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Google Authorship is a service to help you increase the chances of raising your blog’s or website’s ranking in a Google search. By creating and maintaining a Google+ account, an author’s name is tied to all blog posts, articles, and products published under their name. When an author is “searched,” Google will list all the posts, articles, and titles associated with that author. An author photo will also appear that links back to the Google+ account.

Search Engine Land (@sengineland) says, “If a user returns to the search results (after reading an author-tagged search result) for a certain period of time, Google will add three additional links to similar articles from the same author below the originally clicked link.”

Read this in full.

On SEOmoz (@SEOmoz), Jeff Sauer says, “The sooner that you connect Google+ authorship to a new domain, the sooner you will be indexed.”

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

Alexander Mayor, digital producer at Papercasting (@papercasting), explains his new book service in this article for The Literary Platform (@TheLitPlatform). He says ‘papercasting’ aims to create new hybrid media trailers for books that people can consume on their smartphones, tablets, laptops, or desktops.

For a new generation of readers, music fans, and film lovers, the initial experience of these cultural works is increasingly not a retail space or publishing house but a piece of personal technology – the shop is in your pocket or inside your laptop. Our time is increasingly spent in the company of devices, not books and records. Thus the competition for the reader’s attention is intensified; the opportunity cost of one form of media choice weighs heavily on all the other present options.

The idea at the heart of papercasting is simple: bring to life the premise of books in as imaginative and entertaining way possible and you establish the value of the book and close the sale. Create something for writers and readers to share. Recreate a little of the magic of an in-store event but for a potentially far bigger audience. Make the trailer available from the back of the book jacket. Make it come alive in the shop by harnessing the DIY-media advantages of the digital era – the fact that with the right skills we can now create our own compelling, high-quality media at low-cost and high speed.

Here’s an example of papercasting:

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to produce audio and video book trailers that strategically promote your content and brand.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

This article in The New York Times (@nytimesbooks) by Leslie Kaufman (@leslieNYT) describes Goodreads (@goodreads), “a social media site for finding and sharing titles that has 15 million members.” She says it’s “exploding in popularity and rivaling Amazon.com as a platform for promoting new books.”

The site allows passionate readers to share what they are reading, rate books they have already read, and list what they are considering next. They can do this publicly or among only a self-selected network of online friends. The site is also host to roughly 20,000 organically occurring online book clubs for every preference — from people interested in only Proust to those who prefer history and Tudor-period fiction. There are 314 clubs for paranormal romance fans alone.

Goodreads and smaller similar sites are addressing what publishers call the “discoverability” problem: How do you guide consumers to books they might want to read? The digital age has created online retail sites that are overflowing with new books, leaving readers awash in unknown titles.

At the same time the number of bookstores has shrunk considerably, depriving customers of the ability to browse or ask staff members for guidance.

For a long time Amazon, the largest online bookseller, dominated the digital discovery zone through its book reviews, recommendations and displays on its home page. But Amazon has lost some trust among readers recently amid concerns that its reviews and recommendations can contain hidden agendas.

The theory behind Goodreads and its two main — albeit much smaller — competitors, Shelfari and LibraryThing, is that people will put more faith in book recommendations from a social network they build themselves.

Goodreads includes a recommendation engine, author video chats, book giveaways, and a newsletter that fosters a sense of community. The site is the largest source of independent reviews on the Web, with 21 million and counting.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, "Findability, Discoverability, & Marketing."

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

Anti-business sentiment, the evolving path to purchase, and broadening definitions of social media are among the main issues now facing marketers, according to the Toolkit 2013 trend report released by Warc (@WarcEditors) and Deloitte (@Deloitte).

The Toolkit 2013 report highlights 4 key priorities for brands:

1. Gain an increasingly in-depth understanding of changing consumer expectations, as hard-pressed shoppers take their anger out on major corporations in difficult times.

Companies must show they are making a positive difference by focusing on areas like values, ethics and authenticity, contributing to an easier life, or solving everyday problems.

2. Understand the impact of technology on the path to purchase, in particular the rise of "showrooming" (comparing products and prices while in stores on a mobile phone) and "multi-screening" (using digital devices while watching TV).

These trends suggest marketers should look at more closely aligning in-store messages with mobile, and by ensuring TV activity is joined up with social media, search, and e-commerce.

3. Be aware of new thinking on social media and social influence. The "social" channel is much wider than "social media" alone, particularly when it comes to the potential benefits of looking for influential advocates offline as well as online.

4. Marketers should carefully consider their options regarding "big data" to avoid running the risk of alienating consumers through poorly executed attempts at personalization.

Read this in full.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

Over 3/5 of Generation Z say that when they find a brand they like they stick with it, according to a recent survey. Forrester Research polled more than 3,000 online Gen Z members, aged 18 to 23, for its report How To Build Your Brand With Generation Z and found 62% are prepared to show loyalty to those brands they enjoy.

"The leading edge of Gen Z is at a pivotal point in their product and brand choices, as they finance their own purchase decisions," Tracy Stokes, report lead and principal analyst at Forrester Research, told Luxury Daily.

Gen Z is the first generation born into a digital world. They are true digital natives who have grown up in the age of technology. The only world they know is a digital one — where they can connect anytime, anywhere, and to anyone. As a result, they are highly promiscuous when it comes to media consumption; they will be the first generation to consume more media online than offline.

Gen Z is more likely than other generations to trust messages from brands and marketing communications via digital channels, according to the report.

And the brands they prefer will inspire their confidence and demonstrate honesty in business practice.

Other findings in the report include the increased willingness of Gen Z, compared to other generations, to pay more for products with an image they like and to own the best brand.

"Marketers need to create a brand experience that is relevant to their customers' lives but also authentic to the brand," said Stokes.

Read this in full.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

O’Reilly’s Tools of Change 2013 (@toc) (#toccon) kicked off Feb. 12 with the first-ever Author (R)evolution Day, cosponsored by Publishers Weekly, designed to inform authors, content creators, agents, and indie author service providers about the promotion of books in the digital age. Blogger and author Cory Doctorow brought up the concept of the “hybrid author” — the author who publishes traditionally and self-publishes.

One of the most talked about points of the day was discovery. During an afternoon panel, Kobo’s Mark Lefebvre started by saying to authors: “Don’t wonder how you will get discovered — think about what you're going to do to deserve being discovered.”

The panelists agreed that author investment is very often tied to author discovery. In relation to social media, Elizabeth Keenan of Penguin’s publicity department said, “It’s a full-time job to make it work.” (See our SomersaultSocial training program for authors.)

Lefebvre said the most important thing in getting someone to buy a book is still the opinion of someone the reader trusts, and all panelists agreed that — especially in the digital age when curation becomes more and more important — getting reviews for your book is essential.

The “power of free” was discussed; attracting your audience by offering them something, whether it be an excerpt or author expertise on a subject, and giving that audience an answer to the question every reader asks when picking up a book: “What’s in it for me?”

Read this in full.

See TOC articles tagged Author (R)evolution Day.

Read coverage by Good E-Reader (@Goodereader).

Also see our previous blogpost, "Guy Kawasaki's New Self-Publishing Instruction Book."

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

In today’s world of social media and immediate comment, marketers are becoming more proficient in “real-time marketing;” taking promotional advantage of news events as they happen. This is another way book marketers can get the word out on appropriate frontlist and backlist titles.

Advertising Age (@adage) reports that “when Sunday night's Super Bowl was interrupted by a prolonged power outage, brands took to Twitter to riff on the extended delay.”

Bud Light and Speed Stick quickly bid on promoted tweets linked to the words "power outage"; Oreo and Tide posted graphics linked to the blackout; and Audi tweeted an offer to send some LEDs to the Superdome, which it noted was sponsored by fellow luxury auto brand Mercedes-Benz.

Read this in full.

BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) explains how Oreo was able to react so quickly:

At 8:48 pm Sunday night, Oreo tweeted this ad http://twitter.com/Oreo/status/298246571718483968 with the caption "Power out? No problem." Since then, it's been retweeted more than 14,000 times (and the same image on Facebook has gotten more than 20,000 likes) — meaning that the most powerful bit of marketing during the advertising industry's most expensive day may have been free.

"We had a mission control set up at our office with the brand and 360i, and when the blackout happened, the team looked at it as an opportunity," 360i (@360i) agency president Sarah Hofstetter told BuzzFeed. "Because the brand team was there, it was easy to get approvals and get it up in minutes."

The key? Having Oreo executives in the room, ready to pull the trigger.

Read this in full.

PBS also maximized #SuperBowlBlackOut with a tweet inviting Super Bowl viewers to change the channel immediately to watch Downton Abbey, as reported by paidContent (@paidContent):

According to marketing and communications director, Kevin Dando, the timing was fortuitous because PBS was already in the midst of a weekly discussion in which Downton lovers gather on social media to discuss the show. When Dando tweeted the invitation for SuperBowl viewers to come on over, he says his phone almost blew up.

“Within seconds, we saw hundreds, then thousands of retweets,” said Dando,

Read this in full.

The goal of real-time marketing is to capitalize on people helping to spread the word (word-of-mouth marketing). The Wall Street Journal’s article, “Costly Super Bowl Ads Pay Publicity Dividend” explains how “Super Bowl advertisers continue to cite earned media  — unpaid publicity from news, entertainment, and social outlets  — as justifying their growing investments in the big game. Mercedes-Benz values all the talk about its commercial at $20 million, for example, up from Pepsi's estimate of the $10 million benefit it got from the 2002 game."

Read this in full.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

As an example, click to see this Somersault blog as an ebook (shortened URL http://goo.gl/3nTtN)

Shantanu Bala a student of Arizona State University created Ebook Glue, which has only been live for a few weeks.

Read this in full.

See TeleRead’s (@teleread) article, “Turning Blogs Into E-Books: Meet the Founder of Ebook Glue”

Also become acquainted with Readability (@readability), “a free reading platform that aims to deliver a great reading experience wherever you are, and to provide a system to connect readers to the writers they enjoy.”

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

This New York Times (@NYTimesAd) article by Brooks Barnes (@brooksbarnesNYT) shows how difficult it is for traditional companies to adjust to the digital age; they have to learn a whole new way of thinking and doing business. The article has implications for all book publishers.

Trying to finally master the Internet the way it has theme parks or animated films, the Walt Disney Company has redesigned its website, Disney.com, for the third time in 5 years.

Figuring out the Internet is critical for all media companies, but Disney’s future in particular depends on a winning strategy. The children it hopes to turn into lifelong consumers of its products are increasingly living online. Disney Channel used to be the company’s most important welcome mat. Now executives refer to Disney.com as the “front door.”

Read this in full.

Also see our blogpost, “In Customer Service Consulting, Disney's Small World Is Growing.”

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN). 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

On The Scholarly Kitchen (@scholarlykitchn), Joseph Esposito (@JosephJEsposito) explains the competing proprietary ecosystems for ebooks (Amazon and Apple) and their limitations as closed networks. Then he details the emergence of a third, more open ecosystem “designed not to be controlled by a single authority but to permit, even to evangelize for, as broad a participation as possible.” Safari Books Online (@safaribooks) is part of this system.

Characteristics of this ecosystem include:

·         Small pieces loosely joined….

·         No single controlling authority….

·         Skepticism about DRM (digital rights management)….

·         Strong interest in social media….

·         An interest in D2C (direct to consumer) marketing….

Read this in full.

See Wikipedia’s “Comparison of ebook formats.”

Also see our previous blogpost, “Guy Kawasaki's New Self-Publishing Instruction Book.”

An interesting side note: For Publishing Executive (@pubexec), Thea Selby (@TheaSelby) counted the number of magazines now being published for tablet consumption (which reflects on the ecosystem of the different formats). Her results: 446 for the Nexus; 744 for the Kindle Fire; and 2,954 for the iPad.

Read this in full.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. Or download our blog as an ebook to your ereader (http://goo.gl/3nTtN).

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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