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Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

Shel Horowitz — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:33:07 -0000

I follow @ChelseaGreen (which published one of my books) and am impressed by how they constantly link to good, useful content--much, but not all, from their authors, and most of it highly relevant to their niches (environmental awareness and progressive politics).

Shel Horowitz, author,
Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers
and six other books

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

Ami — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:48:22 -0000

I have to second the request for staff recommendations--that's always the first place I check in a bookstore, and I'd love to be able to keep up with staff selections at the stores I can't always visit.

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

Roger C. Parker — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:34:30 -0000

A "Twit Tip-of-the-Day" available for readers who want a serendipitous recommended book in their favorite category, i.e., business books, mystery, psychology, etc.

By organizing Tweets by category, customers can self-select what types of books they're interested in.

At end of week, have a "Best of Twit Tweet" blog post with longer comments about books selected during the week, opportunity for readers to select most popular, etc.

At end of month, have a "Best of At end of month, send out a newsletter compilation of weekly blog posts, plus comments received, etc. Perhaps a 48-hour discount on some of the titles, etc.

Best wishes--Roger

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

David Weedmark — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:56:02 -0000

How about a service listing reliable twitter book reviewers?

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

Dorothy Parka — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:38:26 -0000

publishers:
links to online catalogs that are user-friendly and easily searchable
news about new books
recs of books that aren't necessarily published by them, but they enjoyed
online excerpts
author interviews on their sites (NOT video or podcasts), linked from twitter

Bookstores:
recommendations--remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine fell in love with that video store guy based on his shelf of recommendations? If customers knew what employees liked, they could go to those employees for recs.

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

Kassia Krozser — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:05:43 -0000

I know you want my opinions <g>. And a secret AK hangout, to boot. Okay, so what do I want? I want information from my local bookstore. Luckily, said bookstore is Vromans. They're on the Twitter and keeping me up-to-date (@SoCalBookScene is another local bookish source). I want to be able to @ my bookseller and get in stock information before I drive across town (Pasdena is not a huge city, but I am lazy), and I love it when I get updated blog information. And recommendations. Also, I'd like a pony and....

Yes, I love the immediate, personal that comes from knowing a real person is on the other side of the communication. Like when Little, Brown was doing book recommendations during the holidays. Like when you were doing the same thing.

As a book blogger, I am looking for news and a sense that the person passing on that news is going to be part of the conversation, not just an RSS feed pass-through. Those, by the way, are the ones I hate the most...endless stream of RSS snippets without a sense of time or space (sometimes the LAT news feeds feel like spam, but I think the book feed is managed by a person, eliminating the repetitive feel).

Okay, now for someone else to ramble.

Re: How should publishers and bookstores use twitter?

The Brain Lair — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:35:25 -0000

They could
offer free books/ARCs
put links in tweets that lead to discounted books
talk about upcoming books
talk about author appearances
get authors to tweet
HarperCollins offers a limited number of ARCs to tweet followers
BooksAMillion tells you about the daily special