Through the rest of the year, we are going to try a fun little “Web 2.0” experiment at Outskirts Press. We are going to take Social Media to a whole new level by harnessing the power of the people to help us make decisions around here. After all, those decisions affect YOUR books – you should get a say in what we offer, right?
When we ran our first attempt at this a couple of weeks ago it was a huge success, generating over 80 comments and insights. In that poll, we asked whether there was interest in a new “Featured Book-of-the-Week” option. The poll was overwhelmingly positive, with over 88% of the respondents being in favor of the new option.
Now that we know the vast majority of you were in favor of the new Featured Book-of-the-Week option, we need your help determining the order in which new options are made available. We cannot launch them all at once because each option takes a large amount of resources to develop, test, and administrate before we can make it publicly available. Your vote will help us prioritize our efforts.
Here are brief summaries of the options currently on the “table.”
1) Featured Book-of-the-Week – Featured title(s) spotlighted on an Amazon email blast to our 6,000 active authors, and to our social media channels with a posting on this blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc – All containing a direct link to buy the book on Amazon.com.
2) Author Apps – An iPhone 4/iPad application available in the Apple App Store for free download that highlights an author’s books and social media platform with up-to-date access to the author’s blog, Twitter account, Linked-In account, book videos, and books for direct purchase via your mobile device.
3) Social Media Market Research – Writing is often a solitary existence. Wouldn’t it be great if you could harness the opinions of a lot of other writers/readers/industry professionals to help you make decisions about your book? Have a question about which book title is best? Have a question about which custom cover design you should choose? Have a question about an ending, or a beginning, to your book? Your question will be posted to our social media network in poll form (just like you see below) and you will receive the results and comments to help you make an informed choice.
What option should we launch first?
Why do authors publish with Outskirts Press?
- You keep 100% of your rights
- You keep 100% of your royalties
- You keep 100% of the control
- You get to help make the decisions that affect you the most
2) 10% Off Your Publishing Package – This promotion offers an instant 10% savings on our 3 most popular publishing packages (Diamond, Pearl, and Ruby). If you publish with the Diamond, you will also receive $300′s worth of additional options free, like an e-book edition and press release, among others.
Hi, Janet:
Thanks for your input! Did you also make a selection on the poll?
Thanks again!