An impending shift in book marketing 2.0 strategies?

With this morning's news that Microsoft and Yahoo are officially joining forces to question Google's dominance (shoot -- I'd say "exclusive foothold") as a search engine, I wonder whether there will be changes in book marketing 2.0 strategies.

Obviously, online book promotion is at least 50 percent of any author, publisher, or book publicist's focus these days. Your pool of potential readers is limited if you're still conducting exclusively traditional book promotion campaigns and ignoring social networking; producing articles, podcasts, and book trailers; syndicating your blog; using your Web site to create an online community; distributing newsletters electronically to those on your mailing list; publishing eBooks to offer free peeks at your book's content or to gain readers who might potentially get interested enough in your topic to buy your book (or, perhaps, to hire you); and so forth.

Unless you've been sleeping in a cave (not that there's anything wrong with that), you're aware that much of book marketing 2.0 involves spreading legitimate backlinks to your Web site to get the attention of Google, which has been the best way to reach the other 50 percent of your potential readers because that's the search engine to which they were all going to search for information about your topic.

So the "elevator pitch" for book publicists who wanted to explain to authors and publishers why online book promotion was so important was this: "The more visible you are on Google, the more books you're likely to sell." Now that strategy may be changing.

Once Yahoo and Microsoft have combined their forces, it's just possible that Bing.com or Yahoo.com or -- who knows what it will be called? -- some other search engine will dilute Google's audience, and online book promotion will include strategies that are designed to reach out to that other search engine -- or those other search engines, depending on how this plays out -- too.

A quick vanity search in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing show me that my company's search engine placement (my most important key phrase is "book promotion") is about the same in each of the three search engines, for now. I work at impressing Google, and I've been lucky with Yahoo and Bing. (Note: I'm throwing salt over my shoulder as I type this to ward off those pesky jealous, evil spirits who want to make it tough on those of us who care about our online visibility.) But I imagine that, as businesses change and combine and grow, the search engine optimization rules will start to change, too. That means there were certainly be new search engine placement algorithms to learn, new book marketing 2.0 techniques to put in place, and new ways to use all of the online book promotion tools we have at our disposal to help our intended readers find us.

It's all good .. and it's all challenging ... and it's all coming soon. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.

Go, Google, go!

Go, Google, go! Work out deals with publishers to sell digital versions of their books, and make them compatible with as many devices as possible. We knew Amazon (or Sony, for that matter) wouldn't have the exclusive right to sell ebooks. The more companies that jump into this space, the better, from the consumer's perspective -- and I'm a consumer as much as a book publicist.

I'm lusting after an electronic device that will let me read as many digital books and periodicals as I want, as comfortably as I'd like. Yes, I know: the old-fashioned technology (the book, the magazine, and the newspaper) still works, and those tried-and-true gadgets never ran out of batteries or experienced crashes. But, then again, who has all the shelf space she wants to hold every coveted book and periodical? Who has the budget to purchase them all at retails (or even at Amazon) prices? Who feels like carrying them in briefcases or suitcases -- or even in a beach bag (sorry, but suntan lotion, my wallet, and my keys still have to come first).

So I'd very much like to add an ebook reader to my array of choices, but I've been reluctant to do so before "the dust settles." And, when the dust settles, I know it will settle because all of Amazon (and Sony's) competitors will have trotted out their offerings, and will either blow away the current devices or educated consumers about how it should have been done all along.

What all of this has to do with book promotion is anybody's guess. Someday, I imagine book publicist's will be emailing digital copies of books, rather than hard copies, to the media. But which format? For which devices? And when will this all come to pass?

I don't know, but I think Google's entry into the fray has brought the ebook revolution another step closer.

Google steps into book promotion arena?

Hey! I didn't realize that yesterday's Google homepage doodle was about book promotion! I thought it was about a scientific discovery!

Yesterday, Google's homepage featured one of those intriguing doodles that I had to click on before I could start my day. What was that weird drawing, anyway?

It turned out to be a fossil or, more specifically, the "missing link" -- which, happily for Colin Tudge and Josh Young, coauthors of The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor (published by Little Brown and Company) -- was the subject of their new book. The book's publication date, by the way, was(May 20, 2009, which was the date that Google featured that promotional doodle on its homepage.

We all know that prominent search engine placement is a critical aspect of book promotion. If your book's web site is prominently featured in Google, then potential book buyers will go right to it when you've been interviewed on radio or television, or you've been featured in a magazine, newspaper, or online article. Driving traffic to your book's web site is a first step on the path toward selling potential readers on your credibility, expertise, entertainment/news value, and so on . . . so I've always said that SEO (search engine optimization, which for books' web sites involve writing articles and op-eds, social bookmarking, posting press releases in online "banks," and the like) is a key to book promotion (and book marketing, by the way) success.

But I never imagined that Google itself would overtly take a hand in an author's (or a publisher's) book promotion campaign! How cool would it be to have Google link to your book, via its daily doodle? How many thousands of people would click on that doodle to find out about your book, and perhaps to visit your book's web site?

Now if only Google would make its daily doodle available to advertisers. And if only the cost were less cost-prohibitive than, say, inventing a new species or a new planet where life forms could live . . . and if only ordinary authors and publishers could afford to give it a try.

Blogging for Book Promotion

I've been something of an evangelist lately. I have been telling book promotion clients, other authors and publishers, and other book publicists that the single best thing they could do to enhance their books' visibility and to improve their Google rankings is to blog.

They already know that every book needs a Web site, and everyone who's trying to establish credibility and build brand needs an online presence. That's a done deal. But, frequently, I enounter resistance when I tell people that they need a blog, too, if they're serious about book promotion.

I can understand that. "To blog" is the silliest sounding phrase in the English language, and it doesn't appear in any of the Marketing 101 textbooks anyone used in school. Blogging for book promotion is a new concept, and its value is difficult to quantify. My saying that it produces miracles doesn't help, because even though I can cite half a dozen examples, everyone seems to think that those were anomalies. Those viral marketing opportunities happened accidentally, and they can't be reproduced on demand. Therefore, they're not worth pursuing.

Yet I do insist that no book promotion (or any self promotion) campaign is complete without a blog. I can't prove to you that it will be worth your while. You'll have to take that on faith. Then you can prove it to yourself.

Search engines love blogs. One search engine, Google, provides a free tool for creating and hosting a blog. It's called Blogger, and you can't beat the price. Spend 30 minutes fooling around with Blogger (once you've set up a Gmail account for yourself), and you'll be able to set up a credible blog that can be the cornerstone of your book promotion campaign.

Argue with me, if you'd like. Tell me about that $30,000-per-month book publicist you hired who's going to make you rich and famous. But why not give blogging a try as well? What do you have to lose? Blogging could be the making of your book promotion campaign. Blogging might bring the media to you, and it might bring you the readers who wouldn't find you in any other way.

So the evangelist in me says: blog. Blog for book promotion. I think you'll be thrilled with the results. And I don't get paid a dime to say so.

Spreading Your Eggs Into Various Baskets

The key to success -- book promotion success, or any other kind of success -- is to spread your eggs into various baskets. Thinking "this is the one!" or "getting on this show will be the making of my book!" is a sure-fire way to disappoint yourself and sabotage your book promotion campaign.

Here's a case in point: authors who think that Google is the only search engine in town, and who are putting all their SEO (search engine optimization) eggs into Google's basket will be in for a hard landing (and a painful reality check) when the Next Big Thing in search engines comes along, and Google is out of the picture.

I just read an article on MSNBC.com called "Where Does Google Go Next" that talked about employees fleeing Google, as they do all companies -- whereas, once upon a time, they probably had hoped that working at Google would be a lifetime appointment. The article points out that Google, too, is vulnerable to the shortcomings of all companies.

It's hard to think about the Great and Almight Google as a corporation, but that's all it is: an ordinary companies that has risen high and, one day, will hit the earth again. Signs of that are already visible. Imagine if Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo really came to fruition? Good grief! How fast can you refocus your SEO efforts, when the need arises?

So, yes, optimizing your book Web site for Google is still the smart thing to do. But be ready for that to change. One day, in the forseeable future, gaining visibility for your book Web site will be focuses on a search engine other than Google. And authors and publishers who put all their digital eggs into Google's basket might find their book promotion campaign floundering because of that choice.