With over 800 million users, Facebook, in the words of Neil Baptista, has become its own universe. If Baptista has his way, the publishing industry’s portion of that universe will revolve around Odyl, a Facebook application designed to connect authors and publishers with their readers. And Odyl is already well on its way — officially launched in September, Odyl already counts among its clients publishing’s Big Six and heavy-hitters like Jane Fonda, Katie Couric, and Bret Easton Ellis. Read the full story here.
Award-winning Author JT Ellison Selects Odyl for Book Marketing on Facebook
Thriller Author More than Triples Facebook Fans in First Week
New York – Oct. 6, 2011 – Odyl (www.odyl.net), the first social marketing platform for book publishers and authors on Facebook, announced that acclaimed novelist JT Ellison is using its platform to promote her recently-launched seventh novel, “Where All the Dead Lie.” Within just one week of the book’s launch on Sept. 20, Ellison increased her Facebook fans by 250 percent.
Designed specifically to help publishers of all sizes, as well as individual authors, grow their audience and drive sales, Odyl leverages Facebook’s 800 million+ membership and the power of social discovery to amplify “social reading” and the natural sharing of great content among friends. Its features are uniquely tailored for sharing between authors and readers.
Ellison is using her Odyl-powered Facebook page to create exciting connections with her readers, offering exclusive content, excerpts, giveaways, polls, interviews, and trailers. Using Odyl’s intuitive platform, Ellison can quickly enter her latest content and appearances, giving her readers something to talk about. Ellison also uses Odyl to give her readers one-stop access on Facebook to all her content, including her blog, Twitter stream, videos and news.
“Thanks to Facebook and Odyl, readers now have unprecedented access to authors like me,” said Ellison. “Having a two-way conversation with my readers matters. Facebook is, after all, where our culture’s conversation is happening. Odyl is helping me find new ways to connect with and grow my readership. It’s the best investment I’ve ever made.”
According to Ellison, Facebook provides an alternative to book tours which can be expensive and time-consuming, and often overwhelming for shy readers. “Via Facebook, readers and I can replicate the connection of meeting in-person. I can amplify this using Odyl to offer fans exclusive giveaways, like signed copies, free short stories and insider secrets about the books.”
“Publishers care about an author’s platform and reach, as it begins to answer the difficult question ‘How many books can we sell?’” said Odyl CEO, Mike Taylor. “While many publishers participate in author marketing, most authors still have to market themselves. Until Odyl, authors have done this without tools designed specifically for their needs. Now, Odyl lets authors quickly propel their Facebook marketing to new heights in a way perfectly suited to books and readers. JT Ellison is a great example of what’s possible here.”
To read a guest blog post by JT Ellison, please visit: http://odyl.net/if-you-build-it-they-will-come/
About Odyl
Odyl is a social marketing technology company, focused on the unique needs of book publishers and authors. Odyl’s audience development platform provides a proven way for publishers – including the Big Six – and authors to find, engage and grow their audience, leveraging the reach and sharing power of Facebook. Odyl enables deep connections between readers and the authors who inspire them, and builds real-world sales. More at http://www.odyl.net and on the Odyl blog.
Xconomy: Odyl Launches Facebook Platform for Authors and Publishers
… Another Big Apple company has started up with a Facebook marketing solution—this one for the book industry. Odyl, founded by veterans of HotJobs, rolled out a software platform today that’s designed to help publishers and authors connect with readers. Full story here.
Introducing Odyl
Today marks the formal debut of Odyl’s audience development platform for book publishers and authors on Facebook. The Odyl platform is the first social marketing tool designed specifically for publishers and authors, allowing them to connect and share with their readers.
While this is our first public showing, we’ve had early success working with some of the best in the industry. New York Times bestsellers including Katie Couric’s The Best Advice I Ever Got, Suze Orman’s The Money Class, and Janet Evanovich’s Smokin Seventeen; prestigious imprints such as Alfred Knopf, Atria and Little, Brown; and Big Six publishers including Random House, Penguin, and HarperCollins are all using the Odyl platform to market across fiction, non-fiction, and children’s categories alike. Our publishers and authors are using Odyl to manage millions of fans and reach well over 10 million people. For more details, you can read the press release that we issued this morning.
Suze Orman's The Money Class
Why social media and publishing? Publishing is a changing and vibrantly successful market that is moving strongly into digital and social marketing. Odyl sits at the confluence of social media’s ability to amplify word-of-mouth, and the unique connection between authors and readers that is fueled by great content. We only have to look at the success of book clubs as a small example of this phenomenon. A recent McSweeneys article reported that book clubs “can singlehandedly catapult a book from obscurity to thousands of readers.” Social media provides the catalyst for massively magnifying this effect, and publishers understand this.
At the same time, building an audience for authors and books is no small task for publishers needing to market hundreds, if not thousands, of individual titles in a given year. That’s where Odyl comes in. We’ve been developing Facebook applications since the release of their API, and our team has developed scalable Software-as-a-Service platforms since our work together at HotJobs.com in the 1990s, where we rolled out our software platform to over 10,000 customers. Publishers need that kind of massive and proven scalability, rather than time-consuming and often ineffective custom work, for successful digital marketing.
Social media is a perfect fit for the content-rich world of book publishing, which is why publishers are shifting their digital strategy to invest heavily in social marketing. Odyl not only offers the requisite rapid scale, but also provides the unique features needed specifically for publishers, including pulling in reviews from sites like Goodreads, galley giveaways, and “Like-gating” of book excerpts. Furthermore, our platform collects rich audience data specific to titles and readers, providing an invaluable resource for understanding and growing a loyal following.
Penguin
Odyl is dedicated to technology innovations that will deepen the value of social media for authors and publishers. Our current platform is just the first in a pipeline of forthcoming products, all carefully aligned with the particular needs and scale essential to the publishing industry for massively effective social marketing. Across the board, our technology will help to transform passionate followers into vocal evangelists.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging here with our views, advice, data, and tips about publisher and author marketing. In the meantime, happy reading.
Odyl Launches with a Facebook Audience Development Platform for Book Publishers and Authors
Odyl helps authors and publishers find, engage and grow their audience on Facebook
New York – Sept. 13, 2011 – Odyl (www.odyl.net) today unveiled the first social marketing platform designed specifically for book publishers and authors to help them connect and share with readers. Designed for publishing houses of all sizes as well as individual authors, Odyl’s audience development platform leverages Facebook’s vast membership and social power to amplify word-of-mouth and sharing of great content in order to grow their audiences and drive sales.
Available publicly starting today, the Odyl platform is already used to manage millions of fans by the “Big Six” publishing houses (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster), as well as numerous New York Times bestselling authors including Katie Couric, Suze Orman, and Janet Evanovich.
Random House Publishing Group uses Odyl’s tools for the Facebook presence of #1 New York Times bestselling author, Janet Evanovich. They created a branded page with polls, quizzes, video, virtual gifts and excerpts to keep conversations buzzing among Evanovich’s large Facebook fan base. Engagement numbers are stellar, with the app reaching an estimated 600,000 Facebook users in the first 3 months.
“There is no denying that social media has been a top priority for us, with word-of-mouth having such a powerful impact on people’s reading choices,” said Matt Schwartz, V.P., director of digital marketing Strategy and Product Development at Random House Publishing Group. “Creating and managing Janet’s Facebook-enabled book promotion was simple, cost-effective and very successful. Odyl’s technology helped us build buzz and engagement that forges deeper connections between Janet and her audience. It gives readers the chance to engage and share content related to Janet’s novels more than ever before.”
Book publishing is a changing, vibrant market moving strongly into digital and social marketing. However, building an online audience for authors and books is no small task for publishers with hundreds, if not thousands, of individual titles in a given year. Rapidly scalable and featuring tools designed for the specific needs of publishers and authors, the Odyl Software-as-a-Service platform is a proven social marketing system that transforms passionate readers into vocal evangelists. Unique features of the Odyl platform include:
- Exclusive author/book content – Offer book excerpts, trailers, author interviews, music playlists, games and more in exchange for people giving you a ‘Like.’
- Reader growth – Track key audience metrics and understand reader profiles like never before.
- Simplicity – No programming required.
- Publisher giveaways – Provide books, galleys, e-readers, trips and other great prizes, all conforming to Facebook’s promotion guidelines.
- Reader polls, quizzes, virtual gifts – Create provocative and fun quizzes about authors, characters and offer free, branded gifts that fans give to friends.
- Goodreads reviews and other content – Automatically import reviews, author blog posts, tour dates, Scribd docs, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and many more feeds.
- Photo and writing contests – Harness Facebook photo sharing so that fans’ entire friend networks come to your page to vote on friends’ pictures.
“Avon has used Odyl’s tools successfully for over a year in support of our marketing efforts on Facebook,” said Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, senior publicity director, Avon/Morrow at HarperCollins Publishers. “We created the ‘Pretty New Face’ tab for our Avon Romance Facebook page to offer our readers access to giveaways, excerpts, book trailers, fun quizzes and seductive polls. Over the past year, we’ve more than doubled audience and readers have published nearly a million News Feed stories to their friends directly from the Odyl-powered Pretty New Face app.”
“Social media is a perfect fit for the content-rich world of book publishing, which is why publishers are shifting their digital strategies to invest heavily in social marketing. They understand that a successful launch and healthy shelf life depend on reaching and engaging a large audience,” said Mike Taylor, Odyl CEO. “Without a proper social media push, authors may just as well be passing out copies of a book from their front steps on a rainy day. Odyl helps authors and readers bond in exciting and previously unachievable ways, bringing readers into the author’s world and massively expanding the trusted friend-to-friend relationship on Facebook. This connection sells books.”
About Odyl
Odyl is a social marketing technology company, focused on the unique needs of book publishers and authors. Odyl’s audience development platform provides a proven way for publishers – including the Big Six – and authors to find, engage and grow their audience, leveraging the reach and sharing power of Facebook. Odyl enables deep connections between readers and the authors who inspire them, and builds real-world sales. More at http://www.odyl.net and on the Odyl blog.
Perseus chose Odyl to promote MOON TRAVEL GUIDES
Founded in 1973, Moon was one of the first advocates of independent travel. Moon started with guides to Asia and has become the premier publisher of guides to the Americas. Moon’s authors are experts who have a passion for their destinations—they are women and men who are politically and culturally minded, informative, adventurous, inspiring, and have great stories to tell. They experience activities and destinations the same way their readers do — firsthand — making it possible for Moon to deliver up-to-date, reliable, and entertaining information.
On the Exclusive Content tab, fans can read excerpts from some of the Moon Travel Guides, including “Moon Pittsburgh”. Click on the Giveaways tab to enter to win a copy of “Moon Take A Hike Boston”, a guide of 86 hikes within two hours of the city . To view their full page, click here.
Odyl Photo Contest App for Penguin USA receives press in USA Today
The Penguin Press chose Odyl to promote David Matthews’ new book KICKING ASS AND SAVING SOULS
Dedicated to publishing literary nonfiction and select fiction, The Penguin Press was founded in 2003 by Ann Godoff who launched its distinguished list of award-winning and bestselling authors in the Winter of 2004. Since then, The Penguin Press has published numerous New York Times and national bestsellers, earning an array of prestigious prizes and citations that include the Pulitzer Prize, the James Beard Award, the Orange Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Man Asian Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Arthur Ross Book Award, the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
On the Exclusive Content/Extras tab, fans can read an exclusive Excerpt of David Matthew’s new book Kicking Ass and Saving Souls. The novel is the true story of a boy from Baltimore who evolves from a safe-cracking, jewel-heisting, deep-sea diving, ultimate-fighting, international playboy into a globetrotting humanitarian. Fans can also enter a Giveaway to win one of five free copies of Matthew’s new book. To view the full page, click here.
HarperCollins chose the Odyl platform to promote James Rollins’ new book THE DEVIL COLONY
New York Times bestselling thrill-master James Rollins is back with The Devil Colony (On Sale 6/21), another electrifying combination of suspense, history, science, action, and ingenious speculation. In The Devil Colony, Sigma Force stalwarts Painter Crowe and Commander Grayson Pierce must investigate a gruesome massacre in the Rocky Mountains and root out a secret cabal that has been manipulating momentous events since the time of the original thirteen colonies. Once again, Rollins delivers a spine-tingler that will leave fans of Michael Crichton, The Da Vinci Code, and Indiana Jones breathless—as he exposes the dark truth behind the founding of America.
James Rollins fans can read an exclusive excerpt of The Devil Colony among other book Excerpts, as well as get a free Map of Bones audio download. There are Polls where fans are asked If bad guys burst into the room, you are most likely to? and Which Sigma Member Are You?, several Quizzes that test fans’ knowledge of Rollins’ books, and book-related virtual gifts to share with friends. To see the full page click here.
Random House chose Odyl to promote SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING
Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn’t look all that great; they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Lena decides they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them.
Nobody knows why, but the pants fit everyone perfectly…
Return to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants … ten years later
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome return of the characters whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation. Now Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget have grown up, starting their lives on their own. And though the jeans they shared are long gone, the sisterhood is everlasting. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants received enormous recognition including starred reviews, was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, is a Book Sense Book of the Year, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start, and won the hearts of teen girls across the country—and continues to be a New York Times Bestseller.
Random House chose Odyl to launch a custom Tab for Ann Brashares’ The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on Facebook. Fans can read exclusive Excerpts, take a Poll to express Which one of The Septembers they are most excited to reunite with in SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING? and follow Ann Brashares on twitter. To see the full page, click here.
