Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: New Social Media Books to Pre-Order

Being an author, it's exciting to watch my friends get closer to releasing their own books. When planning the release of a book it's a good idea to have a landing page for it.  I tested out a few ideas before launching my book, Get Seen's page.  One page was a static splash page, and one was a NING community site.  I went with the community site after getting feedback that people liked being able to interact.

I used http://stevegarfield.com/getseen as the book's URL in all my marketing. It's a redirect which currently goes to http://getseen.ning.com/. Soon I'll be changing it to link to http://facebook.com/getseen.



When NING stated that they were going to start charging for community sites, I figured it would be worth it to continue paying if I was getting value from the site. At the same time, changing to a paid model made me think about moving.

After looking around at all the activity happening on Facebook, I decided to move my book's community over there. People have complained about the 'foreign' interface of NING, compared to the familiar interface of Facebook.  I've noticed that I get a lot more activity on my blog posts when I link to them over on my own personal Facebook page, http://facebook.com/stevegarfield.



Let's look at the new books and their sites.

Smarter, Faster, Cheaper
My new friend, David Siteman Garland, just went live with his new book's website, Smarter, Faster, Cheaper. I like how he gives the site visitor ways to purchase the book, and how he integrates with Facebook by providing a 'LIKE button.'

Beyond Viral: How to Attract Customers, Promote Your Brand, and Make Money with Online Video (New Rules Social Media Series)

Kevin Nalty's new book is available for pre-order. It's a part of the same New Rules Social Media Series that my book is in.

Kevin has two main sites: http://willvideoforfood.com/ where he posts videos like this one where he talks about YouTube's Life in a Day Project along with a talking Waffle Bear.



And here's his consulting site: http://www.naltsconsulting.com/

Kevin Nalty is in the process of setting up his book's site.

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)

Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman are co-authors of this Social Media book with the really long subtitle. It's also part of the New Rules Social Media Series.

Ann and C.C. are going to fill this book with practical case studios of companies that have been successful online. They've got the experience.

They've set up their book site at http://www.contentrulesbook.com/



Ann and C.C. also have a Facebook Fan page for Content Rules. The main part of this book site is a blog by the authors. One thing the blog needs is a way to differentiate which author is writing each blog post. I like the links on the right for email subscription, twitter, RSS and Facebook.

Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now

David Meerman Scott, editor of the New Rules Social Media Series, new book talks about how to take advantage of the real-time nature of the internet. I'm looking forward to reading about crowdsoucing, real-time deal alerts, developing products based on breaking news, getting front page coverage and more.

David's main site is http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/ and he'll have a page for this new book later this month.





What do you think is the best way to have a book site?