The April 23, 2007, issue of Time magazine contained an article on buzz marketing. Proctor & Gamble signed up 500,000 mothers to evangelize P&G products. P&G sends those women marketing materials and coupons but the volunteers can say anything they want, even negative things, about the products. Recent research has indicated that most people, however, will keep their negative opinions to themselves.
Dorchester Publishing is trying something similar by giving away a number of Advanced Copies of New York Times Bestelling author, Marjorie Liu’s July release, Soul Song. Dorchester will decide who gets the ARCs but there are no restrictions on what you can say about the book. Ms. Lui says:
If you are chosen to participate in the buzz campaign, please post a review on a) Amazon, BN.com, Powell’s and/or any online bookstore of your choice; b) write up a review on your blog; or c) let folks on the message boards know what you think of the book! Please don’t feel obligated to post a good review if you don’t like SOUL SONG.
You have to fill out a form here and an excerpt of Chapter One is here.
I really like this idea, and I also like that they seem to accept international readers. At least, there was an option to enter “country” there!
This would be tempting except I haven’t read any of the other books in the series! Would that matter?
Baen Books is doing something interesting. They are allowing people to purchase eARCs which are electronic versions of ARCs for $15 each. Sure would solve the people making wads of money on eBay selling upcoming ARCs complaints.