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The Business & Books (@businessnbooks) section of the International Business Times reports on "Harry Potter" series author J. K. Rowling announcing she will release for the first time the Harry Potter works in ebook form.

Ordinarily, that would not be big news, an author releasing traditional books in ebook format. But Rowling is taking a different path, releasing and selling the books herself through a new website she named Pottermore (@pottermore). In other words, Rowling, one of the bestselling authors in the history of the world, is bypassing not just one traditional channel with her plan but two -- the publisher and the retailer…. Rowling will be bypassing leading ebook distributors Amazon and Barnes and Noble with the direct, do-it-herself model.

All of Rowling's 7 "Harry Potter" books will be released on Pottermore.com in the fall. She's even giving fans who buy the digital books direct from her site a magical treat -- 18,000 more words that will be distributed throughout the series. So it's not just the Harry Potter of old she's selling, but also the new and revised Harry Potter fans can find at Pottermore.com.

Read this report in full.

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says "Although some are likely to see Rowling's decision to be her own publisher for her ebooks as a significant one for the industry at large, Potter is a unique franchise. 'Everything is different with Harry,' says one person involved with the Potter books."

Read the Publishers Weekly article in full.

Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness) reports what other media and booksellers are saying. And Fast Company (@FastCompany) has this Infographic about the Potter empire.

Adweek (@Adweek) says, “Call them the FB generation.” They consider technology a sixth sense.

McCann Worldgroup’s (@mccann_wg) newly completed global survey “The Truth About Youth,” which polled 16-to-30-year-olds, concludes that millennials live in a new “social economy” in which the power of sharing and recommending brands cannot be overstated. (Past generations defined themselves by material possessions or experiences.)

This group, according to the study, lives outloud, emphasizing public self-definition, life narration, and broadcasting via blogging platforms, digital cameras, and cheap editing and design software.

In the words of one study respondent: “If there are no pics, it didn’t happen.”

The agency’s takeaway: Brands should follow the top 5 traits young people say they look for in their social friends. Advertising should be truthful, genuine, sociable, mature, and humble to connect.

The biggest mistake marketers make? Overestimating their own importance. Young consumers say they quickly tire of brands that clutter up digital feeds with what they see as useless information.

Read the report in full.

Also see ClickZ’s (@ClickZ) coverage by Anna Maria Virzi (@AnnaMariaVirzi), “Study: Millennials Value ‘Social Economy.’”

Another study of millennials, this one by Public Religion Research Institute (@publicreligion) and reported by RNS (@ReligionNewsNow), says a significant majority of that age group believe it’s permissible to disagree with their church teachings on abortion and homosexuality and still remain in good standing with their faith. They’re “committed to availability, conflicted about morality.”

Read the report in full.

Let Somersault help you research your market.

In an article on Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld), Fauzia Burke (@FauziaBurke) writes,

When authors come to me and say, “I want to reach book bloggers or mommy bloggers,” I often have to tell them that bloggers have very specific tastes. More specific than you probably realize. For example, when reaching out to mommy bloggers, it is really important to know the age of their kids. Pitching a YA novel to a mommy blogger with a baby won’t get you far. Pitching a Sci-Fi novel to a blogger that loves historical romance won’t work either. Sending a WWII book to a blogger that covers the Civil War will make for a cranky blogger, and sending a press release to the wrong person may actually get you black listed.

She lists 8 tips in reaching bloggers:

1. Know Their Beat
2. Search for Blogs
3. Value of Bloggers
4. Make Things Easier
5. Approach Bloggers One at a Time
6. Don’t Push
7. Represent Good Content
8. Perfect Your Publicity Database

Read the article in full.

Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan), editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land (@sengineland), has designed this helpful Infographic (#Infographic) “to visually present the major factors, the biggest and most important things that can help you in gaining [website] traffic from search engines.” As a content creator (publisher, agent, organization, author), you’ll want to print it and either keep it handy at your desk or give it to your IT department. Search Engine Optimization is an important component of strategic Social Media Marketing, a specialty of Somersault.

See the chart.

Another SEO-related new announcement you’ll want to read is MarketingVOX's (@marketingvox) “Google, Bing Take on Open Graph with Schema.org.”

As well as Econsultancy's (@Econsultancy) "SEO 'must-do' tips for SMEs: the experts' view."

Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness) reports that attendance at BookExpo America (@BookExpoAmerica) (#BEA, #BEA11, #BookExpo) last week, including Blog World Expo NY (@blogworld) (#BWENY), was 23,067.

Excluding BlogWorld, whose participants were not included in last year's attendance figures, attendance was 21,664, down just 255, or 1.2%, from 21,919 in 2010. BEA emphasized that this year’s slightly lower number reflected higher standards: the show “strategically vetted more attendee groups to improve the quality of those participating in BEA.” One resulting major change: there were 500 fewer attendee authors this year, authors distinct from those appearing for signings, panels and other events.

Also in Shelf Awareness, Ron Hogan (@ronhogan) recaps the Book Blogger Convention (@bookbloggercon) (#BookBloggerCon) where a blogger speaker is quoted saying: “authenticity, consistency, and generosity [are] crucial to any successful blog.”

More BBC recaps at The Reading Ape (@readingape), write meg! (@writemeg), and As I Turn the Pages (@bookangel224).

And watch the Book Business video "Voices From BookExpo America 2011."

The above chart clearly shows the importance of strategically using the appropriate social media to effectively (and integratively) communicate a brand’s message. 

FYI: Microsoft created the Infographic below (shown vertically at WebProNews) to trace the history of email.

This Infographic (#Infographic) by Ad Age (@AdAgeStat) displays social media demographics based on actual user profiles, not just Web traffic. Also see detailed tables of the age breakdowns of Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

This article in Internet Retailer (@IR_Magazine) says Facebook is today for marketers what ABC, CBS, and NBC TV networks were in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s: mass media that could reach practically all US consumers with a sweeping marketing message.

Today, the way to market to the masses is through Facebook, where 135.7 million US consumers spent time in March, according to market research firm Nielsen Co.

And consumers don’t just click on Facebook and leave — they spent on average more than 6 hours and 35 minutes on the social network in March, nearly 5 times the one hour and 21 minutes the average Web user spent on Google, Nielsen says. What’s more, while on Facebook they share information about themselves, interacting with the site 90 times in an average month — posting photos and updates, commenting on friends’ posts, Liking products and articles, and more.

In short, millions of shoppers are constantly telling Facebook Inc. about themselves, what interests them, where they live, what they buy and who their friends are. That’s a treasure trove of consumer information. And in the last year or so Facebook has regularly been introducing innovations that enable retailers and other marketers to use that detailed information to precisely target the consumers they wish to reach.

Read the article and its examples in full.

How are you using Facebook to advance your brand?

Trendwatching.com (@trendwatching) has coined “The F-FACTOR” to describe the power and reach social media has on commerce and branding.

• The F-FACTOR is currently dominated by Facebook, as over 500 million active users spend over 700 billion minutes a month on the site. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)
•  And its impact isn’t just on Facebook itself. Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook across more than 2.5 million external websites. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)
• The average user clicks the ‘Like’ button 9 times each month. (Facebook, 2010)
• Three-quarters of Facebook users have 'Liked' a brand. (Source: AdAge/ Ipsos, February 2011)

Here are 5 ways the F-FACTOR influences consumption behavior:

1. F-DISCOVERY: How consumers discover new products and services by relying on their social networks.
2. F-RATED: How consumers will increasingly (and automatically) receive targeted ratings, recommendations and reviews from their social networks.
3. F-FEEDBACK: How consumers can ask their friends and followers to improve and validate their buying decisions.
4. F-TOGETHER: How shopping is becoming increasingly social, even when consumers and their peers are not physically together.
5. F-ME: How consumers’ social networks are literally turned into products and services.

Read further explanation of the above points.

Also see Marketing Charts (@marketingcharts) “Consumers Tap into ‘F-Factor’”

Keep in mind, according to a March 2011 survey by RetailMeNot.com and Harris Interactive, search engines are still the most popular online means of finding deals (67%), outpacing retailer emails/ads (30%), coupon websites (23%), and price comparison sites (22%).

Let Somersault help you optimize the F-FACTOR for your brand.