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Viral, it might just catch on

19.06.07 Lorelei Mathias

Viral marketing of books isn't something new or tremendously tricky to do. But it does bring with it the possibility of reaching new and different kinds of readers. It also enables authors to get involved with the marketing of their own books.

Trouble is, "viral" is a misnomer. You can't make something "viral" just by calling it that. All you can do is hope that the idea behind the communication and the execution—whether it's a website, email or book trailer—is interesting enough for people to pass on.

As an author with Headline's romance imprint Little Black Dress, I knew that the marketing for my first book, Step On It, Cupid, would be brand-led, not author-led. So when the title was picked by Waterstone's for a promotion, I wanted to give it a helping hand. As a former publishing and now agency marketer, writing a TV-style trailer ad seemed the best approach. After persuading various people to help out for free, or very cheaply (including production staff and actor Sarah Smart of "At Home With the Braithwaites" fame), the ad was produced on a shoestring budget. It is hosted as a trailer on YouTube and complements a MySpace page created for the novel's heroine, Amelie.


Viral value

Once the fictional Amelie had joined various online chatrooms and the trailer was "seeded" (i.e. links were emailed to friends, family and colleagues), things took off. Traffic to Amelie's MySpace page increased, while on YouTube, the trailer had more than 280 plays in its first hour. Today, that figure is higher than 3,000, and it has attracted viewers around the globe, from Croatia to China. It has also driven positive publicity. One review on chick-lit website www.trashionista.com began: "After seeing the trailer for Step On It, Cupid, I just had to give it a read." It has certainly helped sales, but that's not the only benefit of viral marketing; it's more about generating awareness, talkability and that old elixir of publishing, word of mouth.

In America, book trailers have been around for longer than in the UK. US author Joshua Ferris, whose Then We Came to the End is set in a Chicago ad agency, also made his own trailer. Ferris says it was "worthwhile", and that if he and his brother hadn't produced the trailer themselves, his publishers would have used VidLit (www.vidlit.com). VidLit, closely followed by Circle of Seven Productions, is the big name in book trailers in the US. Some publishers are brave enough to produce them in-house: HarperCollins Canada has a book trailer programme, and Simon & Schuster USA owns its own internet channel, bookvideos.tv.


Authors at large

The Brits could learn a trick or two from their American peers. A good book trailer is all about matching the tone and content of a book and dramatising it in a memorable way. Whether you're working with high literature or chick lit, it's a great way to engage potential readers.

These days, simply shoving a quote (or a pun) on the book jacket and reproducing it on four-sheet dimensions looks lazy. And while it's common practice for a Tube campaign to run for only two weeks, a YouTube or MySpace page costs nothing in media space and has no time limit. This approach is a cost-effective way for your authors or their fictional characters to mingle with the target audience. A poster will have to work much harder than a trailer to bring a character to life, and a fictional profile on a real social network works wonders.

If the idea of a trailer seems scary, there are other ways to go viral. Canongate author Miranda July's website, www.noonebelongshere
morethanyou.com, is beautifully simple. Each page displays a message scrawled on top of her fridge in marker pen; it’s quirky and funny and has gone genuinely viral.

These brave new marketing methods are all accessible to authors. MySpace, YouTube and similar websites have levelled the playing field for those with small budgets and big ideas. Arguably, power has shifted from publishers' marketing teams to authors, bloggers and online networkers. Authors can now do much more to spread the word about their own books. From my point of view, that has to be a good thing.

Viral marketing Lorelei Mathias

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