This morning Blurb, a self and micro publishing and marketing platform, unveiled Blurb Bookshow, a free tool for its bookmakers to be able to share and sell their books anywhere online-Facebook, Twitter, blogs-and created a non-Flash program to make Blurb Bookshow accessible on the iPad without having to download an application.
"This has been in the works for a long time," said Eileen Gittins, Blurb founder and CEO. "It's been part of a whole strategy to help our Blurb bookmakers to get their books out there-whether to share like on Facebook, or to market your book, or even for commercial efforts."
According to Blurb, Bookshow's widget was designed to maximize online sharing so that friends and fans of a book by clicking "share" can instantly Tweet, or blog about it wherever they "live" online. It also allows for a click-to-buy option. Gittins said once book creators decide how much of their books to share online using Blurb Bookshow, readers have three choices: to simply share the book with others, comment on it or buy it.
Since Beta testing began a month ago with 25,000 Blurb Set Your Own Price program users, Gittins said the Bookshow group saw a 700% increase in the views of their books on blurb.com and an 88% increase in sales of their printed books. "That supports our hypothesis that if you can help people distribute books online, freely and with an interface that is accessible and can be seen everywhere, you will sell more books," said Gittins.
Gittins used the example of the kind of book that would benefit from Bookshow's marketing capabilities as a title about hiking in Nepal--the kind of title that might not get much attention in the bookstore because of its limited appeal. Bookshow, continued Gittins, acts like a "surgical" tool to let the book creator target interested parties through social media and other online possibilities and give readers the option to share, comment on or buy that title.
Blurb regards Bookshow as a new distribution mechanism for books meant to enhance and not eliminate the retail market. "Both personally and for Blurb as a business, we appreciate, respect and support physical bookstores," said Gittins.
