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The Biblio-Mat is a random book dispenser built by Craig Small (thejuggernaut.ca) for The Monkey’s Paw, an idiosyncratic antiquarian bookshop in Toronto, Canada. Biblio-Mat books (112 million possibilities), which vary widely in size and subject matter, cost $2 and are dispensed without regard to customer selection.

The machine was conceived as an artful alternative to the ubiquitous and often ignored discount sidewalk bin. When a customer puts coins into it, the Biblio-Mat dramatically whirrs and vibrates as the machine is set in motion. The ring of an old telephone bell enhances the thrill when the customer’s mystery book is delivered with a satisfying clunk into the receptacle below.

Read this in full.

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ZondervanAcademic / Koinonia Blog (@ZonderAcademic), along with 49 other publishers/exhibitors, is at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society this week in Milwaukee, WI. While there, it’s live streaming all plenary speakers, including Calvin Beisner, Russell Moore, Richard Bauckham, and Douglas Moo, and a panel discussion on Friday at 11:10 am EST.

And beginning this weekend in Chicago, IL, the annual gatherings are taking place of the Institute for Biblical Research, the Society of Biblical Literature (@SBLsite), and the American Academy of Religion (@AARWeb) — Somersault will be there.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your print and digital resources to the academic market.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The year 2012 would have been public television cooking instructor Julia Child’s 100th birthday. To celebrate, PBS Digital Studios (@PBSDS) commissioned John D. Boswell, aka melodysheep (@musicalscience), to produce the above video, auto-tuning Julia’s cuisine phrases through the years. The result is more than 1 million views. Do you have content you could repurpose to advance your brand?

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you produce a viral video.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Marketing tab.

HA! The above humorous video concerns the recent announcement that Random House and Penguin have agreed to merge. It was obviously produced by someone who knows the publishing business.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the fast-changing world of publishing.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Publishing tab.

We held an open house this week and invited friends to come see our office in downtown Grand Rapids (@ExperienceGR), MI (@PureMichigan). Also going on downtown (until Oct. 7) is Art Prize (@ArtPrize) (#ArtPrize), where 1,517 pieces of art are scattered throughout the city for people to vote on; the top award is $200,000.

We were thrilled so many came to help us celebrate the beginning of fall in the Midwest. Our general manager, John Topliff, and his wife Debby even joined us via Skype from St. Andrews, Scotland, our international office. (Thanks to Bill Oechsler (@billoechsler) for his photos!)

We asked some of our guests if they’d like to answer the question, “What are major challenges facing Christian publishing today?”. Here are their answers:

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you navigate the turbulent waters of today’s publishing world.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Recently Somersault (@smrsault) had the privilege of helping sponsor the American Christian Fiction Writers (@ACFWTweets) (#ACFW) annual conference (@ACFWConference) held this year in Dallas (see our previous blogpost).

Michael Hyatt (@MichaelHyatt), former CEO and Chairman of Thomas Nelson (@ThomasNelson) and author of Platform (#PlatformBook), spoke in two plenary sessions about the necessity for authors to learn social media marketing and build a targeted fan base (see our previous blogpost, "The Importance of Building Your Platform"). His message exactly supports our new SomersaultSocial program.

During the conference, we asked authors, agents, and publishers to give us their opinions in response to one question: “What major challenges are facing Christian publishing today?”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you embrace and surmount publishing and marketing challenges in this new digital age.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

For Creativity (@creativitymag), Rupal Parekh (@rupalparekh) compares the 1962 television cartoon show The Jetsons with today’s technological reality.

In honor of The Jetsons' 50th anniversary, we decided to take a look to see how far we've come. And based on where we are so far, by 2062, the year the show is set in, we may just achieve all that the show's writers envisioned and then some. One thing that's massively important to us today and wasn't reflected that way on the show is our powerful mobile phone technology and the importance to us of how small those devices have become, as well as what they permit – constant access to the Internet (not conceived back then) and a variety of useful apps.

The article highlights the following elements from the show: robots, short workdays, trips to the moon, flying cars, video chat, pop stars, floating cities, Jane’s electric dress, human cloning, and vacuum tube transport.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of 21st century digital publishing and marketing strategies for your brand.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Whenever you communicate, start by keeping your audience in focus. Your main message will only be well received when you position it in such a way as to clearly answer your audience’s ever-present question, “What’s in it for me?”

In this Forbes (@Forbes) article and video, communications coach Carmine Gallo (@carminegallo) emphasizes the importance of message-mapping to ensure that you strategically and effectively communicate the essence of your brand or book.

Step 1: Create a Twitter-friendly headline.

Step 2: Support the headline with three key benefits.

Step 3: Reinforce the three benefits with stories, statistics, and examples.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) coach you in media & presentation skills and help you craft your core message so that it stands out in today’s media-saturated environment.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Occasionally publishing professionals may tend to view books as commodities rather than the individual works of value that they are; especially with the onslaught of nearly 1,000 books being published every day. The sheer volume can make marketers lose focus. And if that challenge isn’t enough, today’s market is demanding more and more personalization and customization. Marketers must appeal to consumers needs in more personal and social ways.

The above video offers a lesson in innovative “custom mass-marketing” from the marketers of the vodka brand, Absolut. Engineers and designers created rules that allowed machines to behave randomly to create 4 million uniquely designed (“personalized”) bottles.

What can we learn and adapt from this marketing approach? Write your comments below.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you create innovative ways to strategically communicate your brand’s message.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

LEGO (@LEGO_Group) turns 80 this year. To celebrate, the company produced this 17-minute cartoon about its humble origins and how it revolutionized the toy industry. 17-minutes long and it succeeded in getting 2 million views in 2 weeks. 17-minutes! And the pace of it is slow-moving, at that!

If a slow-moving 17-minute-long video can get more than 2 million views, it proves viral videos don’t need to be constrained to only 3-minutes of flash mobs or kittens!

Also see our previous blogposts, "Unlikely Videos Go Viral" and “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you produce creative and effective videos promoting your branded content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.