Why do I think this? Because they are blowing their biggest commodity (besides their user base, that is): Privacy.

Let me start by saying that I think Facebook is an amazing phenomenon. I use it, I enjoy it, and I tell other people to use it if they aren’t already. This is because of what can be accomplished with Facebook’s technology. It has little to do with the brand facebook is creating, which as Debbie Stier mentioned on her blog, is beginning to feel really sinister and sneaky.

I feel the same way, as I often feel when a company becomes very large, and then very cocky, doing things that would never fly if they were not so large (and cocky). I felt the same way when Microsoft when they programmed their operating system to disable competing programs upon installation.

The reason Debbie and many others feel this way is related to the way Facebook treats their users privacy. My understanding, upon signing up for Facebook, was that is was a closed network, accessible by invitation only. I had to invite, and have that invitation accepted (or vice versa) in order to “see” someone else’s comments, interests, etc. I felt safe in expressing myself in ways that I might not on a completely public website (nothing lurid, just personal photos, opinions, things that distract from my professional persona that is designed for more public consumption).

But since signing on, Facebook has changed their privacy settings and policies a number of times, and changed my privacy settings in the bargain. I have had to go through several complex and confusing hoops in order and change them back. The marketing wisdom in this? That by pushing people towards allowing all their information to become public, they will become a more profitable product for Facebook to sell to marketers and advertisers.

But wait… I’m a marketer. And I believe that Facebook is a great platform to reach you and tell you about books that I think you might want to read. I would love to get a look at all your personal preferences and interests, designing unique promotional campaigns designed around your interests, delivered exclusively to you. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. As long as you’ve asked for it.

That would be called “opting in”, and Danah Boyd had some great things to say about this in a recent article. It’s a key principle in “permission marketing” a term coined by Seth Godin.

However, Facebook seems to want to change their privacy contract and start pushing marketing at you that you didn’t ask for. If you want to get rid of it, you must “opt out”, going through procedures that are increasingly complex, anti-intuitive and confusing.

Opting in should be standard… you shouldn’t have to wonder every week whether previously private information is now public, or whether you’ve pressed the right buttons, only to find out later that you haven’t. You should be offered a choice to opt in upfront, and if you ignore it, your privacy setting should remain as your original contract proscribes.

I think the way that going about this whole Private vs. Public thing is going to continue to erode trust in Facebook. And yes, I know that they have 50 million users. I also know that 3 big television networks once controlled almost all of the video available in America, that Microsoft was never going to fall from dominance, and that Friendster was here to stay. Things change, and users can be fickle. Given the choice to become part of a social network that offered the same services and trustworthy, user friendly policies? I know what I’d choose.

But all of that is beside my main point. I believe that as our lives become increasingly public, as the exposure to and through online media becomes more and more prevalent, Privacy will be the next big, valuable asset in online interactions: something desired, sought after, and achieved with great difficulty. Facebook built a network on that principle, and now they want to throw it away.

At this rate, when Privacy becomes the next big thing, Facebook will no longer have it.

The job of selling has traditionally belonged to booksellers. After all, that’s their job description: Book. Sellers.

And as writers, we like to think that publishers are going to take on the more mysterious job of “marketing” the book. Which is another word for “selling”, though it doesn’t usually involve a transaction. The function of marketing is to find the potential buyer of a book and then to illuminate the reason they should actually make the purchase. So in this way, marketing is selling… giving people a reason to buy.

There has been a great deal of talk about how (most) writers now bear most of the responsibility of marketing their books. I don’t think that this is a new thing, however much we’d like to harken back to a golden age when all writers did was write.

The fact is, writers have always been responsible for selling their books. First, they must “sell” the book to an agent (or perhaps directly to the publisher, if a small house, or back in the “olden days” when publishers accepted unagented submissions). This was the first sell, and it has always been the writer’s responsibility to sell the book to the industry (even famous writers have to sell their books: their fame is what they use to sell them!).

But it doesn’t stop there. Once she has agreed to represent the book, the agent literally has to sell the book to a publisher, which generally means an editor needs to be persuaded to champion the book, and sell it to his publishing house.

Now that the book has found a publisher, the book must be refined, cover art designed, a release date chosen… other aspects that go into selling the book to… you guessed it: book sellers. And now that the bookseller has it? Whose responsibility is it to sell the book to that eager reader who will love this book, once they know it exists? The bookseller? The publishing house? The editor? The agent? The writer?

Yeah, you guessed it. All of them. And while self publishing is changing the landscape of this industry, who wouldn’t want a team of passionately devoted, intelligent, informed believers in her book to stand behind it and sell it? And for the self publisher… take a note: You’ll need to build a team of sellers to compete.

I think what many writers fail to realize is that when they strive to have their books published, they have entered the publishing industry. For better or for worse, regardless of its history or future. Writers need to learn how this industry works, and how to make it work to their advantage. I think smart writers have always done this, brining in additional marketing muscle when the publisher is unable to do so.

So the writer starts by selling the book, and once the book hits the stores, the writer and his team are once again out there, using whatever media is available, social or traditional, to sell this book with the end result that the book is purchased and enjoyed by the reader… who at the end of the day, is the most important seller of all.

Social media has made the role of the reader/recommender of books more immediate and more potent. My advice is to start building a team, make sure they collaborate effectively with one (sales oriented) goal in mind: to make the reader into the book’s chief seller.

That’s where I come in… innovating the use of social media to engage readers and make them champions of the books they love. Let me know if you’d like me on your team!

Now I was planning (and still am) to write more in depth about this promotion when it’s complete. But in the meantime, I just had to say something to those of you who are, for one reason or another, not playing Unlock the Curse.

You should play.

Even if you don’t care about winning the prize, (the amazing, magical locket that revealed the source of the curse to Lena and Ethan in Beautiful Creatures), you should play. Really. I mean it.

Wow. I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Now I’m going to tell you why everyone who likes even one of these books should be playing this game:

Are you ready? Alright… here goes.

Because it’s fun.

It’s fun on some pretty serious levels: It brings you into contact with other readers in interesting ways; It gets you to think; It gets you involved the worlds of other books you might not otherwise read, but you will now; And did I mention it’s fun?

How do I know that it’s all of these things to the players of the game? Because that’s what the game is designed to do. And because the players say so. They tell me and each other. That’s actually part of the game.

I really believe that this sort of engagement is one of the ways that we can effectively involve readers, putting great authors together to support one another’s books, creating channels of fiction grouped by writers’ and readers’ natural preferences. It’s a little blog-o-system, and it allows books to catch on in a contagious sort of way. It does things an advertisement could never do, and creates results a randomized contest drawing just isn’t designed to do.

I’ll write more about this when the competition ends, but in the meantime, if you want to get more connected to readers and look at new ways of engaging their interest online, play this game. NOW.

Have you ever gotten to the point where you have so many things you want to accomplish, or you have so much great stuff happening in your life that you feel like your going to blow a circuit?  It’s been that way recently for me, and in a sense it’s paralyzed me… this is my first blog entry in almost three weeks.

Now, normally my type A, commitment based integrity model kicks in here to tell me that I’ve failed to be regular in my blog entries and starved my regular readers (all 14 of you) of valuable information… or worse, I’ve failed to enlist new readers and build traffic to this blog.  All is lost!

But I’ve been pretty peaceful about this little stretch of down time, and here’s the reason why.  My social media strategy is changing.  And I’m taking time to think a bit before I act.  

When I began writing this blog, my goal was to recount my successes and failures in exploring social media as a marketing platform for authors and their novels.  I hoped to attract the interest of other writers, editors, agents and publishing professionals.  

So what changed?  I made my jourey over the rainbow and landed in Oz.

In a very short period of time, I’ve learned a number of things, and because of the direct and quantifiable nature of social media (I can see how many people are visiting my blog, and from where they are linking), I can refocus my efforts very quickly.  

In a standard advertising campaign (the old fashioned kind we did, say, five years ago), it might take six months to a year to discover whether a particular strategy is producing results… and even then, we might not have been able to tell exactly what we achieved.  With social media, I can see almost immediately how people respond to the information you put out there, and I can change course as I go.

Standard advertising and marketing strategies are generally based on standard data, however inaccurate or opaque.  But as social media evolves, experimentation is often a better means of creating a successful result.  Experience is the key.

So this is what I’ve figured out.

1.) Black and white vs. color:

I still think like an author, or a standard advertiser… I want to create a well written message and have others read it.  I create, they consume.  Not a bad strategy, but in social media, engagement is key.  I want people to involve themselves, talk about what I’m writing, comment and spread the word.  Engagement is key, and it’s a game changer.

2.) The Wicked Witch is dead:

While there have always been marketers who possess integrity, and act in accordance with it, a lot of advertising and publicity has been constructed to create illusion… to deceive the public on some level about an product and it’s benefits.  This really doesn’t work so well when dealing with a public that’s plugged into social media.  

Facebook gaffs are reported within minutes of being inflicted on users, and the dissatisfaction gains ground fast.  Viewers tweet about movies as they are leaving the theater… no more two week window for a studio to pass off a dud film before people catch on.  And readers let their pleasure or displeasure with a book be known on blogs and books sites far and wide… it’s getting harder to control the momentum that comes with this new way of lateral, community based perception and opinion.

Face it.  Old advertising models are dead or dying.  

3.) Find your Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tin Man:

I need to stop acting alone.  Partnerships are key.  Everyone you work with should be honest in their self interest… and provide value to one another.  For me, this has meant forging relationships with authors, agents, editors and other marketers who I respect and whose interest in partnering in book promotion will benefit us all.

4.) The Wonderful Wizard:

In analog advertising, the marketer acts as a middle man, invisibly tweaking a message that has been crafted to represent his client’s product (in my case, the author’s book).  He is the man behind the curtain, and no one meets the great and terrible Oz face to face.  

In social media, there is no billboard with an advertising message acting as a wall between consumer and product, or reader and author/book.  The book is it’s own ad.  And there is no curtain that hides the wizard.  The marketer is visible, and must have his own credibility.  The book promoter must develop her own brand and act in partnership with the author/publisher/bookseller.  

And the key thing for me?  Just as the author has, I must form relationships directly with readers. A blog about marketing books is not so interesting to most readers.  But a blog that actually promotes books would be…

5.) There’s no place like home:

As most people have found at some point in their lives, a house is not a home.  It’s the people you surround yourself with that become your family, and make you feel “at home”.  Social media leverages the relationships you have and can help to create new ones allowing you to build and stay connected to a community.  We have this ability to create community in our hearts, and have had all along.

Now, this all came out of my plans to promote my own book (several agents have the full manuscript now, I’ll let you know what happens).  My plan was to begin building an alternate reality world of websites and facebook pages representing people and places that readers would experience in the book… sort of a virtual world building. 

In some ways, this is a novelist’s alternative to the platform building that has become essential for non-fiction writers.  This alternate internet based world would be used to create interest in a book that has yet to be released, or hide clues for a scavenger hunt like the one I designed for BEAUTIFUL CREATURES,  or spread virtual games that keep readers engaged while they wait for the next book in a series to be published.

Why do these things?  Well, it’s a great way to use the internet to guerilla market a book for an unknown, unpublished author, but I think that the real value is in creating collaboration and engagement with readers to sustain and grow a fanbase… a essential thing to do when readers encounter so many media offerings every day.

Every day during the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES Scavenger Hunt, the players interacted with Kami, Margaret, me, and one another trying to figure out clues.  Complain about clues.  Declare victory. Anticipate new clues.  The more talk the better.  

And we were able to engage with two established authors, Carrie Ryan who wrote THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, and Jackson Pearce who wrote AS YOU WISH, as well as Heidi Kling, whose book SEA is coming out later this year. This allowed us to expose YA readers to other authors and books that they would likely enjoy, growing the fan base of each of the authors. 

In a sense, we are creating an ecosystem where readers can consume fiction, and books (and their authors) can find and grow an audience.

This is the sort of thing that I think we’ll see more and more of in the promotion of fiction, and I want to help create these Virtual Worlds for books I love.  Drop me a line if you’d like me to do it for you.

I stumbled upon a great opportunity to work with two authors designing an online promotion tied in to their book tour through the southern states. I’ve been designing a game that mystifies and intrigues, taking the players across the internet. I’ve had the chance to interact other authors of books that I admire. And it has come as a wonderful surprise.

How did this happen? Through Twitter. At this point, it’s almost a cliche.

I’ve been chatting on Twitter with Kami Garcia since before the release of Beautiful Creaturesthe book she wrote with Margaret Stohl (If you haven’t read the book yet, get in line. It’s been on the NYT best sellers list for over 6 weeks now, and bookstores are running out of copies). Kami, Margaret and I decided to meet for lunch when I came to town for a work gig. And we got to talking… about their book, about a book I wrote and the marketing strategy I was designing to promote it.

When Kami said “Can we use your ideas?” I said, “Sure, as long as you use me with them,” or words to that effect. It was the most spontaneous case of preparation meeting opportunity that I’ve ever experienced… really good luck, some would say.

And so with two days notice we began designing and implementing The BEAUTIFUL CREATURES Southern Tour Scavenger Hunt, a cross-internet game in which players solve virtual riddles. In designing clues, we’ve teamed up with the incredible Vania Stoyanova, Carrie Ryan, the author of THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH and nowJackson Pearce, who wrote AS YOU WISH.

In a late night conversation with Kami, at the end of another grueling day of the book tour, we got to talking about these sorts of advantageous connections… the people we meet who can help us, and the people we can help. In the best possible sense, we are using one another… as opposed to abusing one another to further our own agendas.

And this is the value of collaboration through social media. Authors like Kami and Margaret and Carrie and Jackson working together to support each other. Book promoters like Vania and me who love the books and connect with the authors. And the opportunity all of us have to connect with readers to create special experiences.

It’s a simple truth. Whether you’re just starting our of firmly established, it pays to cultivate relationships with talented people you like, with the goal of creating value for everyone.

It makes sense to hitch your wagon to a lucky star.

So why am I working in marketing now? I get to promote books I love to people who will be richer for experiencing them.

How things change.

Case in point: The Beautiful Creatures Southern Tour Scavenger Hunt.

This week I’m working with a number of amazing people, including Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, to promote their New York Times Bestselling Novel, Beautiful Creatures.

My job? To develop a game… a scavenger hunt that will occur across the internet, solving riddles about the origins of a series of Charms that belong to Lena Duchannes, one of the main characters in BC.

The prize? The participant who manages to record each of the significant URL’s correlating with each of the charms on Lena’s necklace wins a replica of the necklace created by the authors of Beautiful Creatures themselves. All of this will occur as the authors, Kami and Margie, travel through the south on a real-life book tour, dynamically represented in a virtual tour.

The purpose? Well, among the applications being adopted in the world of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.) the fastest growing sector has been in the area of casual games. These are games that you can play a few minutes at a time throughout your day, and statistics show that if you can provide a game as a means of accomplishing a goal online, you have a much better chance of keeping people’s interest. While an out and out giveaway is always nice (who doesn’t like free swag?), we tend to be more interested, focused, determined and engaged when we are presented with a challenge… when we have to work a little.

The secret of play? Whether it’s problem solving, learning, creating, or treasure hunting, play is really just work that we WANT to do.

And that’s why I choose to work at marketing books.

The other day she addressed the huge changes that have occurred in the way books are marketed and promoted between the time she published her last book, and imminent release of her husband, John Gillespie’s new book, MONEY FOR NOTHING, How the Failure of Corporate Boards is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Millions. 

I’m reproducing that string of slightly heart-breaking Tweets here, without Susan’s knowledge or permission (it was a public conversation, but I still feel like I’m living on the edge), because what she’s talking about is the reason I’m writing this blog on marketing books through social media.

susanorlean Husband’s book abt to come out. Realizing that all my wisdom re: book launching, being a few years old, is utterly out of date.   
7:48 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean Launching a book used to mean hoping to get booked on local morning shows and featured in local papers. Both now … Gone.   
7:49 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean You’d wait eagerly to see how many cities were on your book tour itinerary. Book tours? Gone.   
7:50 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean You’d cross your fingers for a big review in all the stand-alone book sections of the big papers. Book sections? Almost all gone.   
7:52 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean You’d meet with the sales reps to get them excited about the book and help them hone their pitch. Sales reps? Lots are gone.   
7:53 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean I’m not sentimentalizing here. It’s just a dazzlingly fast set of changes: Maybe more like an implosion, with the dust still in the air.   
7:57 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean I agree; one of the happy changes. RT @BeMissH: I see book launch now as trying to make same connections online. Everyone is yr sales force.   
8:12 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean Has the world ever changed this quickly? RT @euanrellie: I’m a banker w/a fashion business. Both industries unrecognisable from year ago   
8:19 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean RT @converse10: And remember that whole subset of NYC photographers who specialized in author photos? Gone, too. All in-house now.   
8:22 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean I hardly need to mention that many of the independent bookstores you’d visit on your tour are mostly gone now, too.   
8:24 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean I hardly need to mention that many of the independent bookstores you’d visit on your tour are mostly gone now, too.   
8:24 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean What I used to know or have learned about sending a book into the world is simply irrelevant now. Except one: Quality still matters.   
8:25 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean At least, I think it does. I hope it does.   
8:27 AM Jan 6th   from Echofon

susanorlean YES! RT @bsain: Ok @susanorlean here’s my 2 cents as a reader not a writer: the process may be dead but the product is very alive.   
9:51 AM Jan 6th   from Seesmic

The rise of social media has rocked the foundations of print based businesses.  The almost overnight failure in the standard methodology of selling books is perhaps a greater problem for the publishing industry than the inevitable shift from print to digital formatting.  It leaves, not exactly a void, but a sort of free-for-all that makes it easier to publish, and harder to sell a book: harder for a seller to get attention for a new book by an unknown author, and harder for a reader to find new books that are not written by already established authors.

I’m interesting in exploring what comes next:  wonderful books will continue to be written. How can we re-imagine the structures that seemed tried and true?  Do book blogs adequately replace stand alone book review sections that newspapers once sponsored?  Will writers start charging for book readings as Dickens once did, to subsidize a book tour and replace revenues lost to book piracy?

What do you think?  I’d love to know.

Likewise, when you receive a book as a gift, do you then feel it is worthless, because you didn’t pay for it?  Books make great gifts, and I believe that adds to their value rather than detracting.  

The problem I fear will result from ubiquitous free content accessed via the internet is that the value of books, whether printed or digitalized, will be lessened, or perhaps obliterated in the minds of readers.

I love books: the covers, the smell and feel of the paper, the look of the crisp type.  I’m speaking of printed books.  Though I’m open to loving e-books, I have not yet formed a relationship with them).  I love writers: their vision, they skill, their tenacity in bringing their imaginings to the page.  I love publishers: for recognizing talent, translating a manuscript into a book, and making it available to the world.  I love book stores:  the shelves of books, the displays, the sellers who love what they sell.

I want to use this blog to explore the book market, specifically the promotion and sale of books, print and digital… using the internet and social media to their maximum effect.

I’m going to start by listing current book contests and giveaways, specifically in the areas of urban fantasy and paranormal, with an emphasis on young adult (though not exclusively).  Current promotions feature American Gods and Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, as well as The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.  Just click on the Free Books tab above.

If you know of a great book giveaway, let me know!  

And remember, just because a book is free to you, doesn’t mean it didn’t cost someone (many someones) a great deal to make it:  if you’re given a book, it’s a gift, and it should be valued even more highly!