How Authors Move Their Own Merch

Joanne Kaufman - WSJ: "... Web-savvy authors point to the myriad opportunities provided by social networking sites. (Bruce DeSilva, for example, posted a slideshow on his Facebook page of famous people reading his debut crime novel, 'Rogue Island.') They point, as well, to publishers' ever more skimpy advertising budgets and the contraction of marketing and publicity departments, making it all the more essential for them to step into the void. And they have taken due note of the daunting noise—and numbers—in the marketplace. According to Penny Sansevieri, an adjunct professor at New York University and CEO of Author Marketing, a publicity firm, there are 1,500 books published daily in the U.S., including self-published titles. 'To get noticed,' she said, 'you have to throw more at people than just your book.' ... "

Brit Pubs: Digital Promos to Dominate Xmas Books Campaigns

theBookseller.com:

... Pan Macmillan marketing manager Rebecca Ikin said this autumn would demonstrate a "step change" in the link-up between traditional and online marketing. "There are new platforms for the e-book in a way that didn’t exist before, so our digital publishing team, our marketing team and our digital marketing team are working in an integrated way," she said. "We are not now having the two-week or four-week advertising campaigns, we are having three-month campaigns and they are much more complex." ...

HarperCollins promises "whizzy digital plans" yet to be revealed for Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook Two. Brand will also be reunited with fellow "Sachsgate" culprit Jonathan Ross for a Hackney Empire event (30th September).

Penguin will use a "suite of video assets" in a pre-awareness campaign for Michael McIntyre’s autobiography Live and Laughing (14th October), with the author doing a 20-date signing tour.

Nigella Lawson’s Christmas title Kitchen (Chatto) will be part of an unspecificed "new digital initiative" being launched by CCV in the autumn, according to publicist Mark Hutchinson of Colman Getty.

There will be an app for The ­Armstrong and Miller Book by ­comedians Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller (Little, Brown, 7th October), ...

Barnes & Noble Looks to Build Digital Libraries with Free Public Domain Titles

From Chris Crum at WebProNews:

Barnes & Noble is encouraging customers to build their own personal digital libraries with a promotion called Barnes & Noble Classics.

Customers will get a free weekly slate of "high-quality, special edition classic eBooks" to read on the company's Nook eBook Readers, the iPad, PC and other devices using BN eReader software, and they'll be able to keep large digital libraries of these works. They'll be able to choose from ten free eBooks each week throughout the summer until the promotion ends. ...

The promotion is no doubt a push to get people reading more digital books and thinking of Barnes & Noble as a place to get them. ...

Of course, as most know, Project Gutenberg offers an enormous collection of classic free public domain eBooks all day every day, with no promotional time limit. You can also find them at the Kindle Store, etc., etc.

Excellent Consideration of B&N and eBooks

Note Lydia Dishman's insightful analysis of B&N's position/strategy in the eBook universe. This comes from bnet:

Perhaps it’s a calculated management sleight of hand, but while Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (APPL) duke it out for the e-book crown, Barnes & Noble (BKS) is working in the background, making moves to position itself as the biggest player in the market.

What’s interesting is how a series of small moves can add up to a big impact.

Take the latest promotion: get free coffee with the download of the B&N eReader app. As part of an overall Nook promotion (which runs through June27) store customers can download the app, then show the B&N Café barista show an open eBook on a Nook or the eReader software on their iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, HTC HD2, or a Windows PC or Mac and snag a free tall coffee. Nook owners can also get the freebie just for bringing their device into any store.

Sure a cup of joe doesn’t seem like much of a perk (except to your sluggish system), but it shows that in crafting an overall digital strategy, the world’s largest bookseller isn’t forgetting that its bricks need to be tended alongside clicks.

Also encouraging the brick/click crossover is B&N’s other freebie promotion. Nook and eReader users can come in the store, flash their device, and download an e-book from a bestselling author at no cost. It’s not just a one-shot either. New titles are offered each week ...

Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are anticipating apps for Android to launch this summer. Meanwhile, through ereader.com , B&N is offering a beta version for Droid as well as a plethora of other devices that Amazon currently isn't serving.

What remains to be seen how well B&N will leverage its new digital self-publishing platform. If it manages to negotiate competitive royalty rates for authors and independent publishers on PubIt!, the world’s largest bookstore may indeed become the smartest as well, bypassing the trade publishers and snapping up thousands of exclusive new e-books.

Coffee and eBooks

Barnes & Noble has mounted an interesting promotion designed to use downloadable eBook content to drive customer traffic to B&N brick & mortar establishments. Check it out. And here's where you can download the app in question.