Comments on: Why the goal isn’t just “sell more books”…

By: Ann Kingman

Ann Kingman — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:09:04 +0000

@Mack, as always, you find a way to put my ideas into words far better than I can express. Thanks, and thanks for the great posts at The Viral Garden.
@Steven, Seth Godin has some very interesting ideas, and I've been following him for a long time. I liked Tribes a lot, and I think that it is a great book for authors to read and digest. For booksellers, I think I'd first recommend MEATBALL SUNDAE or PURPLE COW first, and then TRIBES.
@Roger -- Welcome! Glad you found us.

By: Roger Paul Mosconi

Roger Paul Mosconi — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:49:31 +0000

I tripped into this site by word-of-mouth and am about to join. Thank you.

By: Steven Devijver

Steven Devijver — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:37:20 +0000

I’ve followed Seth Godin on his blog for years before I bought one of his books for the first time (Tribes). If he would have done an author event in Europe I would have shown up.

Paul Auster did a few events in 08 in Belgium, one of which I attended. But I only get my Paul Auster books from the library.

It’s indeed not about selling books, but about offering ideas, inspiration, insight, joy to the people that want to hear from you. The fact that you happen to be an author and that you happen to write books is of no consequence. People will consume what you do on their own terms.

Great post, thanks.

Steven

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:33:15 +0000

Thanks for the link, and I agree, the comments to my post are amazing! I think when setting a social media strategy, you need to make ’sell more stuff’ the INdirect goal. The DIRECT goal has to be about creating value for the reader/viewer/customer, and as a RESULT of providing that value, you’ll see that you ’sell more stuff’.

But if selling more stuff is your DIRECT goal, it never really works out as well, if you are using social media.