Naked Conversations: A Long Tail Case Study?
Our book is ranked #575 on Amazon.com this morning. This is the highest it has ever been. A closer look at the publisher's retail numbers over the last 90 days, shows the book is doing what our publisher tells us-- books do not usually do--come back from an oblivion trendline.
Before the direction reversal, we had experienced out first day closing at over 10,000, followed by a spot ranking at 14,000 before Naked Conversations reversed direction.
So what happened? Scoble leaving got us some new publicity in a whole lot of places. That certainly helped. And at the time the he was getting lauded by major magazines like the Economist and broadcast like BBC, we enjoyed a very nice spike.
But I don't think that explains, the prolonged, steady upward trend that we are experiencing. After the ads, the 30 radio interviews, the endless speaking engagements, the podcasts, what is happening now?
I think corporate adoption is happening now much more than it was back in January when our book came out. I think that corporate folk are trying to figure out what to read and they are looking to the blogosphere where well over 200 people have spoken in praise of Naked Conversations.
Back in January, our publisher, Robert and I were hearing a phenomenal amount of praise and we thought we had hit it out of the park. In fact, we were hearing the amplification of an echo chamber that we had warned about in Naked Conversations and we had merely made it to first base.
What's happening now is that the word of mouth engine has motored past blogging's inner circle. And that is helping us tremendously. What I also think is impacting us is a Long Tail factor, a book who's strong takeoff is anything but long ail behavior.
But our appears to be a good case study for his inevitable revised Edition.
Back in January, many blogging celebrities reviewed our book. This help inflate both sales and our egos. We are getting a lot of reviews again, but most of them from bloggers I have not met. Nor have I heard of them, until I found them through blog searching. The new reviewers and recommenders have many fewer links, perhaps an average of about 30.
But they are influencing people, that our entire effort had never directly reached. Collectively they are influencing a great many people in a great many organizations.
I'm sharing all this, while I'm in Maui and committed to family that I will not spend my five days here under this tree blogging. But along with being here and the chemistry of salt water, I am really buoyed.
Thank you Long Tail. Thank yo new purchasers. Thank you word of mouth and thank you, whatever the Hell is causing so many people to now be buying our book.
is it the long tail ??
How many bloggers actually read books eh ??
I think its more about the Corporate buyers who are taking note of the dellOne2one, Walmarts,McDonalds blogs etc etc..
I still think its premature to attribute the trend towards the "long tail".
have you ever thought of driving a poll here to quantify the theory? I think that will be some darn good stuff /data to analysis !!
Posted by: /pd | July 18, 2006 at 04:12 PM
Yeah, you're welcome.
I bought the book. Me, the poor college student who can barely afford food.
But seriously it did help me a great deal. I'm trying to set up a blog for my company right now and it has given me tons of help.
Posted by: Owen Lystrup | July 18, 2006 at 06:01 PM
One factor as well, Shel, could be the influence of The Long Tail book which came out a week or so ago.
I just ordered a copy from Amazon UK. On the book page, there's one of those "Perfect partner: Buy this book with..." promos where the book you're buying plus the other one are offered together at a good discount.
The other book is Naked Conversations. A quick look at Amazon US site shows the same promo on The Long Tail page.
Perfect partners indeed.
Posted by: Neville Hobson | July 19, 2006 at 12:21 AM
The ranking went up as of 5am PST today
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #495 in Books (See Top Sellers in Books)
Yesterday: #379 in Books
Robert reported this yesterday
"Amazon has us listed at #346 right now"
congrats
Posted by: Jeremiah Owyang | July 19, 2006 at 05:39 AM
I also see that Naked Convos is in combo with Jeremy's Blog Marketing
Here's the rating today...
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,373 in Books (See Top Sellers in Books)
Yesterday: #5,283 in Books
There could be some residual effects that spread across. And Jeremy's book appears to be only linked with Naked.
Posted by: Jeremiah Owyang | July 19, 2006 at 05:45 AM
FWIW --Shel, this is what I noted a long time ago :)-
We all are hoping for the best :)-
Posted by: /pd | July 19, 2006 at 06:05 AM
Just a note, a very good friend of mine Pat Coyle (http://www.patcoyle.net) purchased 10 of your books and passed them around to folks he respected in the marketing industry (plus me ;) to discuss. Pat is leading the charge with database marketing at the Indianapolis Colts and is working hard to bring community into the Colts fanbase by using the Web.
If it weren't for Pat, I may have missed your book as well as 10 others!
Look for some major changes to http://www.colts.com over the next year. They are a great organization who appreciate their fans and their region and want to give back to them.
Congratulations!
Posted by: Doug Karr | July 20, 2006 at 07:53 PM
I reckon that pd has a point. I bought Naked Conversations last week because someone in my company, an avid blogger, recommended it. Since then I've recommended it to 10 people in the same company and a couple of friends. Yep, I work for a FTSE 100 'corporate' and yep, we're playing catch-up.
Posted by: jpl | July 22, 2006 at 08:41 AM
Oh, and one more thing... that last post that I did - it was my first comment on a blog, ever. What next? Well, on Monday I'm going to set up an internal blog so that I can communicate more quickly with my team.
Well, like I said, some of us corporate types are playing catch-up!
Naked Conversations - great book.
Posted by: jpl | July 22, 2006 at 08:47 AM
jpl,
I'm glad to hear I was the first and I've helped get your toes into the blogosphere. Enjoy it. It's a strange and wonderful place.
Posted by: shel israel | July 22, 2006 at 11:27 AM
I think they owe you a thanks, too! I picked up The Long Tail after you wrote about it in your blog. As well, another blogger mentioned that she did the same!
http://debeastman.blogspot.com/2006/07/information-overload-keeping-up-with.html
Doug
Posted by: Doug Karr | July 23, 2006 at 06:36 PM
I'm inspired. I personally bought 12 copies, sent them to business associates / friends, and have arranged a book discussion (scheduled for August 14) here in Indianapolis.
I also blogged about it: http://www.patcoyle.net/2006/06/30/naked-conversations/
Funny, just finished the Long Tail this morning. Just a coincidence. I first heard Chris Anderson at the Salesforce conference last year - and had been pre-registered for his book. It happend to come in the same shipment from Amazon.
Now I'm going to start new blog about the Long Tail of NFL franchises!! Go Colts!
Posted by: Pat Coyle | August 08, 2006 at 09:10 AM