The Financial Times announced this week that it will now allow 30 free views per month before charging for the digital version. The last couple of weeks have brought news that The New York Times will be discontinuing its TimesSelect service. And rumor has it that under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership, The Wall Street Journal won’t be far behind.

It was actually a striking staff change — John Byrne’s recent move from the print world to the online edition of BusinessWeek — that finally moved me from complacency about personally participating in the digital world and got me to the keyboard to write a blog that I’ve long considered. While many may feel the world would be complete WITHOUT a blog about how to promote a book, I hope you will allow me this forum — a forum that is fast growing and wielding more and more influence every day.

To me, Byrne’s new role was one of the most striking examples and proof that we as a collective public have gone online for our information. As recently as three or four years ago, the road to the top of a masthead would likely have been the reverse, with someone doing a fabulous job for the online edition of a magazine, and then being anointed to the seemingly more prestigious print version. Permanence and all that. But, Byrne’s new position suggests that time has come and gone. A journalist of his position (in addition to his editorial role at BusinessWeek, Bryne was most recently editor in chief of Fast Company and authored Jack: Straight from the Gut with Jack Welch in 2001) leading the face of a magazine online is striking, dramatic and a signal to all that “just” being in the online edition of something isn’t so second rate after all.

With the importance of this vast new media landscape widely acknowledged, what’s the impact and power of online coverage for a book? It’s something I’ve been thinking about as I spend my days communicating with the media about books and authors and I’ve come to the following conclusions:

*No coverage is “local” anymore.

You used to be able to hide a bad review in Baltimore, a mediocre radio interview in Minneapolis and a truly unspectacular television appearance in Topeka. Now, anyone with an internet connection and passing familiarity with Google, can probably find these things about your book and a whole lot more. The upside of that is that someone OUTSIDE of Baltimore will see the coverage and that has more impact. The downside, of course, is the transparency. There is no room to exaggerate the coverage or the tone and tenor of that coverage.

*Email is the New Voicemail

A recent study showed that 70% of all calls go to voicemail. That means I’ve got a much better chance of getting a reporter’s attention with a brief (I repeat brief, meaning no more than one screen, ever!) email that makes your book relate to what that reporter is covering right now than I do of reaching them on the phone. As a communicator who thrives on spoken word (please don’t ask my colleagues about this), I may not like this, but I’ve absolutely had to master it. The number of reporters who respond to my email first is easily 75%. I’ve found the number of reporters conducting interviews with authors via email rather than phone or in person has doubled in the last six months. Sure, it takes out the human connection, but it is the reality of how the media operates today.

*Real Conversations Just Got Better

When I actually do get someone on the telephone to discuss a book, the conversation is much better. Since conversations are more rare, they seem to be more valuable to both reporter and publicist. It’s my belief that eventually online coverage will more closely mimic conversation — a verbal version of YouTube that is something past what we now have in the podcast. Oh, and if I get someone live, I always ask if the interview, review, or coverage will show up in their online edition as well (the answer is almost always yes).

*If You Build It, They Will Come

Back when websites were novel, every author wanted to have one. But getting traffic to the site was much more difficult and unpredictable than it is today. Publishers worked hard to get author’s URLs listed in their catalogs, on their own websites, and in press materials. But in truth, unless there was a real reason to go online for something (as was most definitely the case with the Gallup bestseller, Now, Discover Your Strengths, which offered an online assessment) the chances were slim that anyone would find it. Today, that’s completely changed with the ease of search engines. So before you even think about publishing your next book, reserve several URLs for your name and possible titles. The value of even one reporter finding it on a Google search will pay for a whole lot of domain names!

*The Next Generation is Digital

An author of mine recently shared that her college-aged daughter declined the offer a daily subscription to the New York Times delivered to her dorm, explaining “I read that online.” The average high school student today probably got familiar with a keyboard and mouse during pre-school. By the time they are ten, they want half of their allowance in iTunes credits. They’ve never seen an actual set of bound books called an “encyclopedia” but instead can spell “Wikipedia” as easily as their own last names. You may say these kids aren’t your audience. But guess what, in the blink of an eye they will have grown up and become your audience. I don’t think you want to skip them.

For a book and author working hard to break from the pack of the some 6,000 business books published a year, the information superhighway may be the Autobahn you’ve been looking for. The digital age isn’t coming, it’s here and it is time to embrace the advantages it brings.

Some notable examples:

Wired magazine’s Chris Andersen rapidly countered a very nasty review of his book, The Long Tail, that Lee Gomes wrote for The Wall Street Journal, in his blog, a move that got as much attention as the bad review itself.

Seth Godin, who was among the first wave of authors to harness the power of the internet, began his latest book, The Dip, after watching the idea get firm traction in his popular blog.