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Team BookBuzzr
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Monday, November 2, 2009
BookBuzzr interviews Michele Brenton – Author of Alternative Poetry…
A few months ago, we had the swine flu scare in India. Everywhere I went, I saw people wearing masks. And everybody kept cleansing their hands with hand-sanitizer. You could practically cut the fear in the air with a knife. At this point, I stumbled upon a BookBuzzr book with the words "Alternative Poetry - Lite" in the title. Intrigued, I flipped through a few pages. And before I knew it I was smiling ... and then laughing! Then I came across this little verse which was so relevant to the "lets-keep-everything-clean" mania that had enveloped me and all other people in my immediate surroundings:
Where There's Dirt There's Life
Nothing good comes from sterile and pure.
The best things in life spring up from manure.
I was able to draw my own conclusions from this poem and more importantly it lightened my heart and made me understand that the fear that people were feeling at that point in time did not mean anything. So when I recently got the opportunity to interview the author - Michele Brenton - I jumped at it:)
So here goes:
Hi Michele ... Can you tell our author community of readers, a little about yourself?
Hi Vikram... I'll try.
I read fluently when I was two years old and became known to friends and neighbours as 'The Professor' and as 'Bossy Boots' to my immediate family! I was extremely pompous and enjoyed telling everyone how to behave and lost my temper if I wasn't taken very seriously indeed!
'The Professor' would be quite disgusted at the fact that I am now known as banana_the_poet – but I'm quite happy about it. :)
As I grew up I found I was much happier standing on the sidelines, observing and writing rather than trying to control everything and everyone around me. I suppose the simple fact nobody ever did what I told them might have had something to do with that change of tactic LOL
And can you tell us about your book (in verse form if at all possible :))
Alternative Poetry Books - Yellow edition
It's yellow and red and will sit on your shelf
waiting for its friends;
There will be another six
before this series ends.
It isn't exclusively funny and it isn't entirely sad
like life my poetry series
will lead you through
times good and bad.
Each Alternative Poetry Book
will be of a different hue,
To send a rainbow message
of hope from me to you.
I don't expect to change the world
or even cause a riot,
But I'll know I got my message through
If you care enough to buy it.
On opening your book, I see the Tai Chi circle in a few places. What does this mean?
I love that symbol so much! It combines opposite/reflecting images to create an eternal harmonious circular completeness. Life is made up of good and bad, happy and unhappy, dark and light, night and day etc
Balance can only be found by using both sides of every equation.
I hope my poetry books embody balance by alternating fun, light, amusing and silly poems with serious, dark, earnest and thoughtful ones.
Any tips for someone looking to write funny poems?
Always put as much thought and care into writing funny poems as you would into a serious one. Just because a poem is intended to be amusing doesn't mean it needn't be a 'good' one. While I play with meter, cliches and rhymes etc I always do it purposefully. I believe that every facet of a poem should always have been chosen for a reason and if asked I should be able to justify each and every choice.
I noticed that you've got over 10,000 widget views and nearly 700 full screen views on BookBuzzr. Any tips for author looking to market their book on the Internet??
The BookBuzzr widget is a fantastic little gizmo and I love it! It has a few places where it could be improved – but nothing is perfect straight away and I am confident it will eventually be pretty close to perfect due to the marvelously responsive attitude you guys have to feedback.
I put my widget on my blogs for my visitors to preview the little sample e-book I put together as a precursor for my full 84 page paperback.
I also use my Twitter presence to point people at my BookBuzzr pages and have told people about it (with the link of course) on the various forums I frequent. I recently posted to a poetry genre forum on Amazon and included a link to BookBuzzr on that – I would have been mad not to as unfortunately the 'look inside' option on my Amazon listings proved to be rather disappointing.
I've been impressed by the recent addition on the BookBuzzr format of a page at the end of the widget that highlights other BookBuzzr books for readers. That's a great idea and means that for each BookBuzzr author that gets reads a group of other authors have a chance to be spotted as well. A win win situation for readers and writers.
This is the first book I've ever tried to market and so I am very new to how this all works but I was very pleased to find Freado and BookBuzzr – it has streamlined things considerably – and most people seem to like playing with the flippy pages :)
I also started a Blog Tour to promote my book – this being one stop on the Tour for which I am very grateful. I had no idea what a Blog Tour was a month ago – but now here I am doing one – and I still don't have much of an idea, but it seems to be a GOOD THING TO DO – so I am doing it and so far it has been a lot of fun.
Time will tell if it was useful in the marketing scheme of things, but as long as we're all having fun and it isn't costing anyone anything but time – it is worth a try.
Do you market your book on Facebook? Why or Why not?
I haven't ever been able to get into the Facebook vibe. Not sure why. Maybe because it feels very complicated to me and I like simple things best. Twitter is very simple so I quickly got hooked. BookBuzzr is quite simple to use and so I found it accessible to use, similarly the Blog.co.uk blogging community I use is simple and easy to make sense of – and that is why you'll find me there.
But Facebook – I joined but I haven't been back more than twice. I have asked friends and family who are Facebook members to mention me on there – but I don't know if they have, or if anyone has taken any notice if they have.
I have a nagging feeling I ought to do more on Facebook – but I spend so much time already on Twitter, my blogs, the forums I participate in and I am busy with putting together the next books in the Alternative Poetry Books series AND I have to fit real life in somewhere too – so Facebook is lost in the 'might have been' box at the back of my brain.
You are also offering 50 embossed signed certified limited editions of your book. I think it's an absolutely fantastic idea because it's like buying a souvenir. In fact, I feel like ordering one for myself! How should people go about getting a copy?
Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly
http://TheAlternativePoetry.blog.co.uk/2009/10/16/alternative-poetry-books-yellow-edition-here-it-is-7181615/
This is the direct link to the 'buy it here' page on the blog I set up specifically for the Alternative Poetry Books series, where the special signed copies can be purchased.
This link can also be found on the 'BUY' button on the BookBuzzr widget - which lists ALL the various purchasing options/links including for standard copies via the usual online stores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble and will soon carry details of local bookshops which will stock or order the books for you. I update the 'BUY' information regularly as the situation develops and once all 50 embossed signed copies are gone I will remove the link from the widget.
And finally, can you make up a verse / poem / limerick about BookBuzzr?
Behold the BookBuzzr widget!
It is so small and neat;
if you were out of your mind
and the oddball kind,
you could work it with your feet.
You'd have to take your socks off
in the privacy of your house,
and soon you'd be flipping pages
as your toes clicked away at your mouse.
But you might find one small problem
though the widget would work with ease,
If you use your feet to access it
your mouse might smell of cheese!
(Note: This interview with author Michele Brenton is part of her blog tour. She was previously featured on Dan Holloway's blog. Her next blog interview will be with Tom the Seasideman.)
Where There's Dirt There's Life
Nothing good comes from sterile and pure.
The best things in life spring up from manure.
I was able to draw my own conclusions from this poem and more importantly it lightened my heart and made me understand that the fear that people were feeling at that point in time did not mean anything. So when I recently got the opportunity to interview the author - Michele Brenton - I jumped at it:)
So here goes:
Hi Michele ... Can you tell our author community of readers, a little about yourself?
Hi Vikram... I'll try.
I read fluently when I was two years old and became known to friends and neighbours as 'The Professor' and as 'Bossy Boots' to my immediate family! I was extremely pompous and enjoyed telling everyone how to behave and lost my temper if I wasn't taken very seriously indeed!
'The Professor' would be quite disgusted at the fact that I am now known as banana_the_poet – but I'm quite happy about it. :)
As I grew up I found I was much happier standing on the sidelines, observing and writing rather than trying to control everything and everyone around me. I suppose the simple fact nobody ever did what I told them might have had something to do with that change of tactic LOL
And can you tell us about your book (in verse form if at all possible :))
Alternative Poetry Books - Yellow edition
It's yellow and red and will sit on your shelf
waiting for its friends;
There will be another six
before this series ends.
It isn't exclusively funny and it isn't entirely sad
like life my poetry series
will lead you through
times good and bad.
Each Alternative Poetry Book
will be of a different hue,
To send a rainbow message
of hope from me to you.
I don't expect to change the world
or even cause a riot,
But I'll know I got my message through
If you care enough to buy it.
On opening your book, I see the Tai Chi circle in a few places. What does this mean?
I love that symbol so much! It combines opposite/reflecting images to create an eternal harmonious circular completeness. Life is made up of good and bad, happy and unhappy, dark and light, night and day etc
Balance can only be found by using both sides of every equation.
I hope my poetry books embody balance by alternating fun, light, amusing and silly poems with serious, dark, earnest and thoughtful ones.
Any tips for someone looking to write funny poems?
Always put as much thought and care into writing funny poems as you would into a serious one. Just because a poem is intended to be amusing doesn't mean it needn't be a 'good' one. While I play with meter, cliches and rhymes etc I always do it purposefully. I believe that every facet of a poem should always have been chosen for a reason and if asked I should be able to justify each and every choice.
I noticed that you've got over 10,000 widget views and nearly 700 full screen views on BookBuzzr. Any tips for author looking to market their book on the Internet??
The BookBuzzr widget is a fantastic little gizmo and I love it! It has a few places where it could be improved – but nothing is perfect straight away and I am confident it will eventually be pretty close to perfect due to the marvelously responsive attitude you guys have to feedback.
I put my widget on my blogs for my visitors to preview the little sample e-book I put together as a precursor for my full 84 page paperback.
I also use my Twitter presence to point people at my BookBuzzr pages and have told people about it (with the link of course) on the various forums I frequent. I recently posted to a poetry genre forum on Amazon and included a link to BookBuzzr on that – I would have been mad not to as unfortunately the 'look inside' option on my Amazon listings proved to be rather disappointing.
I've been impressed by the recent addition on the BookBuzzr format of a page at the end of the widget that highlights other BookBuzzr books for readers. That's a great idea and means that for each BookBuzzr author that gets reads a group of other authors have a chance to be spotted as well. A win win situation for readers and writers.
This is the first book I've ever tried to market and so I am very new to how this all works but I was very pleased to find Freado and BookBuzzr – it has streamlined things considerably – and most people seem to like playing with the flippy pages :)
I also started a Blog Tour to promote my book – this being one stop on the Tour for which I am very grateful. I had no idea what a Blog Tour was a month ago – but now here I am doing one – and I still don't have much of an idea, but it seems to be a GOOD THING TO DO – so I am doing it and so far it has been a lot of fun.
Time will tell if it was useful in the marketing scheme of things, but as long as we're all having fun and it isn't costing anyone anything but time – it is worth a try.
Do you market your book on Facebook? Why or Why not?
I haven't ever been able to get into the Facebook vibe. Not sure why. Maybe because it feels very complicated to me and I like simple things best. Twitter is very simple so I quickly got hooked. BookBuzzr is quite simple to use and so I found it accessible to use, similarly the Blog.co.uk blogging community I use is simple and easy to make sense of – and that is why you'll find me there.
But Facebook – I joined but I haven't been back more than twice. I have asked friends and family who are Facebook members to mention me on there – but I don't know if they have, or if anyone has taken any notice if they have.
I have a nagging feeling I ought to do more on Facebook – but I spend so much time already on Twitter, my blogs, the forums I participate in and I am busy with putting together the next books in the Alternative Poetry Books series AND I have to fit real life in somewhere too – so Facebook is lost in the 'might have been' box at the back of my brain.
You are also offering 50 embossed signed certified limited editions of your book. I think it's an absolutely fantastic idea because it's like buying a souvenir. In fact, I feel like ordering one for myself! How should people go about getting a copy?
Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly
http://TheAlternativePoetry.blog.co.uk/2009/10/16/alternative-poetry-books-yellow-edition-here-it-is-7181615/
This is the direct link to the 'buy it here' page on the blog I set up specifically for the Alternative Poetry Books series, where the special signed copies can be purchased.
This link can also be found on the 'BUY' button on the BookBuzzr widget - which lists ALL the various purchasing options/links including for standard copies via the usual online stores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble and will soon carry details of local bookshops which will stock or order the books for you. I update the 'BUY' information regularly as the situation develops and once all 50 embossed signed copies are gone I will remove the link from the widget.
And finally, can you make up a verse / poem / limerick about BookBuzzr?
Behold the BookBuzzr widget!
It is so small and neat;
if you were out of your mind
and the oddball kind,
you could work it with your feet.
You'd have to take your socks off
in the privacy of your house,
and soon you'd be flipping pages
as your toes clicked away at your mouse.
But you might find one small problem
though the widget would work with ease,
If you use your feet to access it
your mouse might smell of cheese!
(Note: This interview with author Michele Brenton is part of her blog tour. She was previously featured on Dan Holloway's blog. Her next blog interview will be with Tom the Seasideman.)
Monday, October 26, 2009
BookBuzzr Interviews Chad Lilly - Founder of Inner Circle Publishing
Your book - uncommon sense - has a unique style and touches the reader in a very different way. Can you tell us a little about the book?
"uncommon sense" was my second book and contains poetry focused on the development of our intuitive process. It seems as if universal wisdom has always been written in this sacred language of metaphor: Poetry. Thus the reason why all 'sacred' books were penned by Poets (and later called Prophets). Touching on topics like: Inner Learning, The Power of Day Dreams, Manifestation, and Awareness ... 'uncommon sense' was written for those with eyes to see and ears to hear the Mystery of life, through this charade of living."
What inspired you to write this book? Can you share the story behind your book?
"I believe the more we listen to that still, small voice within ... the more it will tell us. My desire to share this process with others via the words / ideas presented in 'uncommon sense' is what inspired me to write it. I think the more people directly connected to source and receiving their inner visions INSIDE ... the clearer our outer world vision will become, and the faster our dreams will manifest into the lives we live. Poetry opens our soul to hear and feel the intangible aspects of life, and I wrote 'uncommon sense' to help others hear and feel for themselves."
Chad, Your books have received a great amount of interest on BookBuzzr and Twitter. What are the reasons for this interest?
"It feels as if we're moving into a time when spirituality and awareness are becoming more common place, than taboo. We're all searching for meaning and reason, and currently, I believe we're starting to see more value in these intangible realities. In other words, perhaps people finally OWN enough to 'stuff' to know there's much more to life than just owning 'stuff'. This shift in our collective 'line of sight' may be one reason why many are now seeking insight and understanding with that same degree of passion they once sought 'stuff'. What we offer in our books (over 70 of them) ... is awareness. And it seems the interest we are receiving now (after 10 years) is party due to a conscious awakening that's rapidly spreading around the world via the most powerful of all magic: Words."
Do you have any tips for authors to get the kind of views (over 2,000 full screen views on BookBuzzr) and interest that your books have generated?
"More coffee ... less sleep. ;-) Those seeking to gain exposure for their work need to understand how to induce cooperation. It's just that simple. The problem is ... we've been too busy competing with one another to [co]operate effectively. Especially authors and artists. If you are the only one promoting your work, then you will only procure the number of views YOUR immediate network can reach. However, if 10 people are promoting the same work ... that work will receive 10X's the views with 1/10th the work. So, if you want 1 million people to see your book, which method would be more effective ... personally contacting 1 million people and telling them? Or having 1000's of people cooperating to share it with 1000's of others? (And using social media, such as Twitter ... we have this at our fingertips and can produce it TODAY, using only cooperation.)"
You also run two publishing companies - InnerCircle Publishing and Revolution Press. How are these publishing companies different from other publishers out there?
"My wife Sonja and I own and operate InnerCircle Publishing and Revolution Press. What makes us different from other publishers? ICP/Rev-Press Authors retain 100% of the net sales on every copy sold. Our Authors retain creative control over the final production of their book (Page and Cover Design), while providing world-wide distribution to every bookseller via Ingram. And while no other publisher has ever offered either of those ... what really makes ICP/Rev-Press unique is how it has been designed to market and promote the books we publish ... you see, ICP was designed to function along the same lines as Nature, via symbiotic relationships and cooperation, where the actions of one organism contribute to the benefit of the whole, and vise versa. So EVERY title published by ICP/Rev-Press receives the exponential exposure provided by each and every author actively promoting their work daily. And working together, we can produce more than any one working alone."
You also have a very strong presence on Twitter with over 10,000 followers. Do you have any tips for authors looking to use Twitter as a platform to market
their books?
"Again, learn to induce cooperation. Twitter is a great example of the real-time power of cooperation. For instance, let's say you have 1000 followers on Twitter, and I'm one of them. And you post this message in the stream to @icpchad (or DM): 'The world awaits the next level, and this is another step [YOUR BOOK LINK].' You will have just posted a promo link for your work to potentially 1000 people. And if I ReTweet it again to my 10,268 ... now we've put your work out to a combined total of over 11,268 (with only two clicks) ... what if 100 people RT this? <---- Cooperation produces exposure, and the greater level of cooperation you can produce, the greater exposure your work will receive."
Are there any other avenues that authors should keep in mind when marketing their books online (Amazon, Facebook etc.)? Do you have any other marketing tips for authors?
Put your book in front of as many people as possible ... using every possible avenue ... everyday. Social media sites offer a tremendous marketing value for those seeking to connect and promote ideas, products, or services to the masses ... provided they are used as tools to induce cooperation and they are procuring actual views to your book. To date, I have found nothing that procures more actual book views than BookBuzzr. Just getting people to go to a link and to view the description and book cover does not always result in sales, while getting people to actually READ the material the book offers has proven to be much more effective. For instance, in just over a month of using BookBuzzr, my books, 'A Day in the Mind' and 'uncommon sense' both climbed to record sales rankings on Amazon. It seems the more people who read them, the more they sell ... once people know about the books and their content. BookBuzzr is the best way to get people to actually read books online. So use ALL of your social media sites and networks as a way of placing your BookBuzzr widgets in front of more people ... while encouraging others to SHARE it. Thank you BookBuzzr for making this possible."
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Vikram of BookBuzzr Interviewed by Chad Lilly of Inner Circle Publishing
A few days ago, I was interviewed by Chad Lilly of Inner Circle Publishing. It was a fun, conversation that covered plenty of important topics related to online book-marketing technologies, internet marketing for books, book-promotion through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and much more. You can listen to the interview here or below.
Incidentally, Chad Lilly has had a phenomenal amount of interest generated in his book - "uncommon sense" ever since he put up the book on BookBuzzr. Over 2,000 people have already viewed his book and he mentions that he has experienced record sales on Amazon. So that's additional validation for BookBuzzr. You can check out Chad's book below:
You can also see a full transcript of the interview below (Thanks to Ranga, my colleague, for taking the time to put this transcript together :))
Chad: The world of words may never be the same. Now that the game of promotion and exposures been outdated into a whole level of inner action. Well if actually one allows books to be read worldwide by a single click of the mouse. How? that’s that’s the question we are talking about tonight on our talkradio, so thank you for joining us, I am Chad William. Right, we are gonna find out the latest technology in digital book. Some of you may have heard it and especially those of you on twitter , I Know it is being mentioned quite a bit, it’s called bookbuzzr and tonight the founder of bookbuzzr himself vikram narayan is joining us all the way from India to explain this amazing application for sharing books online. Now we are taking callers at 646-716-8138 so please feel free to participate with your questions and comments and a special mention to our friends and family on twitter-id, these some of you wanna chat, right now thanks for being with us live and please share a little time and people know in the industry what’s going on and some of you have been in the promising business for quite some time now but I have never found anything that even remotely compares or compete with the exposure that we have been provided through bookbuzzr and a fReado just in the past 30 days. So if you are an author it does mean one of you listening to the night show, so that it does mean we bring on Mr Vikram obviously from India I believe and vikram are you with us now?
Vikram: Yes I am, Good evening Chad or shall I say good morning it’s 5:30 am out here
Chad: 5:30 am! and am I correct are you in India?
Vikram: Yes I am in Bangalore, India
Chad: Excellent, excellent wonder phone line does sound good, ok the next thing is well vikram how am I pronouncing? Am I pronouncing your name correctly?
Vikram: You are doing it perfectly well; it’s like Vic, Vic like in victor and rum like in the drink rum, Vikram
Chad: Vikram ok excellent excellent. as far the bookbuzzr story which however is pretty fascinating and I wonder that would be the best place to start how did this first come about?
Vikram: sure, well I have an author friend of mine, his name is chetan dhruve and he has written a book called “why your boss is programmed to be a dictator” and the book has become something of a sleeper head either it hasn’t selling the number of copies every year so that many years, didn’t do pretty well for the publisher that have got chetan and we were having a little conversation one morning and while talking chetan was lamenting about the fact that much of his online marketing efforts were getting wasted, the problem was that he didn’t know what exactly he should be doing, there was no process, there was no easy way to go about it and he had all these new networks and social networks bringing up all the time, you had facebook then at that point of time twitter was just emerging, myspace, so he needed a process and he needed a simple way to get about, getting a word about his book out there.
So I asked this question, I said if you had a magic wand like a magic wand and you had to, have the perfect book marketing application, online book marketing technology what would it be? And so chetan started describing what he would want.
At some point if you get that this can be something big or at least it can be something very important for a lot of authors and started putting down our thoughts on paper and so he said I would want ideally I would want my static book cover image so when someone comes to my author website or my blog and they see the cover image
of my book that’s all they see but ideally they want I would want them to be able to interact with it and tempt them enough so that they would actually look inside the book. So when a potential reader walks into a bookstore the reader looks at up any book but also has the option to open that book and flip through it. Now a lot of this is missing in from many of the website. Sure some of them do have the option where they provide a read an excerpt kind of a link but that still is not tempting enough for a reader to click on. So he mentioned that ideally he would want this to be something that would tempt a reader into opening and sampling the book, so that was one and then he also mentioned that if someone really likes the book they would want to share it on their own facebook profile or blog or myspace profile or they should be able to share the link on networks like , dig, reditt etc., and so that became the starting point and within a few months we had an application run up and running and its taken off pretty well in the last couple of months since launch.
Chad: That’s That’s great I am glad you even brought that up of getting people to look inside the book because I personally I feel that is the most powerful marketing tool that
We can have as authors and you had mentioned, of course there is myspace, twitter, facebook social media sites cropping up by a dozen every single day but how a lot of people are using those services already and yet they are not getting the exposure ,they are not getting people to actually open their books and that’s what excites me about bookbuzzr is it actually allows people to open the books and we’ have gonna way that’s different from everything I have ever seen and personally vikram I am not, I am a, I am a book person, I like a book, I like the smell, the CO, I like the.. Whole the book and always with bookbuzzr and its application it’s actually enjoyable to read a book on screen and I am, I am really amazed by that and I would like to know more about the actual fact and how you guys actually created this?
Vikram: Yes. So, we tried very hard, the initial version looked more like showing up like a document, like a PDF, like a better version of a PDF but again and again the point came up that the simulation of a page turning is very vital for the book reading experience and so we went back and we also throw out almost like two months of work that we had done at that point in time and went back and redesign the whole application and said that this is going to become central even though it seems like a trivial issue for a lot of people they say ok I am reading on the internet, I am reading a web page so why does it have to have a flip and at that point we asked ourselves also this question many times but I would say that chetan was instrumental in that because as an author he said I want my book to have that page turning effect I feel so much better about my book when that feature is there and so we went back and we did quite a bit of accurasion and finally settled on this format where the page while turning if you click it and drag it turns like a flip book and we think it’s very central to the whole experience.
Chad: it’s not just the because of the very cool application and widget the way it works but I am actually most impressed with this when you are reading it, when you are reading any of the books that available on bookbuzzr, it allows the reader to zoom in, it allows the reader to read the book on screen as if you are actually holding it in your hands and I gotta tell you that I think that is very powerful because that an even amount of authors obviously use their book cover on the website, on the blogs whether they are promoting it, just because someone sees the book cover does not mean that they open the book even if that is an option provided a long visit, while you seem to have created something that actually inspires people to look inside of the book and to me that’s I think obviously that’s one of the most powerful things that we have seen in already to get people actually look at our books. I am sure you must be, if there is any, first of all how many authors do you have? How many books uploaded on bookbuzzr now?
Vikram: we have got over 2500 authors and a similar number of books available on bookbuzzr now. It’s in about 4-6 months of n since we have launched and getting things right so that’s where we are right now. We are growing in a very haphazard fashion but everyday we grow we get about 10, 12 authors sometime, sometimes we get like in the region of a 100 on some special days but essentially we think that we are gonna hit this tipping point at some point every author is going to say, hey what I have seen this on other authors website and wanted for myself and at that point we expect growth to be exponential so we intend to, keep pushing this till we hit that point after this which we think it’s going to be an exponential explosive kind of growth with authors adopting the widget.
We have to think that it’s a function of what additional value we are going to add to authors so consequently we are doing a number of things in the backend to make sure that authors get additional exposure and find more readers, so that something we have been working on.
Chad: Excellent, you do me a favour vikram, install the system into your phone unless some speaker phone or if you could get just a little closer too so that I wanna make sure that people can hear you clearly
Vikram: sure, sure, I guess it’s the smaller room, it’s, I am in the office this morning so is this a little better.
Chad: That is a little better and it’s just could be the 14,000 miles between us.
Vikram: Fine
Chad: , I am curious such things a lot of obviously new authors, unknown authors are using bookbuzzr, we are actually in the middle of transferring all the books we offer to inner circle publishing and inner circle press, we are setting them up so that the look inside the book feature is mainly through bookbuzzr but I am curious that any of the known authors I mean is Stephen king is using that if not why not?
Vikram: well, we haven’t designed this for Stephen king, our goal is really the the smaller or the newer author who is looking to get started, the other day we got this email from an author who said he mentioned how bookbuzzr had helped him and how bookbuzzr has helped the sales on Amazon and then he mentioned thank you for helping us little guys get started and that’s that’s really was very satisfying for us, we think that the Stephen king of the world will probably use this product but at a later point in time but we have had some very interesting authors use the product for example the one of India’s largest IT outsourcing company it’s called the Wipro, it’s they compete with Accenture and IBM on a number of deals, their chief marketing officer Jessie Paul has written a book called “No Money marketing” and she found us on the internet, she put up her book on bookbuzzr and started using it on her website and started talking about the product and again she is probably one of the biggest names in the corporate world and she is using this technology, so we have all these kinds of interesting things happening but at anyway our focus right now is on making sure that we provide a platform that will allow viral marketing effects and best place for starters for authors who needed, who needed the most.
Chad: you just mentioned something about Amazon I would love to see their instantaneous and aggression towards, even on Amazon if you could even post a link to the bookbuzzr or even having Amazon in place bookbuzzr and actually putting the widget on Amazon site, is that being considered or any links with that?
Vikram: Well we do have this huge Amazon integration project that is underway, we are looking at every integration point that’s out there, obviously we also need to talk to Amazon at some point. At the moment Amazon’s wide number of features, number of API’s that allow you to integrate your application with theirs, we are working on that, and that’s gonna be there in a couple of months we are gonna have a number of Amazon integration points.
Chad: Wow, so you are taking something that’s phenomenal now and just about to make it a whole lot better and probably global.
Vikram: Yes, Thank you, you are welcome.
Chad: vikram we do have callers on the line and I wanna encourage dozen people to call and especially authors because I know every author is asking themselves the same question how do I get people to see my book versus the other 10,000 that just came up this morning and we got the guy on the line that seems to be able to provide the better results so call us on 702 you are online here with the talk radio and I am speaking live with CEO of BookBuzzr Vikram. Call us on the 702 are you with us live?
Rob Wilson: Can you hear me Chad?
Chad: Hi, can hear you and I recognise the voice. It sounds like Rob Wilson.
Rob Wilson: Hey there!
Chad: Now what kind of questions do you have for Vikram this evening?
Rob Wilson: I was just basically gain some information but on this BookBuzzr and probably on Amazon how, how will that expand the persons things and how can I get like evenly, even bigger than that is what I really curious about.
Chad: Good question.
Vikram: Ok. Rob, , thank you for calling in and I am just trying to get a a sense of what you have just asked. Could you please repeat your question? It seems like I could not get most of that so.
Rob: Ok, I am trying to say is actually you get it tie to Amazon and things like that what would be the best thing for the author to do to even make it bigger for themselves using the BookBuzzr so there is gotta be some many other ways
Vikram: Sure. So if you leave Amazon, apart from Amazon the two biggest networks out there are Face book and Twitter. So the bookbuzzr process encourages you to first of all upload your book or your book extract on to the site. It creates a little book widget so think of it as a replacement for your book cover and it would go everywhere that your book cover goes it would go there and once you do that you can post your book, your bookbuzzr book widget on sites like facebook so on your facebook profile you would put up your bookbuzzr book widget so when someone visits your facebook profile, your friends look at your profile they would see your, the widget and they would be able to flip those pages, check out where they can buy your book, check out links to your interviews or media mentions that might be there. Learn more about the book all without leaving your facebook profile and finally they might be tempted to clicking on the full screen view and view the book in full screen mode so that’s one big integration point and that’s a very easy thing to do the entire thing takes about five minutes and essentially what you are doing is making sure that all your friends know about your book and have an easy way to share your book on their own profile so when a friend comes to your, your profile and he or she says hey that’s a neat looking book widget and I like this book and this the author is a friend of mine maybe I should help him to promote this book on my own profile what they would do his click on the share button and again within thirty to, thirty seconds to a minute they can share it on their own page, on their own facebook page and so you are hoping that your book captures the attention of your friend and then their friends and a viral effect takes in, a viral marketing effect takes in and there is also another option where you can set up bookbuzzr to tweet about your book on twitter. So every time you could say every time a hundred plus people read my book extract a sample of my book I like it to be mentioned on twitter now you obviously need it to set it up very carefully if not you would annoy some of your followers, you want to be active on twitter but if you set this up, this will automatically send out tweets on twitter and finally bookbuzzr also have a options where you can send out an email with a link to your, to your bookbuzzr book widget and to all of your friends so on gmail, yahoo you can just with two clicks you can send out mails to all your friends and again it provides you an easy interface where you can friends can also share it with their own friends and it goes on.
Chad: I am sorry to interrupt there but I wanted to add something in there because what you, what you just said Vikram is the with the cooperation aspect I mean that is how things are done anyways with the cooperation and one of the greatest things about bookbuzzr that I have seen is that share function because not only can you invite people to look directly to inside of the book but with one click anyone who does designate with it anyone who does wanna share to their own facebook, myspace, twitter profile any social media or even on their own blog or website with one click they can share that and that with making cooperation, easy to accomplish we are gaining more and I really appreciate the fact that bookbuzzr is set this up so conveniently, to be automated for other people to share your work. As vikram I had quite a bit of success on with “Uncommon Sense”, one of the book that we have posted on bookbuzzr and the reason that’s been so successful is the cooperation of other people on twitter, on facebook, myspace that designate with the work and allow to share it and you have something that powerful that that I think that’s what which sets you apart.
Rob: Hey Chad again one more question there with you. Can you put that like on stuff your blog and things like that?
Chad: Absolutely
Vikram: Yes you can put it up on blog, on blogger, you can put it up on blogger, it does not work with wordpress right now, with the wordpress site itself. We are actually going to get in touch with the wordpress and find out why that is they are a lot more strict with this application so we are going to be getting in touch with wordpress but it works perfectly well with blogger.You can put it up on blogger may be with two clicks so basically on your blogspot account you can get that up and running and most other blogs it should work we have tested it.
Chad: Absolutely and you notice actually I just noticed that there are over a hundred and fifty different share option to post to blog blog, Digg there is just so many other more it everyday but bookbuzzr has already set up to initiate that so that if you are a member on any other social media site with one click you can post that book directly to that organisation and I think that that’s also incredible.
Chad: Rob, thank you so much for calling and loved to have you on our show and I appreciate you in putting questions. You got to be thanking much to vikram we loved you from here otherwise hang out on the line and
Rob: Yeah, I just wanna thank him also having this call because it is very enlightening for me.
Vikram: Thank you Rob, my pleasure
Chad: Excellent and I appreciate him calling as well, Rob is actually one of the author of inner circle publishing and I see a few of them in the chat room as well, all of our books are being uploaded to bookbuzzr I said but one of the thing I want to mention is the widget design, I actually, I do like it, I do like it but I am considering have you ever thought about making it available in different formats. So that you have one that exactly what you have, may be another one with more looks something exactly like the book cover.
Vikram: well, yes that is the one thing that we have been having it for some time now eternally we call it has “BookBuzzr Chota”. Chota is an Indian word which means small so the current version of the bookbuzzr widget is slightly larger than a book cover. It’s design to fit in the sidebar space but we realize that some sidebars may be smaller or some place, some people, some authors may want smaller a smaller version of bookbuzzr so that is something that we are working on. In the meanwhile there is also another option which is the email signature option. Have you seen that Chad? That feature, the email signature feature?
Chad: Yes, which makes your email signature you mean?
Vikram: Right, It makes your email signature. So one could potentially use that email signature there but this is something that we are working on and I think that’s a fantastic idea and now that you have mentioned that on this call it’s something that we are gonna go back and accelerate and see if we can make it smaller so when you say smaller, you mention how small would you wanted to be?
Chad: well it’s still just a several different options but may be a small widget. Something comparable to you guys using an email signature and on our inner circle publishing book pages we actually have a very large book covers so that people can see the book just as much as they can but that obviously not bigger than I am and I just thought that instead of this small widget may be we can have an option for a larger one but one thing that I really really appreciate is the bookbuzzr is actually it’s own independent book from loading website I mean for instance on Uncommon Sense we have listed which gives you the options to list anywhere that the author is appeared, any shows, any other links, where to buy it? So essentially this one small widget is effectively in entire website, it’s all about that author and all about that book and again for that to be one click away from being shared with everyone in the world I got to compliment you my young friend I think it’s amazing.
Vikram: Thank you, it’s, just looking authors and also chetan’s input which has been very vital in this whole thing.
Chad: What is the most creative use of the bookbuzzr that you have seen to gain exposure because again every author asks the same question? How do I get people look at my book? What are some of the creative ways you think other authors use bookbuzzr to get exposure for their own work?
Vikram: Well I have seen this being posted on blog that’s being done quite often. We have seen it, seen people creating groups on LinkedIin and sharing their books on with those groups. It works very well for non-section books. If you are an established expert and you got your own little group on LinkedIn going then you want to share it. We have seen some authors put it up right on top on the top right hand corner of their site where the, where the banner is, where the top header is. Have you seen them put it up over there? So yeah, those are some of the place users that we have seen. Or we have seen people using it on Myspace; we have seen non-English authors use it, so yeah those are some of the users that we have seen.
Chad: Actually I got a lot of, lot of folks on Twitter asking on that day I had mentioned about the bookbuzzr I had mentioned and there are a quite a few people that they just don’t know about bookbuzzr here, hopefully this show lets authors know more about it because again if you are an author and you have a book out there and you have a PDF file of that text block there is really no reason it shouldn’t be on bookbuzzr right now.
Vikram: Yes and if you are an author typically you spend the largest amount of time on the cover image, typically the , the goal of a cover, of the book cover is so that the potential reader picks it up and looks at the cover, looks at the tag line of the book then turns the book over and looks at the back cover and then the third step in the process would be you would look inside the book. So most when you could do this online and you just stick in an image of your book that not likely to encourage this kind of usage pattern. So the goal behind bookbuzzr really is to simulate some of those experiences that happened in your live real bookshop where you walk in, you look at the book, you stumbled upon a book and you turn it over you look at the back cover then you flip inside so we are trying to make that easier.
Chad: And you thus maintain a great job with that unless you mention that this widget can actually be embedded for those of you on blogtalk that hosted on our shows. This is the show now if you are watching this you see in the show description we have actually placed the bookbuzzr widget followed by books on Uncommon Sense and as you can see its right there actually in the show description so I think that’s very very powerful. Anyone hosting their own blogtalk show here might be something they consider you can click that share function, grab the code, post it directly in your description of your blogtalk show and the other one thing is seeing your book.
Vikram: And typically in Indian philosophy you have this notion that when the student is ready the teacher appears and with books we believe the same thing. when the reader is ready the book appears and hopefully its going to be in bookbuzzr format as a bookbuzzr widget. Typically you would not search for a book because for example the book “Uncommon Sense”, I personally love that book, I love that poem called mantra and I would never have searched for that, I would never have gone out and said yeah I am gonna search for a book or for a verse called mantra, I would never have found it in the first list and I wouldn’t have search for it but I stumbled upon it and hopefully that’s the goal of bookbuzzr that people discover your work in places that they don’t expect maybe on a friends facebook profile, or someone’s blog or someone’s Myspace profile, to somebody’s tweet on LinkedIn or Reddit or digg hopefully they stumble upon your work and that’s really the goal.
Chad: I agree with you. You said that when the student is ready the teacher appears and. we are living in such a synchronistic society that is so digitally connected, so one click away from each other that it’s amazing. I have seen this it’s happen on Twitter all the time. You post something one of your original power in a moment and are countless other people either experiencing that same power right now or that same power applies directly to the allies in such a way that it is timely it is delivered to them and even with books obviously the information contained in them, bookbuzzr is another way for us to able to share this information real-time in synchronistically so that whenever the student is ready may be the teacher is a book and it could be right there at your finger tips.
Vikram: Exactly.
Chad: Hmm. I am curious but I see that it is always improving, I see that on a site and I see that you guys are always adding new things and can you gonna share me your secrets with this about what coming next?
Vikram: Right. Ok, so what coming next? One of the big features we have been working on is this notion called “Related Books”. So when somebody looks at a particular book ideally he is going to see other author’s book also at the end of his book so we are working on a feature called “Related Books”. The second thing we are working on his search engine Optimization. So that paragraphs from inside the book come up when somebody runs a search that’s the next big thing we are working on and we are also working on giving you the a badge. Let’s say Uncommon Sense has now more than two thousand full page views. People are reading it and its literally on fire that particular book and so we are gonna be showing up a little badge that says that this is the bookbuzzr Top Ten book and that badge is going to be there inside the widget itself so that’s the thing we are working on.
Chad: Love that and I love the idea of a related book with that mean anyone say if they are searching that they are reading another bookbuzzr book that say poetry then my book Uncommon sense will appear as related book because of poetry. Wow! Ok, excellent and I love the idea of the badge as well being able to, being able to see that. One thing I really like about bookbuzzr is that it gives these stats. You mean you don’t have to login or have an account, anything. Anyone can go to the website, they can click on it and they can actually see the number of views that the book is received. I like that as a publisher because authors always want to know where they are going to reach, they wanna know about the fact. the marketing and promotion it’s having and with allowing, with bookbuzzr allowing those stats to be viewed publicly it gives them that ability to see the results directly and I tell you whenever I post I have some friends on Twitter to listen and I appreciate them but when I post my books on, from bookbuzzr on to twitter it can receive anywhere from ten to twenty-five views immediately. I mean as soon as I press inner within the next minute you can go back to the bookbuzzr page and you can see in real-time how many people viewed that book because the way it is did and that’s to me is actually amazing it’s absolutely amazing.
Vikram: Right a real-time feedback.
Chad: And I did read about of course Google is integrating with Twitter so that real time tweets will be basically categorized by Google so then when searching, search something in real time anyone tweeting about that topic will come up on a Google search. Now let’s work the same way for books and will bookbuzzr books be listed on Google as well.
Vikram: Well, that’s something that’s not there right now and that something that saw you little farther down the our horizon but obviously coming up with a bookbuzzr widget when somebody runs a search here is a big thing that we have want in there. The other big thing that we are looking at and we shall haven’t got our arms around it as yet is Google wave so everyone is talking about Google wave, Google making a big push towards that, they opened up their API so that’s another area that we are studying I am seeing where or how we could value to authors through Google wave so that’s another thing.
Chad: That’s interesting from here. A lot’s and lots about the Google wave of course don’t, I don’t have an invite for yet folks so Google if you are listening send me an invite I would like to check out Google wave. It’s a, I am curious this from what I understand about Google wave it will allow users to share documents, photos, anything it’s on your system or computer with anyone else and not, I am not exactly sure how that works here but I like that idea because again as authors wanting to promote books, again now we have the ability to reach other one who is on Google and I understand that Google is turn a big aren’t they these days?
Vikram: Right. So they have the muscle power to push through a big idea and to their credit they are working on really some big ideas and it looks like Google wave is one of their big pushes out there, that’s something that if you are a developer you can’t not look at it right now and this is one of those things that you have to study and get into it.
Chad: Yeah and I heard this BookBuzzr is definitely has a strong Twitter presence you guys are you seem to have a staff or just several different folks that are on Twitter, they are active you have got about a wide helpline..
Vikram: Yeah we have got a staff really for providing Live Help so if someone needs help with their BookBuzzr upload process or host upload, marketing process we are avail out there typically we are there till about 11AM Eastern Standard so that will be about 8 Pm 8 Am pacific so that’s one thing but in terms of Twitter itself we have one person my colleague Freya who is on, her Twitter, handles book at BookBuzzr and she provides some information that’s valuable to authors and occasionally talks about very interesting BookBuzzr book so that’s basically our Twitter presence right now.
Chad: And I appreciate them being there because I have seen a lot of times when I post things about our books not just my own but any of Inner circles books from BookBuzzr. I notice that someone’s there from BookBuzzr usually backing it up and I again that’s impressive, for a free service you are sure offering a lot of, a lot of, of just a lot. You are offering a lot when considered this is absolutely free. I guess that’s it and the next question I have is, is there any talks or any ideas of there is being a charge for BookBuzzr.
Vikram: Well, that’s something that we are playing around with. Our own sense is that revenues will come in a way that we don’t expected to be. For example when Google launched if they had charged for search, search was is one of the most valuable functions out there and had Google made the mistake of charging for search they may not have been where they are today so we are big believers in the free economy anything that’s digital is rapidly rushing towards free and so at this point of time we don’t have a plans to directly charge for BookBuzzr we want to keep that free all the time forever but we are working on a couple of business models on the backend. one of those is advertising; the other is premium services for authors and again what that is? Is again that’s something that’s out there that we are researching. The Third is a sponsorship opportunity. Now one of the other big things that we are considering and it could work in the long run is allowing Ads to be shown inside of book and sharing those Ad revenues with authors so that’s something that out there may be a year or two down the road and that could be very powerful for a number of authors who would like to supplement their revenues. So many times when I buy a book it’s really is a memento for me; it’s a souvenir for me so I like the book, let’s say I like Uncommon Sense I want a copy not because of the quantum but because I have formed an emotional bond with, with that book or it’s part of the book so I want to have a physical copy. But I in this economy in this at the way the things are accelerating people won’t be able to quickly read everything, they want to get the information and if there is an emotional connect they want to go in for this souvenir. So at some point authors are gonna have to be able to share more and more of their works online while trying to figure out to the way to make money from other sources simply because that’s the way the market is moving. If you look at the book ‘Free’ from Chris Anderson the book was completely free for maybe a month or so and then people read it online. I personally downloaded the mp3 files which is again free and put up by the author and I listened to the entire book, I had been listening to it, the book became a NewYork’s time bestseller and and I am thinking of personally going out and purchasing a copy of that book because I have formed an emotional connect with that book I also think that there are parts of the book which I want to refer back to and the best way to do it is if I have it also as a copy. So figuring out ways where authors can make additional money is become the very important part for our business and we think that BookBuzzr is uniquely positioned for that simply because of the way the pages turn where when the page turns you wait till next page appears and figuring out a way to, of course in conjunction with authors and publishers and if they wanted offering a way for people to look at books almost for free is one big idea that we think is important we should be looking at so that where we are. In terms of cash flow itself I own another software company which does HR related software for hospitals, educational institutions and banks. So we have sufficient cash coming from that business as well as from other hassle investors who invested in BookBuzzr that we are ok for the next many years to actually experiment and play around and make sure that we have got enough adoption going before we turn on revenue models but we don’t want to turn on something and turn people off so that’s really where we are.
Chad: Yeah, yeah and I appreciate that. I like the, I like the idea of the not being as especially without the book itself. When people look inside the book now may be on the widget. Well, no not even on the widget you can also get because that would mean those ads would be running where that the widget is placed of without the ads but you mentioned something what about the ability to download books? I know a lot of people are starting to read books on their iphones and other applications is there any hope of BookBuzzr coming to a plan where people could download the full book even if they want to buy it through BookBuzzr and download the entire book.
Vikram: Yes definitely, so that’s another feature that we are working on called continue reading feature. So let’s say I have finished fifty pages of a particular book on BookBuzzr and I am tempted enough to continue reading there is going to be little link that says continue reading but the way we wanted to do that is it’s obviously something that we wanted to be very different from what’s out there. it could be a radio head model where people say pay what you want to pay for that and then continue reading. It could be a cost where if you make a decision in the next thirty seconds it’s going to be X price and in the next forty five seconds the price is going to change or it could be some other model but we are actually working on a number of
Features where the author can setup these things where the user is tempted into making a buying decision right there and then and again it’s our view of the world is that people will actually pay and often pay good money if they have the option of
Looking at their books on different devices so even though I may not be willing to pay for a book to read online and actually willing to pay money to listen to it on my ipod because that’s when I do most when I am listening so when I am driving I can listen to a book.
Chad: Ha Exactly.
Vikram: So the vision is that people will pay for devices and so building those integration points allow people to download through their iphones, kindles or palm pre’s is central to that. So that’s something again we are working on.
Chad: Exactly and I understand lot of people are they are interested in the PDF of books because they can load it in the applications such as I cannot recall the name of it now but it something we actually read a PDF to you. In any language you choose that’s actually very clever. In fact lot of people say hey I want this book but I don’t actually want the book, I want PDF of it. We told you that and I do understand what they were doing but at actually what they are doing is, they download the PDF, they put it into this reader and then when they are in the car, they are in the train and when they go they are actually listening to this book via this reader and that I think that’s impressive as well. Anything they get words in front of people. I am a firm believer that words are the foundation of that all, the beginning of that all and by hearing words, we can actually improve the effect and hopefully change the entire world. BookBuzzr excites me because this is the way book works in front of people. We are living in a time where it is difficult to compete with the media machine. Television, internet all these images and flash, neon and it just never stops. It’s an endless array and stream and people are moved more by words but it’s difficult for words alone are paged to compete with cable TV. I wanna congratulate BookBuzzr on making, making words more interesting to read and actually getting people opening books because with all the great things in the world it is the books that convey these ideas and I think that’s, that’s alternatively which is going to affect the world.
And now we are going, let’s check out time 5:47 at 14 minutes remaining. Callers are welcome 646-716-8138 we are live here to put the next about to twelve minutes about twelve minutes with the founder of BookBuzzr and a fReado and Vikram I wanna ask you about that. What is I understood that a fReado is a place where all the books are listed but BookBuzzr is a different site. What’s the purpose of that?
Vikram: Well, really BookBuzzr is for authors and at some point we think that readers don’t really to get exposed to the marketing side of things so readers don’t need to understand how do you market a book online? If I am a reader I just want to be able to come to a site and start reading a book. Whereas if I am an author I need to understand all of these dynamics how do I do while marketing, how do I tweet about this book? So BookBuzzr is really focussed on authors and so we decided to separate those two things out and fReado becomes a listing of books in Bookbuzzr format and their author profile and book profile so that the readers just enjoy the experience of reading so they don’t need to really get into what’s happening inside the under the herds.
Chad: Now actually that’s make sense especially when you are looking at I guess BookBuzzr will be considered more of backend for those participating in it and fReado will be the front end for people reading the books in it.
Vikram: Exactly.
Chad: Excellent, excellent. , I know that a lot of authors even today they are using YouTube as well. We use it quite a bit for ourselves for author interviews, promos for books and things of that nature. Are you guys using anything on YouTube to promote BookBuzzr now?
Vikram: Ah not really. Right now our biggest presence is on Twitter and we are hoping to blog and shows like this where authors get a word out. We haven’t looked at twitter I mean at Youtube. By the way Chad I really loved your little video which you put up on YouTube where you do the the rap its called sarcasm.
Chad: Sarcasm yeah. Thank You. Yes. Definitely so you obviously seen some of our YouTubes as well.
Vikram: It’s very compelling. A video is like a two minutes thing that you want to watch. and you could see it that’s pretty impressive.
Chad: Well again, that’s why we post not just us but any author that’s why you post on YouTube is to generate a buzz , a buzz about what you are doing, whether it’s a book, whether it’s a show anything that you wish to promote and YouTube has been a great source for that but I got to tell you even with YouTube we had almost 17,000 views to the fourteen videos we posted there. We are putting more up these kind of things but I still never seen anything that pictures. My book Uncommon sense has been up for years. It was it came on 2004 not the best seller in the entire world because amazingly and ironically it’s very difficult to sell poetry you just take it that. But since I am into BookBuzzr I have actually experienced book sales for a book of poetry and that is pretty outstanding because again I think when people open it and they see what it is? Well then they can decide for themselves whether or not they designate with the message that is conveyed and again even with YouTube, even with Twitter, even with all these things we have been using since we started this. I don’t ever think anything that actually works as well as BookBuzzr so I just, I wanna complement you on that and thank you for creating something.
Vikram: Thank you so much for BookBuzzr and using it, thank you so much.
Chad: It’s just absolutely amazing. Now I know we are rapping up to coming to bottom or top of the hour I guess either way you look at it. Any last words, any remaining words for authors out there who never heard a BookBuzzr but are looking for a way down to get more views to their book. Anything learning we must Vikram.
Vikram: Sure. So if you are an author there is so many other options out there and and they are competing for your time but we say that if you try BookBuzzr it will make big difference and helping you get started with your book marketing efforts. He would also be joining with a community of other authors with similar issues, similar challenges and and of course it’s free, so you really don’t lose anything except couple of minutes of your time to try out with our product. So that’s about it from our side Chad.
Chad: Excellent, I thank you so much for joining us all the way from India that is absolutely amazing. It’s great to be in contact with you and connected with your be it Twitter and all these other networks. One thing I would like to mention to you before we leave is if you ever interested in anyone to do any design work for the widget I would love to apply my friend, I would love to apply.
Vikram: Oh ok great! Yes. It’s something that I can test with it.
Chad: Excellent. Vikram thank you so much for joining us tonight show on our talk radio. This has been a live broadcast with another having got pain here in the world of not just books but really with communication, with technology. I mean we have seen technology advance faster than our means of communication my friend I got. I appreciate everything you are doing with BookBuzzr which allows people to not only share the things they communicate but encourages them to share with others and again I think the co-operation that’s also what’s making the web what it is and of course what can change it and you are just doing the amazing job with what you have created with BookBuzzr, so thank you so much for that and I does want to appreciate for a different Uncommon Sense because it’s seems like no one paid near as much attention before as they do now and I just
Vikram: It’s really good because it is really an uncommon book it is very different.
Chad: Oh thank you for that. I appreciate that. Ladies and gentleman Vikram pronounce your last name for me just one more time because I want to say right.
Vikram: Na Ra Yan. Narayan.
Chad: Narayan. Ah I can do that. I can do that. Ladies and gentleman Vikram Narayan namasthe sir.
Vikram: Namasthe.
Chad: Thank you for spending time with us
Vikram: Goodnight
Chad: Hi this is our talkradio Thursday special my edition. I know we are not usually live with this time but hey that’s live but it goes in the moment, it goes, it goes where next. I appreciate all of you in the chat enjoying us live, those of you on Twitter listening as well and we will be re tweeting the show. Thank you so much, appreciate listening and share the link we will see you next time.
Incidentally, Chad Lilly has had a phenomenal amount of interest generated in his book - "uncommon sense" ever since he put up the book on BookBuzzr. Over 2,000 people have already viewed his book and he mentions that he has experienced record sales on Amazon. So that's additional validation for BookBuzzr. You can check out Chad's book below:
Incidentally, Chad Lilly has had a phenomenal amount of interest generated in his book - "uncommon sense" ever since he put up the book on BookBuzzr. Over 2,000 people have already viewed his book and he mentions that he has experienced record sales on Amazon. So that's additional validation for BookBuzzr. You can check out Chad's book below:
You can also see a full transcript of the interview below (Thanks to Ranga, my colleague, for taking the time to put this transcript together :))
Chad: The world of words may never be the same. Now that the game of promotion and exposures been outdated into a whole level of inner action. Well if actually one allows books to be read worldwide by a single click of the mouse. How? that’s that’s the question we are talking about tonight on our talkradio, so thank you for joining us, I am Chad William. Right, we are gonna find out the latest technology in digital book. Some of you may have heard it and especially those of you on twitter , I Know it is being mentioned quite a bit, it’s called bookbuzzr and tonight the founder of bookbuzzr himself vikram narayan is joining us all the way from India to explain this amazing application for sharing books online. Now we are taking callers at 646-716-8138 so please feel free to participate with your questions and comments and a special mention to our friends and family on twitter-id, these some of you wanna chat, right now thanks for being with us live and please share a little time and people know in the industry what’s going on and some of you have been in the promising business for quite some time now but I have never found anything that even remotely compares or compete with the exposure that we have been provided through bookbuzzr and a fReado just in the past 30 days. So if you are an author it does mean one of you listening to the night show, so that it does mean we bring on Mr Vikram obviously from India I believe and vikram are you with us now?
Vikram: Yes I am, Good evening Chad or shall I say good morning it’s 5:30 am out here
Chad: 5:30 am! and am I correct are you in India?
Vikram: Yes I am in Bangalore, India
Chad: Excellent, excellent wonder phone line does sound good, ok the next thing is well vikram how am I pronouncing? Am I pronouncing your name correctly?
Vikram: You are doing it perfectly well; it’s like Vic, Vic like in victor and rum like in the drink rum, Vikram
Chad: Vikram ok excellent excellent. as far the bookbuzzr story which however is pretty fascinating and I wonder that would be the best place to start how did this first come about?
Vikram: sure, well I have an author friend of mine, his name is chetan dhruve and he has written a book called “why your boss is programmed to be a dictator” and the book has become something of a sleeper head either it hasn’t selling the number of copies every year so that many years, didn’t do pretty well for the publisher that have got chetan and we were having a little conversation one morning and while talking chetan was lamenting about the fact that much of his online marketing efforts were getting wasted, the problem was that he didn’t know what exactly he should be doing, there was no process, there was no easy way to go about it and he had all these new networks and social networks bringing up all the time, you had facebook then at that point of time twitter was just emerging, myspace, so he needed a process and he needed a simple way to get about, getting a word about his book out there.
So I asked this question, I said if you had a magic wand like a magic wand and you had to, have the perfect book marketing application, online book marketing technology what would it be? And so chetan started describing what he would want.
At some point if you get that this can be something big or at least it can be something very important for a lot of authors and started putting down our thoughts on paper and so he said I would want ideally I would want my static book cover image so when someone comes to my author website or my blog and they see the cover image
of my book that’s all they see but ideally they want I would want them to be able to interact with it and tempt them enough so that they would actually look inside the book. So when a potential reader walks into a bookstore the reader looks at up any book but also has the option to open that book and flip through it. Now a lot of this is missing in from many of the website. Sure some of them do have the option where they provide a read an excerpt kind of a link but that still is not tempting enough for a reader to click on. So he mentioned that ideally he would want this to be something that would tempt a reader into opening and sampling the book, so that was one and then he also mentioned that if someone really likes the book they would want to share it on their own facebook profile or blog or myspace profile or they should be able to share the link on networks like , dig, reditt etc., and so that became the starting point and within a few months we had an application run up and running and its taken off pretty well in the last couple of months since launch.
Chad: That’s That’s great I am glad you even brought that up of getting people to look inside the book because I personally I feel that is the most powerful marketing tool that
We can have as authors and you had mentioned, of course there is myspace, twitter, facebook social media sites cropping up by a dozen every single day but how a lot of people are using those services already and yet they are not getting the exposure ,they are not getting people to actually open their books and that’s what excites me about bookbuzzr is it actually allows people to open the books and we’ have gonna way that’s different from everything I have ever seen and personally vikram I am not, I am a, I am a book person, I like a book, I like the smell, the CO, I like the.. Whole the book and always with bookbuzzr and its application it’s actually enjoyable to read a book on screen and I am, I am really amazed by that and I would like to know more about the actual fact and how you guys actually created this?
Vikram: Yes. So, we tried very hard, the initial version looked more like showing up like a document, like a PDF, like a better version of a PDF but again and again the point came up that the simulation of a page turning is very vital for the book reading experience and so we went back and we also throw out almost like two months of work that we had done at that point in time and went back and redesign the whole application and said that this is going to become central even though it seems like a trivial issue for a lot of people they say ok I am reading on the internet, I am reading a web page so why does it have to have a flip and at that point we asked ourselves also this question many times but I would say that chetan was instrumental in that because as an author he said I want my book to have that page turning effect I feel so much better about my book when that feature is there and so we went back and we did quite a bit of accurasion and finally settled on this format where the page while turning if you click it and drag it turns like a flip book and we think it’s very central to the whole experience.
Chad: it’s not just the because of the very cool application and widget the way it works but I am actually most impressed with this when you are reading it, when you are reading any of the books that available on bookbuzzr, it allows the reader to zoom in, it allows the reader to read the book on screen as if you are actually holding it in your hands and I gotta tell you that I think that is very powerful because that an even amount of authors obviously use their book cover on the website, on the blogs whether they are promoting it, just because someone sees the book cover does not mean that they open the book even if that is an option provided a long visit, while you seem to have created something that actually inspires people to look inside of the book and to me that’s I think obviously that’s one of the most powerful things that we have seen in already to get people actually look at our books. I am sure you must be, if there is any, first of all how many authors do you have? How many books uploaded on bookbuzzr now?
Vikram: we have got over 2500 authors and a similar number of books available on bookbuzzr now. It’s in about 4-6 months of n since we have launched and getting things right so that’s where we are right now. We are growing in a very haphazard fashion but everyday we grow we get about 10, 12 authors sometime, sometimes we get like in the region of a 100 on some special days but essentially we think that we are gonna hit this tipping point at some point every author is going to say, hey what I have seen this on other authors website and wanted for myself and at that point we expect growth to be exponential so we intend to, keep pushing this till we hit that point after this which we think it’s going to be an exponential explosive kind of growth with authors adopting the widget.
We have to think that it’s a function of what additional value we are going to add to authors so consequently we are doing a number of things in the backend to make sure that authors get additional exposure and find more readers, so that something we have been working on.
Chad: Excellent, you do me a favour vikram, install the system into your phone unless some speaker phone or if you could get just a little closer too so that I wanna make sure that people can hear you clearly
Vikram: sure, sure, I guess it’s the smaller room, it’s, I am in the office this morning so is this a little better.
Chad: That is a little better and it’s just could be the 14,000 miles between us.
Vikram: Fine
Chad: , I am curious such things a lot of obviously new authors, unknown authors are using bookbuzzr, we are actually in the middle of transferring all the books we offer to inner circle publishing and inner circle press, we are setting them up so that the look inside the book feature is mainly through bookbuzzr but I am curious that any of the known authors I mean is Stephen king is using that if not why not?
Vikram: well, we haven’t designed this for Stephen king, our goal is really the the smaller or the newer author who is looking to get started, the other day we got this email from an author who said he mentioned how bookbuzzr had helped him and how bookbuzzr has helped the sales on Amazon and then he mentioned thank you for helping us little guys get started and that’s that’s really was very satisfying for us, we think that the Stephen king of the world will probably use this product but at a later point in time but we have had some very interesting authors use the product for example the one of India’s largest IT outsourcing company it’s called the Wipro, it’s they compete with Accenture and IBM on a number of deals, their chief marketing officer Jessie Paul has written a book called “No Money marketing” and she found us on the internet, she put up her book on bookbuzzr and started using it on her website and started talking about the product and again she is probably one of the biggest names in the corporate world and she is using this technology, so we have all these kinds of interesting things happening but at anyway our focus right now is on making sure that we provide a platform that will allow viral marketing effects and best place for starters for authors who needed, who needed the most.
Chad: you just mentioned something about Amazon I would love to see their instantaneous and aggression towards, even on Amazon if you could even post a link to the bookbuzzr or even having Amazon in place bookbuzzr and actually putting the widget on Amazon site, is that being considered or any links with that?
Vikram: Well we do have this huge Amazon integration project that is underway, we are looking at every integration point that’s out there, obviously we also need to talk to Amazon at some point. At the moment Amazon’s wide number of features, number of API’s that allow you to integrate your application with theirs, we are working on that, and that’s gonna be there in a couple of months we are gonna have a number of Amazon integration points.
Chad: Wow, so you are taking something that’s phenomenal now and just about to make it a whole lot better and probably global.
Vikram: Yes, Thank you, you are welcome.
Chad: vikram we do have callers on the line and I wanna encourage dozen people to call and especially authors because I know every author is asking themselves the same question how do I get people to see my book versus the other 10,000 that just came up this morning and we got the guy on the line that seems to be able to provide the better results so call us on 702 you are online here with the talk radio and I am speaking live with CEO of BookBuzzr Vikram. Call us on the 702 are you with us live?
Rob Wilson: Can you hear me Chad?
Chad: Hi, can hear you and I recognise the voice. It sounds like Rob Wilson.
Rob Wilson: Hey there!
Chad: Now what kind of questions do you have for Vikram this evening?
Rob Wilson: I was just basically gain some information but on this BookBuzzr and probably on Amazon how, how will that expand the persons things and how can I get like evenly, even bigger than that is what I really curious about.
Chad: Good question.
Vikram: Ok. Rob, , thank you for calling in and I am just trying to get a a sense of what you have just asked. Could you please repeat your question? It seems like I could not get most of that so.
Rob: Ok, I am trying to say is actually you get it tie to Amazon and things like that what would be the best thing for the author to do to even make it bigger for themselves using the BookBuzzr so there is gotta be some many other ways
Vikram: Sure. So if you leave Amazon, apart from Amazon the two biggest networks out there are Face book and Twitter. So the bookbuzzr process encourages you to first of all upload your book or your book extract on to the site. It creates a little book widget so think of it as a replacement for your book cover and it would go everywhere that your book cover goes it would go there and once you do that you can post your book, your bookbuzzr book widget on sites like facebook so on your facebook profile you would put up your bookbuzzr book widget so when someone visits your facebook profile, your friends look at your profile they would see your, the widget and they would be able to flip those pages, check out where they can buy your book, check out links to your interviews or media mentions that might be there. Learn more about the book all without leaving your facebook profile and finally they might be tempted to clicking on the full screen view and view the book in full screen mode so that’s one big integration point and that’s a very easy thing to do the entire thing takes about five minutes and essentially what you are doing is making sure that all your friends know about your book and have an easy way to share your book on their own profile so when a friend comes to your, your profile and he or she says hey that’s a neat looking book widget and I like this book and this the author is a friend of mine maybe I should help him to promote this book on my own profile what they would do his click on the share button and again within thirty to, thirty seconds to a minute they can share it on their own page, on their own facebook page and so you are hoping that your book captures the attention of your friend and then their friends and a viral effect takes in, a viral marketing effect takes in and there is also another option where you can set up bookbuzzr to tweet about your book on twitter. So every time you could say every time a hundred plus people read my book extract a sample of my book I like it to be mentioned on twitter now you obviously need it to set it up very carefully if not you would annoy some of your followers, you want to be active on twitter but if you set this up, this will automatically send out tweets on twitter and finally bookbuzzr also have a options where you can send out an email with a link to your, to your bookbuzzr book widget and to all of your friends so on gmail, yahoo you can just with two clicks you can send out mails to all your friends and again it provides you an easy interface where you can friends can also share it with their own friends and it goes on.
Chad: I am sorry to interrupt there but I wanted to add something in there because what you, what you just said Vikram is the with the cooperation aspect I mean that is how things are done anyways with the cooperation and one of the greatest things about bookbuzzr that I have seen is that share function because not only can you invite people to look directly to inside of the book but with one click anyone who does designate with it anyone who does wanna share to their own facebook, myspace, twitter profile any social media or even on their own blog or website with one click they can share that and that with making cooperation, easy to accomplish we are gaining more and I really appreciate the fact that bookbuzzr is set this up so conveniently, to be automated for other people to share your work. As vikram I had quite a bit of success on with “Uncommon Sense”, one of the book that we have posted on bookbuzzr and the reason that’s been so successful is the cooperation of other people on twitter, on facebook, myspace that designate with the work and allow to share it and you have something that powerful that that I think that’s what which sets you apart.
Rob: Hey Chad again one more question there with you. Can you put that like on stuff your blog and things like that?
Chad: Absolutely
Vikram: Yes you can put it up on blog, on blogger, you can put it up on blogger, it does not work with wordpress right now, with the wordpress site itself. We are actually going to get in touch with the wordpress and find out why that is they are a lot more strict with this application so we are going to be getting in touch with wordpress but it works perfectly well with blogger.You can put it up on blogger may be with two clicks so basically on your blogspot account you can get that up and running and most other blogs it should work we have tested it.
Chad: Absolutely and you notice actually I just noticed that there are over a hundred and fifty different share option to post to blog blog, Digg there is just so many other more it everyday but bookbuzzr has already set up to initiate that so that if you are a member on any other social media site with one click you can post that book directly to that organisation and I think that that’s also incredible.
Chad: Rob, thank you so much for calling and loved to have you on our show and I appreciate you in putting questions. You got to be thanking much to vikram we loved you from here otherwise hang out on the line and
Rob: Yeah, I just wanna thank him also having this call because it is very enlightening for me.
Vikram: Thank you Rob, my pleasure
Chad: Excellent and I appreciate him calling as well, Rob is actually one of the author of inner circle publishing and I see a few of them in the chat room as well, all of our books are being uploaded to bookbuzzr I said but one of the thing I want to mention is the widget design, I actually, I do like it, I do like it but I am considering have you ever thought about making it available in different formats. So that you have one that exactly what you have, may be another one with more looks something exactly like the book cover.
Vikram: well, yes that is the one thing that we have been having it for some time now eternally we call it has “BookBuzzr Chota”. Chota is an Indian word which means small so the current version of the bookbuzzr widget is slightly larger than a book cover. It’s design to fit in the sidebar space but we realize that some sidebars may be smaller or some place, some people, some authors may want smaller a smaller version of bookbuzzr so that is something that we are working on. In the meanwhile there is also another option which is the email signature option. Have you seen that Chad? That feature, the email signature feature?
Chad: Yes, which makes your email signature you mean?
Vikram: Right, It makes your email signature. So one could potentially use that email signature there but this is something that we are working on and I think that’s a fantastic idea and now that you have mentioned that on this call it’s something that we are gonna go back and accelerate and see if we can make it smaller so when you say smaller, you mention how small would you wanted to be?
Chad: well it’s still just a several different options but may be a small widget. Something comparable to you guys using an email signature and on our inner circle publishing book pages we actually have a very large book covers so that people can see the book just as much as they can but that obviously not bigger than I am and I just thought that instead of this small widget may be we can have an option for a larger one but one thing that I really really appreciate is the bookbuzzr is actually it’s own independent book from loading website I mean for instance on Uncommon Sense we have listed which gives you the options to list anywhere that the author is appeared, any shows, any other links, where to buy it? So essentially this one small widget is effectively in entire website, it’s all about that author and all about that book and again for that to be one click away from being shared with everyone in the world I got to compliment you my young friend I think it’s amazing.
Vikram: Thank you, it’s, just looking authors and also chetan’s input which has been very vital in this whole thing.
Chad: What is the most creative use of the bookbuzzr that you have seen to gain exposure because again every author asks the same question? How do I get people look at my book? What are some of the creative ways you think other authors use bookbuzzr to get exposure for their own work?
Vikram: Well I have seen this being posted on blog that’s being done quite often. We have seen it, seen people creating groups on LinkedIin and sharing their books on with those groups. It works very well for non-section books. If you are an established expert and you got your own little group on LinkedIn going then you want to share it. We have seen some authors put it up right on top on the top right hand corner of their site where the, where the banner is, where the top header is. Have you seen them put it up over there? So yeah, those are some of the place users that we have seen. Or we have seen people using it on Myspace; we have seen non-English authors use it, so yeah those are some of the users that we have seen.
Chad: Actually I got a lot of, lot of folks on Twitter asking on that day I had mentioned about the bookbuzzr I had mentioned and there are a quite a few people that they just don’t know about bookbuzzr here, hopefully this show lets authors know more about it because again if you are an author and you have a book out there and you have a PDF file of that text block there is really no reason it shouldn’t be on bookbuzzr right now.
Vikram: Yes and if you are an author typically you spend the largest amount of time on the cover image, typically the , the goal of a cover, of the book cover is so that the potential reader picks it up and looks at the cover, looks at the tag line of the book then turns the book over and looks at the back cover and then the third step in the process would be you would look inside the book. So most when you could do this online and you just stick in an image of your book that not likely to encourage this kind of usage pattern. So the goal behind bookbuzzr really is to simulate some of those experiences that happened in your live real bookshop where you walk in, you look at the book, you stumbled upon a book and you turn it over you look at the back cover then you flip inside so we are trying to make that easier.
Chad: And you thus maintain a great job with that unless you mention that this widget can actually be embedded for those of you on blogtalk that hosted on our shows. This is the show now if you are watching this you see in the show description we have actually placed the bookbuzzr widget followed by books on Uncommon Sense and as you can see its right there actually in the show description so I think that’s very very powerful. Anyone hosting their own blogtalk show here might be something they consider you can click that share function, grab the code, post it directly in your description of your blogtalk show and the other one thing is seeing your book.
Vikram: And typically in Indian philosophy you have this notion that when the student is ready the teacher appears and with books we believe the same thing. when the reader is ready the book appears and hopefully its going to be in bookbuzzr format as a bookbuzzr widget. Typically you would not search for a book because for example the book “Uncommon Sense”, I personally love that book, I love that poem called mantra and I would never have searched for that, I would never have gone out and said yeah I am gonna search for a book or for a verse called mantra, I would never have found it in the first list and I wouldn’t have search for it but I stumbled upon it and hopefully that’s the goal of bookbuzzr that people discover your work in places that they don’t expect maybe on a friends facebook profile, or someone’s blog or someone’s Myspace profile, to somebody’s tweet on LinkedIn or Reddit or digg hopefully they stumble upon your work and that’s really the goal.
Chad: I agree with you. You said that when the student is ready the teacher appears and. we are living in such a synchronistic society that is so digitally connected, so one click away from each other that it’s amazing. I have seen this it’s happen on Twitter all the time. You post something one of your original power in a moment and are countless other people either experiencing that same power right now or that same power applies directly to the allies in such a way that it is timely it is delivered to them and even with books obviously the information contained in them, bookbuzzr is another way for us to able to share this information real-time in synchronistically so that whenever the student is ready may be the teacher is a book and it could be right there at your finger tips.
Vikram: Exactly.
Chad: Hmm. I am curious but I see that it is always improving, I see that on a site and I see that you guys are always adding new things and can you gonna share me your secrets with this about what coming next?
Vikram: Right. Ok, so what coming next? One of the big features we have been working on is this notion called “Related Books”. So when somebody looks at a particular book ideally he is going to see other author’s book also at the end of his book so we are working on a feature called “Related Books”. The second thing we are working on his search engine Optimization. So that paragraphs from inside the book come up when somebody runs a search that’s the next big thing we are working on and we are also working on giving you the a badge. Let’s say Uncommon Sense has now more than two thousand full page views. People are reading it and its literally on fire that particular book and so we are gonna be showing up a little badge that says that this is the bookbuzzr Top Ten book and that badge is going to be there inside the widget itself so that’s the thing we are working on.
Chad: Love that and I love the idea of a related book with that mean anyone say if they are searching that they are reading another bookbuzzr book that say poetry then my book Uncommon sense will appear as related book because of poetry. Wow! Ok, excellent and I love the idea of the badge as well being able to, being able to see that. One thing I really like about bookbuzzr is that it gives these stats. You mean you don’t have to login or have an account, anything. Anyone can go to the website, they can click on it and they can actually see the number of views that the book is received. I like that as a publisher because authors always want to know where they are going to reach, they wanna know about the fact. the marketing and promotion it’s having and with allowing, with bookbuzzr allowing those stats to be viewed publicly it gives them that ability to see the results directly and I tell you whenever I post I have some friends on Twitter to listen and I appreciate them but when I post my books on, from bookbuzzr on to twitter it can receive anywhere from ten to twenty-five views immediately. I mean as soon as I press inner within the next minute you can go back to the bookbuzzr page and you can see in real-time how many people viewed that book because the way it is did and that’s to me is actually amazing it’s absolutely amazing.
Vikram: Right a real-time feedback.
Chad: And I did read about of course Google is integrating with Twitter so that real time tweets will be basically categorized by Google so then when searching, search something in real time anyone tweeting about that topic will come up on a Google search. Now let’s work the same way for books and will bookbuzzr books be listed on Google as well.
Vikram: Well, that’s something that’s not there right now and that something that saw you little farther down the our horizon but obviously coming up with a bookbuzzr widget when somebody runs a search here is a big thing that we have want in there. The other big thing that we are looking at and we shall haven’t got our arms around it as yet is Google wave so everyone is talking about Google wave, Google making a big push towards that, they opened up their API so that’s another area that we are studying I am seeing where or how we could value to authors through Google wave so that’s another thing.
Chad: That’s interesting from here. A lot’s and lots about the Google wave of course don’t, I don’t have an invite for yet folks so Google if you are listening send me an invite I would like to check out Google wave. It’s a, I am curious this from what I understand about Google wave it will allow users to share documents, photos, anything it’s on your system or computer with anyone else and not, I am not exactly sure how that works here but I like that idea because again as authors wanting to promote books, again now we have the ability to reach other one who is on Google and I understand that Google is turn a big aren’t they these days?
Vikram: Right. So they have the muscle power to push through a big idea and to their credit they are working on really some big ideas and it looks like Google wave is one of their big pushes out there, that’s something that if you are a developer you can’t not look at it right now and this is one of those things that you have to study and get into it.
Chad: Yeah and I heard this BookBuzzr is definitely has a strong Twitter presence you guys are you seem to have a staff or just several different folks that are on Twitter, they are active you have got about a wide helpline..
Vikram: Yeah we have got a staff really for providing Live Help so if someone needs help with their BookBuzzr upload process or host upload, marketing process we are avail out there typically we are there till about 11AM Eastern Standard so that will be about 8 Pm 8 Am pacific so that’s one thing but in terms of Twitter itself we have one person my colleague Freya who is on, her Twitter, handles book at BookBuzzr and she provides some information that’s valuable to authors and occasionally talks about very interesting BookBuzzr book so that’s basically our Twitter presence right now.
Chad: And I appreciate them being there because I have seen a lot of times when I post things about our books not just my own but any of Inner circles books from BookBuzzr. I notice that someone’s there from BookBuzzr usually backing it up and I again that’s impressive, for a free service you are sure offering a lot of, a lot of, of just a lot. You are offering a lot when considered this is absolutely free. I guess that’s it and the next question I have is, is there any talks or any ideas of there is being a charge for BookBuzzr.
Vikram: Well, that’s something that we are playing around with. Our own sense is that revenues will come in a way that we don’t expected to be. For example when Google launched if they had charged for search, search was is one of the most valuable functions out there and had Google made the mistake of charging for search they may not have been where they are today so we are big believers in the free economy anything that’s digital is rapidly rushing towards free and so at this point of time we don’t have a plans to directly charge for BookBuzzr we want to keep that free all the time forever but we are working on a couple of business models on the backend. one of those is advertising; the other is premium services for authors and again what that is? Is again that’s something that’s out there that we are researching. The Third is a sponsorship opportunity. Now one of the other big things that we are considering and it could work in the long run is allowing Ads to be shown inside of book and sharing those Ad revenues with authors so that’s something that out there may be a year or two down the road and that could be very powerful for a number of authors who would like to supplement their revenues. So many times when I buy a book it’s really is a memento for me; it’s a souvenir for me so I like the book, let’s say I like Uncommon Sense I want a copy not because of the quantum but because I have formed an emotional bond with, with that book or it’s part of the book so I want to have a physical copy. But I in this economy in this at the way the things are accelerating people won’t be able to quickly read everything, they want to get the information and if there is an emotional connect they want to go in for this souvenir. So at some point authors are gonna have to be able to share more and more of their works online while trying to figure out to the way to make money from other sources simply because that’s the way the market is moving. If you look at the book ‘Free’ from Chris Anderson the book was completely free for maybe a month or so and then people read it online. I personally downloaded the mp3 files which is again free and put up by the author and I listened to the entire book, I had been listening to it, the book became a NewYork’s time bestseller and and I am thinking of personally going out and purchasing a copy of that book because I have formed an emotional connect with that book I also think that there are parts of the book which I want to refer back to and the best way to do it is if I have it also as a copy. So figuring out ways where authors can make additional money is become the very important part for our business and we think that BookBuzzr is uniquely positioned for that simply because of the way the pages turn where when the page turns you wait till next page appears and figuring out a way to, of course in conjunction with authors and publishers and if they wanted offering a way for people to look at books almost for free is one big idea that we think is important we should be looking at so that where we are. In terms of cash flow itself I own another software company which does HR related software for hospitals, educational institutions and banks. So we have sufficient cash coming from that business as well as from other hassle investors who invested in BookBuzzr that we are ok for the next many years to actually experiment and play around and make sure that we have got enough adoption going before we turn on revenue models but we don’t want to turn on something and turn people off so that’s really where we are.
Chad: Yeah, yeah and I appreciate that. I like the, I like the idea of the not being as especially without the book itself. When people look inside the book now may be on the widget. Well, no not even on the widget you can also get because that would mean those ads would be running where that the widget is placed of without the ads but you mentioned something what about the ability to download books? I know a lot of people are starting to read books on their iphones and other applications is there any hope of BookBuzzr coming to a plan where people could download the full book even if they want to buy it through BookBuzzr and download the entire book.
Vikram: Yes definitely, so that’s another feature that we are working on called continue reading feature. So let’s say I have finished fifty pages of a particular book on BookBuzzr and I am tempted enough to continue reading there is going to be little link that says continue reading but the way we wanted to do that is it’s obviously something that we wanted to be very different from what’s out there. it could be a radio head model where people say pay what you want to pay for that and then continue reading. It could be a cost where if you make a decision in the next thirty seconds it’s going to be X price and in the next forty five seconds the price is going to change or it could be some other model but we are actually working on a number of
Features where the author can setup these things where the user is tempted into making a buying decision right there and then and again it’s our view of the world is that people will actually pay and often pay good money if they have the option of
Looking at their books on different devices so even though I may not be willing to pay for a book to read online and actually willing to pay money to listen to it on my ipod because that’s when I do most when I am listening so when I am driving I can listen to a book.
Chad: Ha Exactly.
Vikram: So the vision is that people will pay for devices and so building those integration points allow people to download through their iphones, kindles or palm pre’s is central to that. So that’s something again we are working on.
Chad: Exactly and I understand lot of people are they are interested in the PDF of books because they can load it in the applications such as I cannot recall the name of it now but it something we actually read a PDF to you. In any language you choose that’s actually very clever. In fact lot of people say hey I want this book but I don’t actually want the book, I want PDF of it. We told you that and I do understand what they were doing but at actually what they are doing is, they download the PDF, they put it into this reader and then when they are in the car, they are in the train and when they go they are actually listening to this book via this reader and that I think that’s impressive as well. Anything they get words in front of people. I am a firm believer that words are the foundation of that all, the beginning of that all and by hearing words, we can actually improve the effect and hopefully change the entire world. BookBuzzr excites me because this is the way book works in front of people. We are living in a time where it is difficult to compete with the media machine. Television, internet all these images and flash, neon and it just never stops. It’s an endless array and stream and people are moved more by words but it’s difficult for words alone are paged to compete with cable TV. I wanna congratulate BookBuzzr on making, making words more interesting to read and actually getting people opening books because with all the great things in the world it is the books that convey these ideas and I think that’s, that’s alternatively which is going to affect the world.
And now we are going, let’s check out time 5:47 at 14 minutes remaining. Callers are welcome 646-716-8138 we are live here to put the next about to twelve minutes about twelve minutes with the founder of BookBuzzr and a fReado and Vikram I wanna ask you about that. What is I understood that a fReado is a place where all the books are listed but BookBuzzr is a different site. What’s the purpose of that?
Vikram: Well, really BookBuzzr is for authors and at some point we think that readers don’t really to get exposed to the marketing side of things so readers don’t need to understand how do you market a book online? If I am a reader I just want to be able to come to a site and start reading a book. Whereas if I am an author I need to understand all of these dynamics how do I do while marketing, how do I tweet about this book? So BookBuzzr is really focussed on authors and so we decided to separate those two things out and fReado becomes a listing of books in Bookbuzzr format and their author profile and book profile so that the readers just enjoy the experience of reading so they don’t need to really get into what’s happening inside the under the herds.
Chad: Now actually that’s make sense especially when you are looking at I guess BookBuzzr will be considered more of backend for those participating in it and fReado will be the front end for people reading the books in it.
Vikram: Exactly.
Chad: Excellent, excellent. , I know that a lot of authors even today they are using YouTube as well. We use it quite a bit for ourselves for author interviews, promos for books and things of that nature. Are you guys using anything on YouTube to promote BookBuzzr now?
Vikram: Ah not really. Right now our biggest presence is on Twitter and we are hoping to blog and shows like this where authors get a word out. We haven’t looked at twitter I mean at Youtube. By the way Chad I really loved your little video which you put up on YouTube where you do the the rap its called sarcasm.
Chad: Sarcasm yeah. Thank You. Yes. Definitely so you obviously seen some of our YouTubes as well.
Vikram: It’s very compelling. A video is like a two minutes thing that you want to watch. and you could see it that’s pretty impressive.
Chad: Well again, that’s why we post not just us but any author that’s why you post on YouTube is to generate a buzz , a buzz about what you are doing, whether it’s a book, whether it’s a show anything that you wish to promote and YouTube has been a great source for that but I got to tell you even with YouTube we had almost 17,000 views to the fourteen videos we posted there. We are putting more up these kind of things but I still never seen anything that pictures. My book Uncommon sense has been up for years. It was it came on 2004 not the best seller in the entire world because amazingly and ironically it’s very difficult to sell poetry you just take it that. But since I am into BookBuzzr I have actually experienced book sales for a book of poetry and that is pretty outstanding because again I think when people open it and they see what it is? Well then they can decide for themselves whether or not they designate with the message that is conveyed and again even with YouTube, even with Twitter, even with all these things we have been using since we started this. I don’t ever think anything that actually works as well as BookBuzzr so I just, I wanna complement you on that and thank you for creating something.
Vikram: Thank you so much for BookBuzzr and using it, thank you so much.
Chad: It’s just absolutely amazing. Now I know we are rapping up to coming to bottom or top of the hour I guess either way you look at it. Any last words, any remaining words for authors out there who never heard a BookBuzzr but are looking for a way down to get more views to their book. Anything learning we must Vikram.
Vikram: Sure. So if you are an author there is so many other options out there and and they are competing for your time but we say that if you try BookBuzzr it will make big difference and helping you get started with your book marketing efforts. He would also be joining with a community of other authors with similar issues, similar challenges and and of course it’s free, so you really don’t lose anything except couple of minutes of your time to try out with our product. So that’s about it from our side Chad.
Chad: Excellent, I thank you so much for joining us all the way from India that is absolutely amazing. It’s great to be in contact with you and connected with your be it Twitter and all these other networks. One thing I would like to mention to you before we leave is if you ever interested in anyone to do any design work for the widget I would love to apply my friend, I would love to apply.
Vikram: Oh ok great! Yes. It’s something that I can test with it.
Chad: Excellent. Vikram thank you so much for joining us tonight show on our talk radio. This has been a live broadcast with another having got pain here in the world of not just books but really with communication, with technology. I mean we have seen technology advance faster than our means of communication my friend I got. I appreciate everything you are doing with BookBuzzr which allows people to not only share the things they communicate but encourages them to share with others and again I think the co-operation that’s also what’s making the web what it is and of course what can change it and you are just doing the amazing job with what you have created with BookBuzzr, so thank you so much for that and I does want to appreciate for a different Uncommon Sense because it’s seems like no one paid near as much attention before as they do now and I just
Vikram: It’s really good because it is really an uncommon book it is very different.
Chad: Oh thank you for that. I appreciate that. Ladies and gentleman Vikram pronounce your last name for me just one more time because I want to say right.
Vikram: Na Ra Yan. Narayan.
Chad: Narayan. Ah I can do that. I can do that. Ladies and gentleman Vikram Narayan namasthe sir.
Vikram: Namasthe.
Chad: Thank you for spending time with us
Vikram: Goodnight
Chad: Hi this is our talkradio Thursday special my edition. I know we are not usually live with this time but hey that’s live but it goes in the moment, it goes, it goes where next. I appreciate all of you in the chat enjoying us live, those of you on Twitter listening as well and we will be re tweeting the show. Thank you so much, appreciate listening and share the link we will see you next time.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
BookBuzzr - The One Free Tool That Every Author Needs for Book Marketing
You upload your book-extract to fReado and it becomes available through BookBuzzr
Readers discover your book extract on your site, on blogs and on fReado.com
Readers sharethe book with others on blogs, social networks and forums
As an author trying to market your book online, you may find that many of the simple steps involved in Internet marketing are actually quite daunting. Consider the simplest and most important pre-requisite of offering an extract of your book online in a nice to read format that can be easily shared among your readers. 99% of author websites are unable to allow sampling of books on their websites. They simply stick in an image of their book and hope that this is enough to stimulate the desire to read the book among site visitors. You know you can do better than that!
BookBuzzr is built from the ground-up for word-of-mouth (or shall we say, click-of-mouse) book-marketing. By signing up for BookBuzzr you can allow readers to browse through portions of your book in a nice to read online, flip-book format where the experience is similar to reading a real book. Additionally, they can get a single place listing of all things related to your book such as links to where they can buy your book, where they can discover interviews with you, where they can listen to podcasts related to your book and more.
Need another reason to sign-up for BookBuzzr? Let's talk about "share-ability" or "distribute-ability." Let's say you saw a book-extract of a book that you loved and you want to share this with readers of your blog. The best most people can do is to put up a link to the book-extract. But is this enough? The era of people going to a few "destination" websites to get their content is over. Today you are as likely to see an interesting video embedded on a blog that you discovered as you are of seeing that video on YouTube. So we've taken care of this for you. Fans of your book can easily embed your book on their personal blogs and become ambassadors for your book.
BookBuzzr is intended to take care of most of the details related to online book-marketing and book promotion on an ongoing basis. At the very least, BookBuzzr helps you to:
- Reach your target audience by allowing them to discover your book in various places such as blogs, websites, social networking sites and more.
- Tell them that your book is available by providing links to places where they can buy your book.
- Persuade them to read it by allowing them to easily sample your book with jaw-dropping book simulation technology.
As a bonus, when you sign-up, you also get listed on fReado.com where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author-site or blog thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches. We also have plans to connect fReado with Facebook Connect. This enables your readers to:
- Seamlessly "connect" their Facebook account and information with your book
- Connect and find their friends who are on fReado
- Share comments made on your book with their friends on Facebook
Sign-up now for free and join other elite authors who understand the art of online book promotion!
Given the growth of Twitter and it's importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:
- To help the author gain more followers on Twitter
- To make the book more visible among the authors' Twitter followers
- To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.
These Twitter features for marketing books online include:
- Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.
- Every time a reader opens an author's book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.
- Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author's book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.
- Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Why your book cover image is as dead as a fish out of water when it comes to marketing your book online
As an author, you know that a lot of effort goes into your book's cover - its title, the imagery and so on. Of course, the cover's aim is to get a reader to open the book and sample your writing - and then hopefully, buy the book. In terms of marketing a book, giving a reader the opportunity of glancing at the cover and flipping through the book's pages is the bare minimum required.
There's nothing wrong with this approach except that it works only in physical bookshops - the book will ultimately sit on a bookshelf somewhere, where a reader can easily browse through the book. But as you know, the world has changed a lot and people don't buy books only in bookshops. Books are also marketed online through blogs, social networking sites and of course, your own website.
Nonetheless, authors continue to use the book's cover image - basically just a static picture of the book cover - in their online marketing efforts. This image just sits there, and potential customers cannot do what they would in a physical bookshop - open the book and start flipping through the pages right there and then.
In short, you continue to use a method that is meant for the physical world, in the online world. The fish - your book - that swims in water (the bookshop), is dead out of it (the online world).
It's a huge marketing opportunity wasted.
This is where BookBuzzr comes in. It's a neat, nifty 'widget' (basically, a software tool) that enables readers to easily do online what they would do in a bookshop - 'open' a book and start reading immediately. Readers do not have to hunt for your book's excerpt on your site. Bookbuzzr also displays the pages as they would in your physical book - with the same layouts, fonts and so on. Best of all, the pages really flip so the reader gets an authentic reading experience. Of course, you decide how many pages of the book you want to show. Here's what the widget looks like.
Your book-cover image
Your BookBuzzr Active Book Cover
This is where BookBuzzr comes in. It's a neat, nifty 'widget' (basically, a software tool) that enables readers to easily do online what they would do in a bookshop - 'open' a book and start reading immediately. Readers do not have to hunt for your book's excerpt on your site. Bookbuzzr also displays the pages as they would in your physical book - with the same layouts, fonts and so on. Best of all, the pages really flip so the reader gets an authentic reading experience. Of course, you decide how many pages of the book you want to show. Here's what the widget looks like.
What can you do with BookBuzzr?
1. Replace your book's cover image with the BookBuzzr widget.
For starters, you can - and must - replace your book's cover image with the widget wherever your book appears. This would include:
» Your website
» Your blog
» Share your widget with family, friends and colleagues on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn
2. Email signature
BookBuzzr also comes in the form of an email signature, which also looks like a flappable book.
3. Twitter integration
Moreover, given the growth of Twitter and its importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:
» To help the author gain more followers on Twitter
» To make the book more visible among the authors' Twitter followers
» To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.
These Twitter features for marketing books online include:
» Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.
» Every time a reader opens an author's book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.
» Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author's book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.
» Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As you know, it's very important for users to be able to find your book through search engines such as Google. When you sign-up, you also get listed on our sister site, fReado.com, where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author-site or blog thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches.
For starters, you can - and must - replace your book's cover image with the widget wherever your book appears. This would include:
» Your website
» Your blog
» Share your widget with family, friends and colleagues on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn
2. Email signature
BookBuzzr also comes in the form of an email signature, which also looks like a flappable book.
3. Twitter integration
Moreover, given the growth of Twitter and its importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:
» To help the author gain more followers on Twitter
» To make the book more visible among the authors' Twitter followers
» To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.
These Twitter features for marketing books online include:
» Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.
» Every time a reader opens an author's book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.
» Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author's book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.
» Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As you know, it's very important for users to be able to find your book through search engines such as Google. When you sign-up, you also get listed on our sister site, fReado.com, where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author-site or blog thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches.
A Cause For The Heart - An interview with Dr. Mani
I am glad to have Mani Sivasubramanian or Dr. Mani (as he likes to be called) with us today. Dr. Mani is an author, an internet marketer and a pediatric heart surgeon. He lives in Chennai, India where he runs the Children's Heart Foundation.
1. Dr. Mani please share a little about yourself.
Thanks for having me on this interview, Freya. I'm a paediatric heart surgeon, and treat children born with congenital heart defects.
Since the vast majority of my patients come from families of low economic means and are unable to afford the expensive treatment, I came up with the idea of running an online enterprise which funds these surgeries.
As a result, I now have an information business online as well as a non-profit Foundation. From a combination of business profits and charitable donations, we have funded 52 operations until today, with many more to follow.
2. What inspired you to start the Children's Heart Foundation? Can you share a little about it?
Around April 1998, I first came up with the idea of using profits from my fledgling online infopreneur business to sponsor heart surgery for one child who could not afford it. It was a vague hope, I had no idea if it would work - but to my surprise and encouragement, that happened within 2 years, and then grew to helping three more kids.
This sparked off the bigger idea of funding many more surgeries, and that's when the formal structure for a non-profit foundation was put in place. The Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation was registered in October 2003, that's almost 6 years ago. And over this period, it has grown steadily to where we are today, with over 1,000 donors, having raised funds to sponsor more than fifty operations.
That's how a dream, backed by purpose and nurtured with persistence, can grow.
3. Your mission is to make high quality heart health care accessible and affordable to every Indian child. How are you doing this?
There are many dimensions to this effort. First comes building awareness of the problem. Many people know that adults get heart disease, but few are aware that children can be born with heart conditions that are just as serious and life-threatening.
Seven of every 1,000 children born alive in the world have some form of congenital heart defect (CHD), and more than one-half of them require treatment. Many are fatal without timely correction. And almost always, the cost of this is high.
In India, there are only very rough estimates. In my home state, the figure is over 47,000 children are affected by CHD - and many more are born every day.
So, after building awareness, the next step is to deliver the treatment necessary to help this large group of children.
The effort involves a combination of private enterprise and Government backed action, both of which are progressing at a healthy pace. Our State Government has recently put into place some initiatives that have gone a long way in helping over 1,000 children with CHD in the last year alone.
Finally, the toughest problem of all is preventing CHD (or detecting it early enough to minimize the consequences of it), and that is in the realm of research - an area where I hope to have some impact, but only later after my primary goal of helping as many children live has been achieved.
4. You are an author of four books. Which of them is closest to your heart and why?
I have actually authored over 70 books in digital format, though I've only recently build up the nerve to publish them in physical form.
My first print book, "Think, Write & Retire", was well-received and reached #83 on Amazon.com in the Business & Investing section. All profits from that launch are being used to sponsor heart surgery.
But if you ask for the one closest to my heart, it has to be the one due for publication next. Its title is "47 HEARTS - How To Live Your Dreams And Reach Your Goals With Passion, Purpose & Persistence". It will be out soon, and you can keep up with it at http://47hearts.com
5. You have been active online for many years now. What are the different marketing activities you have done for your various books and foundation?
It would be easier to list the ones I have NOT done! :-)
Name it, I've probably tried it. Email, blogs, direct mail, tele-marketing, SMS marketing, newspaper ads, articles, integration marketing, joint ventures, affiliates, online video - I've tried it all.
The ones I use most often and effectively are email marketing to my own in-house list, social networking on platforms like Twitter, blogging, and a limited amount of search engine optimization efforts.
I've found that being very good at a few channels of marketing works better than being average at many more.
6. What has made a big difference? Do you have any recommendations for other authors?
For authors, my best advice would be to focus on building your platform BEFORE even writing your book. Your digital platform is a way to reach your core audience - book buyers.
Have a blog, and post regularly to it. You could share excerpts from your book, or discuss how you wrote it, or detail the lives of your characters or, more effective than others, use it as a way to spread your ideas even further... by discussing the THEME of your book.
That way you attract the kind of reader who identifies with you, is interested in what you stand for, and will likely buy your book when it is out. Targeting the right audience is what matters, not size of audience alone.
Use social networking to reach more people and invite them to your blog. I would focus on two or three social networks and go 'deep'.
My favorites are Twitter, Facebook and forums. Yours may be different.
Finally, get 'launch partners' involved. Anyone with an audience that may be interested in your book is a good fit. Let them preview your book, so they can write about it to their followers. Allow them to give away a few copies in a contest. Offer to 'guest blog' for them. Try to get in front of their audience - but in a way that also gives THEM value.
All of these worked for me. But then, my experience with book launches is pretty narrow, so take this advice for what it's worth! :)
7. Do you have a message for authors and readers out there?
Dare to dream.
And dream big.
Then, do not give up on your dream - no matter what happens.
Dreamers see the world, not as it is, but as it should be.
Remember, nothing worthwhile happens in a short time. Or easily. Or effortlessly.
Be prepared to put in the effort that your dream demands. Be prepared to wait for as long as it takes to make it come true. Be happy at all that happens along the way as you move towards your goals.
And trust that it is worthwhile - because when dreams come true, even in a small way, it is magic! And it will completely transform your life!
All success
Dr.Mani
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions Dr. Mani. Best of luck in all your endeavors. To know more about Dr. Mani and the Children's Heart Foundation visit his website.
Links to resources mentioned in the interview:
About the CHD foundation
Little smiling hearts we've helped
About Dr.Mani
Think, Write & Retire
Dr.Mani's blog
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