I
think it’s safe to say that becoming the next J.K. Rowling, Katherine Howe, or Dan Brown is not in my immediate future. And I know many amateur authors feel the same
way. In a culture where our attention
span has been reduced to a 140 character Twitter update, having the word
of your pen heard is, or was, getting harder… until about a year ago.
Enter Liboo, a site started just over a year ago which helps struggling and aspiring authors get their work out there. On their site they describe themselves as offering “a way for talented authors to publish to Amazon and Barnes & Noble at the click of a button, and then interact directly with their fans to identify their most influential champions.” In the publishing world, there are hundreds of thousands of writers who have the talent and the will necessary to move hearts, yet still lack the very basic and hardest thing to obtain: discovery.
Right about now you are probably saying, “Okay,
wonderful dream to revolutionize the publishing industry, but how is this one
little website I’ve never heard of going to accomplish this?” And I have to
admit, when hearing about the site a year ago, I was skeptical as well,
thinking Libbo would never be able to generate enough interest to sustain
itself. The answer to this lies in one
key element of social media Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff keep reminding us of
throughout their 2008 book Groundswell – it’s all about the
relationships. “In the groundswell,
relationships are everything. The way
people connect…determines how the power shifts.” (Groundswell, pp18) Though a high class tech support team always
helps, to make a social site like Liboo work, the focus must be on relationship
building and connections.
But Chris Howard, Liboo founder and CEO
knew to build his talented community of writers, he would need to get the word
of his creation out to the world. To
spread the influence of his message, he turned his team towards every popular
and rising social media site to keep the updates coming. Between their constantly evolving Facebook
page and Twitter, Tumblr and Google+ accounts, one would
think they had covered all their social media bases. Yet Li & Bernoff tell us that “blog
reading is one of the most popular activities in the groundswell.”
(Groundswell, pp19) Liboo’s blogs range
from explaining how the site works (New Features and Changes) to
upcoming public appearances by the Liboo Team at events such as the Boston Book
Festival, held each October in Copley Plaza.
The blog function, coupled with each social media post helps to increase
the public’s awareness of the site and increase enthusiasm for the already
captivated audience.
So check out Liboo, read a blog or two, “like”
their Facebook page or just check out a few of their pictures on Tumblr- and
sink your hooks into some books!
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