I’ve been tracking the use of MySpace, FaceBook, and many of the other so-called social networking websites for some time now. I’ve tried to find concrete evidence that the time and effort expended on them pays off in increased book sales.
So far, no luck.
People have insisted that their MySpace (or FaceBook or whatever) page increases traffic to their personal, book, or publishing company website. However, thus far, nobody has provided a demonstrable or quantifiable connection between website traffic and book sales.
What research I have done leads me to the inescapable conclusion that majority of the denizens of the most popular social networking sites apparently don’t read much offline. And that tracks pretty closely with the overall publishing industry experience with the MySpace/YouTube generation — if they can’t find it online, they’re not really interested.
We even see it demonstrated, time and time again, on the various publishing discussion groups in which I participate. New group members — mostly the under-30s — want to find everything they need to know about publishing and writing someplace on the Internet, rather than borrowing or buying an actual book. I don’t understand why these people want to be writers and/or publishers (self- or independent) if they don’t want to read books?
As I sit here with my fingers dancing over the keyboard, I am surrounded by books. Books about writing, typography, publishing, marketing, copyright. Standard reference books like dictionaries, thesauri, style manuals, grammar treatises. Books about physics, astronomy, history. And books just for pleasure, both fiction and nonfiction.
There are some new social networking sites aimed at readers and authors. Maybe those will prove more effective, following the assumption that you find book purchasers where offline readers hang out. But, even for those sites, I have yet to find proof that a presence there will increase sales.
And then there’s YouTube. I have some misgivings about using that service at all. Lots of exposure and maybe it even drives traffic to your website. But will it sell more books? One of the problems I have with it is the all-rights agreement you have to accept to upload videos there.
Steve Weber (Plug Your Book!) has a good article (How effective is YouTube for book marketing?) on using YouTube to promote books. Not sure I agree with all his conclusions about YouTube, but he makes a good case. Unfortunately, there is still very little evidence that the exposure increases book sales.
We must each decide for ourselves whether such tactics work. For Slipdown Mountain Publications, I think our marketing efforts are better served by establishing a presence on sites frequented by people interested in our topics. Oh, yeah…and those who actually buy and read real books.
