Promoting a book

Book publishers have been slow to come to internet. From the beginning of their activities the question was always should the book publisher do something with the books in terms of producing electronic books and distribute them through internet, should the book publisher sell the printed books through internet or should the book publisher do something about the promotion digitally.

In 1997 a second wave of electronic books came about after the first wave of Sony e-Books had miserably failed in the USA and Europe. The second wave was better as the production and distribution were better organised. But the reading device still was tiring to the eyes, a handicap now solved by the iLiad and Readius. The third wave can start, as soon as the book publishing and consumer electronics worlds have found a major promoter.

The sale of printed books through internet has been a strong item from the beginning of internet. Amazon moved in with success; Bol.com spread over Europe. National and regional distributors tried to find a spot in the sun. And I must say that I have bought more books online in the last ten years than I did by going to a book shop. (I love book shops. They are like cheese: they have holes and they have cheese. You accidentally hit on a book, but more often you do not find the books and have to order a book. I recently was in a large book shop, where they could find the position of the book and the number of copies on the computer like in a library).

Digital promotion was the most natural extension book publishers could think off. And this is usually done half-heartedly. In the best case they put up their catalogue on internet with a photograph of the cover, a small description and sometimes the table of content. Nothing really seductive.

But last week The Dutch book publisher Querido, a publishing house of Dutch literature, went a step further. One of their successful Dutch language authors is A.F. Th. Van der Heijden. A.F. Th. For short. For his new novel Het schervengericht, the book publishers started an experiment with online advertising. The site is like a book with a cover. Between the cover the visitor can get an impression of the tone and the atmosphere of the novel.



The site got immediately compliments. In the interactive marketing blog Marketingsfacts blogger Carl Mangold say: Well done. With a movie trailer half of the plot will be given away, but this microsite makes one eager to know. Another blogger on the same blog recognises the atmosphere of PC games from the ninenties: Critical Path en Spycraft. All together this experiment with online advertising has made a deep impression. Of course it only is a real success when the number of sold book has reached a record.

It is not the first time that Querido has been experimenting with internet. Perhaps I should say that it was an author of Querido experimenting with online promotion in May last year. For the promotion of his Dutch language book Wembley, Richard Osinga had invited a number of bloggers to publish a part of his book on their blog. The fragment on one blog linked to another fragment on another blog. In less than 24 hours there were already 23 bloggers participating. In the end he had fragments on more than 87 blogs.

Blog Posting Number: 678

Tags: books, e-book, book promotion

'Book-on-demand' website

A Flemish company has launched a book-on-demand website. The site allows writers across the world to have their work published and put on the market. It also gives readers the opportunity to find, order and print books that have long gone out of print. Initiated by the company Peleman Industries, the website WWAOW(World Wide Association of Writers) aims to unite authors, readers and publishers from across the world.

The site was officially launched on Wednesday in Antwerp in the presence of the Flemish Environment Minister. According to Wim Stuyck of Peleman Industries, the new concept is a blessing to the environment. 'The new procedure avoids the dumping of unsold books and because of that it saves trees from being cut unnecessarily', he says. In article on the web by VRT, a local television station, the concept is said to be novel and simple.

Wow, what a pretentious project.
- World Wide Association of Writers
- Prevention of dumping unsold books
- Protection of woods
- Novel concept.
I almost would think that those people never use internet. But as their site is on internet and does look okay in design, in content and e-commerce, the initiator most likely needed publicity. Let us look at the arguments.

World Wide Association of Writers. I have heard of PEN and the Writers’ Guild, but having googled for a website, I suspect this association to be a fancy one (if not mentioned in Google with a website, you do not exist). Looking at the site there are Flemish and English titles. And I guess that in a country like Belgium, where three languages are used (French, Flemish and German), more books will appear in all three languages plus English, but world wide.

Prevention of dumping of unsold books. This is a good argument. So far the traditional publishing companies in Belgium and The Netherlands have been unable to reduce the production of Dutch/Flemish titles. In fact when they underwrote the reduction some years ago, the amount of titles rose.

Protection of woods. Where did I hear this nonsense argument before? In the e-book discussion? Paper is produced from pulp and pulp is a half fabricate of trees. So far the argumentation is right. But these trees are coming from planned woods. So every tree cut will be replaced. But most of the present paper production comes from recycled paper. So the protection of woods is a nonsense argument.

Novel concept. This really sounds like coming from a stranger in Internet Jerusalem. I guess it was in 1997 when Joost Zijtveld and Hans Offringa started a fully laid-out publishing company on demand named Gopher. The company organised the whole production chain (from manuscript to book) through internet. The company was picked up by some uninformed speculators, who started international expansion with subsidiaries in Barcelona and Los Angeles, if I am not mistaken; of course this expansion was bound to fail. Now the company is in quiet waters and producing fine books. Of course since last year the international printing-on-demand company Lulu is on the market.

All in all, with this announcement we are informed that there is a book-on-demand publisher In Flanders. So there will be some competition between the WWAOW, Lulu and Gopher in the Low Lands.

Blog Posting Number: 659

Tags: book publishing, publishing on demand, books on demand