A New Twitterer to Add
One of my favourite new followers on Twitter is the Canadian publisher, House of Anansi Press (@houseofanansi). What I like about this corporate tweeter is it isn’t just trying to drive people to buy their books. The publisher is actually adding value with its messages.
An example is when they posted the link to the 2008 CBC Massey Lecture podcasts. Anansi publishes the transcripts of these lectures that are broadcast on CBC Radio every year. And since this year’s presenting is the Canadian author Margaret Atwood (probably the most famous of our female authors) and her lecture topic is the concept of debt in a year when we’re facing the greatest recession in 25 years, the book was already doing well. Anansi didn’t need to post up the free podcasts — you’d think this might actually undermine their sales (I for one won’t buy the book, if I can get the podcasts instead).
But the marketers at Anansi knew that if people could try out the book by listening to the lectures for free, they might invest money in something they enjoy. Those people who enjoy the book might try out other Anansi titles and maybe even spread the word to their friends. That’s good marketing as far as Anansi is concerned.
Me, besides the links to some great lecturers, I’m just happy Anansi isn’t gumming up my twitter feed with crap.
J.
