Join me at Vancouverís 12th Annual THE WORD ON THE STREET FESTIVAL.
(WOTS for those of us too lazy to say the whole thing.)

WOTS is SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
11 am to 6 pm
Library Square, Vancouver Public Library
Admission: Free

It’s basically a day of fun, books, magazines, cooking and comics.

Here the full event schedule.

At 12:15 I’m on a Book Talks Panel: Writing and the Web
Tyee Books website editor Charles Campbell will moderate a panel featuring Steve Zio, author of Hot Springs: A iNovel; SFU Master of Publishing Progamís technology specialist John Maxwell; me (Raincoast Booksí Internet marketing manager Monique Trottier); and Crawford Kilian, Capilano College teacher, blogger and author of Writing for the Web. Presented by TheTyeeBooks.ca.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Tyee check out their website, in particular the books section. It’s new.

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What else goes on at WOTS?
Here are my event picks.

For Hockey Fans
Raincoast is publishing Canucks Legends: Vancouver Hockey Heroes, which chronicles the teamís first four decades through 75 player profiles and more than 300 photos. The book isn’t available until November but there are 25 special advance copies with a bookplate signed by Trevor Linden. The books will be sold by donation with all proceeds going to the Canucks Family Education Centre. Whatís more, Raincoast Books has pledged to match all donations.

More Hockey
Hockey book authors include: author of Canadaís treasured The Hockey Sweater, Roch Carrier; author of Hockey: A Peopleís History, Michael McKinley; and, Ed Willes, author of The Rebel League.

THE WORD UNDER THE STREET presented by Mint Records
** One of my favourite parts of the festival **
Enter the annual Comics Contest, meet Nardwuar the Human Serviette, take an art class with Robin Thompson and a hear a session with the widely acclaimed comics-journalist Joe Sacco. And of course, peruse dozens of great local comix on display for sale. The lovely and talented Eve Corbel and Sarah Leavitt of Geist will be there as well.

MARKETPLACE OF EXHIBITORS
150 exhibitors: Book and magazine publishers, booksellers, literacy and educational organizations, libraries, writersí associations and more will exhibit an array of current and back listed books and magazines to browse through or buy. And itís back: the 9th Annual Book Bag Treasure Hunt.

AUTHORS GALORE
Drop by for readings and events at the Authors Tent, Chapters Indigo Poetís Corner and Canada Writes Tent. Check the event schedule.

See you there.

THE WORD ON THE STREET
One Day Only
11am to 6pm
Sunday September 24, 2006 at Library Square Vancouver
As well as locations in Calgary, Kitchener, Toronto and Halifax
thewordonthestreet.ca

Admission: FREE!

I received some nice feedback today from someone who attended the SFU summer workshop in book publishing.

Quote: “I wanted to thank you for your workshop on internet marketing. It proved to be one of the most informative and useful sessions for me. I was wondering if you could recommend any books or websites that would be a good resource to learn more about internet marketing?”

How can you not offer recommended reading after receiving such nice praise? For everyone’s benefit, and as a reminder to me, here’s a short list of resources.

Web Theory
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Harness the power of the web. How business models need to change to adapt to online markets. If you read anything, read this. The full book is free online. The Cluetrain Manifesto

What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software
O’Reilly website

Web Stats & Measuring Success
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Work Industries blog on web strategy.
Post on How to Read Webstats

The four general questions that you should ask yourself to measure your online ad or websiteís return on investment.
Chief Marketer website

Search Engine Optimization, Email Newsletters, Etc.
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http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/
http://www.highrankings.com/

Blogs
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Search engine for blogs. See what people are searching for, talking about online. You’ll find great resources if you search for “web strategy”, “online marketing”, “user testing”, “search engine optimization.”
http://www.technorati.com/

Mark Haddon has a new novel, A Spot of Bother.

My friend Patricia over at BookLust and I enjoy Mark Haddon’s book design. So I hope she likes this cover as much as I do.

A Spot of Bother just arrived in the mail last week and it was very exciting to open up the package. I’d only see the cover online. In person it is quite spectacular.

I haven’t cracked the spine yet but I hope to this afternoon. Yesterday’s New York Times books section said, “Haddon is too gifted and too ambitious to write a hacky second novel. In fact, he’s so wondrously articulate, so rigorous in thinking through his characters’ mind-sets, that ‘A Spot of Bother’ serves as a fine example of why novels exist.”

Pretty high praise. I’ll let you know what I think.

Check out Flickr for photos on what I’ve been up to lately.

I still owe John Maxwell a response about The Long Tail. It’s coming.

I saw my first Vancouver Fringe play ever. Bolloxed.

Bolloxed is written by my friend Darren Barefoot. It’s about a Canadian programmer working for an American anti-spam company in Ireland. He simultaneously meets the girl of his dreams and gets incredible pain in his balls.

I thought the play was hilarious. There’s a cast of two and they play several different secondary characters as well the main love interests.

I don’t want to spoil the plot twists so I’ll just tell you it ended with an excellent piece of ass. It’s your job to go watch the play, I’m not going to tell you anything else.

I should mention it’s not X-rate, it’s not potty humour; it’s good adult fun: lots of puns, quirkiness and double meanings. My only criticism was it ended too early. I wanted more.

BOLLOXED: A new comedy by Darren Barefoot

CBC Radio Stage 6: Playwrights Theatre Centre

Sat, Sept 9 at 9:00 pm
Sun, Sept 10 at 1:30 pm
Tues, Sept 12 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 16 at 11:00 pm
Sun, Sept 17 at 7:30 pm

Get Tickets to Bolloxed.

My friend Darren Barefoot has a play at The Fringe Festival in Vancouver. He wrote it, which means I now know a playwright. Could come in handy some day.

The play opens tomorrow.

BOLLOXED: A new comedy by Darren Barefoot

CBC Radio Stage 6: Playwrights Theatre Centre
Thurs, Sept 7 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 9 at 9:00 pm
Sun, Sept 10 at 1:30 pm
Tues, Sept 12 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 16 at 11:00 pm
Sun, Sept 17 at 7:30 pm

An intrepid Canuck meets the girl of his dreams in Dublin, but will the clash of cultures kill the romance? This off-the-wall love story chronicles the misadventures of a man on a mission in a country that doesn’t understand him. He’s bolloxed.

Get Tickets to Bolloxed.

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. I spent time mulling over some of these ideas and trying to look specifically at the book industry. Here’s my summarized account of what I think Chris is saying.

Online channels allow customers to pick from a full range of products and services. More choice means the hits sell less because a percentage of the people who would have bought the hit (if it was the only option available) have moved down the tail, discovering products more closely tailored to their needs, personal style, taste, budget, etc.

In order to increase revenues and optimize profits, companies can no long rely on the hits. They need to find ways to engage with customers on their own terms (online, anonymous, search-driven) and expose them to the tail (full range) of products.

How do I think publishers going to do that? By …
– Studying their customers’ behaviour.
– Looking at trends in online purchasing.
– Paying attention to their web stats to understand what their customers are doing online.
– Placing importance (and budget) on online sites that are searchable, filter-friendly, and include recommendations and ranking systems or any tool that allows for further customization or tailoring by the user.

I think The Long Tail is screaming out for all companies to rethink their physical assets and determine what digital components already exist or can be created. If you get past step one, then you can figure out the business model.

In book publishing, we’ve been aware of the long tail for years. We call it backlist. Publishers have historically looked at ways to balance the ratio of sales of frontlist titles (new titles) to backlist titles (titles published 6 months ago or beyond). Even if that split is 40-60, publishers mostly put time and money into selling and promoting the frontlist. I assume the theory is that if you can get the new books going, then they happily carry on without a lot of effort. But what Chris is saying is you could sell a lot more with a little effort.

I suspect that publishers will continue to obsess over the hits, but Chris is pointing out that sales are no longer coming from one channel–independent stores, chain stores, wholesalers, discount stores, online retailers–customers are no longer gathering in one place, “they are scattered to the winds as markets fragment into countless niches.” But the one big growth area is the web.

Why? Because customer behaviour is changing. Internet connectivity in Canada is widespread. People have access to cultural content across a broad spectrum. Their attention is sought after by content creators from the mainstream to the fringe to the underground. But what still drives purchases are recommendations from trusted sources, recommendations tailored specifically to one’s needs and interests. The web is perfectly positioned to aid in that search for book recommendations. We can search online for extra information, we can read about the author, maybe hear a podcast, we can send our friends links to books we like, we can write reviews on book sites. We Google, we Yahoo, we MSN, we blog, we email, we browse. It’s a time of infinite choice, and the web is the land of infinite discovery.

The Long Tail is about how technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches, what people do at a niche level, and how to filter and reference and measure success within a niche.

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On a related note, I noticed that Amazon has recently changed the way they generate URLs. Instead of seemingly random numbers, the title and author name are included. One small step towards search engine domination. Put your cursor here and look at the status bar to see “www.amazon.ca/Long-Tail-Chris-Anderson/…”