Viral Video: The New Way to Market Books

Over the week­end, The Wall Street Jour­nal took a look at an emerg­ing trend in the pub­lish­ing world — using viral videos to pro­mote new books. The strat­e­gy, which has­n’t yet gen­er­at­ed much in the way of sales, is being used to mar­ket books by estab­lished authors (take Jodi Picoult’s 19 Min­utes for exam­ple) and new authors as well. One video not men­tioned in WSJ’s piece is the fair­ly slick clip that pro­motes Toby Barlow’s début nov­el Sharp Teeth. Bar­low, when not writ­ing, is the cre­ative direc­tor of a large adver­tis­ing agency. Hence per­haps the will­ing­ness to take this approach:

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