The Tree Frog Blog

The L.A. Times on YouTube & Book Marketing

Everyone's getting in on the action -- book trailers are the new buzz word.  But do they work?  That's the question...

Episodic Book Ads for Dean Koontz

Bantam Dell is trying something new with TV advertising for a series of Dean Koontz novels. The ads will feature no product shots, but will instead dive head-first into the interior life of the books' main character, a detective that speaks to the dead. (I can almost hear the meeting: "Hey... that sounds like 'Medium'! Let's make the ads look like a TV show.")

A pretty good idea, if it manages to grab viewers' attention long enough to pique their curiosity. Why it's taken so long for anyone to try this, who knows. But mega best seller Dean Koontz is a pretty safe starting place for a risky experiment like this.

The question then becomes -- how will viewers react when they realize the ad describes a book ("What? We have to READ this? I think I'll just wait for the TBS movie.") and not a new Dick Wolf or Jerry Bruckheimer series?

Here's a link to the books' site.

Women and Buying Power

Here's a link to a terrific 4-page article in the New York Times about how companies are beginning to recognize the buying power and influence of women.

Overpromise... and Deliver

I'm back, and will resume posting soon. In the meantime, here's an article in PW about an author who promised to talk to any book club who emailed him.  It paid off big time, and now other authors and publishers are coming to him for advice.

The Stolen Child: Update

The campaign for Keith Donohue's book, The Stolen Child, must be doing something right -- it's #39 on Amazon as of this writing.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that the novel is beautifully written with nary a false beat.  Look back to this page for a review, hopefully later this week.

Of Lit and Lipgloss

Product placement in books: inevitable?  Sure. But the funny thing about this article is how this young adult chick-lit campaign draws the line at tampons.  That's just pushing the fun too far.

The Stolen Child's Winning Campaign

Keith Donahue's The Stolen Child seems to be doing everything right. He's got a blog on Amazon... Amazon sent galleys to their top 100 reviewers... and NPR covered the unique new approach.

Bases covered. But can any author do this?

"Pulse" Moving Forward by Feed (Not Flagella)

Publishing is quickly catching on to the possibilities of distribution in the digital era. Robert Frenay's non-fiction book, Pulse, is being distributed by RSS.  Readers can subscribe to the feed and get a section of the book -- "the coming age of systems and machines inspired by living things" -- every day.

A bold experiment -- it will be interesting to see its impact on sales and publicity.

Be sure to read this Timeline of RSS Publishing too. 

Blogging Veronica Mars

Television's VERONICA MARS held a Blogger Press Conference Day. Now The Frog is waiting for the executive producers of LOST to invite her to Maui for a day, so she can wreak vengeance on the tree frog slaughtering Sawyer...

Powell's Gets It

Here's a great article about how Powell's Bookstore is using the internet, especially blogs and podcasts, to improve sales.