Can viral marketing work for a book?

[Brochfael]

Hi, this question has always been nagging me?

Can viral marketing work for a book?

Specifically, I'm talking about what they did for things like the Blair Witch Project, The Dark Knight, District Nine and the second and third Halo games.

Can books be marketed in a similar way? Would a publisher support it? Would followers feel it was overhyped? Could an author afford it?

Thanks!

(Sorry for posting so early, this has just been on my mind a lot lately.)

[thothguard51]

Anything can work that catches the eyes of the readers, but by the same token, it can also backfire if the work does not live up to the hype, like District 9.

As to if an author afford it, that depends on how deep his pockets are. As with anything, you get what you pay for...

[Maryn]

I certainly see enough authors at various Q&A and forum sites attempting viral marketing, and failing miserably.

Of course, they're all spamming boards which have a specific subject matter other than book sales, and are all self-published. The few who post excerpts, I see why.

Maryn, who has no patience for inept viral marketing

[defyalllogic]

orchestrated viral marketing is so obnoxious. And people can usually tell. Sketchers tried to make a viral video of a girl walking around the house in her underpants being filmed by her boyfriend and she's all like "stopit! i'm toning. these are my sketchers for making my butt awesome!" It was completely tragic and lame.

Publishers will support what they think will work to get the books sold. If they think it's a good/bad idea is what determines what they're for/against.

If you have something that people don't notice/care is marketing you can avoid the overhype-letdown challenge... (example: addictive casual games)

[MJNL]

Anything that spams me gets blacklisted immediately--If I get a random add in my mail (be it e or otherwise), I'll never buy the product. But that's just me.

Remember, viral marketing can walk a fine line between "getting the word out" and "annoying potential customers to death."

If you choose to go that rout, just make sure the method you're using isn't one that you'd be annoyed by if someone else did it to you. For me, things like youtube videos are a-ok (as long as I'm not getting spammed by a link) because I can choose to go watch it or not. It's not invading my space. However, would watching a youtube video increase the chances of me buying a product showcased within? Probably not.

Again, this is just my opinion as a single consumer.

[SandraBeckwith]

Yes, it can be done, but it isn't easy. My favorite example is for the book Porn for Women, which did so well that they turned it into a wall calendar, too. I wrote about this in my newsletter (http://www.buildbookbuzz.com)a couple of years ago. Here's the article in case it helps anyone:

A Virus You Don’t Want to Cure

Have you received the e-mail featuring a collection of photos showing fine-looking men doing provocative things? One example: He’s holding a trash bag. The caption?

“As long as I have legs to walk on, you’ll never have to take out the garbage.”

Another: He looks over the top of the sports section of the newspaper, saying, “Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair.”

Because one of the images sent via e-mail is the cover of “Porn for Women (http://tinyurl.com/29cjvl),” (http://tinyurl.com/29cjvl) the tongue-in-cheek picture book from which the pages were scanned, I suspected that the message was part of a viral campaign. (For a sample, see the e-postcards on the publisher’s Web site at http://tinyurl.com/33fdry.) But who was behind it? Was it the publisher? Or the authors? The publisher doesn’t know who is responsible but is grateful for the results – the book is selling very well and appeared on several regional best-seller lists in the spring.



What elements do you need in place to create a similar campaign for *your* book? Here are a few tips:
Know your target audience. Your message has to resonate with the people most likely to buy your book. What do you know about them that you can use to catch their attention?
Quantity isn’t as important as quality. You don’t necessarily want to reach a lot of people – you want to reach a lot of the *right* people.
Evoke emotion. I’m not going to send your message along to my friends unless it makes me laugh, cry, or react with anger.
Entertain, educate or inform. Nobody will share your message if it doesn’t have some value. Can you solve a problem your target market has? Can you tickle their collective funny bone? Many women find the photos and captions in “Porn for Women” very funny, so using those pictures in the viral campaign works. It’s also a good way for us to “sample” the book without going to a bricks and mortar store to flip through the pages.
Don’t be self-serving or self-promotional. Many of us have trouble creating a marketing message that doesn’t read like an ad but if your campaign smacks of advertising and has no other merit, it won’t become viral.
Be creative. Although the popular and hilarious “Tea Partay” YouTube video for Smirnoff’s new Raw Tea alcoholic beverage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0) is clearly a commercial, it’s so funny you can’t help but share it.
How can you apply these guidelines to an e-mail message designed to spread the word about your book? It’s an affordable way to generate buzz so give it some thought.

Cheers,
Sandy

[Zeusmiester]

if it catches the eye of the reader, don't see why it wouldn't work.. but it catch my eye it needs to have something i like very well in it.. otherwise i'm too focused
Zeus

[defyalllogic]

i got the porn for women email... multiple times. didn't ever look up the book, but remember seeing the cover in the chain

[Brochfael]

Thanks for the replies, though I was specifically referring to campaigns such as those in the examples I listed.

Creating websites for the fictional people/organizations that appear in your book, newspapers set in your book's universe, starting scavenger hunts and ARG's, online games, etc... The kind of stuff that draws people in.

I know that there is a relatively wide definition for viral marketing, and on the whole it's used to describe chain messages or advertisements alongside popular YouTube videos. However, I was specifically talking about the ARG-style campaigns that were used to promote the examples in my first post. I was just wondering if that sort of approach would work with a book.

[the bunny hugger]

'Viral marketing' refers to getting members of the public to amplify your message by whatever means. If you are talking about something other than that I would recommend using a different phrase to describe it. Nor do I think the examples you gave typically draw people into a story unless it is already wildly successful or being produced by a within a mainstream franchise.

[defyalllogic]

yeah. those are more bonus materials or fluff.

They seem to be popular for children or for a few minutes but not really worth the effort. all the content and material you'd need to create for a character's website or a fake news paper... a lot of work (or money if you hire people)

personally, I can't see them pulling me in. I's probably only want that from Terry Pratchett and that's because the discworld is already so immersive and diverse and i'd expect the "news" to read like short stories...

even harry potter and twilight, there's one story and anything extra i didn't really care about.

hell, in the black dagger brotherhood books too many plotlines make me want to throw the book at the wall. couldn't imagine wading through "BDB world news". though i would prefer that to having them all crammed into the books....