not blogging but writing

By Jon Reed

I know. I seem only to blog here these days when it’s a bank holiday in the UK… Well, fear not, dear reader – our little summer holiday at Publishing Talk Towers is now over!

Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, all the action has been taking place over on Twitter lately. Do follow us there if you don’t already, for daily thoughts, news and links on publishing and social media. We now have over 13,000 followers, which puts us well in the top 10 in the wefollow directory with the ‘publishing’ tag. Have a look at the directory to find other publishing tweeters to follow too.

There are also some changes afoot for Publishing Talk. I’m not going to say too much for now – but watch this space…

But where have I been? I’ve been busy re-launching my Reed Media site (my social media consultancy), which now also includes a blog on yet more social media topics. I’ve been running workshops (shameless plug to follow). But the other thing that’s been taking up my time is writing a book. Yes, I’ve finally completed the transition from publisher to author!

I’m working on a book called “Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing: What you need to know and do to grow your business” for FT Prentice Hall. It should come out next summer, if I somehow stick to the deadlines. It is aimed at small businesses and start-ups – but some of you might find it useful too, as it covers a wide range of social media tools.

What you might find more interesting is the marketing. I will be doing a lot of the marketing for the book myself, using all the social media methods I’ve been blogging about here for the last couple of years. I will keep you posted here about what I do, what works for me and what doesn’t – so you can consider it an extended case study! Some of the things I plan to do include:

• pre-publication blog – launching soon, I hope – just as soon as we get a cover design done, so I can follow the branding
• Twitter (obviously)
• Facebook Page
• AudioBoo – for those not yet using it, this is Twitter-meets-podcasting. You record audio on your iPhone, then attach a photo (if you want), upload it to the site, it adds a geolocated map of where the recording took place, and automatically updates your Twitter and/or Facebook status. Very quick, easy, and free. I can see this becoming my new favourite toy… I plan to use it for short interviews with people I write case studies about, or just to capture opportunistic meetings with relevant people I meet at conferences, tweet-ups and the like.
• Pre-publication podcast – for longer interviews with case study people. A limited-run podcast with a few episodes leading up to publication.
• Book launch in Second Life. Plus in real life, of course – possibly organised as a tweet-up.

So, please excuse me if I’m a bit sporadic at the moment. For I am not blogging, but writing. And marketing. And I’ll share the results of both with you.

Meanwhile, let us know what social media marketing methods you have found most useful for your books. Your blog comments are always useful – and get tweeted as well as appearing on this site.

Right, another 1,000 words before bedtime, I think…

Last 3 posts by Jon Reed

• Small and Mighty - February 19th, 2010
• A #twinter's tale - February 11th, 2010
• Celebrity Big Book Club - Day 14 - January 31st, 2010

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.