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Book Promotion On The Web: A Virtual New World

B Y A NDREA Z IMMERMANN

If your alter-ego leans toward detective work, you might want to talk to

Velma, the waitress at the Red Hen Diner. Or stop by the Historical Society to

read the town's social register to get a profile on the growing list of

suspects and victims.

Murder and intrigue are waiting for you (as are rewards for good sleuthing) in

the virtual city of Blackstone, created by Newtown resident Ellen Harris as a

promotion for The Blackstone Chronicles

(http://www.randomhouse.com/blackstone/), a Ballentine book series by John

Saul .

"People are moving in, they're moving to town," laughed Ms Harris, who also

created and maintains Ballentine's portion of the Random House website. "I won

the author and his partner over and convinced them it would be really cool...

It was the first [Web] promotion done for Ballentine so it had a high profile

in the company. It was accomplished mostly by getting the editor excited about

it."

The Blackstone Chronicles series lends itself to promotion on the Web because

there is a "virtual worldness" that can be created from the text and expanded

to engage an audience. The main page for the series includes eight locations

where visitors will find intrigue, clues, sample chapters, quizzes and

contests.

The Blackstone Post Office is the place where you can send e-mail to author

John Saul (who will respond, according to Ms Harris.)

The Chronicle is the local newspaper (take a close look at the icon - it's a

truncated version of The Newtown Bee building) where "articles" can be found

on John Saul, townspeople, and businesses that may or may not offer insight as

to whodunnit.

The Blackstone Library offers previews of the latest in the series, and

additional chapters of the first book.

Blackstone Bingo is where you can test your wits and win prizes.

Any sinister town would not be complete without an asylum or cinema (free

screensavers can be found there).

You will find a social register and map of the town at the historical society.

The Red Hen Diner is the place for "good eating and good gossip... and if

you're not here talking, someone might be here talking about you!" Case in

point: Steven King was not at the diner this week, but John Saul was there

talking about him and toasting him with pie.

The diner appears early in the series, but Ms Harris made up the waitress,

Velma, for the web page to convey information and encourage online comments.

The author then included Velma in one of the later Blackstone books. Webmaster

Harris also mapped out the town for inclusion on the web, a version of which

was added between the covers of subsequent books.

A Book A Month

The Blackstone promotion began in December, with a book released every month

beginning in January. Each month a sample chapter of the newest book is

posted, and more of the first book is online. By June, 80 percent of the book

will be on the Internet.

" Blackstone is a big deal for Ballentine to be publishing, and they wanted it

to do well. It was a great match for our website. I got the go-ahead to spend

a lot of time and money on it," said Ms Harris. "I worked with a guy in the

Promotions Department [on the art]. One of the technical people did the

programming."

The Blackstone web pages took Ms Harris one month to create. And she spends

one hour a week and one day a month to maintain them. With cover prices of

$1.99 (the books are each 90 pages), is it worth the time and expense to

promote the series in this manner?

"Last month we [presented] 5,400 eight-minute interactive commercials," said

Ms Harris, whose calculations were based an a rough average of time spent at

the site by each visitor. "For a website, that's not a lot - but it is a lot

if you think it is a web promotion for one set of books... For what we have

spent on it and what we get back - that's pretty good."

Although the goal of the overall website is to promote Random House Books

(Ballentine is a division of the company), it is not intended to take away

business from book stores. People can place orders online for books, but the

intent is to interest people in publications and reach those who do not have

easy access to a book store.

These are "people overseas or in the military - one guy needed to know the

publication date and ISBN so he could order a book," said Ms Harris. "One

woman, in Nova Scotia, lived 80 miles by `dog sled' from a book store."

Another purpose of the website is to attract people who don't necessarily read

books or know what books are available. This is accomplished by "partnering"

with other, special interest websites. For instance, someone who is a Civil

War buff might watch a television series on the subject, visit historical

sites, and search the Web for pages relating to his interest. A search engine

would bring up Random House when it profiled a Civil War book, but it might be

even more effective to have Civil War/History sites display a link to the

appropriate Random House page. Sites that link to the publisher's website earn

a percentage of material sold to visitors accessing the book site through

their pages, said Ms Harris.

Three Types Of Promotions

Random House currently has three types of promotions on the World Wide Web -

big feature promotions like The Blackstone Chronicles , one or two pages of

information for each of 10-15 new releases every month, and special promotions

that are often tied to holidays.

"The site tries to balance the biggest books for the season or year - the

books the company is putting the most effort behind, with books most suited to

promotion on-line," said Ms Harris. For instance, on the Web there is much

more interest in science fiction, thrillers, horror, spirituality, and amusing

political books than in non-fiction, literary novels, romance, or health, she

said.

"The nice thing about the Web is you can work really hard for two weeks on a

promotion... and it goes up and stays up. You may actually get more traffic

six months from when you put it up," she said. Random House and Ballentine

keep information on the web for as long as the books are in print, although

the framework for presentation changes as new books are featured.

The main advantages of electronic promotions over print is the longevity of

the work, ability to update, and the immediacy of communication. When the

"Anonymous" author of Primary Colors revealed himself, the publisher could

"instantly" react with a story, "Anonymous Speaks."

Committed To The Internet

"Random House is committed to using the Internet in any way it works for us.

Right now we're into `flashy' promotions, but we're looking at all ways to

promote," said Ms Harris. "We use the website to get people interested, then

we use other means to keep them hooked." These are "What's New" mailing lists,

e-mail reminders of when new books in a series or by an author are available

in book stores, and by partnering with other sites. The thrust is: "How can we

assist you to buy our books?"

She said she is constantly waging a battle to keep the publisher from using

website data "in ways I don't think are appropriate." This would include

sending print or e-mail promotions to people who have not demonstrated a

strong interest in a specific author, or who have not requested the material.

"People don't want to stuff flooding their mailbox that they don't ask for,"

she explained.

"Publishers have not been savvy about direct marketing," said Ms Harris. But

the Internet is changing that. "But we are being pretty conservative about

eliminating print for digital. [Digital might work well] for the

business-to-business end - it would be more accurate, updateable, and

hopefully more in-depth. With a catalogue you pay for every page."

The only authors who are not "really happy" about promotion on the Internet,

are those who are not featured, she said.

Ms Harris travels to Manhattan three or four days a week, and telecommutes

from Newtown on the other days. Right now, she enjoys reading "a lot of

literary fiction, non-fiction, travel/adventure, and science fiction - in that

order."

She graduated from Yale University, where she was an anthropology/psyche

major. She started her career as a science fiction editor for Del Rey, a

division of Random House.

Early in 1993, she became interested in the Internet and used her new

knowledge to create a monthly promotional newsletter, Del Rey Internet

Newsletter , which was posted on one of the big science fiction newsgroups, a

Gopher site, file servers, and offered by e-mail subscription. Before the

World Wide Web was established, she found this venue for a good way to give

exposure to books that were ignored by an "overburdened publicity department."

The newsletter included the plot, a description of why the editor liked it

enough to take it on as a title, and often drew comparisons with other

authors' works.

In short, it was more personal and longer than what came out of the publicity

department. The direct-to-consumer Internet marketing was new in the science

fiction world, and new at Random House.

"Another weird thing is that it came from the editorial department, so it was

viewed as more `honest' and was more trusted. We kept it a secret in editorial

for four months - we waited until it was a fait accompli ," said Ms Harris.

"Then the Internet hit the news."

Right now, Ms Harris is focusing her attention on "partnering" to find

websites that will link to Random House's pages. She is one of a small staff

that handles the publisher's website - there are five production, management,

and editorial people, two technical people, and six employees from other

divisions whose job description includes work on the Internet.

When not working at home or in the city, Ms Harris tends to her flock of

chickens, and a small, but thriving egg business.