Podcast Added to Online Promotion

Since I'm on this audio kick, I'll be posting some innovative ways to use podcasts in the next few weeks and inviting some guest bloggers to discuss what they have done and are doing to incorporate the spoken word into their book marketing efforts. So here is Tom Evslin on his podcast efforts.

Host M. J. recently blogged lamenting that there aren’t books available for her to download to the iPod she got for Christmas.

Well, we didn’t make it for Christmas; but hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble is now being serialized free as a podcast as well as in the text editions that many people have been reading.  We’re giving away the podcast as well as the online text edition in the hope that this will help us sell more of the traditional hardcover (offline) version which will be available mid-March.

As M. J. posted, blogs are the “publishing industry’s opportunity.”  Our marketing plan for hackoff.com is based on that assumption.  I have been writing a technology and business blog, Fractals of Change, for almost a year now.  This blog gave me a base not only of readers but also of fellow bloggers for the pre-publication marketing of hackoff.com. And fellow bloggers have been very generous in linking to the book and discussing the latest episode.

Two blogsites are better than one and three are even better, www.hackoff.com, Fractals of Change, and our self-publishing site dotHill press all feed traffic to each other.

The online edition also has some things the offline edition won’t have like a faux company website for the fictional hackoff.com and a company store where real hackoff memorabilia can be purchased.  Comments from readers on the online version helped with the proofreading for the hardcover.

Since my career up until now has been as a nerd and serial CEO (sometimes at the same time), it was easier to establish credibility and readership as a blogger on those topics than as a novelist.  And, since I’m a debut author, there is a huge wall of credibility to climb – as many of you know.  I am writing about what I know about and that helps.

Like fictional CEO Larry Lazard who is found with a bullet hole in his head at the beginning of hackoff.com,  I founded a company and took it public in 1999, watched its stock soar and swoon, took more credit than I deserved for both, fought off a hostile takeover, was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and was changed for ever by 9/11.  Unlike Larry, I lived to tell the story.   It was a fascinating time.

Although I hope anyone who likes mysteries, particularly historical mysteries, will like the book, it has special appeal to those who were involved in the business and/or technology of the great Internet bubble so buzz has to start where you can get a foothold.

We serialized the book on a blog platform both to appeal to the mushrooming number of blog readers and to take advantage of the tools like RSS and email syndication which have grown up around blogging.  We added the free podcast edition including iTunes distribution so that even more people would be aware of and talking about the book by the time the hardcover is released.

Some tools had to be developed to adapt RSS to serialization.  Most important is the ability for new readers or listeners to start the serialization from the beginning (rather than at the latest episode as in a traditional blog) and to control the speed at which they get new episodes.  It’s our intent to make these tools available through dotHill press.

Prepublication marketing can also lead directly to prepublication sales.  Both Amazon and 800ceoread are taking preorders.

Much more available, of course, at www.hackoff.com.

Comments

[Ray Rhamey]

Very interesting. I was thinking about podcasting for my blook, "Death Sucks: on being a vampire kitty-cat" (www.vampirekittycat.com). Thanks for sharing this.

Ray