I believe that marketing is simply a way to reveal a product to the consumer that’s looking for it. Meeting a desire or need rather than convincing someone to buy. The best marketing is really just an extension of the product, in this case, the author and her works.

In the cases that I mention, the author put a great deal of work into creating a community around a project about which he was passionate. Passion and commitment are key… hence this model which does not relate directly to selling a particular book: rather creating a project that delivers value;

This sort of initiative has to be something the author would be committed to doing even if there were no book to sell. That sort of originality and service are what make this sort of initiative work!

FUN is so overlooked in marketing. Be sincere and try not to think of the project as one in which you are looking to “score.” (Ya know, profit before all.)

I think that promotion should be a sort of performance art piece in which you truly interact with the people who are reading your stuff. I love all the conversations that I have with people who visit my blog. Also probably one of the most important things is to have incredible quality content.

The other thing that Kay points out, is to give something away. (For example I give away original fine art that depicts the characters.) I also spend a ton of money which Kay seams to do.

I did want to add a couple of points that may not be apparent in the notes above. In reality, the national Great Scavenger Hunt Contest reading program for kids and teens costs *many* times the $600 that goes toward the reader prizes. The prizes are actually a very small % of the overall expense. The Hunt also takes up 100s of hours of my time each year to manage the program for 800+ libraries across the US and Canada. Time that could be spent writing (which is, of course, my job).

So just a caveat to any authors out there considering something of this magnitude, please keep in mind that this particular program costs thousands of dollars to run each year and all of that money comes out of my own pocket, regardless of whether I happen to be under contract at any particular moment. Plus, if I didn’t have the Hunt to run, I could easily write another book each year in the time I would save.

Those are two huge trade-offs I recognized up front when I designed the Great Scavenger Hunt Contest. I consciously decided I was willing to make those trade-offs because I’m passionate about keeping kids reading when they have 101 other things vying for their attention. For me, the Hunt is about philanthropy rather than marketing. It can serve as a marketing vehicle as well – both for me and for the 200+ YA and middle grades authors participating – but it’s first and foremost a charitable outreach. And since it eats up a large chunk of my writing income plus keeps me from writing an extra book a year to generate income for my family, it’s a trade-off I wouldn’t recommend to every author unless the program they’re designing is something they are truly passionate about.

The last thing to keep in mind is that, with a program like this, it’s an ongoing year-round reading initiative. In my case, that means I don’t get to take a break from it when I’m deep in deadline mode or am finally taking a vacation with my family. There are plenty of days where I feel like I have a second job… except instead of paying me, *I* pay *it*. It’s only because I’m passionate about keeping kids reading that it makes it all worthwhile in the end.

I love what you say about the evolution of records/vinyl: i think it’s the perfect illustration of what’s happening. Each innovation is originally used to achieve an already known result more efficiently, but then new ways of using the innovation are developed… it’s an evolution not only of devices, but content.

You can fight it, but the winners of the game are those that use change as an opportunity to create something new.

Nick Carr in The Shallows notes that book-length works were rare before the printing press put books in everyone’s hands. My hope is that as new media emerges, we don’t lose “old” ones that are still enjoyable (I’m thinking an old-fashioned book without video or other stimuli!).

But while I always hesitate to use the word “transmedia” (until we find something better, then transmedia it is), I think that we have opportunities to tell stories differently, in richer, more complex ways. It’s a different process, with a range of different results, but I think more tailored choices will result in more consumers of literature, in all it’s forms.