How Many Friends Does Your Book Have?

MySpace's recently-launched Books area currently ranks 551 books by popularity (read: number of MySpace blog links) under "Top Books"—at the time of this article's publication, Danse Macabre (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) by Laurell K. Hamilton and Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada were tied at first place with 32 links each. Titles ranked on MySpace link to Amazon (via its affiliate program), while the Books area also boasts a featured book blog, highlights three genre-based book groups, and showcases five featured titles—with unattributed reviews, as well as reader comments—on the Books page. Since MySpace marketing and content executives declined to comment for this story, it's unclear how featured books are chosen, or how MySpace plans to further develop its Books section.

Clicking With Readers
A primary reason authors join MySpace is to connect easily—and instantly—with their existing audience, as well as thousands of potential readers. Elsewhere on the Internet, many writers employ Web designers to help maintain personal sites, making it costly and time-consuming to keep them freshly updated, especially with last-minute news. Koren Zailckas, author of the memoir Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, kept a MySpace blog while on her book tour, and says the "control freak" in her likes being able to notify her fans with the touch of a button when she's doing a reading or has a TV appearance. Zailckas says she feels closer to those she meets on MySpace, since she can check out their profiles just as they view hers. "It's more intimate," she says. "The readers you're communicating with are honest-to-god human beings with faces and (now and again) your book in their list of 'favorites.' Silly as it sounds, there's something tremendously moving about being able to 'see' one another, even if it is in a nerdy sort of way." Zailckas points out that while readers aren't necessarily visiting their favorite author's Web page religiously, they often log on to MySpace on a daily basis and will see bulletins posted there.

Author Elisha Miranda has been using MySpace to try some "guerrilla marketing techniques" to push her first novel, The Sista Hood, a young adult title geared toward communities of color. Her hook? A CD featuring original lyrics inspired by the novel, and MySpace pages for each character, which lets readers track characters' lives beyond the book's conclusion. Miranda relies on MySpace to help her better understand where her audience is coming from. "There will be a few young women who have very 'hoochified' sites," she says, "but when I take the time to get to know them, there is so much more there. They want to talk and—yes—read. What a missed opportunity if I allowed my judgments as a feminist to get in the way."

Campaigning for a Cause: Your Book
As they describe supporting their books as one might devote oneself to a campaign for social change, many authors say a chief reason to use MySpace is to "raise awareness" for their titles. Brad Listi has been blogging every day on his MySpace page to promote his debut novel Attention. Deficit. Disorder. For Listi—who admits he "co-opted" the MySpace Music template prior to the launch of MySpace Books so he could list his book tour dates—the site helps his prospective readers get to know who he is. "It allows writers to introduce themselves to readers in a manner that exceeds the standard advertising solicitations and naked commercial backflips," explains Listi. "What I do doesn't involve any kind of hard sell. It involves taking the time to write each day, answering all correspondences with readers, and building a fan base in a personal, organic, and entertaining way."

Taking an aggressive approach to promotion, Allan MacDonnell, author of Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine, doesn't just use MySpace to send invitations to every reading he does. He spreads the word on publicity his book has garnered, and also targets MySpace users who describe themselves as fans of artists affiliated with his book. MacDonnell's approached readers of art magazine Juxtapoz on the basis of his book's cover art by Dan Clowes, and has used a blurb to foster interest. "One lucky break came when my book received an endorsement from novelist Chuck Palahniuk," he says. "The obvious action was to place Chuck Palahniuk's quote on the Prisoner of X MySpace page and then recruit, one by one, the thousands of Chuck Palahniuk readers who are gathered at two separate pages devoted to him."

N. Frank Daniels, who self-published his novel Futureproof in January 2006, signed up for a MySpace page after using Amazon.com to seek out early readers. He fired his agent and is now intent on making Futureproof "the biggest-selling self-published novel of all time." Says Daniels, "MySpace's network of writers banding together to promote and sell their books is a crucial tool in reaching an ever-expanding audience. With its millions of prospective readers and co-promoters, MySpace is making this democratized version of what is not only published but read a new force to deal with in the information age."

MySpace Friends... With Benefits
Marcy Dermansky has over 3,000 friends on MySpace, and has used her Top 8—the eight hand-picked "friends" MySpace users see listed when they visit someone's page—to promote her novel Twins. All eight of Dermansky's featured friends share names of characters in her book, including Sue, Chloe, Yumiko, and Smita. To find MySpace friends with the more unusual names, Dermansky did searches and sent emails, finding some recipients so responsive they wound up buying her book and wanting more information on their fictional namesakes. By creating a presence for the book on MySpace, Dermansky says she feels "certain that it has increased sales and raised my profile as an author." She enjoys the give-and-take with readers, and feels that by simply logging into the site on a regular basis, she presents herself as a more accessible author. "It's intimidating to write a fan letter to an author. There is the fear of being dorky or inarticulate. But in the MySpace universe, somehow that kind of inhibition and difficulty has been broken down."

Taking Dermansky's idea and going a step further, many authors set up full-blown pages for their books' characters. Karyn Bosnak's done that for her 20 Times a Lady protagonist Delilah Darling, but isn't sure yet how she'll tackle it. Her original plan was to make pages for all 21 characters in the book but she's since scaled down to focus on just Delilah. Bosnak doesn't just appreciate the author/fan interaction MySpace can foster, but also uses it to research her readers' book preferences. "I'm a visual person—MySpace gives me a chance to put a face on the emails I get, and provides an opportunity to see what else my readers are reading."

Reader Recruitment, MySpace-Style
While they can't quantify whether MySpace has had a direct impact on sales, many authors say it's definitely helped them boost event turnout. Christina Amini and Rachel Hutton, editors of the anthology Before the Mortgage, even used MySpace to draw one of their favorite actors to their book. "We checked out the page for BJ Novak, who writes for and plays the temp on The Office. After finding out [via MySpace] that he loves homemade Chex Mix, we emailed him to say we'd make his favorite treat if he came to our L.A. reading. He did, and ended up enjoying the book as much as our Chex Mix."

Horror author Michael Laimo reports that hundreds of MySpace fans have told him they've purchased his books, saying he's gotten over a dozen interviews through his page. "I've also made my first movie deal through MySpace, after an independent director contacted me about film rights." Author Josh Kilmer-Purcell actively courts readers of David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs, whose writing style resembles his own. "When I go on a rampage adding [MySpace] friends, my Amazon ranking will increase noticeably for the next few days. But it's not about selling—it's about awareness," he says."There's not a lot of mass media devoted to books, so when I find someone who likes authors similar to me, I want to make them aware that I exist."

Remapping the Writers' Group
While most authors have adapted the basic MySpace page to suit their needs, some have gone in a whole new direction, forming groups to bond with and promote their fellow authors. Teen literature is a natural growth area on youth-oriented MySpace, and Sarah Mlynowski, who writes both chick lit for adults and teen lit, has formed a Teen Lit group there, numbering more than 600 members, over 60 of whom are authors. The space offers participating readers and aspiring writers of the genre a chance to ask questions about everything from PR and MFAs to school bullies. There, group members network and post book and tour information, aimed at creating a sense of community and referring readers interested in one author-member's work to similar books in the genre they might also enjoy.

Going a step further is MySpace's Memoirists Collective, formed by authors Hillary Carlip (Queen of the Oddballs), Maria Dahvana Headley (The Year of Yes), Josh Kilmer-Purcell (I Am Not Myself These Days), and Danielle Trussoni (Falling Through the Earth). Though they work with different publishers, they've united in their MySpace group to promote their recent books with contests and feedback, and jointly encourage aspiring memoirists. Currently, the Collective is sponsoring a contest in which the winner will get their memoir read by editors at three top publishing houses, HarpeCollins, Hyperion and Henry Holt. (Past contest winners have won a date with the Collective members and gotten their manuscript read by a New York literary agent.) Kilmer-Purcell cites the sense of camaraderie MySpace fosters amongst his fellow memoirists, saying, "I get tired of promoting in a vacuum. We're not competing—the stakes aren't worth it." As Headley puts it, "Our books are all different, and one of the cool things about the Collective is that our readers are cross-pollinating. We have everything from dominatrices to soccer moms on our friend list. Some of the people who are hearing about my book [on MySpace] would never have crossed my path any other way."

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a writer, editor, and blogger.