UnMarketing, 2nd Edition

59The Awesomeness of Being a 2.0 Author

We don't know how authors did it years ago. You pour your heart and soul into a book, it hits the shelves, and you hope people like it. We don't think we could handle the lack of immediate validation and/or rejection. Since UnMarketing first came out, we've been amazed with the immediacy and coolness of tools available for authors. Waking up every day and reading tweets in real time about people loving the book makes us smile. Every. Day.

And they aren't just telling us about it; they're telling each other. It's this passive conversation our readers are having that was untappable (Scott's new word) previously. They're sharing every part, from finding the book on their store shelves¹ to their favorite chapters. They're discussing ideas and how they are using UnMarketing in their businesses.

As we've talked about before in the book, we need to pay attention to this passive voice. And it's not just on Twitter. Blog reviews and other mentions can happen under our radar. Setting up a Google News Alert for your book title in quotes will keep you on top of most mentions online.

The other amazing development for authors today is digital books. Digital books are gaining traction. Do not ignore them. It doesn't matter if you like to read in that format or not. What matters is that your potential audience is reading them. We were initially a little miffed at the Kindle version of UnMarketing because they made all the saucy/sarcastic footnotes into ...