Being not an audio/visual medium, books have had a harder time exploiting the Internet than movies/t.v. or music. But they catch up, and there are new opportunities dreamed up by time-wasting Net denizens not just to let people know about books, but to remind them that books are fun. Several popping up on the Web recently are:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/one-book-one-twitter-let-the-voting-begin/
Taking their cue from the One Book, One City campaigns that have sprung up over the last decade and some, techno journalists at Wired decided to try it through Twitter — pick a book by vote and then try to get as many Twitter users to read it as possible. So what, if they get a tiny fraction of Twitter folk to read the same novel, like oh, a paltry million? Yeah, this could work. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude are hot in the running, so go check it out if you’re on Twitter and place your vote or suggestion. You’re making a bestseller here, so choose carefully.
A useful use of the Web is getting books into the hands of web-friendly children, and Penguin Books has teamed up with their Pearson Foundation to put books online to interest kids, along with web stuff to further entice them and encourage literacy and reading. Sure, it’s a good deal for Penguin, but it’s also a good cause. If you have kidlets, you may want to check out what they are doing.
http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2010/04/sff-literary-pub-crawl.html
And okay, this one is of dubious use for publicizing books and authors. Then again, having people associate good SFF stories with a fun night with pals in a bar isn’t necessarily the worst idea. The SFF Literary Pub Crawl has prominent SFF authors recommending their favorite pubs and bars which you can then go visit and drink and talk about books. And you never know, the authors may show up there from time to time.
The Open Window 