We are publishing a new book by Donald Miller this September. It is called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In case you are not familiar with Donald Miller, he is the New York Times bestselling author of Blue Like Jazz. His free-flowing narrative style and authenticity have made him one of our most popular authors.
Recently, Don and his team came up with a brilliant viral marketing strategy, designed to boost pre-sales of the book. The idea centers around a prank in which you pretend to be Don’s co-author.
To participate, you go to a web page and enter in your name, email address, and a brief description of what it was like to work with Don on his book. It takes less than two minutes. For example, I said (tongue-in-cheek):
As a publisher, I personally write many of our biggest authors’ books. But this is especially true for Don Miller. After Blue Like Jazz, I realized this was the only way we would ever get anything else out of him. It’s about time I got credit!”
When you click on the “Make Me a Co-Author” button, the program creates your own special news page, complete with a picture of Don’s new book with your name as the co-author. It also has your quote about what it was like to work with Don. Here’s my page and my daughter, Marissa’s.
This is where the fun starts. From the news page, you can send a link to your friends via email, Facebook, or Twitter. I personally Twittered the link and received a variety of responses. Here are a few:
- “Great. I can’t wait to read it.”
- “I’m sure you added a great deal of value.”
- “You really had me going there for a minute.”
- “You’re being a little arrogant, don’t you think?”
Thankfully, most people got the joke. Regardless, it is a great way to promote Don’s new book—and have a little fun with your friends. It is just one of the way’s that we are aggressively experimenting with social media marketing here at Thomas Nelson.
By the way, the special news page also gives you the opportunity to read the first chapter of Don’s book and pre-order it.
To become Don’s co-author yourself, click here.
Building Champions has been coaching me since 2002. They have taught me to be more proactive and intentional in both my business and personal life. Visit their Web site to learn more and see their special offer for my blog readers.
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Hark! It is possible! You can have a sense of humor and eschew deception at the same time!
I think it was just silly. Applauding those here who expressed their opinions without disparaging comments about other people.
OH MAN, this is hilarious – I think my co-author quote seemed tooooo real, especially about hooking up with YOU at re:create. I am almost panicking at the # of "congrats" and "that is amazing, congrats" tweets, retweets, and facebook messages I'm getting! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. I've gotten 3 phone calls in 5 minutes of people who are "so excited" for me! HAHAHAHAHAHA
Brilliant marketing idea and fun, too!
Being a Christian doesn't have to me being humorless. I posted my own "co-author" page on the day Don Miller made his twitter followers aware of it. Several people were fooled and when the congratulations were rolling in and I was replying "make sure to click the 'read more' link at the bottom to get the rest of the story" not a single one of them got angry.
It's okay to have a sense of humor, people. Pull the stick out. Seriously.
I think this is great. I did it and posted it to Facebook. As far as Marketing and Advertising is concerned, you have to go with the trends. Deception is what you make it. For those that feel this is truly deceptive, I would charge them with really delving into themselves to find out if they are doing a service to Christians by forcing us back into our little cookie cutter finger-pointing molds of judgement or if they are honestly just inwardly ticked they didn't think of this first! Ah, see, truth prevails! Now, I must get back to my part-time job of impersonating Larry Mullen Jr. We have a world tour coming up!!! And, by the way, Donald, U2 trumps The Cure ANY day!
Fascinating – I like Don's response.
Just posted one and have people that are disowning me for lying to them.