Books

This industry leader is frustrated with people like me who recently sent him an advance copy of a newly published book.

How would you inform people about your new book, when you know that Amazon won't promote it, and you know that Barnes & Noble and Borders have zero interest in carrying the book?

You tell me --- if you were me, how would you market the next book I write? What is an appropriate price point? What is an appropriate cross-channel platform (paperback, hardcover, e-book, mp3 audio, give away free digital copies but charge for dead-tree versions)? How would you market a modern book? Or are books finished, just write stuff on the blog and hope money magically arrives, or take the advice of the author and condense the message to 800 words in a trade journal?

If you like marketing books, here's a few from folks who've been very kind to me in the past.

• Web Analytics An Hour A Day, by Avinash Kaushik. A well-done book by a humble individual who donates the proceeds of the book to charity.

• The Numerati, by Stephen Baker.

• Best Practices In Multichannel Operations And Fulfillment, by Curt Barry. Curt and his team assembled a series of articles in this new text.

• Multichannel Marketing: Metrics And Methods For On And Offline Success, by Akin Arikan.

• The Truth About E-Mail Marketing, by Simms Jenkins.