Back in October, I was in New York to celebrate the launch of a new biography on David Bowie. I was in charge of online marketing for the book which was written by Marc Spitz and published by Crown / Random House. I recently finished a case study on how we used social media to attract Bowie fans to the book prior to the release date and sell over 500 copies. Order the book and look for me in the Acknowledgements section!
Creative Technologist Connor Raus Brings New BOWIE Biography Into the Limelight
New York December 3, 2009 — BOWIE, a new biography by noted author and rock ‘n’ roll journalist Marc Spitz was released on October 27th, 2009 by Crown/Random House. Connor Raus, the marketer behind the book’s online success has just released a case study which details the digital marketing strategy.
When author Marc Spitz needed to draw attention to his new book “BOWIE: A Biography,” he knew what his publisher could and couldn’t do. That’s why Spitz turned to new media expert Connor Raus.
“Publishers specialize in drawing broad attention through traditional media,” explains Raus. “But Marc Spitz needed to target fans of David Bowie specifically. You can’t do that in magazines, radio or television.”
Through web analytics, Raus realized that a Bowie book was in big demand—there were over 20k searches a month for the term. On behalf of the author, Raus acquired a domain, DavidBowieBook.com, designed an intuitive website and began optimizing the site for search engines. Then he took it a step further by marrying the website to social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
“Traffic exploded on the site almost instantly,” says Raus, “But I was shocked to see what an enormous impact we were able to make with social media.”
Before the book was even released, the author had over 1,700 interested fans on his newly-created email list, and over 500 pre-orders for the book. In just two months, Raus corralled over 3,000 fans to Spitz’s fan page on Facebook. Within a matter of weeks, Spitz had readers all over the world clamoring for his book—and he was able to sustain their interest even after the books release.” “Has anyone started reading the book yet?” the author asks on his BOWIE: A Biography Facebook Fan Page. Seventeen people immediately chime in with praise.
Following the wild success of Spitz’s digital strategy, major publishers and literary agents have sought out Raus’s expertise and have signed on in hopes of tapping into his social networking prowess. Although Raus is able to tap into readers, he still maintains that a book has to have the right kind of draw in order to work as a social networking phenomenon.
“Books that deal with a specific topic that we can find a large viable audience to connect with will initially fair much better than general interest books,” says Raus. “But every author needs to have a web and social presence regardless.”
Tags: Books, Crown, David Bowie, Facebook, Marc Spitz, Marketing, New York, Random House, Social Media, Twitter