YAY OR NAY WEDNESDAY

Secondbuzz_2 On Yay or Nay this week: a non-death related question for you! Woo-hoo...

Mediabistro reports that the publicity for Elizabeth Buchan's latest novel The Second Wife will be a little different from the norm. Instead of running up a huge advertising budget, Publishers Penguin are instead recruiting 1000 volunteers, who all get a free copy of the book, to talk it up to their friends, colleagues and family members. (Plus anyone else they come across!) The volunteers get a pack with suggested topics to discuss and the campaign will run until the end of summer. If it's successful the strategy could be used to promote other books too, harnessing that all-important word of mouth.

But does 'buzz marketing' like this work for you - do you want your friends to have an agenda when you chat? Or is it the way of the future and just an extension of recommending books to each other, i.e perfectly harmless? Are the volunteers being exploited - 1000 books is much cheaper than the cost of advertising after all - or doesn't it matter as long as they're keen to participate?

In other words... Is this whole idea a Yay or a Nay... and why?

Yay or Nay archives.

[Don't forget it's Yay or Nay day at Hippyshopper, Bridalwave, Dollymix, Corrie Blog, Catwalk Queen, Kiss and Makeup, The Bag Lady, Shoewawa and Shiny Shiny, too!]

Shanna Swendson

Oh, if they&#39re giving out discussion topics and implying that they owe something for getting a free book, that changes things. Ick.

Otherwise, distributing lots of free copies is a tried-and-true publicity method. I&#39d just never heard of anyone telling people what to say about it. In all the free books I get, I&#39ve never seen that. Anyone who sends me books probably knows better. :-)

I wonder if they&#39re doing this through one of those buzz agencies. There are actually ad agencies now that keep a database of "buzz agents" that they can select according to demographics for a particular promotion so they can send samples to them and get them to talk about the products. People sign up to get free stuff, then they get points for participating in promotions and turning in reports of what they do, and they can add up points to redeem for prizes. That kind of bugs me because I don&#39t like the idea of my friends telling me about something not because they just happen to like it but rather because they&#39re going to earn prizes. It&#39s like being invited to a party at a friend&#39s house and finding out when you get there that they&#39re doing one of those home shopping parties for cookware or jewelry.

maz

NAY!! What a totally cheapskate, exploitative idea. They should jolly well do (and PAY for) their own publicity. That&#39s what I think anyway and again I say NAY - NAY - NAY!!!

So there.

DIANE SHIPLEY

Hmm, but Shanna they are also giving out instructional packs of subjects to discuss and are encouraged to REALLY work for their &#39free&#39 book... I guess you can guess it&#39s a Nay for me!

Jill

I love the idea! I hope they pick me! LOL

:)

Shanna Swendson

This isn&#39t exactly a new idea. Publishers give books away as part of promotional activities all the time. In fact, that&#39s about the only promotion a lot of authors who aren&#39t at the level to get real advertising, get. The books get handed out at writing conferences or fan conventions, and publishers generally do a "big mouth" mailing to prominent or influential people -- usually other authors or well-known bloggers -- to get books in the hands of people likely to talk about them. The only difference here is scale. They may give away 50 copies of my books, but 1,000 means more word of mouth can spread because a critical mass of people has read it. There are a few other books where they built demand and word of mouth by sending out an unusually large number of advance copies.

YAY OR NAY WEDNESDAY

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