Thinking Outside the Blog: An Update

Since I last posted about Gary David Goldberg's blog entry, "WWAKD: What Would Alex Keaton Do," there have been two major developments.

To backtrack a bit, Gary David Goldberg (creator of "Family Ties" and author of the new book, Sit, Ubu, Sit) posted a blog entry on his Web site. I'm fortunate enough to be handling the online portion of Gary's comprehensive book promotion campaign.

The article moved me, and I asked for (and received) permission to "think outside the blog" and pitch the article to other media outlets. Within 24 hours, the New York Times blog, Campaign Stop, posted Gary's article. That was on March 3.

A couple of days later, on a hunch, I checked Google and discovered that the blog entry had spread virally. Blogs ranging from Politico to the Atlantic had linked back to Gary's article (as published by the New York Times blog). I published, in my previous blog entry (Thinking Outside the Blog) a partial list of the links back to the article I'd found as of a couple of days ago.

I'm excited to report that the article is still spreading around the Internet in the best example of viral marketing that I've ever been involved with. New York Magazine's Web site has linked back to the article, and the Los Angeles Times' LA Funny Pages 2.0 blog has also featured part of the article and a link back to the complete text on the New York Times blog.

And if that weren't enough, the real-world version of the Chicago Tribune ran the article yesterday, and its Web site featured the article, as well. The (Allentown, PA) Morning Call also ran the article yesterday and featured it on its Web site. And the LA Daily News is running the article this Sunday (and I feel confident that it will show up on their Web site, too).

Gary David Goldberg is a fantastic writer with an unmatched instinct for choosing topics that are current, poignant, and controversial. His work has inspired "water cooler chats" for decades. So it's not surprising that his thoughts about how an iconic character whom he created, Alex P. Keaton of "Family Ties," would vote in the upcoming presidential election has garnered a tremendous amount of interest and discussion (as of now, there are 215 readers' comments posted on the New York Times blog).

Good for him. Gary David Goldberg is a man who's earned success and found it many times over, and it's unsurprising that he's found more of it with this article. But there's a lesson for all of us to be drawn here, and that is simply this: blog! And when you think you don't have time to blog, blog anyway! And then extend your blog entries beyond the blog. See how far you can take them. You might be able to launch a viral marketing campaign of your own just because of one great piece of writing. It's hard to overlook the success this particular blog entry, "What Would Alex Keaton Do," has enjoyed.

Blogging for Book Promotion

Here's one of the best articles I've seen on how to promote your book by using a blog. It's key message is that you should create a blog as a first step in every book promotion campaign, which is what I've been saying since the advent of blogs. People read blogs, and search engines love blogs. If you want people to hear about your book, and you want Google to recognize your book...yes...create a blog for it.

If you want some guidance on how to create a blog for your book, you might check out an ebook called Blog Your Book to the Top. At $29.95, it could be a worthwhile investment and give you some ideas to launch your online book promotion campaign. Disclaimer: I haven't yet read the book, but it's on my list of reference materials to get to "in my spare time."

Blogging for book promotion...it's not as sexy as getting a call from Oprah Winfrey's producer, but every little thing you do to promote your book adds up. So why not give it a try?

Book Promotion via Blog Tours

Do you want some quick and easy visibility for your book? Ask bloggers to provide it.

Yes, blog tours represent a book promotion opportunity that most authors, publishers, and book publicists have known about for awhile. But now blog tours have made it into the mainstream press. The New York Times published an article about Amy Cohen's blog tour for her book, The Late Bloomer’s Revolution.

A Times-reading colleague sent me a link to this article and asked, "Yes, but how do they do this?"

It isn't rocket science. To arrange a blog tour, you contact bloggers and request that they review your book (or publish a Q&A, or that they come up with their own idea for featuring your book). How do you find bloggers? Use a blog search engine. Technorati's blog search engine gets all the press, but I prefer Google's. Make a list of prospects, draft your pitch, and then start making those overtures.

Arranging a blog tour isn't as easy as, say, buying a media list, and sending out your media kit and book to everyone on it. There don't seem to be an prefabricated list of bloggers who might participate in blog tours. There hardly could be, given the fact that most books would need to be promoted on blogs that are narrowly focused on a particular topic and reach small numbers of highly targeted readers.

Nonetheless, arranging a blog tour is worthwhile. Even the New York Times says so!