In a world where stunts are a popular method to attention for and move products, it is unsurprising that one would be used to sell a book. Take yesterday: observers (including me) were trying to figure out if the Q&A disaster between Little, Brown & Co. and author, Gabriel Roth, was in fact a stunt or just some really painful PR work.
It begins with some pre-Q&A tweets:
@gabrielroth r u serious
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
¯_(ツ)_/¯ @gabrielroth
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Then you have the publisher subtweeting the author:
Pro tip for authors: your publisher’s social media team are on your side. Do not harass them via DMs.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
The author tweets back:
… promote other people’s books instead, including books that aren’t even out yet @littlebrown
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
The publisher responds:
@gabrielroth Cool down. I can’t DM you back because you’re not following this account.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
@gabrielroth It’s not even 11am, which is when we usually start with the main tweeting anyway because it’s when the west coast logs on.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Then the Q&A begins:
@littlebrown Yes. Thank you.
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
Coming up in a few minutes: a special Q&A with @gabrielroth, author of THE UNKNOWNS!
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
If you have questions for @gabrielroth—about THE UNKNOWNS, or about social-media strategy, which he’s apparently an expert on—send ’em here!
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Our Q&A with THE UNKNOWNS author @gabrielroth starts now!
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
@littlebrown jesus christ
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
.@littlebrown No, it’s not autobiographical.
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
@littlebrown No, that’s not autobiographical.
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
@littlebrown Do you have any questions that aren’t about whether things are autobiographical?
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
.@gabrielroth OK: what are you working on now, and when are you going to turn it in?
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Noticing the Q&A has gone off the rails, Little, Brown & Co. decides to put an early end to it:
Well, it looks like that's it for the Q&A.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Anyway, THE UNKNOWNS is now out in paperback. The NYTimes called it “sparkling …[a] remarkably funny, tender book” http://t.co/q4gupKAkLk
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
… which @gabrielroth will probably be dining out on for the rest of his life, knowing him.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
Now I’m going to queue up a few promotional retweets and take the rest of the day off.
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 21, 2014
That was a not so subtle jab there by Little, Brown & Co. and through all of this, I thought it was hilarious. I debated with friends on whether or not it was a stunt but secretly wished that it wasn’t because the absurdity and social media faux pas was incredibly funny. Of course, we got our answer a few hours later:
There are many things I love about Little, Brown, and the fact that they sometimes give me the keys to their Twitter feed is just one.
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) May 21, 2014
And the actual people behind the Little, Brown & Co. twitter account acknowledged the stunt today:
Good morning, Twitter! We're sorry to report that today, @GabrielRoth will *not* be secretly tweeting from our account…
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 22, 2014
He did basically an amazing job yesterday and you should check out THE UNKNOWNS: now in paperback & not autobiographical. @GabrielRoth
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) May 22, 2014
The question I want to pose today in wake of this is: Does a stunt like this actually get people to check out and/or buy the book? In an industry where hundreds of books are all demanding the attention of consumers, anything to drum up attention is good. I, personally, wasn’t more inclined to check out the book than I was before the stunt but I became a lot more interested in LBC’s twitter account because who knows? Maybe they’ll try more of these.
I do think this approach to marketing will get people to at least look the book up but whether the book is interesting to that particular reader is dependent on if the reader would’ve been interested if they had stumbled upon it. If anything, this is about getting eyes on the book, but I would love to know if it will affect sale or if there is no real difference. I also wonder if articles such as this one will help increase the effectiveness of the stunt as well.
Gabriel Roth’s book, The Unknowns, is now available in paperback (and no, it’s NOT autobiographical).
It was a risky stunt. I didn’t like that it made the publisher look so bad, but it definitely got my attention…
I know that self-promotion is a big thing that authors need to do because publishers can’t really give them as much promotions as they’d like (marketing budget etc), so it’s cool that the publisher allowed this to occur….
Another question to ask: Will anybody want to read this book after having read the tagline? “In Gabriel Roth’s “Unknowns,” the narrator knows more about writing code than he does about women.” Bleh.
I think this is a potentially risky stunt but in this case I think it worked. I had never even HEARD of this book before the fake Q&A but now it’s on my to-read list. I thought the Q&A was funny and hope that his book has the same kind of humour. And even for someone like you who isn’t more interested in this particular book, you’re more interested in the LB Twitter account and I imagine you’re not alone – which potentially means more publicity for all their books.