The workshop was on what authors need to do to survive, and hopefully thrive, in this tough marketplace. And one of the things the presenter thought they needed to do was to have a strong web presence.

To support her theory, she threw out some stats that, frankly, shocked me.

If you click on this link and go to slides four-seven, you will see some interesting figures. In slide four, check out the online advertising figures for seven major publishers.

If you go to the bottom of that chart you will see that buyers of adult books are made aware of the books they buy, most often through bookstore real estate. Those front tables and end caps are purchased by publishers at a pretty hefty price. And it seems to be a good plan for those publishers to keep paying for those displays. They sell books.

But now go up and look at the advertising section. Note that online advertising is worth more than TV, radio, and newspaper advertising combined.

Now compare the lines that say Book review (not online) and Online: book review. Does anyone else find this interesting?

Now look at one more line. Recommendation from a friend.

We book bloggers are in a position to sell books. Our blog visitors are our friends. Publishers want us to review and recommend their books.

Lately there has been a lot of rumbling in the kidlitosphere about bloggers getting paid to review books and about blog tours and blog promotions hurting sales rather than helping them. I’m going to post some more thoughts on some of this over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, look at the next three slides on that slide show I linked to above and then answer me one question–if you were a publisher and Natasha Maw offered you a targeted banner ad to run on her blog, would you buy it? Go look at Natasha’s website grade and consider her traffic. Look at her content and read her comments.

Publishers have shrinking marketing budgets. They are going to start looking at stats and comments and targeting their online dollars more carefully. No blogger needs to worry about that. If you don’t want to spend the time on your blog that Natasha spends on hers, no one is going to make you. If the publishers stop sending you books to review, you can still buy books to blog about or get them from the library. There is nothing wrong with just having fun and fellowship discussing books with other book lovers.

But if you build a following like Natasha’s, and if you want to sell advertising, who should complain about that?

Why should PW be allowed to sell advertising space to publishers while bloggers are looked down upon for doing the same thing? Why should bloggers be accused of lying in their reviews if they sell advertising to publishers?

The only part of the equation that I think might change in the future is this part:

Are bloggers paid to participate in the blog tour?

No — paying anyone to cover any books would be unethical.  (Paying for ads is a perfectly ethical practice, of course, but with PR, coverage — good or bad — should come free).   To clarify — since this can get confusing – with blog tours (or with radio or TV tours), publishing houses aren’t paying bloggers (or radio or TV hosts) to cover a book; we’re paying someone to schedule the tour:

I do agree that it is unethical for publishers to pay bloggers to review their books. I do, however, know that reviewers for School Library Journal and PW and The Horn Book are paid. They don’t write their reviews for free. These magazines charge for advertising, but they do not charge for reviews. The magazines hire and pay their reviewers,  so the publishers don’t directly pay for reviews.

So if a group of bloggers banded together to create an online reviewing “magazine” they would expect to get paid and it wouldn’t be unethical for them to get paid. In that case, they would have to work like the print magazines. The blog review company would make money off the ads they ran and then the company would pay the reviewers they hired. The publishing company would not pay reviewers directly, and they would have to accept that some of their books would receive no reviews and others would receive less than stellar recommendations.

So while I think that most book bloggers will never get paid for their reviews, I do think that a few quality Internet sites will rise up and sell advertising and pay their reviewers.

The thing that makes the Internet so exciting and so unpredictable is that everyone can afford to publish here. What will set apart the bloggers that make money from the rest, will be quality of content and traffic. If you have an eye for setting up an attractive site that is easy to navigate and filled with great content, you are likely to rise to the top. You will build up a community of readers. We have some blogs on our tour that are in the top one percent of blogs (of all blogs in all genres)  in regards to traffic. Publishers are going to start looking at those numbers, I think. and start picking and choosing which blogs they send their advance reading copies to and which blogs they want to advertise with.

Not that we have to make money off our blogs. Blogs are fun and don’t have to make money. But for those who want to make money, I think more opportunities are going to open up.

In it she says:

I’m not usually comfortable responding directly to reviewers; the etiquette rules are fuzzy on this, I think. As far as I know, it is rarely if ever considered appropriate for authors to respond to print reviews, but some authors do seem to feel okay about responding to online reviews. I still feel odd about that, though…

I had never thought about this before. I have been used to seeing authors thanking bloggers for reviews and interviews and I had not idea that this was considered by some to be problematic.

In the comments section of the post, Michelle says:

Part of it is concern about impacting a reviewer’s objectivity (or even just creating the perception of that happening). It just seems like interaction between the reviewer and the reviewee would complicate the whole system, somehow.

I have to admit, it’s harder for me to add in the negatives when someone has been hanging out at my blog than it is if I’ve never had any contact with someone. It’s even harder still for me to make negative comments when I’ve met the author in person at conferences.

But what are we going to do in this world where we are so connected? I’ve either met or I’m likely to meet almost every author I’ve reviewed. Don’t paid print reviewers meet authors are BEA and ALA parties just like blogger reviewers do? Does that compromise the reviews? Are reviewers never to go to wine and cheese meet and greets paid for by publishers?

Here’s what I think about reviews, whether the reviewer is paid or an amateur or a bookstore clerk hand-selling a book to customers who come into the store: We all have reputations at stake. We can’t lie for an author no matter how much we  like him. We need our readers/customers to trust us. We are working for the reader, not the author.

If I have a really good friend who has written a book I don’t like, I won’t review the book at all. But for every book I do review, I look for positives and negatives that I can tell my readers about.

If authors don’t want me scouring the books looking for negatives to talk about, they shouldn’t send their books to me. I have had authors write unhappy emails to me because they didn’t get the kind of review they wanted. I have had authors send me gifts thanking me for the wonderful reviews I gave. None of that is going to change my next review.

But what do you think? Have you heard that authors shouldn’t thank reviewers for reviews and interviews and promotion efforts? Do you think that if an author thanks a reviewer in the comments section of a blog it looks bad? Do you blogger reviewers have a “no gift” policy? If an author asks for your address because they want to send you a signed copy of their book or a signed cover art print, do you explain that you don’t accept gratuities?

I’m willing to be educated on this.  I had never even considered that it might be a problem.

Savvy?
 

Or A Simulation Study of IT Outsourcing In The Credit Card?

What do you think? Readers, will you read there? Authors, would you like your publisher to follow suit?

This fellow has done everything right from a marketing standpoint. His book trailer is great–long book trailers aren’t effective, I’ve heard. (I don’t like them, so I believed that when I read it.) Meier’s trailer is short and provocative. I love the picture of Charles Bridge.

And then he also is giving away a free Kindle. Umm…that’s a great way to garner some attention.

Looking at his product, he’s done some things right. He’s got a great cover. His premise is also, I think, hugely interesting. He’s got the “look inside” thing going at Amazon so he can tempt you with the first few pages.

I read the first few pages at Amazon and I find I don’t like his writing style–spare and graphic. (How odd that you can have both at the same time.) But there again he contacts a young man to read and review the book. And young men are more likely to be able to handle spare and graphic than old women. And even I was ripping through the pages. They were pretty compelling.

The thing I think might kill him is the pages to price ratio. the paperback is $12.99. The book is 108 pages. I’m not sure if the first few pages are good enough to convince young men to plunk down $12.99 ($9.99 for the Kindle version). Time will tell.

What I do know is this, if you want to sell a book, it can’t hurt to give away a Kindle. A couple of hours ago, I had never heard of Stephen Meier or his book. Now I’ve seen an interview, read a review, watched the trailer, and read the first several pages on Amazon. Pretty effective.

Thanks to Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews, for turning me on to this contest.

If I had a book to hawk, I’d try to go for both kinds of blog tours. A blast where everyone talks at once about the book to get some buzz going and then a tour that went from blog to blog over the course of a month to keep some momentum going.

Might as well address the blogger question. It’s quite simple. Find the bloggers big and small in your various genres, develop a relationship with them, understand their tastes, like, dislikes, deadlines, lead time, preferred method of communication, preferred formats for books [remember, they are publishers too and have many of the same issues you have]. Treat the bloggers with respect — you need them more than they need you. And note, the publishers who are already doing this well are leaps and bounds ahead of you.

check out http://technorati.com/pop/books/ 

I’ll post the screen shots tomorrow, so don’t worry if you miss it. Things are changing fast. Earlier today Something Wicked was 12 and Something Rotten even made the list in the 29th slot.