Social Media

Support These Suppliers


The Book Buy Bomb, or Buy My Book Day, is a relatively new progressive marketing technique that involves encouraging your fan base to consolidate its purchasing power into one day, so as to significantly increase your chances of making it onto a best sellers list.

 

This idea was first mentioned on SPANnet in Claire Murphy Power's discussion How are you using Social Media to Market your Book? by Darryl W. Perry.

 

A very recent documented example of this technique is Phil and Kaja Folio's, Girl Genius Day, in which they have encouraged their large online comic fan base to purchase their new novel of the same character on January 12th, 2011, which is the same day is this posting.

 

As of 3:08p.m. MST, their new novel, Agatha H. and the Airship City, has made it to #1 on Amazon's Bestsellar's lists for Fantasy, Entertainment, Humor, Satire, and "Literary Comics".

 

 

 

 

The most notorious example of a Buy My Book Day, is The Machine of Death, which launched on October 26th, 2010, the same day as Glen Beck's Broke, and managed to unseat the titan from the #1 spot on Amazon.

 

Here, http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/11/16/machine-of-death-webcomic-... is an interview with the writers and creators of The Machine of Death Anathology which details their story and the strategy they used to gain such success.

 

The conclusion that we should probably draw from these two prime examples is that having a solid fan base and mobilizing them is the best way to succeed with this type of strategy.

 

If you are a first time author and looking to create a Book Buy Bomb that will allow you to rise to meteoric success in a single afternoon (which is after all, The American Dream), it probably won't work quite like that.

 

However, if you have a few titles under your belt and or even just a bit of a fan base, it should only help.

 

At this point, this concept is still not over-used, so asking your fans to buy your new book on a certain day may land you more sales then without the promotion. Your goal in this regard should be to ask sincerely with a minimal amount of pressure on the request, and still while reaching out to as many people as possible.

 

Having a fan base who loves your work is certainly the key.

 

Focus on mobilizing them, and who knows, it may even land you on a bestseller list.


Views: 222

Replies to This Discussion

Readers of the this post should check out this Blog post by Wolf Hoelscher: "Machine of Death" Adds Life to Publishing Model. It demonstrates the effectiveness of this promotional technique and also the social media sweat equity it requires!
Another example, and the book that made me aware of the concept of the book bomb, is written about here: http://www.offoffgrid.com/#!__book-bomb and here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=181218775255909

RSS

© 2024   Created by Brian Jud   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service