Distributed Book Promotion

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, was among the bloggers I interviewed for Blogging Heroes. In this post at his blog, Anderson notes several synergestic elements inherent to the book. First, in creating a book of interviews, I appealed to the ego of the participants--and thereby much of the content is in the "user-generated" category. (Not that it was a walk in the park to get the interviews together, as I've discussed here, here, and here.)

To promote the book, the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, provided each blogger with a PDF copy of the chapter in which she or he is interviewed--and permission to post the chapter. The bloggers are willing to promote the book by posting the chapters because they are promoting themselves at the same time. Chris makes the point that in giving away chunks of the book in this way, Wiley is "harnessing the combined distribution (and ego) of the prominent bloggers that are featured in the book." (Credit is due publisher Joe Wikert for most of this, by the way.)

Will the promotion work? Time will tell. I'll keep you posted with periodic updates here. Meanwhile, I hope you'll have a look at a chapter or two.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/