One of the best ways to build title awareness online is to use a book widget. In fact, Amazon.com reports that titles utilizing book widgets on average sells 9% more books.
So, what is a book widget? Book widgets are an online tool that enables Amazon-like search-inside-the book capability any where on the web. You can place a widget link on any site, and readers can get an easy preview of the book. And, the widget can have other functionality such as a buy button.
Check out this widget for The Noticer. It is in the upper right hand corner of my blog. If I can do it, anyone can do it!!
Did you know that our Ingram CoreSource relationship includes the automatic creation of a book widget on every title placed in their system? Yep, a book widget that is already paid for that can be placed as many places online as you want.
Advantages to the Ingram book widget, such as The Noticer widget:
For authors or retailers
- Lets anyone put sample pages of the book on any web page.
- 9% average growth in sales for books with preview capability compared to those without it.
- Encourages the viral spread of the titles.
- Customizable buy button (if using Ingram’s widget).
For fans/readers/media
- Put a sample of a Thomas Nelson book on any of your blog posts or social network profiles.
- Share the preview with friends or colleagues.
- Search inside a book to look for specific topics.
- Change the buy link to go to your favorite store or remove it all together (if using Ingram’s widget).
Go to www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/widget.asp and search by the title or ISBN for the product you want.
Ingram is not the only widget available and sales improve no matter which widget is used. We have hundreds of books on Ingram’s widget, but Issuu’s widget is easier to customize, but requires someone manually uploading a PDF of the book.
To see all that we have with Ingram, go to http://thomasnelson.insidethecover.com/ and search by “Thomas Nelson”.
For more information on widgets, contact Dax Edwards at dedwards@thomasnelson.com.
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5 comments:
I agree. However, why would a blogger put a book widget on his site unless he is he author of that book, a raving fan, or works for the publishing company that published the book?
The missing piece is simple commission or affiliate model. In other words, given the choice, the normal blogger is going to create a link to Amazon or ChristianBook.com where he can get paid a commission for his trouble. Amazon commissions don't generate a huge amount of money, but they do offset other blogging costs.
Tod, does the company have any widgets for Spanish product? I couldn't find any by searching on http://thomasnelson.insidethecover.com/.
Unfortunately, book widgets can't be placed on Facebook Profiles unless they are developed as official Facebook Applications--so we are missing from the primary space on the biggest network ever created until we develop the Applications. In addition, Facebook seems to require that files be uploaded to create a box to utilize our audiobook widget, but our audiobook widget seems to require that we post some code to try to accomplish the same thing. We need to understand the platform before we develop the tools...
Mike, Pete & Gretchen -
Thank you for your comments. I am looking into each of these areas.
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