Online Book Gains Traction by Opening Itself up to Contributors

Imagine how much easier the book promotional tour is when you have a co-author.

Now imagine 50, or 100 co-authors.

The secret to marketing success for high school musicals is the huge number of cast and crew members, each of whom is a sales representative to their friends and relatives.

Taking this model to an e-book, Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton are organizing a book called The Age of Conversation, that will combine the knowledge and writing talents of many writers, each taking their own stab at the theme of conversations.

Since posting the idea two weeks ago, they’ve received commitments for contributions from 102 other writers.

The promotion on this won’t be as polished as the Naked Conversations promo machine of Shel Israel and Robert Scoble hitting every web or business conference they could find, but it will use the same idea of involving many people in the creation of the book.

You can expect the promotion of The Age of Conversation to take many forms, and involve many invitations to readers of blogs, conference-goers and others to buy the book.

Photo by Scott Beale.

Tags: ebook, gavin heaton, drew malennan, writers, group, age of conversation, naked conversations, book promotion, shel israel, robert scoble, marketing, writing