Barbara, Dennis and I spent the week trading ideas with some of business book publishing’s brightest stars in Milwaukee at the 800-CEO-READ Author Pow Wow.
We watched Sally Hogshead convince Jack Covert to take a shot of Jagermeister before noon, played Personality Poker and were reminded of how wonderful Austin, TX is in the winter (high of 25 degrees in Milwaukee).
The crowd included a legendary editor along with top business book authors, publicists, publishers, social media experts and others.
Over the day and a half we took a deep dive into the world of business book publishing and wanted to pass along just five of the many insights we gleaned from the conference.
1. To build an effective brand you must discover what makes you fascinating. Sally Hogshead stole the show this morning with a presentation centered around learning more about what makes you (and your brand) fascinating. After reminding attendees that each piece of an online platform must consistently reinforce what makes you fascinating, she provided a road-map for authors to discover and highlight their fascination triggers.
Curious about what makes you fascinating? Find your F-Score here.
2. Non-conformity is a must for authors. Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity and creator of the online manifesto “A Brief Guide to World Domination,” is a case study in why authors shouldn’t strive for the status quo (or listen only to popular wisdom) if they want to attract attention. Amidst a publishing environment that heavily cautions against book tours, Chris is in the middle of a 63-city tour that is largely organized by his blog readers. At a time when many authors subcontract their social media management, Chris not only blogs daily, he also answers his own email and has done such a great job of building a relationship with his fans that he calls them his “small army.”
As Sally said, authors and brands who stay in the middle of the road have trouble generating any interaction. How can you be different?
3. When it comes to media coverage, your book is often along for the ride. During Tuesday’s publicity panel, Mike Hofman, Managing Editor of Inc.com, drew plenty of laughs when he said “The fact that you wrote a book is a big deal in your life…it’s not a big deal in my life.” Now more than ever media outlets are looking for hooks that make their audience’s life better that day and in many cases they want you to write the piece yourself. The great news is that you control the message, but you have to be able to make the message timely.
What are some of the different ways that your book can apply to today’s headlines?
4. Make it as easy as possible for people to spread the word about your book. Readers love talking about great books and you need to make it as easy as possible for them to share information about your book online. Add share tabs to your website, include your social media extensions in your book and thank those who comment about your book in public forums.
In addition to Google, authors should regularly search for their book title and name on Social Mention.
5. Be strategic about your social media presence. Portfolio publicist Allison McLean said it best when she said “You can’t half-ass social media.” This is particularly true for business book authors who typically have careers and busy travel schedules competing with the need to be more actively engaged online. When an author sets up a huge social media infrastructure and then doesn’t update or respond to readers who comment there, many leave with a worse impression than if they had never found an author’s Facebook page.
Authors who are new to social media should tread carefully and build a strategy around those platforms that will have the biggest impact on their audience.
We want to thank the entire 800-CEO-READ team for putting on such a tremendous event and each panelist and attendee for sharing so many good ideas.
Fellow attendees: we’re curious, what did you learn?