“You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
It’s a popular adage, but we do make decisions about CDs and books based on covers and packaging. Just look at the dozens of paperback books, cleaning, tissue, prepaid phone cards, and shampoo brands on store shelves. We often don’t get past what we see on the outside. Pick it up. Turn it over. Put it down or in the cart.
People do judge a book by its cover. If I see a cover that looks interesting, I’ll pick it up and consider buying it. The book cover is potentially one of the most attractive marketing assets available to an author or publisher.
As publishing has increasingly moving into the digital age, authors can use book cover images in new innovative ways. With the help of companies like ThingLink.com you can makes images interactive. This enables authors and book publishers to integrate discovery into the buying process online. Inside a digital book cover image, you can now add promotional videos, a greeting by the author, as well as social and store tags. This may sound a bit futuristic at first but take a look and hover your mouse over my book cover below.
The cover is now overlayed by ThingLinks (dots, called tags). When you hover your mouse over a tag it reveals interesting and engaging content about me and my book.
What I find the most valuable about ThingLink is that you can pull all your online marketing materials: YouTube interviews, Facebook “LIKE” buttons and Twitter accounts and feature them inside your book cover. This supercharges the marketing value of your book cover art and transforms the flat visual surface into a rich media experience. When the reader sees an interesting book cover they want to know more about, they can immediately engage in more detailed information. If they like it they can not only purchase the book but also share the book cover on social networks. ThingLinked images include sharing and embed features, so you can add instant virality to your marketing campaign.
Creating an interactive book cover is fairly simple. Head over to ThingLink.com and click on “Upload image.” (You may end up with a tag on your Facebook page if you sign up that way; I did, but I wasn’t too unhappy since my book cover shows up if someone clicks on it!) Select your book cover and upload it. After the upload is completed you’ll be taken to the “Editor.” Here you can add tags inside your book cover. Just click on the image. This launches a box where you can place the URL link to the content you want to put inside the book cover (e.g. an YouTube interview, Facebook page, etc.). After you’re ready tagging click on the green “Done” button in the top-right corner. You’ll be shown a ready copy of your new interactive book cover. Add the image to your blog or website by hovering over the image and clicking on the <-> symbol in the top-left corner. Copy the code and paste it into your website or a new blog post. (You have to upgrade to embed.)
While an interactive book cover doesn’t yet work on e-readers, you can use it widely on the web: on your blog, website or your book’s Facebook page. When sending press releases and copies to reviewers, you can share the embed code to the interactive book cover. With ThingLink you can also add it to all the places your interactive book cover has been embedded.
ThingLink was launched in 2010 and gained traction in the music industry by helping drive fan engagement for bands like Simple Plan, Christina Perri, Gorillaz, Blink, Bruno Mars, and Evanscence and reader engagement for publishers like Mashable, The Guardian and National Post (Canada).
Now there is a genuine opportunity for authors and book publishers to add discovery to images in ways that make book covers more interesting and drive sales. I’m excited to be on the cutting edge of this new technology. Do you think you’ll try it, too?
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