Just What Can’t Betty White Do?
Can social media be focused to achieve a specific goal? It’s a question a Canadian author Catherine McKenzie asked herself when she saw the successful Facebook campaign to get Betty White to host Saturday Night Live.
McKenzie’s goal is to see if a Facebook group can be used to turn a book into a bestseller, and accordingly named her group “I bet we can make these books bestsellers”. Since starting the group in mid-May, it has grown to almost 800 members, and a related group on Goodreads has over 160 members.
The first two books McKenzie chose are Wyoming author Shawn Klomparens’ Jessica Z. and Two Years, No Rain. Of Jessica Z., Jeff VanderMeer of Ominovarious and the Huffington Post wrote that it “combines the concerns of literary fiction about sex and relationships with the kind of paralyzing sense of dread fueled by the continuing erosion of civil liberties. (…) Klomparens’s particular gift is to embed the details of our self-induced dissolution into an erotic coming-of-age story that’s not only slyly funny at times but has aspects of a thriller.”
I joined this group and am curious to see how it turns out. The more books people buy, the better.
Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113149048727107
Goodreads group:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/33611.Make_a_book_a_bestseller
Shawn Klomparens’ website:
www.shawnklomparens.com
Catherine McKenzie’s website:
www.catherinemckenzie.com