Here's a new marketing approach:
... thriller writers, MJ Rose and JA Konrath, sweat it out this month as they race to see which marketing strategy—blogging or bookstores—will best sell their newest books.International best-seller Rose opted for the virtual highway or blogging to promote her latest, The Venus Fix (July, 2006), featuring sex therapist Dr. Morgan Snow. This third book in her Butterfield Institute series dives into an explosive combination of Internet sex, online pornography and adolescents.
Konrath who injects humor into his crime novels is burning rubber on America’s highways to promote Rusty Nail (July 2006), the third book in his Whiskey Sour series featuring Lt. Jacqueline (Jack) Daniels.
Rose plans to link to 500 blogs by summer’s end to create buzz and book sales. Every time a blogger writes about The Venus Fix, and links to an interview about her book or Vidlit video trailer of her novel, Rose will donate $5.00 to one of three charities. Participating bloggers choose the charity and are eligible to enter in a weekly drawing to win a signed, personalized copy of The Venus Fix. For details go to MySpace.
“It’s altruistic, sure,” says Rose, “But the goal is to sell books.”
Konrath plans to visit 500 bookstores where he’ll sign books and meet booksellers to create buzz and book sales. Spending no more than 20 minutes at each bookstore, Konrath promises to list participating booksellers in the acknowledgement pages of his next novel. He also gives away signed drink coasters before hopping back into his 1995 Suzuki Sidekick a.k.a. Rustymobile and heading to the next bookstore. Konrath relies on his GPS, which he affectionately calls “Sheila,” to get him there.
Whoever sells more books by September wins a bottle of Champagne.
This isn't entirely new. Several other books have gotten major buzz through the blogosphere, but some of them were actually written by bloggers themselves. This is the first time I've seen a conscious effort (you could almost call it an unscientific study) to measure how influential the two sales approaches are side-by-side.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I've never even heard of either writer. Nonetheless, it's an interesting idea.
Posted by Linkmeister at August 4, 2006 09:23 AM | TrackBack