There’s been a lot of talk about how to leverage the single hottest growth sector in both software, portability, ease of access and mass adoption to sell more books.
How can we tap apps, more specifically iphone apps to condition the market, build buzz, push pre-orders, then drive sales?
The answer is still evolving, but today, eBookNewser shared a fascinating insight about the Wallace & Gromit claymation comic app that may hold tremendous insight:
…Wallace & Gromit, that claymation pair–a cheese addict and his dog. Of course, they’ve got an iPhone app or two–comics–and one of them, the free one, called ‘The W Files,’ has hit half a million downloads since its launch on November 7. According to a press release from the publisher, Titan, the app is number one in the UK free books app store, as well as in the US and Canada. Other issues of the comic are available for $.99 in the App Store.
Classic “free-first” funnel. The first one is free and it’s downloaded half a million times in 7 weeks. And, as the download page states, it’s only free “for a limited time!” It will be interesting to keep an eye on how many people convert from the first free episode to future paid ones.
And, it makes you wonder how to potentially tap the app market as a way to offer something for free that has a high perceived value as a way to not only build interest and reciprocity, but be able to get mass distribution, branding and have the potential to reach back out to a potentially massive pool of people to announce upgrades, more free stuff or the launch of the actual book.
I’ll definitely be brainstorming potential apps in advance of my next book.
How about you?
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Jonathan,
Very interesting. I think using a [very relevant and useful] app to garner true excitement and user support to help build your platform is an excellent idea! From a marketing perspective it would be very cheap! If you are targeting future book sales, however, the key would be to have a direct link. What would that be? A game? Perhaps. But what about an interactive study guide? Perhaps with embedded streaming video? I will definitely be thinking about this for my upcoming book!
Thanks!
tom
@ Tom – I think the nature of the app has to change to figure out what has the best meme potential around the topic of the book. Then, how can you take that and app it? Could be a game, some sort of app-only serialized content or maybe a tool or even a diagnostic test that kicks out results.
For example, Martin Seligman wrote betselling book Authentic Happiness and he also runs a lab at U Penn that offers online surveys that identify your signature strengths. What if he apped the surveys? This is where serious brainstorming comes in.
Creating an interactive way to promote your book is a great idea. If you even need any help pulling it off, let me know. I created a few apps and have an excellent team.
Carla
@ Carla – Thanks for the resource, I just may circle back to you in 2010 for some help.
What about creating an app to give away a chapter or two, and then using it to sell the full download/copy on Amazon?
Interesting idea. Before the W & G thing, I’d have guessed this was too much like offering up a PDF online. But, it seems that the RIGHT content might work by taking advantage of the desire to receive it on a different platform. Big difference, though, is that the W&G episode was a complete episode, where the chapter is clearly just a tease in anticipation of a future sale
App’s are great.
But don’t think about making an app… think about creating value with an app.
That’s the key.
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to distribute my novels as iPhone apps, but I haven’t found one yet.
The magazine McSweeney’s has a beautiful app that works just like you think it should, but it’s a custom programming job. And there’s the option to get your books onto the Kindle and Stanza apps through Smashwords, except that Smashwords insists that you create your e-books by converting them through their website, which proves to be aptly named: if your text is styled at all, the conversion engine mangles it into something that I would never want people to judge the quality of my work by, and wouldn’t inflict on them as a reading experience.
There are sites offering e-book app creation services, but they charge by the page to put your book into what looks like a template — and a not-nice template at that.
So there’s a big opportunity here for someone who creates a method for converting manuscripts into individual, App Store-submissable, nicely-designed e-book apps. I would pay a fair amount up-front for software that could do this, but I don’t want to pay high one-off fees for a similar service that would leave me powerless to update the book or create more.
If such a thing exists, I’d love to hear about it.