Yesterday, the WNBA-NYC chapter hosted the panel event, “Digital Marketing and PR in Book Publishing: Driving Buzz and Sales.” Mere hours after the event, we were excited to note that Gabe Habash had already written an excellent article about the panel for Publishers Weekly. An excerpt from his article follows, along with a link to the full article.
‘Don’t Be Bot-Like’: How to Blend Books and Social Media
By Gabe Habash
Mar 29, 2012
The Women’s National Book Association hosted a panel March 29 on “Digital Marketing and PR in Book Publishing: Driving Buzz and Sales,” covering the most efficient ways to blend books and technology for promotional purposes. The panel featured Iris Blasi, digital media manager at Hilsinger Mendelson East, Lydia Hirt, marketing manager at G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Riverhead, Kelly Leonard, Hachette’s v-p and executive director for web strategies, and moderator Susannah Greenberg, WNBA-NYC’s publicity chair and president of Susannah Greenberg Public Relations.
From left: Susannah Greenberg, Lydia Hirt, Kelly Leonard, Iris Blasi.
Two digital marketing outlets that have fallen out of favor among the panelists: author blogs and Google+. “I’ve been going away from author blogs,” said Hirt, citing that “book bloggers really own their territory” (meaning authors would be better served getting an established book blogger to cover their books rather than doing it themselves) and that an author’s time can be much better utilized on more interactive, less time consuming digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook. However, Leonard, in a point echoed by the other panelists, stated that she believes an author website, even if it’s just a splash page that links to the author’s other social media accounts, is worthwhile as a home base. For Google+, Leonard stated, “There’s no traction there,” after which Blasi added: “It had a lot of potential, but it didn’t pick up in the way people thought,” saying that it’s not as social as other outlets.
For the full PW article, click here!
