach.

We don’t believe in the “big buck for one month” approach of larger publishers. At Persona we became quite familiar with the big launch approach. Every spring and fall the marketing space is so crowded it’s hard to get noticed. We try not to fall into those seasons in our marketing. We have no choice in our release dates because of distribution, but our marketing is year-round and actually lighter in the spring and fall. We go heavier in the summer and winter when others are quiet.

Graphics and loglines play a major role in our marketing. We believe every novel can be described in one sentence and expressed with one iconic image (the rabid cross on the tongue for Rabid, the screaming head bursting out of the TV for The Game). By doing it this way, recall with readers becomes easier. Pitching to booksellers becomes simple. Grabbing attention in a crowded media space is such a big problem we view this as the most important thing of all. Instant impact we call it.

FPP:  You’ve also employed a marketing strategy built around an author marketing group. Could you explain what an author marketing groups is and how it works?

Derek:  The KAMG - Kunati Author Marketing Group-is a growing family of authors who dialogue every single day via a private online group. It’s like a mail list, in that every post goes to every author mailbox with an immediate read by authors (when they’re online). This way, we connect every day. We brainstorm. Discuss new campaigns. Vote on ideas. Help each other get over hurdles like the first book signing. Invite each other to stay over at our houses when we’re on tour in their cities. Meet up at BEA. Become friends. It’s magnificent. Simple. I’m not sure who else does it. I highly recommend it to any publisher with more than one author. All ideas are good ideas. No one gets shot down. Many of our best ideas came from author ideas that were then brainstormed and refined in the group. Of course our marketing team, led by Kam Wai Yu, ultimately will execute award-winning creative to go with the idea, but it starts in the KAMG.

FPP:  How do you think Kunati’s growth will change its branding or marketing strategies?

Derek:  I hope it won’t. We’re experience growth pains now. More submissions than we can handle, and slower responses to authors, but we’re committed to not changing our “no agent required” policy in spite of the workload. Distribution is no issue since IPG is really well connected everywhere and can warehouse even the best selling book. International interest and movie rights interest has changed us somewhat, but it’s really changing us for the better. We’ve always been very commercial in focus, so it’s a fairly easy change for us to facilitate anything related to marketing or rights. The author group keeps growing, now it’s dozens, but that just makes it more energetic. Until we get to hundreds, I can’t see a big change there. Our marketing is very focused on bookseller and librarian support, and that will not change.

FPP:  Looking back, is there anything you would do differently knowing what you know now?

Derek:  Minor things, I suppose. We did a lot of things right - like not adopting seasons, focusing uniquely, and so on - but we haven’t yet begun to actively contact agents. The huge swell of submissions has made that, so far, unnecessary. Agents have found us, to be sure, but we acquire as many unagented as agented authors. I wouldn’t change that either. At the moment, I can’t think of much.

FPP:  How do you see book marketing in general changing in the next 5 years?

Derek:  I think authors will play a larger and larger role. I believe online marketing will become the main tool, particularly interactive (not necessarily blogging, but definitely “friends-style” networking such as myspace). I think PR will play less and less of a role, but it will always be more important than media advertising. We do trade media advertising - which does work - and consumer advertising in media - which has limited impact. Most of our buzz comes from online activities, and I see that growing and growing. Interactive trailers will become big. The virtual tour will be perfected in a year or so. ONLINE book clubs will be big and important to publishers. Libraries have to become more important as they become very “online” as well. I hope, one day, ebooks will succeed, but so far it has not found legs and won’t until there’s a standard. I think book covers and reader reviews will grow in importance. I think there’ll be more titles published, not less, so there’ll be fragmentation and a need for more personalized marketing, such as “collection of emails” through various vehicles. And savvy marketers won’t ignore the independent booksellers. Yes, independents have taken a one-two punch from chain retailers and online stores, but they’re here to stay and they’re neglected. The publisher who works with the indy’s will do well.

FPP:  If the demands of the business began to interfere with your writing, would you give up the writing or scale back your role as publisher?

Derek:  I will never give up writing. It’s three hours out of each day, starting at 5am each morning. Give it up? It will never happen. It’s my leisure, my joy, my passion. Books are also my obsession, and I see myself as publisher forever — but I’ll die with my fingers on a keyboard (as author). I, personally, believe that a publisher who is also an active writer is a big reassurance to our Kunati authors. I don’t want to say something hokey like “I understand authors” but I’ve lived through hundreds of agent and publisher rejections after spending years writing my precious novels - so I’ll never be unsympathetic or glib to writers. It actually hurts to have to “pass” on a good book. We’re just not able to take hundreds of titles - yet. Maybe someday soon.

You can view some of Kunati’s book trailers for current and soon to be released titles by clicking the links below.

Enjoy the controversy!

Web marketing for publishers and authors is a good new, bad news story.  

When figuring out how to aggregate audiences across the web for your book, you need to understand its geography - or, its topology as it usually referred to in network parlance - to get an idea of what you”re up against.  First, there is the size of the web.  A recent post on Pandia Search Engine News summarized the recent estimates of web size as follows:

• 15 - 30 billion web pages
• 109 million web sites
• 47 - 48 million active web sites
• 1 + billion Internet users

This data is however, far from certain knowledge.  In fact it is not known exactly how many web pages or even web sites there are at any given point in time.   In his insightful book “Linked” on how things life - including the worldwide web- are connected, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, talked about two important features of the web that help and hinder our use of it for searching out information or marketing our products.  (His current research focuses on applying the concepts his group developed for characterizing the topology of the worldwide web to uncovering the structural properties of complex metabolic and genetic networks.)

• The web is divided into “continents.”  When robots employed by the search engines crawl the web to index pages, they follow links to discover new or updated web pages.  The web is a directed network, meaning that while site A may link to site B, there may not be a reverse linkage.  Directed networks (of any kind) automatically fragment into four areas or, in Barabasi’s term, ”continents.”  The main contient is the “Core.”  These sites are the highly interconnected mainstream of the web and include the major sites like the search engines, major media portals and so on.  Then there is “InLand.”  The sites in this region have links pointing into the Core, but not vice versa.  These typically sites new to the web.  The next region is “OutLand.”  In OutLand, sites are pointed to from the Core, but do not link back to the Core.  Many of these sites are corporate sites.  They are often dead end destinations for link followers like robots.  Lastly, there are “Islands.”  These regions are not linked in either direction to the Core.  They may, however, include tightly linked, though generally isolated communities.  But finding these communities can be difficult. 
• The web is dominated by hubs in each of the continents.  Hubs are sites with many inbound and outbound links.  Maps of the web show a hierarchy of such hubs.  Sites that provide useful content and links and have been around for awhile have a greater probability of growing into hubs.  When confronted with the immensity of the web, it is a natural human tendency to seek out hubs as a way to find information quickly.
• The web is dynamic.  While the web in general continues to grow, specific sites may go dark or become inactive.  This can confound searches when you’re trying to find a viable market.  Search results may include many of these “dead” sites.
• Search engines still don’t know it all.  Through the early 2000’s, search engines typically had indexed only about 25% of the web.  While results have improved over time, search engine companies have stopped announcing the number of pages they have indexed.  It is doubtful that the web will ever be fully indexed.  Also, the amount of information downloaded and indexed by search engines has its limits as well.

Most of this may seem to fall in the bad news column.  So here’s the good news.

• Human intervention pays off.  You can submit your site to the search engines rather than waiting and hoping they will find you.  Social networking sites like Digg, del.ici.ous, StumbleUpon and Reddit can help guide users to our informatino or products.  These tagging sites represent the first steps toward adding a human interpretation of the raw content on sites.  There are also myriad directories, forums and news groups that can help point you to those communities difficult to find through general search. 
• Indexing algorithms are getting smarter.  These algorithms now take into account freshness, relevance, age and authority.  All good things for savvy and disciplined marketers.  The specific weights that the ranking code uses is still opaque for competitive reasons (and to prevent gaming of the system), but the general rules are easy enough to observe in action.
• Technology isn’t standing still.  The next step in the evolution of the worldwide web may be the “semantic web.”  This is a web where every site is tagged in a fashion where robots can easily interpret what the content is about.  This opens the door to having truly smart search agents that can scour the web to find sites appropriate for your marketing efforts.  Also, new technology such as software that can read and interpret the chatter of blogs and other social media will soon make it easy to find and understand the demographics of your audience.

So while our knowledge of the web may be imperfect, our ability to explore and use it in new ways will make ultimately make it our best marketing vehicle.