Joe Konrath, successful mystery writer and author of the popular Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series (published under the name JA Konrath), recently conducted an extensive digital PR campaign for a new book AFRAID, a horror thriller that is being published by Grand Central Publishing under the pen name Jack Kilborn. Konrath and his publisher decided to publish AFRAID under a pen name because the tone of the book was much more intense and shocking than his Jack Daniels mystery series. To try and jumpstart sales and excitement for AFRAID, Konrath began a blog tour on March 1st – four weeks before the publication of AFRAID on March 31st – the last day of the month.

Each day in March, Joe either wrote guest posts or answered interviews questions from a variety of blogs. Currently, since March 1st, Joe has been featured on more than 200 blogs. And, each day, Joe would post the links to that days interviews or guest posts on his popular blog – A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Prior to his blog tour, Joe posted on his blog and wrote of his plans in his email newsletter and asked for any interested blogs or podcasts to contact him for a guest post or interview.

Kilborn isn’t stopping with just digital PR though. In a few days, Kilborn will be leaving on a “signing tour.” He’s planning to visit more than 200 bookstores, winding up in Florida for the Romantic Times convention at the end of April. Kilborn won’t be conducting any formal book signings on this driving tour, he will be signing the copies of AFRAID that each store has in stock. However, Kilborn is using his digital connections for his book signing tour – he has issued a request via his website for fans to offer him a place to sleep each night while on his driving tour.

Results of Kilborn’s digital PR outreach for his new book AFRAID:

• Before his blog tour, Googling “Jack Kilborn” received 2,880 hits. Following the tour, “Jack Kilborn” has 15,600 hits in Google.
• Konrath’s blog averages 1,000 unique visitors a day, and he saw a slight increase in daily traffic during his March blog tour.
• The Amazon ranking for AFRAID changed from 1,200,000 to 2,000.
• AFRAID currently has 45 customer reviews on Amazon.com – much higher than most new mass-market paperbacks published by a first-time author.

Finally, I asked Kilborn about the future of digital book PR.

“I like blog tours. I think, ultimately, books and book tours will be digital. Your Kindle (or whatever the hot ereader is) will give tour updates, allowing readers to interact with authors while simultaneously downloading the book.

It’s going to be a fun future. ”

Social media book publicity - Jack Kilborn, Afraid

Related posts:

1. Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...
2. Social Media Self-consciousness At Podcamp Boston on Saturday, I mentioned to a couple...
3. Seth Godin and book PR – should he have staggered his Linchpin PR splash? Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin was published on January 26th....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Well, actually I’m late in actually writing a blog, but I’ve been actively involved with new media and blogs since they became widely known as blogs in 2002 or so. I work in the public relations industry, and in 2002 I was working at Trylon SMR. My team at Trylon SMR was at the forefront of pitching blogs. Yet, we prided ourselves on intelligent pitching – sending bloggers info that they would specifically care about.

As  a result, we had a lot of success. Now, most of those co-workers at Trylon SMR have moved on to other PR firms in NYC. And, back in September 2006, I started my own PR consulting firm – Jeff Rutherford Media Relations. And, now I’m starting this blog.

What am I going to blog about? Well, I’m not 100% sure. But here are a few things. I’m passionate about the book publishing industry – and specifically the future of eBooks. I still have and use my old Gemstar Rocket eBook, and I have a Sony Reader as well. And, this past weekend, I downloaded Fictionwise’s eReader for my iPhone.

I haven’t bought an Amazon Kindle yet. The form factor of the Kindle still bothers me. Jeff Bezos is obviously in it to win it, so why would he turn his back on compelling design? Despite what any one may argue, Apple is still the undisputed leader in compelling design of consumer electronics and computers. Would Steve Jobs have approved the Kindle? We all know the answer to that one. He would have sent Bezos scurrying back to his cubicle following a horrible tongue lashing if he would have had the temerity to present the current Kindle design in a meeting.

So, this blog will probably spend some time exploring the future of eBooks, the future of book publishing as a whole. In my spare time, I’m a passionate reader – fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, and cereal boxes if nothing else is at hand. 

What have I read lately? I just finished The Film Club by David Gilmour – a recent memoir about a Canadian journalist who spent several years watching movies with his son after the son dropped out of high school. I enjoyed this book, but I couldn’t stop thinking about and anticipating watching a lot of these classic movies with Zachary, my son who is 4 1/2 years old.

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block. Do you enjoy crime novels? If so, have you read Block’s three novels re: Keller, a hitman who is passionate about stamp collecting. If not, run, don’t walk to your nearest library or bookstore. Block is a master, and I guess that’s why he’s scheduled to receive a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America soon.

So, this initial post has gone on long enough. Stay tuned for more . . .

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.