Grasping for the Book Marketing

John Ottinger (Grasping for the Wind) talked about book marketing the other day in a recent TOR entry.

I tried to be commenter #16.  I tried REALLY, REALLY hard; my browser blew up on me on the first and second attempts.  The third try seemed to work – until I noticed that it had been given a comment number of ‘1′ – when it should have had 16 or higher and, when I checked the post it wasn’t there.  Off to the great black hole of things that disappear from the net.

Not being a big fan of writing the same exact thing more than once (my ‘I lost the file of what I just wrote!’ hissy fits are legendary “stand back, he’s gonna blow” displays of pan-directional frustration and rage), I gave up.

Here’s attempt #4:

John.  It was an excellent piece for discussion.  I had lots to say on the subject – (genre) book marketing in general has not seemed to learn how to really focus on a target market.  A difficult task to be sure but one that needs addressing: pricing e-books at more than a buck brings it in at about 12% of paperback pricing and is justifiable, anything higher is not and

- my big point -

when are the book publishers going to start packaging a CD with the print version?  It’s way past time.  Add a dollar or two (at the most) to the cover price.  Add author’s commentary, a hot link to the publishers site, a list of up-coming titles, a list of available titles, a ‘if you liked this’ recommendation thingie, any book trailer videos that might exist, wallpaper, other renderings of the cover art (maybe a selection of images for the e-book version), maybe some additional free fiction or excerpts (which I personally hate), the audio version of the book, whatever other value-added muck you can come up with, provide the text in all the various formats.  More than two for the price of one. 

Now the reader can:  easily find other things they’ll like; buy the other books in the series; find other authors to enjoy; read the book no matter where they are and have all of the options right at their fingertips:  want to curl up in the comfy chair by the fire – here you go – paper.  Want to finish it on the way to work on the train?  Here you go – I-phone.  Want to goof off at work?  Here you go – PDF.

Want to recommend a book to a friend?  Email it to them.  Or send them a copy of the really cool cover you picked for it.

Want lots of bloggers to review it, discuss it, mention it?  Here you go – image ready, with blurbs already hypertexted, ordering info a click-add away.

Doesn’t even have to be a CD – I’m pretty sure most, if not all of that stuff will fit onto a USB memory stick.  Staple one to the spine of the hardcover edition.

Hell, book designers could have all kinds of fun designing the holder/insert for the CD.  Put a variety of (imprinted) printable bookmarks in there while you’re at it.  Make your own sleeves for the CD…

Hmmm.  Do you think the threat of me filing a VERY broadly worded patent application for the above might spur some adventurous, enterprising book publisher into actually doing this?