Can Bloggers Match Oprah?

LA Times: Bloggers push literary fiction. Marking a departure from the solitary life of reading and writing, about 20 independent literary bloggers will begin working together in hopes of drawing readers to books they feel deserve more attention, while seeking to generate more and deeper public discussions of literature.

The LitBlog Co-Op is a worthy idea, and if it spurs more reading of valuable books that would have otherwise been ignored, terrific.

Of course, the blogosphere is already doing some of this without the organization. When a lot of folks talk about books they like, they inevitably create more readership.

This was plainly true for my own book, published last August. It was essentially ignored by the mainstream media in the United States -- just one full newspaper review, a couple of magazine pieces and only a few media mentions otherwise. (Papers in other countries paid a lot more attention.) But the online chatter was, and remains, substantial. The book has just gone into a new printing, and I have no doubt that bloggers have instrumental in its continuing sales.

I wonder if the bloggers doing this realize the extent to which they're about to get lobbied by publishers, authors, agents and others who want to sell books. Actually, I'm sure they do, and probably will welcome the attention. I'll be watching this experiment with great interest.

Comments

[QrazyQat]

Well, this is interesting because, as you probably know, unless you're some perceived bigwig your book also never gets much of a push from the publisher unless it starts selling first. And it's hard to get it selling unless there's a push. And so on.

So they tend to ignore a lot of interesting books; instead placing their push behind creative works like "Vanna Speaks". The blogging experience is a really interesting method not available before -- sort of a cross between print, talk radio, and word of mouth in terms of what it can do for books.

[Jozef Imrich]

Whether it is 'We the Media' or 'We the Bookworms' all make a great gift for family and friends precisely because they are not part of the mainstream. It is quite amazing how weakness turns into strength. Only in Blogosphere ;-D

'[Litblog Co-op] experiment isn't about the individual bloggers taking part in it; it's about the power of focused enthusiasm by dedicated readers expressing themselves in unison. We aren't a "power bloc" that's going to fight for blogosphere supremacy; we just want to tell you about some books that we think you might enjoy.'

See - Village Voice: Could cyberspace be the novel's best friend? Litblogs take off—and grow up

[Usher Lieberman]

To Dan's point about bloggers being the focus of publishers' lobbying, I wonder if bloggers realize that they are already the focal point of PR strategies...Get an audience and you will be lobbied.

[Scott Esposito]

Dan,

As one of the bloggers in the LBC, I can tell you that we're already being lobbied by publishers, authors, etc--for our own blogs. Once our individual blogs started getting decent traffic, most of us saw how quickly publishers responded with ARCs and review copies. Many authors were expecially receptive to the idea of publicity per blogs, and some of them have even told me that it has helped drive book sales.

It's kind of funny. The publicity and the book sales are definitely a big part of the LBC (we want people to think we have some impact and sales seems to be how that is communicated these days), but I think that all of us are much more concerned with literature. Those seem to be the 2 sides to the litblog coin these days.