Enter, Odyl!

We’d heard about Odyl on our social networks and noticed that some of the cooler contests we were seeing on Facebook seemed to have this little marker at the bottom:

We reached out to them and a small team from Chronicle Books sat down for a quick demo.

After a few minutes, we were already sold. Odyl provided easy-to-use solutions for so many of the roadblocks we had hit. Ability to host contests without breaking the budget or Facebook rules? Check! Ability for users to upload photos and send them around for voting? Check! Ability to share Scribd excerpts, book trailers, and other assets? Check, check, check!

From the moment we decided to test the tool until it went live, mere weeks elapsed. Everyone over at Odyl worked around the clock to get our tool live for the critical holiday book-selling season. And we were pleased to find that the tool is robust enough for us to give it our signature Chronicle Books look and feel.

We launched our tool in early November and named the new section on our page: Free Stuff! Our fans immediately gave us great feedback and hopped over to enjoy the free content. Then we announced our first-ever Odyl campaign: Boo’s Holiday Corner.

Boo, The World’s Cutest Dog, currently has 2.5 MM Facebook fans and stars in his very own book, published by us. Boo’s Holiday Corner kicked off in November and leverages nearly all Odyl options: a quiz, virtual gifts, exclusive holiday downloads, and a giveaway.

Our existing Facebook fans loved the free Boo holiday content, but when Boo himself posted about the assets on his Facebook page something exciting happened. New fans hopped over to check it out and within 24 hours, our new likes soared and we saw a nice bump in sales for his book too!

And through it all, Odyl has remained in constant contact with us, taking  frantic emails and phone calls at all hours and fixing issues in record time. So, as we look back over our achievements this year, we wanted to give a shout-out to our new friends at Odyl. We can’t wait to see all that we can achieve in 2012!

The 63^rd Annual Frankfurt Book Fair, which runs from Oct. 12-16, is the world’s largest expo for the international book and media industry. According to an article in the English News, nearly 7,400 publishers and book suppliers from 106 countries and regions took part in this year’s event, and more than half of the exhibitors come from outside of Germany.

In a session called, “Is the US EBook phenomenon a harbinger of every country’s book future?” both European and American panelists discussed the digital future. According to Rachel Deahl of Publishers Weekly, most panelists agreed that the European book market is likely to follow in the steps of the U.S. market – which means retailers across the pond will need to make their own e-reader to be competitive. Deahl wrote that Waterstone’s is set to announce its own reader in the coming weeks.

With the whole world going digital, literary agents have been speaking to publishers about e-book royalties. Philip Jones reported in TheBookseller that there do not appear to be signs of movement on the 25% royalty from UK publishers, who should embrace the technological changes and pay their authors in an intelligent way. E-books open up a whole new opportunity for writers to self-publish, and that has publishers worried.

There is no denying that e-books are here to stay. GalleyCat reported that library e-book checkouts are up 200 percent this year.  According to third quarter research from OverDrive, e-book checkouts from libraries are expected to hit than 16 million by the end of the year. This discovery left Alexandra Horowitz in a bit of a fright. In a recent piece for The New York Times, Horowitz wrote about her love of footnotes and told a story about how a footnote in her most recent book that had been pushed to the back of the e-book, leading several readers to send her very angry emails.

Also in the New York Times, Julie Bosman released the names of the finalists for the National Book Awards reporting that, for the second year in a row, books about war and foreign locales were among the top titles. If you’re like Laura Miller, you may feel that this piece of news is irrelevant. In her piece for Salon, Miller wrote that this particular prize “illustrates the ever-broadening cultural gap between the literary community and the reading public.” She says that the average person doesn’t read as much as the National Book Award judges, and that they are suggesting what they think the average person should read, “whether you like it or not.”

“If you look at the artists, if they get really good, it always occurs to them at some point that they can do this one thing for the rest of their lives, and they can be really successful to the outside world but not really be successful to themselves. That’s the moment that an artist really decides who he or she is. If they keep on risking failure, they’re still artists. Dylan and Picasso were always risking failure.”

-        Steve Jobs, Fortune, 1998

He changed the way we personally computed, the way we connected with others and the way we thought about all of the possibilities for innovation, creation and art. The Odyl team is saddened by the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at the age of 56 on October 5. The New York Times reports that the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, a disease he struggled with for years.

He continued to work while he fought, producing several versions of the iPod, iPhone and two versions of the iPad in his time at Apple – not to mention the countless computer models and operating systems that received his personal stamp of approval.

Although Jobs’ mark in the book publishing world may be less obvious, his innovations have changed the way we consume and share the published word. The iPod allows us to store several audiobooks to get us through afternoon traffic or a long car ride with our families. The iPad, similarly, allows us to purchase and read e-books on a clean and user-friendly interface. The iBookStore offers over 200,000 books and counting. And we are always one tap, slide and post away from recommending and sharing our favorite books, music, or movies on Facebook.

As Matthew Ingram wrote, Steve Jobs and Apple have disrupted and saved industries, like the music industry and e-book marketplace, that may otherwise be in a lot of trouble now that other technologies have advanced. While most of us were not personal friends to Jobs, we can say that his life’s work has impacted and inspired us in some way. His leadership and hard work will never be forgotten.

With the heavy coverage of Jobs’ passing, you may have missed that Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet, was named the winner the Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday. According to The Huffington Post, a Swede hadn’t been awarded the honor since 1974 and he is the first poet to win the prize since 1996.

Tranströmer writes primarily about death, history, memory and nature. GalleyCat’s Jason Boog reported that the Swedish Academy said Tranströmer was awarded the top prize because “through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

The 80-year-old suffered from a stroke in 1990, which left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. He continued to write, and to this day, he is the most widely translated Swedish poets.

The Huffington Post reports that Tranströmer will receive $1.45 million and has the opportunity to provide a lecture that would be widely reported around the world. Since he is unable to speak, he may choose to write and publish a response to the award.

But there was still a disconnect between readers and authors. Readers generally found out about books from reviews in newspapers and magazines, and booksellers who hand sold and recommended titles. They weren’t going online to find their favorite authors.

Boy, how things have changed.

Review space has dwindled, as have book stores. Many authors are forgoing the traditional book tour to reach their fans online. And readers want more than just books now. They want to be engaged. They want to have access to authors. They want to come together online and discuss their favorite books. Facebook is where that conversation is happening. Its membership is fast-approaching 900 million, and in June, the site had a trillion page views. Our friends are on Facebook. Our family. But more than that. If you’re an author, I guarantee your readers are there as well.

You just have to find them.

And that’s where Odyl comes in.

When I saw this app for the first time, I was immediately intrigued. The interface was beautiful. The idea of polls, and giveaways, and quizzes, and exclusive content – the good stuff that goes along with a new book – this was what I wanted to share with my readers. Odyl takes all the parts of my writing world: my blog, Twitter, Facebook, interviews, tours, and contests, and pulls them into a single spot, where everyone can access them.

But for me, Odyl is much more than a marketing tool. I’ve been on Facebook since it was still a closed college network. My writing career was secondary to reconnecting with old friends, and making new ones. Somewhere along the way, my writing career took off, and Facebook became more than just a fun place to hang out around the virtual water cooler with my writer buddies, but also a place to market my work to readers.

There’s nothing I love more than connecting with the people who read my books, and Facebook allows me that instant interaction. I realized early on that I was going to bump into the 5,000 friends per page limit quickly, so I started a fan page (now known as Like pages.) I built it, but they didn’t come. I couldn’t find a way to talk my 5,000 “friends”—of whom I probably only actually know 500—to come to the fan page instead. I’ve been looking for a solution, a magic trick, something – anything – to allow me to reclaim my friend page for my actual friends, and separate my author persona from plain old me.

In the first week I used the Odyl app, that’s just what happened. My numbers shot through the roof, and the connections continue to grow. I’m getting more and more readers on my page. Readers who can have instant, daily interactions with me.

Why has this happened? What has Odyl done that’s so dramatically different than from what I’ve been trying to do?

Odyl is, to put it in the simplest terms, fun. It is your website on Facebook. But instead of a static site that readers have to search for, you can take the conversation to them. To the place that, during one 24-hour period in September, was visited by half a billion people. Odyl lets you join in that conversation with some added bonuses that are as unique as you are.

This is an incredibly exciting time for authors. Our industry is seeing unprecedented changes. The framework of our social interactions is playing a large part in those seismic shifts. Reading now is more than just privately opening the pages of a book and experiencing the story; it has turned into a worldwide dialogue about books and authors. Facebook, and Odyl, are at the heart of that tête-à-tête. Without a doubt, more talk about books, and more access to authors, will ultimately lead to more reading.

Which is music to an author’s ears.

J.T. Ellison is the international award-winning author of seven critically acclaimed novels, multiple short stories and has been published in over twenty countries. A former White House staffer, she has worked extensively with the Metro Nashville Police, the FBI and various other law enforcement organizations to research her novels. She lives in Nashville with her husband and a poorly trained cat, and is hard at work on her next novel. Visit http://www.JTEllison.comfor more insight into her wicked imagination, or follow her on Twitter @Thrillerchick.

Social media is changing this.  We can measure now, and publishers are paying attention.  My wife’s first book, Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, was a bestseller published by Rodale.  When she started work on her follow-up, Yoga Cures, it was back to startup mode.  Who was the right publisher?  How would they set her advance?  Fortunately, Tara has what publishers see as a great social platform: her combined audience on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and iTunes.  Adding that up, Random House could take a good look at what Tara would sell on her own; setting an advance suddenly got a whole lot easier.

That’s stage one.  The great thing about social media is our visibility into what’s actually happening just keeps getting better.  Not only do we get to work with an author’s overall numbers, but we also get to see engagement of their audience, which translates into reach, along with the profile of their audience, which translates into influence.

Again drawing on my wife’s experience, these numbers can be startlingly useful.  Along with Lance Armstrong, Tara was a Master in Nissan’s Master the Shift campaign, and has continued on in their Innovation for Endurance campaign this year.  When all this began, Lance had a pretty good lead on Tara (she’s just getting started!): his audience on Facebook was more than 100 times the size of Tara’s.  The primary vehicle for marketing was videos shot by Nissan, which were promoted on Facebook.  The numbers were easy to see.  Very quickly, Tara’s videos created over 10 times the views generated by Lance’s.  Her audience was more energized and engaged.

Of course, there is a lot of excitement in drawing on the name recognition of Lance and other top celebrities for marketing campaigns.  It can be difficult, however, to value or measure the impact.  Social media is making this impact far more visible; publishers and consumer brands in general can now see measures of reach and influence that are more predictive than simple fan counts.  This is great news for rising brands like Tara, who have very enthusiastic and visibly engaged audiences.

Whether selling cars or books, that kind of energized engagement is what we all want.  Now we can see it, thanks to what’s possible in social media.  It’s gotten a whole lot easier for book publishers to understand an author’s social reach and influence.  Luckily, it’s also gotten a whole lot easier for authors to connect with and excite their readers on Facebook.

Despite all this innovation, it’s hard to believe that there is still a list of banned books. This week, the American Library Association hosted a virtual read-out for Banned Books Week to highlight the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship. Some of the most challenged books include Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Laura Miller took a lighter stance in her Salon.com piece, suggesting that Lord of the Flies, A Tale of Two Cities, and other classic novels, should be removed from school reading lists because children are less likely to learn the intended lessons than adults.

Yesterday marked the release of more than 500 books for people all over the world to try to have banned from libraries. Sept. 29 is what is known as Super Thursday: the busiest day on the book publishing calendar. It’s the last chance for publishers to get their writers books out for the holiday season, and Sameer Rahim at The Telegraph reported that more than 225 books were published. He said the publishers’ theory is that in order for a book to become a bestseller, it needs to build up steam and be heavily seen on trains and in book stores. “The longer the book is in everyone’s consciousness the better,” Rahim said.

But authors are doing more than plugging their own work. Jason Boog wrote that 19 romance writers have published a collection entitled “Author Moments” to raise money for Harry Help Others. Harry Help Others is a fund started by 11-year-old Harry Moseley, who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. He’s reportedly raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research.

Random House invites you to come and take a look at the 72 tales in the good doctor’s new book. In The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories, we are introduced to, a duck named McKluck, twins Tadd and Todd, and a goldfish named Gustav of whom we’re sure you’ll be quite fond.

Oh, did you know? Did you already hear? We’ve worked very hard to gather Dr. Seuss’ fans all together this year! With Odyl on board his Facebook fans zoomed up and soared. In just seven short days the numbers they grew, to more than 34,000 from just 22 [thousand that is]. Now go take a look and do it quickly, his fans have grown to over 38 [thousand, of course]!

Won’t you drop by, go say hello, to all of the fans that Dr. Seuss would have loved to have known? Although he is gone, he is never forgotten and we think all of these new stories will be more than just rockin’!

It’s not news that many marketing teams are gun-shy when it comes to putting new tools into action, which David Karnstedt thoughtfully discusses in his post for Forbes. The number of Facebook users continues to rise (they now have more than 750 million users). Just as important, those users are incredibly active – not just with their friends and families, but with their favorite brands.

Now all of those users are able to subscribe to their favorite celebrities, politicians, journalists and other public figures. This week on GalleyCat, Jason Boog blogged about how Digg co-founder Kevin Rose discovered that the newly added “Subscribe” button brings in way more traffic than his Google+ or Twitter account. TechCrunch blogger Leena Rao writes that there are rumors the buttons will keep on coming – and she has it on good authority those buttons will include Read, Listened, Watched and Want.

CNET writer Daniel Terdiman reported yesterday from f8 that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the newest changes to the social platform: Timeline and Open Graph.  Mike Taylor’s most recent blog post explains why these new features make Facebook an even more perfect tool for book marketing.

But enough about Facebook. According to the New York Observer, HarperCollins is planning to have a team of authors re-write Jane Austen’s six classic novels – starting with Pride and Prejudice. The Guardian reported that author Joanna Trollope will take a stab at a modern re-write, which HarperFiction Publishing Director Louisa Joyner said she expects will be like a conversation between Austen and today’s novelist.

Did you hear about George R.R. Martin joining authors John Locke, Suzanne Collins and Janet Evanovich on the list of authors reaching $1 million in Kindle e-book sales? Carolyn Kellogg, of the Los Angeles Times, reported that Martin, the novelist that inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones, takes 10^th place in the million-seller club.

Finally, there are several reports that indicate that Steve Jobs’ biography, Steve Jobs: A Biography, will come out ahead of schedule after it was unannounced that an unauthorized biography, would be released in November. According to ABC News, Simon & Schuster are expected to put their version of the bio out this fall, although it wasn’t scheduled for release until next year. The unauthorized bio, “I, Steve: Steve Jobs in his own words,” will reportedly include quotes from Jobs’ interviews, writings and public appearances post-founding of Apple.

That’s a wrap, readers. Stay tuned for more news next week and be sure to follow us on Twitter!

Today at f8, Mark Zuckerberg echoed this observation, adding TV to the list.  He went on to outline his aim to extend sharing beyond the already big categories of communication and games, into the naturals of music, movies, TV and books.  Features including timelines, addition of verbs to the omnipresent “Like” button (I “Read” Beyond Religion by the Dalai Lama), and the ticker all greatly enhance our ability to share what we watch, listen to, and read with friends.  This is great confirmation for authors and publishers that Facebook’s population of 800 million people is the right place to be, and that applications will continue to be highly successful in connecting authors with readers on Facebook.  As GigaOm editor Kevin Tofel tweeted, “By cramming more media activities in Facebook, engagement will go way up.  You won’t be in the browser all day, you’ll be in FB all day.”

The key word Mark used is “Discovery.”  In his talk, Mark walks through the process of discovering music through your friends, and how this makes possible an unprecedented level of finding and buying music you’d never have found on your own.  The same opportunity for social discovery and buying holds true for books.  Where bookstores have long been the place for browsing and finding what’s new, applications in Facebook can now provide the digital equivalent through social sharing.

Now for the top three:

1) Natural sharing.  Focus is extending out from basic communications and games to naturally shared experiences like music, movies, TV and books.

2) New features.  Sharing of media experiences among friends is getting easier with the Ticker, Timelines, and the addition of verbs beyond Like.

3) Social discovery.  Facebook is increasing the ability for people to find what they could never find before, through ever-expanding networks of friends.

All of this is great news for digital discovery and buying of new books, found through natural sharing within Facebook’s far-reaching social graph.

When we see a good movie, listen to music, or read a great book, we naturally want to share these experiences with our friends.  Music, movies and books are all a perfect fit for what works so well on Facebook: people sharing the content and experiences they love with friends.  To share music on Facebook, it’s pretty clear that you want things like a player, videos, and tour dates.  Similarly, to share what’s unique to books and authors, you want a system built just for authors to connect with their readers – things like book excerpts, interviews, galley giveaways, reader polls, reviews – all creating excitement around direct connections that were never before possible.

Authors and publishers have unique requirements related both to the massive scale of publishing, as well the specific nature of books and readers.  The need for a unique approach to Facebook marketing for authors and publishers is directed by three things:

1) Lots of books.  For publishers who launch hundreds or even thousands of new books each year (combining traditional and e-books, about three million new books came out last year), there’s simply too many titles to spend time and money on designers and web developers to create marketing for each one.  Facebook marketing companies have primarily focused on big custom campaigns for consumer products goods companies (think Coke or Pizza Hut).  Systems are built to support creative and tech teams in developing these campaigns, and this is extremely time and resource-consuming.  It works when you have a few products to market each year; it doesn’t work in book publishing.

2) Authors are great at writing, not great at programming.  Brand marketing on Facebook is focused on big companies with a handful of products; supporting technologies are designed to work along with a team of graphic designers and web developers.  Most authors don’t have access to this kind of team.  They need readily usable tools to put their content in Facebook quickly and easily. They need to focus on shared conversations rather than technical hassles.

3) Volumes of sharable content, looking to get out.  Friends sharing content with friends is what Facebook is all about, and authors are especially great at giving people something sharable to talk about.  It’s important for an author’s page to extend beyond simple “brochure-ware” (some customized graphics) into shareable engagements – this is where readers connect with authors in a way that inspires them to share throughout their friend network.  With the right tools built just for authors and publishers, readers can feel like they’re connecting directly to authors in a way that’s exciting and makes them want to share that feeling with their friends.

Authors and books are a fountain of great content; they just need the right toolset for connecting with their readers on Facebook.  That’s why we created Odyl.  We’re easy to use (whether in the hands of authors or book marketers), scalable enough to launch thousands of books without a hassle, and we’re affordable for both authors and publishers.  Maybe most important, we work.  Our technology is proven effective with top authors like Jane Fonda, Katie Couric, and Sophie Kinsella, for creating exciting conversations between authors and their readers, spreading those conversations throughout Facebook, and selling books.