Regardless of their genre, I’ve always seen books as conversations with the author. Every book, no matter if it’s the cheesiest fantasy or a the driest business book, has a bit of the author it in. Characters are composites of people the author has known, situations are very often drawn from the writer’s past. And yet, very few people ever actually get to hear authors talk about their work. You might catch them at a book signing, or see them on Oprah (which is generally a sign that you shouldn’t be reading the book anyway) but other than that, it’s all left up to marketing hype and the occassional review.
Meettheauthor.com changes all that. Started by David Freeman, a book lover who used to have his own book TV show (remember them?) and believes that the best people to sell a book are the authors themselves. This article in the Times explains it all.
The concept of meettheauthor.com is simple: pick an author and watch a short video clip of them introducing their book. It’s quite effective and addictive, because readers can finally put faces to names and because it’s pretty amazing to see the head where all that good writing came from.
Meettheauthor.com already has an impressive line up of authors and plans to have them shown in the extremely under-used lookup computers in book stores.
With some companies seeking to turn the DIY lookup computers into glorified tvs by showing a loop of traditional advertising, meettheauthor.com is a positive form of promotion that I can support. It gives the viewer something more than the big sell. It gives them a glimpse at the often elusive author, while promoting something. As an writer shy of promotion, I think this is a great idea and one that I see being spread across the web onto author’s personal sites and writing group sites, like my own CANSCAIP.
Of course, the first catagory I checked out was children’s and a few of my favourite writers are there, like:
[links launch video clips]
Eoin Colfer talking about “Aremis Fowl”
Philip Pullman talking about “Lyra’s Oxford”
Kevin Crossley-Hollan talking about “Arthur: The Seeing Stone”
Anyway, visit meettheauthor.com find your favourite writer and enjoy.
tagged: [writing] [books] [promotion]
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